Retiring Trident

Retiring Trident
into the MoD procurement budget would allow for the recapitalisation of
the UK’s conventional forces over the next 15 years.
Free-fall’s disarmament impact
Unlike the Liberal Democrats “Trident Lite” proposal, the free-fall option
represents a genuine and significant step down in nuclear capability
whilst making future disarmament and verification much easier. In retaining
a functional nuclear weapons system, not only does it provide
a deterrent capability, but it also provides something to barter away in
future disarmament negotiations. 344 Free-fall weapons also offer the
possibility of international verification procedures without compromising
the overall nuclear mission; fundamentally, it is much easier to use
the existing inspection regimes than creating new, intrusive on-demand
inspection regimes at HMNB Clyde, Faslane / RNAD Coulport to demonstrate
the UK SSBN’s warload at the time of sailing, interrupting sensitive
SSN operations. 345
Moreover, the free-fall option achieves this whilst maintaining the AWE
infrastructure, the UK submarine industrial base and the fissile material
stocks. This combination of expertise and material provides the UK with
the ability to return to Trident if there is a significant and permanent
worsening of international relations in the form of a new Cold War.
As such, a free-fall option carried by F-35C achieves all of the things that
the Liberal Democrats’ “Trident Lite” policy claims, but fails, to achieve. It
is a genuine reduction in the UK’s nuclear capacity without being unilateral
disarmament; it considerably enhances the UK’s conventional power
projection capabilities, whilst also providing very substantial savings to
modernise our conventional forces and simplifying international verification
of our nuclear forces in future.
77