United Kingdom

In July 1998 Britain’s Labour government announced several changes to its nuclear forces following a Strategic Defense Review:

·         Only one British submarine will patrol at any given time carrying 48 warheads
·         The submarine will patrol at a reduced state of alert – capable of firing its missiles within several days instead of within several minutes
·         Britain will maintain fewer than 200 operationally available warheads
In addition, the United Kingdom has supported the concept of multi-lateral negotiations leading to the elimination of nuclear weapons, but says that such negotiations cannot start until the nuclear stockpiles of the US and Russia are reduced commensurate to the stockpiles of the other NPT NWS.
 
In preparation for nuclear disarmament negotiations, the Defence Department conducted a feasibility study on verification of the elimination of nuclear weapons.

See:      British Nuclear Policy BASIC
                Confidence, Security and Verification. Aldermaston Weapons Est., 2000.

UK Nuclear Doctrine Update, 2002

On 20 March, 2002 the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, told the Defence Select Committee on missile defence that Britain would retain the right to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state: “They [Iraq] can be absolutely confident that in the right conditions we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons.” Questioned on television a few days later, he again insisted that

the nuclear option could be taken, if it was thought that British troops were threatened by Iraqi chemical or biological weapons.  The following question, quoting the current terms of the UK’s security assurances to NPT parties was put to him: “So you would only use weapons against nuclear weapons against Iraq if Iraq was allied to a nuclear state which had already used nuclear weapons or if Iraq had used nuclear weapons?”  Hoon replied: “No, weapons of mass destruction.”  He also suggested that this use of nuclear weapons could be pre-emptive: “Clearly if there were strong evidence of an imminent attack if we knew that an attack was about to occur and we could use our weapons to protect against it.”

 Weeks later, in response to questions from Labour backbenchers in the Commons chamber on his previous comments on the possibility of use of nuclear weapons against Iraq, Hoon emphasised: “…a British Government must be able to express their view that, ultimately and in conditions of extreme self-defence, nuclear weapons would have to be used..”

 Numerous parliamentary questions, Early Day Motions, points in debate and comments in Select Committee reports have all sought clarification of current government policy (see UK Update Documents)

- UK Doctrine on use of nuclear weapons against Iraq

PNND Briefing Book online- Nuclear Doctrine, UK

For Information on specific topic areas click here.

For Information on House Motions click here.