Britain's decision to spend £20bn on renewing its nuclear deterrent has been challenged by a group of retired senior military officers, who branded the Trident system "completely useless" against the threats of the modern world.
The former head of the armed forces, Field Marshal Lord Bramall, backed by two senior generals, argued in a letter to The Times that the nuclear deterrent is no longer truly independent and does not guarantee Britain a seat at the top table of international diplomacy in the United Nations Security Council.
The large sums being spent on replacing the Clyde-based submarines which carry the Trident missiles could be better used on conventional weapons, they suggested.
"Nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of violence we currently face or are likely to face, particularly international terrorism," the letter stated. "Our independent deterrent has become virtually irrelevant, except in the context of domestic politics."
General Lord Ramsbotham, who also signed the letter with General Sir Hugh Beach, said he wanted to restart the debate over the renewal of Trident, which was approved by the Commons in March 2007 He added: "We argue that it is conventional weapons we now need. Their pin-point accuracy, their ability to help our forces in the sort of conflicts that are taking place is something which means you have to question the huge expense of Trident."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article