"The Bomber Will Not Always Get Through" - The Moscow Criterion In The 1990s

 

In 1971 at the Paris Air Show, the senior Russian scientist, Anatoly Fedoseyev defected to the West. Escaping his minders, he managed to make contact with representatives of the British Government, and was given shelter in the West. His work was publicly described as ‘working on vacuum tubes with applications for radar’, and was sufficiently important to the Soviet Union that he was twice awarded the Order of Lenin for his work. Once in the safety of the West, British intelligence officials began debriefing Fedoseyev and trying to understand the many secrets that he held. It was clear that the information he held was of critical importance to the British independent strategic nuclear deterrent.

Top Secret MOD files from 1972 show that Fedoseyev was in fact absolutely critical in providing information that shaped one of the most expensive and complex nuclear weapon programmes ever carried out by the UK. A DIS report to the Chiefs of Staff, setting out its activities for the year stated that:

“The defection to the West (at the Paris Air Show) of Anatoli Pavolvich Fedoseev (sic), a leading Soviet electronic valve designer. Within his own specialised field he has given information which has been a considerable help in estimating the performance of one of the radars of the Moscow ABM system”.

The information Fedoseyev provided was invaluable, and shaped how the UK assessed the ability of the British strategic nuclear deterrent to meet its main mission of defeating the defences around Moscow. It is likely no coincidence that shortly after these debriefs occurring, the MOD issued an in depth analysis called “Polaris Improvements, Study of Russian Radars”, suggesting that his work had been instrumental in shaping British assessment of their performance. This small case is a a good reminder of the incredible value of human intelligence assets in shaping strategic decisions by nation states. But, why was defeating the Moscow ABM system of such importance to the UK?

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By the early 1970s the UK had introduced four RESOLUTION class SSBN’s to deploy the American made Polaris A3 missile carrying British designed nuclear warheads. The SSBN force was the ‘last resort’ to be used as the ultimate guarantor of UK security. On paper it was declared to NATO, meaning that in the event of conflict, were NATO political leaders following consultation (in reality likely only the UK and US) to agree to launch a strategic nuclear strike, then the British submarine would fire missiles as part of the wider attack carried out by American, and potentially French, nuclear forces to functionally destroy the Soviet Union. The UK view was that Polaris would almost certainly only be used as part of a wider NATO operation.

Central to UK thinking though was the importance of ensuring that in a crisis, or in circumstances where other NATO parties were not involved, that the UK could launch a nuclear strike of its own accord. While exceptionally unlikely as a scenario it was seen as central to the credibility of deterrence that other nations understood that under the most desperate of circumstances, the UK had the ability to go it alone. The measure by which the UK assessed its credibility to carry this out was the ability to inflict an unacceptable amount of damage on Moscow, wiping out the city and supporting facilities and causing the Soviet states credibility to implode.

Moscow mattered as not only was it the capital of Russia, but also was protected by an extensive array of early warning radars and anti-ballistic missile launchers. From the early 1960s onwards efforts were made to deploy radars that could track incoming ballistic missiles, and coordinate the launch of nuclear armed interceptor rockets. These would be launched with the intention of reaching the atmosphere and carrying out a megaton sized nuclear detonation to wipe out incoming nuclear warheads. In theory, the system would prevent Moscow from nuclear strikes, and ensure its survival.

For the United States the existence of the Russian ABM system was a challenge, but one that in an all out nuclear conflict would probably not be particularly challenging to overcome. The combination of large numbers of missiles heading towards Moscow, multiple warheads and decoys being deployed to confuse radars and overload them with information, and the existence of only 64 launchers meant that the ICBM would probably get through, and even if that didn’t, there were plenty of medium range ballistic missiles and heavy bombers that could do the job.

The UK though faced a very different challenge, given that its SSBN force was just four hulls strong. British planners assumed that in wartime, at least two hulls would make it to sea, while a third could potentially fire from alongside in Faslane (the fourth would have been in deep refit and unarmed). This meant that the maximum number of missiles that could reach Moscow was 32 – given the early British Polaris missiles only carried 3 warheads, that meant maximum of between 48 and 96 nuclear warheads available to penetrate the Soviet ABM system.  The risk was that this simply wasn’t going to be enough, and that as the missiles entered the atmosphere, Soviet radar would be able to track them and using the nuclear tipped interceptors, wipe out the British attack, and potentially preventing Moscow from being destroyed, while the UK would almost certainly be wiped out in return.

