The Case Against The "Tactical Nuclear Option"...

 

In a time of increasing pressure on defence budgets, should the UK look to complement its nuclear capability through acquiring the US B61 tactical nuclear weapon? This is the central idea in a short essay by a former V Bomber pilot on the Royal Aeronautical Society website. The argument is that the UK is short on aircraft squadrons, standing at just 7 front line fast jet squadrons, compared to some 31 at the time the Vulcan was withdrawn from service 40 years ago. Acquisition of a nuclear capability, in the form of purchasing the F35A would be a cost effective means of enhancing deterrence and improving British defence capability. Surely this is a good thing?

UK MOD © Crown copyright

The UK is unique among the major nuclear powers in deploying the entirety of their nuclear capability via SSBN. The last British free fall bomb was the WE177, and was retired in 1998, with its planned successor, a long-range cruise missile, cancelled in the early 1990s. Since this point the Royal Navy has maintained the nuclear capability for the UK. The VANGUARD class submarines can carry up to 16 Trident 2 missiles, armed with both strategic (e.g. city killer) and sub strategic warheads. The SSBN force is declared to NATO, under SACEUR and forms part of Alliance war plans in the exceptionally unlikely event of a nuclear conflict when it could be used in both a strategic and tactical role. In addition, in theory, but even less likely, the SSBN force could be used in extremis by the UK in a purely national capacity to carry out the UK’s National Retaliatory War Plan (NRWP).

During the Cold War the UK had a much more comprehensive nuclear force, built at the tactical, operational and strategic level. In a briefing dating back to 1983, the Cabinet Office noted the different types of weapons that were used, and for their different functions. Some were purely UK weapons, while others were shared with the USA. In broad terms this was Polaris, declared to, and targeted by SACEUR as a strategic weapon of last resort. There were split nuclear forces, with the RAF Tornado and Buccaneer squadrons in the UK carrying th WE177C warhead, and with assigned missions (e.g. targets) declared as an asset to SACEUR / SACLANT (for the Buccaneers), as well as a separate mission in the NRWP. Meanwhile in Germany, RAF Jaguar and Buccaneer aircraft were solely assigned to NATO duties, again with the WE177.  The Royal Navy also operated nuclear depth charges (another WE177 variant) on a variety of helicopters and aircraft.

The ‘dual key’ warheads (e.g. US warhead, UK delivery system) included nuclear depth bombs for the RAF Nimrod forces, as well as the land based ‘Lance’ missile system in Germany that was operated by the Royal Artillery. In both of these cases, in the event of a nuclear release being authorised, the US detachment would work with the UK to unlock the warhead, make it ready for use and then fire it. The author used to work with a Lance battery commander, who in his first role as an Army Officer, spoke of how in his early 20s, he knew where the first missile would be fired from, where he hoped to fire his second missile and where he expected to die preparing his third missile for use…

UK MOD © Crown copyright

The common theme all of these weapons had in common was that they formed part of a comprehensive plan to integrate with NATO partners and deliver an overwhelming response in the event that a Soviet invasion of West Germany was conventionally overmatching NATO defenders. The major NATO commanders all had plans that involved integrated strikes against mostly pre-determined targets in Warsaw Pact nations, as well as some ‘battlefield’ weapons intended to respond to the emerging situation on the ground.

Extensive plans existed for ‘consultation’ in a crisis between NATO members over the decision to release the weapons, although this varied in reality. The UK, for example, had extensive protocols in place with the USA, signed between Prime Ministers and Presidents on a regular basis to jointly consult on a number of release issues:

“Specifically it is agreed that the Prime Minister and President will reach a joint decision by speaking personally with each other before nuclear weapons for the following systems are released:

A.     Nuclear armed, ground launched, United States cruise missiles based in the United Kingdom;

B.     Nuclear armed United States aircraft based in the United Kingdom;

C.      Nuclear armed missiles on United States submarines based in United Kingdom territorial waters:

D.     United Kingdom aircraft carrying United States nuclear weapons”

This firm commitment to joint decision making, dating back to the days of Kennedy and Macmillan and regularly updated (“it has been the practise to reaffirm these understandings on a change of President or Prime Minister”) shows how in the NATO context at least, nuclear release was very much a multilateral sport. But it had its limits – although the Alliance was supposed to act in unison, its easy to imagine in a chaotic wartime situation were the central front was perilously close to collapse, that the UK and US would ‘go it alone’ if they judged it in their supreme national interest to do so.

Why does all of this historical detail matter though in the context of modern nuclear affairs? It matters a great deal because it reminds us that the UK nuclear mission and capabilities were part of a much wider operation, with clearly defined roles, missions and targets. All of this vanished in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War came to an end. Today, although some NATO members continue to operate a ‘dual key’ system using US provided B61 warheads, it is of much lower importance than previous generations.  For the UK it matters too because were the decision taken to get back into this space, you’d need to define what mission the RAF would fill, and how it would carry it out in the context of NATO.

