What the British like to call the great debate is on. Nominally the Queen’s speech outlining the Government’s programme for the new session of Parliament is being debated. In fact the rival parties are addressing themselves principally to the electorate. Since this is the last session of the present Parliament – and the general election may be held between May and October next year – it is inevitable that electoral considerations should dominate the parliamentary debate over all other forms of political activity in the country. The new Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, was quite explicit when he told his party members last Monday that “every action that we take, every attitude we strike, every speech we make in Parliament or elsewhere” must be determined by the election ahead.
The Challenge
It was in this spirit of wanting to gain an electoral advantage over the Labour party that he threw the gauntlet of the question of independent nuclear deterrent in his first speech to the House of Commons on Tuesday. The Labour party could well have anticipated it because the former Prime Minister, Mr Macmillan, had put it on notice that one of the Conservative party’s principal planks would be the maintenance of the independent deterrent. It was ready for the challenge or so it thought. Mr Harold Wilson at once countered the challenge and invited Sir Alec to debate this issue in the country, in Parliament or on television. On the first available opportunity the next day, his deputy, Mr George Brown, spelled out his party’s policy on this thorny issue of British politics.
The Conservative party’s policy on the deterrent is well known. This is to maintain national control over the Vulcan and Victor bomber force now and over the Polaris-carrying submarines when they came into being. The gap is to be spanned with the new TSR-2 aircraft. The party recognises if only implicitly that the deterrent does not make any significant contribution to the defence of the West as such. Its maintenance is justified on two accounts. First, no ally, however reliable, can be depended upon to be on Britain’s side at all times. Secondly, Britain will forfeit her right to be at conference tables where issues of war and peace are settled if she ceases to be a nuclear power.
The weaknesses of this case are obvious enough. The Conservatives are knowingly exaggerating the importance of the British contribution to the conclusion of the partial test ban agreement. Secondly, no Conservative politician has so far stated the kind of situation in which Britain might have no choice but to threaten and even resort to nuclear retaliation independently of America. The present Prime Minister has ruled out the use of threat in situations like that of the Suez in 1956. Thirdly, it is common knowledge that the Victor and the Vulcan bomber force is only a first-strike weapon, which means that it can at best start a suicidal war. Since it is not capable of a second-strike it cannot be regarded as a weapon of defence. This second weakness will, however, have been overcome once the Polaris-carrying submarines are operational. This is the source of the Labour party’s dilemma.
When Mr Wilson was elected leader of the Labour party in the wake of the Nassau agreement under which Britain is to receive Polaris missiles from America, he said that if he was elected to power he would de-negotiate the agreement. Last Wednesday Mr Brown was more equivocal. He said that a Labour government would review both the TSR-2 and Polaris-submarine programmes and its decision would depend on the stage they would have reached by that time and what other purposes they could serve. It would use them to negotiate for an Atlantic alliance organisation in which Britain could keep a share of the command. Mr Patrick Gordon-Walker, shadow Labour Foreign Secretary, had earlier spoken in similar terms. Such a policy must mean the abandonment on the part of the Labour party of its opposition to West Germany acquiring a share of the command in a multilateral nuclear force, though it is principally on the ground that ultimately West Germany would acquire a share in the command that the Labour party has so far been opposed to the American sponsored unilateral force project.
Bleak
There have been other indications that the Labour leadership has been engaged in revising its policy towards West Germany. It has made studious efforts to assuage the fears of the West German Social Democrats which culminated in Herr Willy Brandt addressing the pre-conference rally at Scarborough last month. That, however, is a separate question. We are here concerned whether it is possible to create an Atlantic alliance nuclear force in which the command can be shared. To put it mildly, the prospects are bleak and the consequences would be dangerous.
The American case against allowing more than one finger on the trigger has yet to be answered. If the Cuban crisis last year showed that the deterrent deters only if the opponent is convinced that it will be used, it also established equally clearly the necessity of unified command and restraint. If to allow more than one finger on the trigger is to destroy the deterrent value of the deterrent, to allow several fingers on the trigger is to increase manifold the possibility if not the probability of a nuclear war. One has only to imagine a joint Sino-Soviet nuclear force under a joint command to realise how immeasurably difficult it would have been for Mr Khrushchev to change course in Cuba. A similar crisis over Berlin would place West Germany in the same dangerously decisive position.
These objections apart, two miracles will be needed to bring into existence the nuclear force of the Labour party’s conception. First, the American administration will have to be persuaded to share command over nuclear weapons supplied largely by itself to the alliance and thus abandon its concept of graduated deterrence. As it is the Western European allies do not accept the American view that the use of nuclear weapons can be avoided in the first stage of a war. Secondly, the American Congress will have to be persuaded to amend the law under which the administration is debarred from sharing nuclear secrets from non-nuclear powers. If these miracles take place the result will be the end of all hopes of reconciliation between the two blocs and of ending the division of Germany and Mr Khrushchev might feel compelled to share nuclear secrets with the Chinese to restore within the communist world the unity it would need.
Not Feasible
The Labour party leadership knows that there is no genuine alternative for Western Europe, including Britain, to exclusive dependence on America for the nuclear shield. The British independent deterrent is neither British nor independent nor does it deter. The alternative of a European deterrent is not feasible as long as nation states do not disappear which is not within sight. Apparently the labour leadership has shied away from a rational and sane policy for fear of losing votes because the Conservatives were beginning to accuse it of wanting to make Britain an American dependency. In trying to find a way out of the dilemma it has opted for a compromise solution which is not practical.
The dilemma facing the Labour party is of America’s creation. President Kennedy was under no obligation to promise Mr Macmillan Polaris missiles in place of the cancelled Skybolt missile. It is an afterthought for the American administration to argue that the promise was contingent on Britain joining a multilateral force because such force had not even been conceived at that time. Also the Nassau agreement clearly provided for the independent use of the Polaris force by Britain in defence of her supreme national interest. The fact of the matter is that Mr Macmillan outwitted President Kennedy and obtained not what he claimed “a wonderful bargain” but a status symbol for his country and vote-catching device for his party.
The Labour party doubts if America will in fact deliver the missiles. It is true America will try its best to prevent Britain from having an independent deterrent and this is one of the reasons why the multilateral project is being pushed so hard. Mr Brown said on Wednesday that Mark A-3 of the missile which had been promised to Britain would not be delivered. That does not matter. America is hoist with her own petard. The tragedy is that it is threatening to blow up the Labour party’s door as well.
The Times of India, 16 November 1963