Central to British deterrent planning was ensuring that enough warheads could survive to get through to inflict unacceptable damage on Moscow. By the early 1970s it was clear that the original Polaris missile was not capable of doing this, and that as Soviet ABM defences improved, the analysis showed that it had no chance of any warheads penetrating. This led to huge debate within the British system as the Royal Navy lobbied for the adoption of the Poseidon missile, which would increase the number of warheads carried per missile to 13, meaning that each SSBN could deploy 208 separate warheads, almost guaranteeing the chances of a successful strike. For a complex variety of political reasons, UK leadership ended up investing instead in improvement programmes , initially known as Super Antelope, and then latterly as ‘Chevaline’ to remodel the missiles front end, removing one of the 3 warheads, and replacing it with an incredibly complex series of decoys to help confuse Soviet radars.

The full details of Chevaline lie beyond the scope of this article, suffice to say it was both exceptionally complex, and expensive, and managed to produce one of the greatest feats of British engineering of all time. It essentially ensured that were a launch to occur, as all 16 missiles began their reentry into the atmosphere, Soviet radars would see an overwhelming number of seemingly identical warheads (some 551 per submarine in total) that would be far more than their defences could respond to. Of course there were not 551 warheads, but rather 48, the remaining items being carefully manufactured decoys that mimicked the characteristics of a re-entry vehicle and to all intents looked like the real thing.  

The signing of the ABM Treaty between Russia and the USA in  1970 was a significant development for the UK. With both parties limited to just 100 interceptors per side, this meant that British planners trying to determine how to penetrate into Moscows airspace would work could at least be certain on the numbers of interceptors they would face. The British could plan with some confidence and make assessments on how many warheads were likely to make it past the defences and initiate. The table below is based on a paper written in 1975 assessing the credibility of Chevaline (then under development) versus the then British Polaris force. It sets out the number of warheads likely to breach the defences of Moscow under various scenarios, including the roll out of different types of ABM defence systems. This table is slightly speculative though, as the file notes that:

“The figures for penetrative capability estimate the number of warhead penetrations that could be expected to achieve either with one submarine or two submarines firing against the existing Moscow ABM defence of 64 launchers firing exo-atmospheric missiles and against possibly improved defences…(The endo-atmospheric missiles are hypothetical in that, although the Russians are thought technically capable of producing such a system, they have at present shown no signs of deployment, for the purposes of calculation these missiles have been assigned the capability of the corresponding US system).”

	Chevaline	Polaris A3
No Defences
1 SSBN	16	0
64 Exo Interceptors
1 SSBN	12	0
2 SSBN	39	0
100 Exo Interceptors
1 SSBN	1	0
2 SSBN	34	0
64 Exo, 36 Endo
2 SSBN	17	0
1 SSBN	0	0

 

The table vividly demonstrates just how concerned British planners were with the reliability of the A3 missiles. Knowing that it would be unable to penetrate, by the mid 1970s, they had accepted that without meaningful updates, the UK deterrent was not credible against its primary target. The UK ability to hit Moscow in reality depended on finding ways to beat radar coverage around Moscow, mostly operating in small parts of the North Atlantic where “studies have shown that a limited area of ‘dead ground’ may be usable until the early 1980s” .

The cost of Chevaline though was enormous and placed huge pressure on the UK defence budget throughout the 1970s, at a time when it was already stretched due to economic challenges at home.  Cancellation of Chevaline and all other Polaris improvement was seriously looked at as an option, but Ministers were advised that if they took it, while:

“it would not be irreconcilable with the public policy of maintaining the effectiveness of our strategic nuclear deterrent. However the cessation of work in various centres both here and in the United States would have an adverse effect… even if the Russians obtained no very precise information, their capacity for technical assessment is more than adequate to enable them to deduce that we could not penetrate the defences around Moscow. By contrast the French, however inadequate their present system, are constantly improving it. Both the Americans and Russians would only regard us as a serious independent nuclear strategic power, only if they too judged that the criteria implied in Paragraph 7 (COMMENT – Still redacted but assumed to be ‘Moscow Criterion’) were adequate for an ultimate nuclear deterrent and so long as we could continue to meet them”.

