Nuclear Weapons

Lord Patten Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, the disinvention of knowledge is just as difficult as the abolition of sin or crime, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford—who are, happily, both speaking in this debate—would attest. Nuclear knowledge cannot be just wished away. Indeed, it gives much benefit to men and women in invaluable nuclear medical applications and in its use for the nuclear generation of clean power. By comparison, the dangers presented by nuclear weaponry need little elaboration, save to note a fundamental point. It is manifest that, since World War II, their possession by some stops their use by others.

I say this with a little background. We in this place rightly are enjoined not to clutter up our speeches with otiose or redundant declarations. However, in the interests of transparency, I think it would be wrong not at least to note that in the 16 years up to 2015 I served as an adviser and then non-executive director of Lockheed Martin. In parallel, I declare my current holding of some of the common stock of that company in the United States.

As further background, it has always been good to learn from our service men and women as well as from those civilians in the western nuclear defence industry whom I have met who think deeply about the morality and practicality of what they do. They have families to lose, after all. While they may not keep the thoughts of St Thomas Aquinas exactly by their bed every night, they do without exception, at least in my experience, seem to have the concept of just war principles front of mind—that any war must be, like any weapon, properly considered and undertaken for a good purpose, just as this brave country took exactly that sort of decision back in 1939, but also that the outcome to be aimed for is peace. That is the underlying strength of our present position and our attitude towards regrettably having to have nuclear weapons.

In saying that, it is no virtue-signalling on behalf of Christianity in mentioning St Thomas Aquinas, as the Hindu epic Mahabharata of the pre-Christian era, with its description of five brother rulers thrashing out exactly what was a just war, so clearly demonstrates. Trying to work out what is right and the balance between protection, defence and attack is an eternal and vital concern, and no more strongly than in the matter of nuclear deterrence and multilateral disarmament. I am hopeful that one day we will get going on this much more rapidly around the world, but between now and then there are all sorts of difficulties to be dealt with.

As neither knowledge nor stocks of nuclear weaponry can be wished away, the first task is to stabilise and then to stop proliferation. Declarations of hope and interest at the United Nations will not achieve this by itself or by themselves. I have noticed rather few calls to eliminate nuclear weapons from Russia, China, India, Pakistan or indeed from Israel, let alone from what can understandably and reasonably be called the rogue state of North Korea, and we have certainly not heard much cheeping about this from terrorist groups such as IS or Daesh or al-Qaeda.

Proliferation risk is at a dangerously high level and other state players such as Iran and Saudi Arabia have nuclear status high on their agenda and wish list. They are on their way, I believe. While one authority with very deep background in this area told me recently, “Look towards any Sunni state and you look at states mulling nuclear weaponry as a desirable possession in the longer term”, I think that, if they start, they will go shopping in Pakistan to get the necessary material. Yet, more cheerily, de-escalation happily has worked, with the UK, the US and France leading NATO-wide efforts post the Cold War, none the less leaving present day Russia with a superiority in numbers, if not in efficiency and effectiveness, of nuclear warheads.

To continue this process of measured nuclear disarmament is, as I know the noble Baroness recognises, grinding, difficult and long-term work. It can be achieved only by the current possession, however, of the very weaponry that we wish to abolish in the end. That is a practical paradox but a real one, which is why I support the replacement of our current fleet of deterrent-carrying Vanguard boats by their Dreadnought successors in close co-operation with the US, and admire the efforts of France. These three countries have together declared that they will never sign or ratify this undoubtedly well-meaning but hopelessly unrealistic treaty. The UN division list, as it were, on 7 July last year when a division was called shows countries, with some dubious virtue-signalling, for sure seeking to ban nuclear weapons but via a treaty that does not enjoy the support of, or engage, any state actually possessing the weapon. So this will not by itself reduce nuclear arsenals.

The UN treaty is extremely well-meaning naivety on extremely high stilts, and it will not contribute to international safety nor to the development of practical international law, let alone persuade any rogue state or terrorist organisation to come to the negotiating table tomorrow afternoon. Only realism will do that—the realism that was demonstrated to me clearly in an open and unchaperoned conversation with a chief petty officer in one of our Vanguard-class Trident-carrying boats during a visit on board. Mercifully for this poor sailor, the particular boomer I was on board was moored at the dockside of Faslane rather than being “out and under” on patrol. This chief petty officer of many years’ experience demonstrated the process to be followed, with multiple verifications that might lead to him using the trigger in his hand if ordered so to do. He has used it on a number of occasions during demonstration and shake-down operations to launch unarmed Trident test missiles on test. We talked—no one was listening; the commanding officer was not there—about the reality of war, and he talked a bit about his feelings. He was a human being like us and, like us, he had a family to hold in front of his eyes as he discussed his duty. I asked him what he felt, and very bluntly—he had a straightforward and appealing personality—he said, “Well, they know we have got the weapon, and if we have to, we will use it. It stops them”. Just so.