Upgrading the UK’s Nuclear Deterrent: Beware Rogue States and Terrorist Organisations becoming Rogue States
There are many reasons offered for the search for extra-terrestrial life, advanced enough to communicate across the cosmos. However, it’s estimated that the stars able to support suitable planetary systems for life to have evolved, are at the very least 4 light years away. Therefore the potential for anything like real-time conversation, particularly for planetary systems millions of light years apart, would need technological advances well beyond the current capability of earth. In fact it would require a very advanced civilisation to transmit not only the instantaneous signal but the means to detect it with our current technology.
Perhaps one of the most pressing reasons to search for (necessarily) advanced extra-terrestrial life is to discover whether it’s possible for a civilisation to have survived the period of very high technological advancement. This means in particular, when the design and building of a thermo-nuclear explosive device – or something even more advanced and destructive – wouldn’t be beyond a physics project for a 13 year-old school pupil. Or when, perhaps, an afternoon’s school biology practical would involve the deliberate mutation of a virus that could wipe out most of the planet’s population.
On earth, such a period when weapons of mass death would be ever more ubiquitous and accessible would be exceedingly dangerous. It would therefore be very comforting to know that other civilisations had survived such a period and prospered. It would also be nice to know how they managed it. After all, the rapid scientific advancement on earth hasn’t been matched by the social and mental development of mankind, having only dropped from the trees a relatively short time ago. It’s likely our civilisation hasn’t entered this most dangerous phase yet, and the current weapons of mass devastation are confined to states with the financial clout and facilities to engineer such projects. And there’s a strong argument to suggest that in the case of nuclear weapons, the horror and the threat of credible retaliation has acted as an effective deterrent against their use.
The UK’s nuclear deterrent needs upgrading. There are many who suggest that the cost is inappropriate for the kind of threat the country will face in the future, which they assume will be terrorism of the kind with which we’re sadly familiar. That seems a perilous stance given that the future has a habit of confounding everyone’s predictions, particularly over 50 years, the lifetime of the upgraded deterrent. And besides, we already have hints of a potentially bleaker future. It can be no mere semantics that today’s major terrorist organisation calls itself the Islamic state. It’s not inconceivable that they could achieve national sovereignty, yet with similar aims as today. And with the wealth of a nation they would have the ability for example, to form an alliance with, or even take over, a nuclear state such as Pakistan. This is not to mention the threat from North Korea, a rogue state if ever there was one with a dictator determined to advance his nuclear capability, and now with the means to deliver the weapons over great distances.
Weapons of mass death can’t be un-invented but they could, of course, be subject to multilateral agreements to ban or limit their use. However, if a state reneges and retains such weapons subsequent to signing multilateral agreements, then there would be the potential for the rest of the world to be bullied and blackmailed. If there’s the slightest concern over whether there are, or could be, states that couldn’t be trusted to honour such agreements – or even enter into them – then the UK would be prudent to upgrade its nuclear deterrent.