The decision was taken to progress Chevaline, and it was in due course deployed in the early 1980s. The fact that the UK assessed that for most of the 1970s it effectively had no credible means of meeting its own threshold of nuclear deterrent capability against Moscow is often forgotten these days – there was a gap of at least 10 years when the assessment of the UK was, that its SSBN force would have been unable to fulfil its primary mission had it been required to fire on Moscow alone.

By the 1980s it was clear that Polaris would need replacement in the near future, and the UK embarked on a major programme to modernise and update its deterrent posture. Committing to four new SSBNs to carry the Trident missile, again coupling a US ICBM design with British made nuclear warheads to provide the basis of an enduring independent strategic nuclear deterrent. These were to become the VANGUARD class SSBN, and were to enter service throughout the mid – late 1990s.  Before they entered service though, events happened which nearly dramatically changed the story of the British nuclear deterrent force forever.

The rise of the so-called ‘Strategic Defence Initiative’ (SDI) – sometimes known as ‘Star Wars’ is a long and complex story, far beyond the reach of this bog. Suffice to say it was a series of proposals to put in place technology that if deployed, would have enabled the ability to destroy incoming nuclear missiles, providing a so-called ‘shield’ that would protect a nation from harm. The risk of course is that if one side has it, and the other does not, and both are nuclear powers, then this creates an obvious power imbalance. The story of SDI and how it shaped the later years of the Cold War, particularly the relationship between Reagan and Gorbachev are best told elsewhere, but it is fair to say that by the time the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, it had not been deployed.

By 1991 the changing global situation meant that SDI was too expensive and deemed no longer necessary. Instead, President Bush authorised the development of a lower capability system known as ‘GPALS’ (Global Protection Against Limited Strikes) designed to provide missile defence against attacks from rogue states. This was seen as an increased risk given the proflieration of missile technology throughout the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Using a variety of different technological solutions including satellites to track launches, and others to fire interceptor missiles at the incoming attack (known as Brilliant Pebbles), as well as ground based interceptors, the GPALS system would be able to defeat an attack of up to 200 incoming missiles. This was seen as sufficient to protect against the most likely threats that the US would face in the coming years.

In 1991 – 1992 the US Administration was keen to try to improve links with President Yeltsin of Russia, helping secure his position and bring about a new world order where the two former adversaries would work more closely together. At a meeting in Camp David in 1992, Yeltsin put forward proposals to improve cooperation between the US and Russia on the field of missile defence, suggesting the creation of a global missile defence system that could detect and destroy errant strikes from rogue states, while strengthening links between Russia and former enemies. A key part of the declaration called for the development of this system and bringing it into service. These proposals came as a surprise to the West, particularly the US which needed to move quickly to build on the goodwill from the summit, delivering real improvements to the bilateral relationship with Russia, while also respecting relationships with their allies. The problem was that long-standing US allies, like the UK held exceptional concerns at what these changes may mean, particularly for their nuclear deterrent.

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There are relatively few records held by the UK government on GPALS, and those that do exist remain almost entirely closed to public scrutiny. By chance an unrelated file elsewhere in the National Archives has shed light on the scale of the concerns that the UK had about the Yeltsin proposal and the US response to it. In a memo sent to senior MOD leadership by Sir Richard Motram, then the Deputy Secretary at MOD with responsibility for defence relations, he outlined talks held between the UK and US Governments in March 1992, led by the Assistant Secretary for Defence, Stephen Hadley, who was responsible for international security policy, including SDI and GPALs.. The memo is notable for its caveating and blunt assessments – it states “the exchanges were timely, frank and far from reassuring”. The meeting talks covered:

“a.         Analysis of UK Trident effectiveness against Russian ABM defences.

b.            The key possible parameters of a renegotiated ABM treaty; and

c.            The broader politico-military implications of co-operative deployment of GPALS (and especially the first step of sharing early warning data).

On a) a useful meeting of minds was achieved. On b) evidence emerged of a worrying US disposition to rely, in respect of certain key parameters, not on treaty constraints but on Russian technological inferiority. On c) the picture of a thoroughly unformed US approach was confirmed. As the meeting continued, Hadley became increasingly concerned that he was allowing himself to speculate in advance of any inter-agency consensus in Washington. Meanwhile it will be important to respect Hadleys confidences and this record should not be quoted back to other Americans”.

What so concerned the UK government was that the American proposals for GPALS and the opening of the door to improved cooperation with the Russians, could be that when combined with a renegotiation of the ABM Treaty, circumstances would emerge whereby the UK nuclear deterrent was rendered useless even before it had been deployed.

