A complete fantasy

Today the British government launches a white paper proposing to renew the nuclear deterrent. I am glad to discover that I'm not the only one giving a double take and an incredulous "Why?" response. Here's the response of Roy Hattersley, erstwhile government minister and once an advocate of the nuclear deterrent against CND.

Supposing that we are under threat from "rogue states" as well as "international terrorists", does anyone really imagine that either of those enemies will be deterred in the way that the Soviet Union once was? If Bin Laden or al-Qaida are the enemy, on whom are we to threaten to unleash the holocaust? If it is Iran and North Korea that concerns us, is it remotely possible that those countries will react to the balance of terror as the Soviet Union did in the 1950s and 1960s? Our complaint against them is that they do not behave as rational states behave. Why should they respond rationally to a nuclear threat? The whole idea is clearly a fantasy. So why does the government propose to squander billions of pounds that could be used to fulfil the social purposes that ought to be Labour's overwhelming priority?

He ends the piece with an interesting comment.

A truly modernising government would accept the world as it is today. The error continues. New Labour is neither as new or as Labour as it ought to be.

A complete fantasy | Guardian daily comment | Guardian Unlimited: Filed in: nuclear_weapons, deterrance, UK, Trident, CND