Nuclear Nonsense

The Prime Minister's Plan To Procure Tactical Nuclear Weapons Makes No Sense. His Government Is Becoming An Existential Threat to the UK.

The Prime Minister recently announced that the UK will be purchasing 12 F-35A jets and 12 “tactical” atomic bombs from the United States. Strangely there was no mention of this purchase in the Strategic Defence Review published earlier this month. That throws up important questions including:

• Whom does the Prime Minster plan to nuke?

• Where and when was this increase in nuclear weaponry first mentioned?

• Did anyone vote for this – where is his mandate?

• Are the Prime Minister and Defence Secretary out of step?

Before addressing these questions we must review the facts and the context.

A Short History of Tactical Nukes

Precision weaponry was rendering tactical nukes obsolescent in the West during the later stages of Cold War. We still had short range nuclear missiles, nuclear artillery shells, WE177 bombs (which were also depth charges). Yields ranged from about 1 kiloton (kT) to 400kT. (Hiroshima was 15kT). The emerging precision weaponry was more accurate, more lethal, came without concerns about nuclear escalation, cost less and was far less hassle. (Of necessity the protocols regarding the release and arming of nukes are complex. Moreover the nukes need guarding – something the RAF has struggled with recently).

There were anti-aircraft tactical nukes, both ground (Nike Hercules) and air launched (Falcon). Their non-nuclear replacements like the US Patriot (or UK Sea Viper) are better, cheaper and quicker. The one remaining surface to air use for nukes is in shooting down intercontinental ballistic missiles. Only Russia has deployed such a missile, the Gorgon and its replacement the Gazelle.

Tactical nuclear weapons were deployed widely at sea, nuclear depth charges being particularly valued as the large explosion meant that precise location of the target was unnecessary – water conducts shock waves very efficiently. Putting a nuclear warhead on an anti-ship missile also makes sense; ships are large and sinking them requires a lot of energy. That said, the Falklands War demonstrated that the 165kg of explosive in an Exocet missile was enough to sink HMS Sheffield render HMS Glamorgan combat ineffective. Two Exocets sank the Atlantic Conveyor (twice the size of the warships). Exocet’s replacement will have 300kg of warhead. A very “small” 1kT naval tactical nuke is 3,000 times that size – which seems excessive. The WE177 warhead was about one million times the size of an Exocet warhead which is definitely overkill.

On land, for military purposes a 1kT nuke will destroy everything within a 500 metre radius of ground zero - pretty much a whole grid square. The MLRS batteries used in the 1991 Gulf War achieve the same effect with none of the hassle of mushroom clouds, radioactive fall out, electromagnetic pulses (which fry unprotected electronics) or retaliatory threats of Armageddon. Six launchers (a battery in British Army parlance) fired all twelve of their rockets, each of which carried 644 sub-munitions, so a total of over 46,000 sub-munitions, each containing 170 grammes of explosive, the same as a hand grenade. That’s one grenade for every two square metres. The Iraqis called such strikes “steel rain.”

Since then technology has continued to improve. The rockets fly further and are even more accurate. However the UK signed the Ottawa Convention which bans cluster munitions. If the Prime Minister wants to deliver the “ten times increase in lethality” that the risible defence review referred to it would be quicker and cheaper to withdraw from the Ottawa convention. (Our major ally, the US never signed. Nor did China or Russia, currently our most likely foes). The £2 billion or more that the Prime Minister proposes to spend on nukes would buy an awful lot of $4 million HIMARS rocket launchers and a fair few $160,000 rockets.

The PM’s Nukes

The Prime Minister is buying B61 nuclear bombs. They have a variable yield, from 0.3kT to 300kT (possibly 400kT). The Mod 12 version of the B61 is said to have a yield of 50 kT, or three Hiroshimas, at the upper end of what would normally be described as “tactical.” Such a yield is suitable for attacking underground installations, although the Mod 11 B61 bomb is better at that as it has a hardened bomb case and can penetrate further. 50kT is 10,000 times more powerful than the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs US dropped on Iran’s nuclear sites.