In US eyes, the situation in early 1992 was that there was an opportunity to bring Russia in from the cold. They recognised the risk that Yeltsin had taken with his proposals at Camp David and knew they had to offer him something in return. As Hadley put it: “In expressing a readiness to consider a cooperative approach to global missile defence, Yeltsin had chanced his arm with his own support. This and the need to provide proof that co-operation with the West… was in Russia’s best interests impelled the US to respond swiftly ‘acknowledging Yeltsin’s vision’ and plotting the first steps toward it’.

The British Government was concerned on several fronts about this potential shift in policy. For starters it had concerns about the concept of cooperation with Russia on missile defence, and how to share information. In a discussion paper shared with the American delegation, the UK ran through its concerns about the sheer practicality of how such a process would work – how would information be shared, would it be based in NORAD or in a neutral country like Geneva, or virtually?

The British paper recognised the value of GPALS in both insurance against launch or proliferation, noting that smaller rogue states would see little value in investing in missiles that could easily be shot down. But it also noted there would be challenges too. These ranged from the risk that other non missile based weapon systems may still get through (e.g. smuggled devices) through to the challenge on investing increasingly scarce resources in GPALS over other defence priorities, as well as the potential that the public may see little value in spending on offensive weapon systems. Perhaps most concerningly of all, were Russia and the West to continue to cooperate:

“The idea of East-West cooperation over GPALS in addition raises far reaching questions around the future of international security. The closer the cooperation, the harder it will be to justify the concept of deterrence to Western public opinion”.

The UK saw there were opportunities for cooperating with the Russians over sharing of early warning data, particularly in identifying the location of the launch and bringing missiles to bear to intercept it or deploying ‘counterforce retaliation’. It also felt that there were four specific benefits to sharing early warning data with the Russians including:

“To secure Russian acquiescence in the rest of the GPALS programme, including space based defences.

Political: demonstration of intention to cooperate

Reinforcement of Russian alignment with West in campaign against proliferation

Strategic Reassurance. In the context of gaps or inadequacies in the Russian BMEW system…”

The paper went on to note that with the break up of the Soviet Union, many former BMEW radars were now either no longer being built, or housed in newly independent countries. It also noted that cooperation with the Russians would rely not just on radar data, solving the problem of how to share information when each others systems were designed to track launches against each other, but instead look south to where future launches were more likely, and use satellite data instead. Were the Russians prepared to share this?

The UK went on to note that any shared data centre for missile launch warnings would be fraught with difficulties. Defining not just operating locations but membership would be challenging – for example, a US/Russian run centre “could be fatal for NATO deterrence”, while a UN run one would be “probably valueless during a crisis”.

Finally it noted that cooperation on early warning would likely require amendments to the ABM treaty which Russia would need to acquiesce to, and “the nature of these amendments, naturally, are of special interest to the UK. In particular

·         What limits would apply to ground based interceptors?

·         Would space based interceptors be permitted?

·         Would there be freedom to mix?

·         What provisions to verify

·         What degree of assurance that relaxed ABM Treaty limits would hold and for how long?”

The reason the UK was so concerned on this was that having spent billions on Trident, and with the fourth submarine yet to be ordered and the subject of intense political debate in the UK during an election year, there was a risk that GPALS cooperation would render the deterrent worthless.

Chevaline assessment

In the meeting with Hadley, the UK set out its current estimates for the credibility of the Trident force against US estimates. Their conclusion was that since prior meetings on the subject, there were diverging UK and US views on the effectiveness of Soviet ABM defences about “how far Soviet ABM defences could be improved before UK Trident effectiveness was affected (the Americans, not surprisingly, taking the more optimistic view)”. The memo goes on to note that the UK and US were comparing their assumptions based on the notion that Moscow remained the sole city with an ABM system, and that there were only ground based (not space based) interceptors to defend it (harking back to the 1975 paper on Chevaline effectiveness). It went on to note that their work:

“assumed that the offence  consisted of two UK trident boat loads (based on a four boat Trident force and that it posed a two boat threat – both assumptions being open to challenge) and with each boatload consisting 16 missiles with 12 Re-entry Vehicles (RV) on each missile. Provided that the number of GBI that could be brought to bear on each missile did not exceed 350-400, some 40-45 RVs would leak through the defences, including enough live warheads to achieve unacceptable damage”.

