Nuclear Deterrent

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I want to speak in support of continuous at-sea deterrence—CASD—and explain why it is still relevant and required. Those who disagree tend to mischaracterise the threat in terms of their assessment of the behaviours and future intentions of specific nation states, or underestimate the threat from hostile non-state organisations, or conclude that CASD is a redundant concept because there may be emerging threats that it cannot effectively deter. Such arguments often hinge on the premise that one or more of the necessary conditions for credible deterrence is missing, those conditions being that the aggressor we are seeking to deter has rational political leadership, that the behaviours to be deterred must be a genuine threat to the vital interests of the UK, and that there is a concept of use—an identifiable capability and a declared policy of intent. Opponents of CASD say that there will be no re-emergence of a major direct threat, otherwise known as Russia. They say that other hostile states, such as Iran, fail the rationality criterion to justify the retention of the deterrent, that CASD is of no use against a non-state terrorist organisation whose identity might be unknown and, even if it is known, that there may be no target against which to retaliate.

I say—this is at the heart of the issue—that it is not possible to predict with absolute certainty the intentions or future actions of countries such as North Korea, or what might happen if China, for example, fell under the control of a malign regime. To dismiss Iran’s foreign policy as irrational is also a mistake. It might be unpredictable and it is certainly obnoxious, but that is not the same as irrational. To reject the deterrent—which works in most scenarios—because it does not work in all scenarios is also illogical.

Finally, Russia’s behaviour towards NATO is becoming increasingly aggressive. Last year, Russia’s chief of general staff spoke openly about a first strike against US missile defence installations in Poland and Romania, and Putin shunned both the Chicago summit and the G8. Most commentators are pointing towards growing instability in Russia, a country that, we estimate, today has 12,000 warheads, 4,650 of which are active. We cannot dismiss the possibility of Russia being a real threat over the lifetime of the next generation of the deterrent.

That is the world we live in and it is the world we must prepare for when we renew our capabilities. If we reject CASD, we ought not to kid ourselves that it is not just the UK’s status and influence that we would lose, or that we would successfully achieve our prime duty as parliamentarians and as a Government to protect the United Kingdom, including those who live in Scotland.