Britain's Premier pondering to reduce nuclear submarine fleet

Yesterday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown confirmed to reporters that he will use today’s speech before the United Nations Security Council to signal his willingness to reduce his nation’s fleet of ballistic nuclear missile submarines as part of a new global pact on nuclear weapons.

According to the Prime Minister, one quarter of the entire fleet of nuclear submarines could be decommissioned which, as a signal, should motivate other countries to also cut such programmes.

In detail, Brown indicates that the British submarine programme, intended to replace the Vanguard-class submarines, may be reduced from four to three vessels, significantly reducing the entire programme costs which has a total value of some $33 billion (20 billion pounds). The Royal Navy’s 20-year submarine replacement programme forecast schedules the first new vessel to enter service by 2024, with the fourth vessel being commissioned in 2026.

The nuclear ballistic missile Vanguard-class submarines of the Royal Navy are each armed with up to 16 Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). The class was introduced in 1994 as part of the UK government's Trident nuclear weapons programme. The four boats in service are the sole carriers of all the United Kingdom's nuclear weapons, since the Army and Air Force eliminated their nuclear weapons in 1998.

Towards a nuclear-free world?

Respectively, Brown’s move is a major step by Britain towards further reducing their own nuclear forces, while pushing other nations to follow this example towards a nuclear-free world. An approach which US President Bararck Obama has already introduced in his speech, yesterday, saying that Washington would review its nuclear posture and make deep cuts in its nuclear arsenal.

The Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, also stated during the 64th session of the UN General Assembly that his country vows to continue transparent and irreversible cuts in nuclear arms, calling it "an important element in the 'new start' of our relations with the U.S."

In a BBC interview, Mr. Brown said that nuclear armed powers, including Britain, “have to make some contribution to the reduction of nuclear weapons” as part of the process of revising and extending the 1970 nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Or taming Britain’s soaring budget deficit?

However, the move could also be interpreted as a logical and necessary step, since expensive defence programmes, such as the submarine replacement, are put on trial. Brown is seriously seeking to reduce government spending to tame Britain’s soaring budget deficit - and the prime Minister understood that axing defence projects would save money.

Indeed, as already achieved in the Eurofighter Typhoon programme, a reduction of the fleet of new submarines will also save costs. But in contrast to the four-nation Eurofighter programme, the Vanguard-class replacement is purely national, involving companies such as BAE Systems, Babcock International Group, and Rolls-Royce Group. A reduction of the fleet could save less than $4 billion, analysts say, since the research and development costs of the programme will be the same as for four vessels. Officials in the Navy, however, said that a fewer number of submarines in service would automatically mean that the vessels in service would be in operation more often, which would increase the operational as well as maintenance costs. Beyond that, these cuts would deeply affect the work force at the Barrow-in-Furness shipyards where the vessels are to be built.

In order to control the surging budget deficit, advisers to the Prime Minister have not only proposed to entirely scrap the submarine programme, but in addition not to purchase the Airbus A400M military transport aircraft and, thereby, saving another $36 billion (22 billion pounds).

Losing the nuclear deterrent

Furthermore, a new discussion has begun on the need for keeping an effective independent deterrent. Britain now possesses some 160 Trident nuclear warheads. It is expected that a reduction of this unique platform using these warheads, the ballistic missile submarines or Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear (SSBN), will also result in a 20 percent reduction in the number of warheads.

By Luca Bonsignore

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