This is an extraordinary statement and one of the most revealing insights into UK policy on Trident use ever made public. There are several important statements within it that deserve further analysis. For starters, the statement confirms that, certainly in 1992, the UK view on Trident was that in wartime there would be at least two SSBNs used to deliver a nuclear strike on Moscow – this is the same as the Polaris system.

Secondly it confirms that UK planning was for 16 missiles per boat, carrying 12 Re-entry vehicles for a total of 192 RV’s (NOT warheads) per boat. This is a crucial distinction, as UK policy has always been vague on the number of warheads deployed onboard, although it is understood to not have exceeded the Polaris maximum (48 warheads). This statement therefore suggests that UK Trident missiles were fitted with all the RV’s, to confuse and overwhelm Russian defences, and make it harder to spot the real missile.

Third, it highlights just how challenging a target the UK judged Moscow to be – of the nearly 400 RV’s that were going to be fired at Moscow in this scenario, barely 10% of the RV’s, and within that a smaller number of warheads, would survive long enough to allow a nuclear detonation to occur. This shows us why the Moscow criteria is so important in UK nuclear planning – if the UK can overwhelm Moscow’s defences sufficiently to destroy it, then it can hold any other city at risk too – as the Russians and other opponents are aware. What the policy does is provide assurance that ‘the bomb will always get through.’

Of note in the discussion was the polite disagreement with the US over the effectiveness of the system. For understandable reasons, the UK erred to pessimism on the ability of its systems to penetrate Moscow. This makes sense when you consider that your entire national defence strategy is based on the concept of overwhelming their defences. By contrast the US had the ability to be more optimistic, particularly after the 1991 Gulf War:

“Their experience with Patriot in the Gulf led them to believe that our (joint) assumptions about Russian ABM effectiveness were in practise overstated, so that we might fairly bank on twice the number of requisite warheads getting through defences at the 350-400 interceptor level. Although the detailed calculations have yet to be done, if the revised ABM effectiveness calculations were adopted, we might hope to defeat a defence of 400-500 GBI” (ground-based interceptors).

This figure is notable as it suggests that not only do the UK and the US regularly exchange targeting data of the most sensitive nature, but also that assumptions can, and do, change. It could be complete coincidence, but just a few years later after the 1998 SDR, the UK reduced significantly the number of warheads carried onboard the Trident force  – ostensibly it was due to the reduced political threat, but perhaps more practically, the analysis figures had changed and the consensus was that to destroy Moscow required fewer RV’s and warheads than previously considered necessary – a triumph of optimism over pessimism?

The effectiveness assessment

One of the most significant parts of the debate focused on the renegotiation of the ABM Treaty and UK concerns in this space. The UK made clear that they would support sufficient changes in the treaty to permit the US to defend against 200 incoming RV’s, but would not support wider changes to legalise the Russian ability to deploy 350-400 interceptors (presumably as such a move would call into question the credibility of Trident against Moscow).

The UK pushed for the concept that the treaty placed limits on the numbers of interceptors that could be deployed in one location, and in turn prevent sites mutually overlapping with each other. This may sound technical, but makes a lot of sense – the US saw the ABM treaty as providing protection for an entire nation, but the Russians saw it as about providing protection for Moscow and the key cities in that region. Where the US would need to spread its sites across a continental sized nation to protect different regions, the Russians would likely congregate them, and in turn use them protect Moscow and make it far harder for the UK (or France) to destroy it. During the talks, it was noted that the British Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) provided a presentation on what would happen if the Russians were able to exploit the treaty to create six ABM sites – the analysis was that this would be sufficient to prevent any credible attack on Moscow by British missiles.

This is where the UK and the US disagreed – according to the note, Hadley stated that the US was aiming for a 90% probability of 95% effectiveness against 200 RVs, and a similar level of effectiveness against double that. The US conclusion was that Russian equipment would be nowhere near as effective as the UK judged. It was also noted that “the US approach was driven by what they felt they needed to achieve their aim. The current requirement of 750 interceptors spread over six sites and up to a thousand Brilliant Pebbles was a function of the wider dispersal of 50 US states… the requirement for six sites was simply a function of the maximum range that they felt they could achieve with their new interceptors, coupled with space based sensors”.

