Retiring Trident

Retiring Trident
::
7 – Three Case Studies
In order to test the utility of the adoption of a UK free fall nuclear delivery
strategy more robustly in this respect we will consider its application
against three cases that reflect the general trends identified above: Middle
Eastern dictatorships; Democratic People’s Reublic of Korea (DPRK,
North Korea), distant foe; Resurgent Russia.
There is no publicly available evidence that any of these countries have
the intent to attack the UK now, or at any point in the future. These scenarios
are therefore illustrative only.
Case One: Middle Eastern / South Asian Nuclear Threat
Amid a series of unlikely scenarios, an emergent nuclear threat from the
Middle East or South Asia following a fundamentalist / extremist takeover
of the government of a nuclear-armed or nuclear threshold state is
arguably the least unlikely scenario a UK deterrent would have to counter.
It should be noted that in the unlikely event that such a takeover occurred,
however, it is far from clear that the UK would be the sole – or
even the principal – target, making the “UK-alone” scenario even less
likely.
Israel 314 and Pakistan 315 have indigenous nuclear capability, Iran has much
of the nuclear infrastructure required to produce a crude nuclear device
at short notice, and Saudi Arabia is widely believed to have funded the
Pakistani nuclear programme on the basis that Pakistan would supply
completed weapons to Saudi Arabia on demand. 316 All of these countries
have ballistic missiles, some of which are theoretically capable of reaching
the UK or the UK’s overseas bases. 317
Figure 7 shows nuclear and WMD associated sites in the broader Middle
East and South Asia. All are within 2500nm of the UK sovereign base
at RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus, with Pakistani, Saudi Arabian and many Iranian
WMD-associated targets within range of Permanent Joint Operating
Base (PJOB) Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). The importance
of sovereign basing is discussed above on pages 53-54.
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