The B61 Mod 12 cost some US$28 million each. At US$86,500 per kilogramme they are worth its weight in gold. Buying atomic bombs off the shelf is cheaper than building one from scratch, as AWE is proving with the £15 billion replacement for Trident’s Holbrook warheads. This was mentioned in the Defence Review.

The United States already has some 200 or so B61 bombs stored in NATO sites in Germany, Holland, Italy and Turkey under a NATO agreement. This provides for the possibility that German, Italian, Turkish and Dutch aircraft might drop nuclear bombs as well as the United States, and they all have aircraft capable of dropping it.

Despite being a nuclear power and therefore (in theory) protected from retaliation by strategic nukes and mutually assured destruction, hitherto the UK has not been on that list. No current UK combat jet can carry a B61. Whether a foe much cares who flies the US built jet that dumps a US built atomic weapon on their territory with US consent is open to question. Presidents Putin and Xi Jinping might well consider that an act of nuclear war by the US and any ally whose aircraft provided a delivery service.

The point about the US is important; the UK is paying for bombs we don’t have the right to drop without explicit US consent. While its hard to envisage circumstances in which we might want to nuke someone whom the US did not want to, the crucial point is whether this deal establishes a precedent? If we must ask the US for their permission to use the nuclear weaponry we have purchased from them, might the US subsequently want us to ask them if we can use other weaponry that we have purchased from them?

If the US wants to keep control of their B61 bombs then why don’t they just keep them? We would keep our £2 billion to spend on other military hardware.

Dropping A Bomb

Most US combat jets can carry the B61, as can the Tornado (still in service with the Luftwaffe, retired from the RAF since 2019). The Eurofighter Typhoon is not certified to carry the B61 and the RAF’s F-35B can’t either. (Its weapons bay is too short to make room for the lift fan that allows it to take off and land vertically). So if the UK wants to be able to drop US tactical nuclear weapons it needs a new plane. Of those available the F-35A is the most capable, by far. (A second hand late model F-16 would probably be cheapest, but its not stealthy).

Originally UK was to purchase 138 F-35s. So far we have bought 48 F-35Bs, most of which have been delivered. In 2021 the commitment to 138 aircraft was removed, replaced by one to buy more. The then First Sea Lord estimated that the total F-35 fleet would be some 60 to 80 aircraft. Purchasing 12 F-35As would deliver the lower end of this revised and informal (not authorised by Parliament) total.

Be under no illusion as to how much the RAF has an institutional loathing of having to operate from aircraft carriers and therefore under Royal Navy command. Securing both nuclear weaponry, which they haven’t had since the WE177 was retired in 1998, and a modern jet that can’t fly off aircraft carriers is a huge bureaucratic triumph for the boys (and girls and others) in light blue.

The F-35A is a more capable aircraft in terms of range and weaponry than either the F-35B (the vertical landing version that we have) and the F-35C (the proper carrier landing version). Whether the F-35B was the right choice, and whether the ski jump equipped aircraft carriers were sensible, is a whole separate debate. The UK armed forces are where they are, and twelve more capable F-35As is an improvement on the status quo. At some £80 million each it won’t be cheap; although the F-35A is the cheapest version of the jet. Maintaining two aircraft types is more expensive than maintaining one.

Certainly a stealth jet is an excellent way to deliver a tactical nuke. As operations over Iran have recently shown, the F-35 is nigh on invisible to radar and therefore invulnerable. The bomb is visible once released and it could be tracked throughout its journey to its detonation point. The F-35 might be visible briefly as it dropped the weapon but should become invisible to radar again once the weapon bay doors close. Post release its survival is dependent upon getting as far away as possible from wherever the bomb is going to detonate - aircraft don’t like blast waves. Evading a heat seeking anti-aircraft missile is the least of the pilot’s survival problems.

Who Wrote The Rules?