Unlike in the Cold War, the likely targets for a nuclear mission have long vanished. Although the UK late Cold War target list has never publicly been posted, it seems likely based on suggestions from former crews that the tactical force would have been used on targets in Eastern Europe and potentially some of the Western Soviet Union. Today, those targets are now in NATO member states, and the Warsaw Pact forces that would have been attacking NATO have vanished. Similarly the basing infrastructure in both Germany and the UK for nuclear capable aircraft has long since vanished. What this means is that there are no obvious targets for the RAF to be employed on a tactical nuclear role, and no obvious bases to operate out of in peacetime or transition to war.

The next issue is where would the force operate from and how would it be trained? The nuclear strike role was a fiendishly complex mission that during the Cold War took huge amounts of training to be ready for. It wasn’t a case of ‘strap the bomb on and go’ as some may believe. To be ready to undertake a nuclear strike mission required enormous amounts of training and preparation, a deep understanding of the mission and its challenges and constantly being ready to go to war at very short notice. It is forgotten too quickly these days how during the Cold War, large parts of the British armed forces spent years on very short notice to move, including mounting a ‘nuclear QRA’ on jets ready to take off at a moments notice and launch a nuclear strike. This was a huge investment of people, resources and infrastructure to be able to deliver on an enduring basis. A good account of the Tornado in the nuclear role can be found HERE which shows how complex it really was to do.

UK MOD © Crown copyright

The idea of acquiring 24 F35A and some B61s sounds appealing on paper, and that is understandable – a low cost means of enhancing nuclear capability. But to ensure that the force was truly nuclear capable, and able to carry out its nuclear strike mission at any time would require a staggering investment. For starters, you’d need sufficient crews to constantly generate enough F35s to be able to carry out the nuclear strike, regardless of time, which would place a large burden on the training system to deliver this. It would also divert pilots off other fleets for some years to come, and ensure that the priority for aircrew postings was the nuclear role and not other fleets.

The bases that the force would operate from would require extensive refurbishment to meet British and American nuclear security standards. RAF Marham, home to the F35 force has a nuclear storage area dating back to the Cold War, as do other former Tornado sites. But its not been used for this function in decades, and would require wholesale and extensive refurbishment to be fit for purpose. You’d also need to recruit, train and find a much larger force of personnel to deliver security for the weapons, and the associated ground infrastructure, from security guards to engineering. Adopting the nuclear role would place a huge burden on RAF headcount, already stretched, and require an increase in headcount to make it happen without impacting on existing RAF missions.

When you look at the challenge of integration and command and control, huge issues raise their head. The process of ensuring that the F35 could be used for nuclear release of a UK crewed nuclear mission is something that would take years to put in place – the regulations and procedures needed to be created, approved, trialled, tested and then put into practise is a long process. Getting the airframe to a point where it could do this mission is a genuinely complex issue. That’s before we consider the UK using a US nuclear device for the first time in this way in decades – even the basics of ensuring that the UK could conduct the mission with the appropriate nuclear command and control mechanisms in place would be incredibly expensive and time consuming to deliver.  There is only so much money in the budget, and even less for trials and integration of weapons onto platforms. It can cost millions to do this properly, and tie up experienced crew and specialists for years to make it happen. This doesn’t seem the best use of those resources, particularly when many other weapon systems are not yet fully integrated onto the F35 as it is.

More widely you’d need to create new secure communication systems to enable the nuclear release process to be communicated to the aircraft securely, as well as invest in additional tankers and other supporting assets to ensure that the jets have the legs to fly the mission and reach their targets (assuming that forward deployment of jets and warheads is not a possibility). In practical terms this would place a huge burden on the existing tanker fleet, and require a lot of expenditure on C2 systems to deliver this.  The reason this money needs to be spent is to send a message that the RAF would have a credible deterrent posture on an enduring basis. The risk in a crisis of standing up nuclear strike squadrons is that by putting aircraft back into this role, you risk sending an escalatory message that could be misunderstood. To be certain that deterrence works, you’d need to always maintain the nuclear capability, to be both credible and predictable to our opponents.

What this means then is that there is no easy and cheap option to establish the UK back in the air launched tactical nuclear business. The cost would be vast, and require funding an enormous range of projects to bring the capability together and make it usable. Going back into this business will not give the RAF extra F35 that can ‘do nuclear on the side’. It would take the full time efforts of a not insignificant part of the RAF to deliver the tactical nuclear mission, and potentially suck people, aircraft and assets off other jobs to do it. At a time when the MOD is financially stretched and already has an adequate nuclear capability, the question must surely be ‘for what purpose’?

The question therefore is what is the benefit of doing this? The UK strategic nuclear capability can cover the requirements of NATO, and there are plenty of other NATO members who can carry out the tactical nuclear mission. Given there are no Warsaw Pact armies in easy flying distance of a UK base, and an overwhelming capability already deployed and able to handle the strategic and sub strategic nuclear missions, it is hard to see what possible benefit this move offers to the RAF. There are many things that the RAF does need to invest in to ensure it remains an exceptionally capable air force, but getting back into the nuclear business is not one of them.