Letters: Time to debate the alternatives to replacing Trident

In a way the Liberal Democrats’ insistence on reviewing alternatives to Trident (Opening salvo from Lib Dems fires up Trident public debate, 16 July) seems pointless, since neither the Conservatives nor Labour will wear it. But it is important that these matters not drop from public sight, so it’s right to do it and other alternatives should also be mentioned.

The Liberals’ alternative is not exactly radical: continue with Trident replacement, but with a smaller number of submarines, which are not necessarily 24 hours continuously at sea. A further step would be for Britain to cease possessing actual nuclear weapons at all, but retain the knowledge and capacity to produce them at relatively short notice if and when felt necessary.

This is known as threshold status and the example usually given is Japan. Threshold status was suggested as far back as the 1980s by the disarmament writer Jonathan Schell, as a possible first step in international disarmament negotiations.

Serious attempts at international nuclear disarmament are in deep sleep at the moment, scuppered by the determination of the existing nuclear powers to retain their nuclear weapons come what may.

But it is just conceivable that financial constraints could eventually induce some change in the lesser nuclear powers, and they would then need some idea they could sell to their more rightwing domestic opinion. This would not save the cost of each submarine – but would enable the reduction in their number – and it would not save all cost of nuclear facilities; but the savings would still be enormous.
Roger Schafir
London

• The coalition’s review on Trident fails to consider the unilateral option. Britain’s nuclear weapons are as anachronistic to our future defence as battleships or the Royal Company of Archers. Those who cling to the notion that Britain is still a superpower are living in the past. Nuclear missiles are as much a relic of the cold war as sailing ships to the Battle of Trafalgar.

At the Labour party’s national policy forum in Birmingham on 22 June, Ed Miliband stated that “Labour should debate the issue when the coalition report is published”. That time has now arrived.
George McManus
Labour’s global role policy commission

• The financial albatross called Trident is neither independent nor credible. Control was handed to Washington when the decision was made to use a missile delivery system designed, manufactured and overhauled in the US. Even submarine-launched test firings are conducted in US waters near Cape Canaveral under, needless to say, US Navy supervision. It is inconceivable that No 10 would fire Trident in anger without prior approval from the White House.

Persisting with Trident and its proposed replacement in order to retain our permanent United Nations security council seat is to reject British pragmatism in favour of la gloire. At least the French, to their credit, went to the trouble of developing their own submarine launched missile delivery system. They own it, hence control it.
Yugo Kovach
Winterborne Houghton, Dorset