There has never been a war between two nuclear powers, which is undoubtedly a good thing. The unfortunate corollary is that no one has any experience of how nuclear wars pan out and there is no history to learn from. There have been countless exercises (I’ve done a few myself) but it’s almost impossible to convey the reality of dumping three Hiroshimas on some corner of a foreign field. Nor is it possible to anticipate or comprehend the likely response.

That’s a big problem. During the Cold War NATO developed a theory of “flexible response.” A non-nuclear attack would be initially met with a non-nuclear (conventional) response. If that failed, or if the enemy resorted to nuclear weapons NATO would start dishing out instant sunshine on the battlefield (including airfields in the rear). It was assumed that the Warsaw Pact (i.e. the Soviets, now the Russians) had a similar philosophy of graduated escalation. Only after the Cold War ended did the West discovered that during the Cuban Missile Crisis tactical nuclear warheads had been released and fitted to short range tactical missiles. Authority to launch had been delegated to the local commanders. Had an invasion been attempted, as many in the Pentagon advocated, it would have been nuked.

This doesn’t mean that the Soviets, now Russians, are blasé about the risks of using nuclear weaponry; rather they view the risk in starting the war in the first place. Once a war has started their imperative is to win it as quickly as possible using whatever weaponry it takes. One reason the Russians are not using nuclear weapons in Ukraine (blasting a hole in fixed defences is one thing that tactical nukes can do) might be that they view Ukraine as Russian soil. Post Chernobyl they’re all to aware of the dangers of atomic contamination.

The rules of strategic weaponry are clear – if you use them you have just written your country’s own suicide note. Its MAD (mutually assured destruction) but it works – as it eventually did in the Cuban Crisis. Are tactical nukes covered by the same precept? Perhaps, but perhaps not.

An airfield is a tactical target and a few kilotons of instant sunshine on (say) rural Brize Norton won’t affect too many people. Headquarters are also tactical targets. A few kilotons on the UK’s Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood, a suburb of London some 15 miles from Westminster, would seem like a strategic strike to the inhabitants of Pinner. The Strategic Defence Review includes a need to move PJHQ out of London, so someone in the MOD is fretting about this. Don’t they believe in MAD any more?

Why, Why, Why Kier Starmer?

The Prime Minister has committed to spending money we do not have on a new weapons system we didn’t think we needed, to be used in circumstances we can’t envisage with consent from the US that we can not guarantee. The procurement isn’t in his defence review or the manifesto he was elected on. As yet he has given no explanation of why he thinks this is a good idea.

If we wanted to deliver a tactical nuke it might or might not be more credible to use a B61 than launch a Trident missile with a single Holbrook warhead on its lowest setting (thereby giving away the Trident submarine’s location). It might also be more effective and far less risky to send one or more F-35Bs armed with cluster bombs or other natures. Both of those alternatives remain under exclusive UK control and come without the complications that use of an American nuclear weapon would bring.

The Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary spent most of the past two weeks wittering about de-escalation of Israel’s existential war (which is impossible). Now he’s given himself the tools to massively escalate the UK’s involvement in any conflict, subject to US consent. As no-one knows the rules of such a conflict or it’s an absurd capability to have and an expensive one. Who in their right minds would do such a deal.

It is a beautiful deal for America - they sell a nuke they already have for top dollar while retaining control if it’s use and a billion dollars worth of jets as well. Perhaps President Trump imposed this as part of the cost of the trade deal which, of course, Starmer needed more than Trump does. Perhaps it’s part of a quid pro quo for the Diego Garcia fiasco.

The nuke deal makes even less sense than the expensive and unnecessary gift of the Chagos Islands (plus £3.5 billion cash) to Mauritius, and that is a very low baseline. Both are symptomatic of a government that has no idea what it is trying to achieve and less understanding of the strategic risks that it is creating than Rachel Reeves has of economics.

Starmer’s government is becoming an existential risk to the UK. It was elected on a false manifesto and has no business being in power.

It’s time for them to go.

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