The US view, based on Pentagon analysis was that Russian technology was nowhere near as good as the US equivalent – the Russian interceptor would have a maximum effective range of 300km and the Russians would need 20-40 sites to achieve a similar level of capability to the US’s six sites. From a US perspective it made sense to engage with the Russians to renegotiate the treaty to “get what they, the Americans, want”.

Incredibly now, given events of intervening years, Hadley confirmed that the US was prepared to go so far as to consider technology transfer to the Russians to improve their own ABM capabilities in order to replace the nuclear tipped ABMs (which the British begrudgingly noted would “this would be acceptable in reducing the number of multiple RV hits from a single Russian interceptor”. Following a discussion about keeping the sites together, where the US seemed fairly relaxed about the Russians being allowed to site interceptor sites in close proximity, Mottram states that he pointed out “If the Americans had no plans to ensure GBI ranges were constrained…it would seem that a renegotiated treaty would offer no guarantee against the sort of overlapping of defensive capabilities that would pose serious problems for the UK deterrent”.

This is an incredibly powerful intervention to make, and speaks loudly as to how concerned the British were from the potential for GPALS and revisions of the ABM Treaty to potentially wipe out their ability to destroy Moscow. For one of the most senior MOD Civil Servants to have to warn a US senior official that US Government policy was on track to put the UK’s strategic nuclear deterrent at risk is quite extraordinary.

ABM risk to Trident

This speaks again to the very different views that both nations had on the challenges of destroying Moscow. To the US, this was something that could be solved by throwing more warheads against the problem. To the UK, it potentially rendered their national deterrent useless. One fascinating insight to these very different views was when the US stated:

“If the Russians surprised them and solved the problem of exo-atmospheric interception with GBI (Ground Based Interceptors), Americans were further confident they could defeat them with Penetration Aids. (The Americans reminded us that they had modelled our Trident capability against their full GPALS system and concluded that to defeat a system of that degree of effectiveness, we too would need to develop penetration aids”.

This statement was not welcomed by the British, with Mottram noting that he’d in return warned the US that their policy of essentially permitting renegotiation of the ABM treaty and enabling the Russians to develop better defensive measures: “would not be reassuring, especially when coupled with hints of assisting the Russians with technology transfer. Responding Hadley insisted that we have decades in hand, but that “bv 2020 you may have to make some adjustments”. Again, this is quite incredible to see a senior US official warning the UK that it was entirely possible that the British would need to develop improvements to their nuclear capability to enable them to overwhelm Russian systems improved by US assistance.

Hadley was also challenged over the US desire to work closely with the Russians on sharing of early warning data. He was told in no uncertain terms that if the US did end up sharing information with Russia to the extent that it appeared to be a “partnership with the Russians in which they were on a par with the rest of us, then we risked undermining support for NATO and deterrence”. The wider challenges with the notion of early warning were raised – for all its lofty goals, trying to work out which states to admit would be hugely challenging – as Mottram noted “criteria for membership would most probably include commitment to democratic values and non proliferation. This would create many awkward decisions in the Middle East, with Syria, and probably Israel and Saudi Arabia failing that test”. Not only was this challenging enough, but it was also clear that the US Government felt that it had to deliver on support for the Russians – it felt it “owed Yeltsin a demonstrable gain soon; it was he who had offered the vision of global cooperative defence and who represented the US’s best chance of getting GPALS accepted. Beyond Early Warning data sharing, the US had made clear they were prepared to explore a co-operative system with Russians embracing defences. This was a major development (which by implication, the Allies had better come to terms with)”.

It is staggering now to look back over 30 years and see the lengths that the US was prepared to go to in its relationship with Russia to try and get to the point where GPALS would have been accepted. In doing this, it would have stomped roughshod over the UK and French nuclear deterrents and burned relations with NATO allies for a generation. Had this move succeeded, perhaps history would have been incredibly different, with no expansion occurring in the late 1990s?

In the end section of the note, Mottram added his personal reflections on the talks, which are some of the most damning attacks on US policy ever seen in a UK government document. He stated that the meeting was “unwelcome confirmation on the amount of leeway the Pentagon may envisage allowing the Russians in the cause of getting GPALS established”. The strength of UK reaction clearly came as a shock to Hadley, who apparently tried to understand in the margins of the meeting why “we had reacted so adversely to the Bush message on cooperation with the Russians and the extent of UK concern”.

Mottram states that he provided Hadley with advice that in a memo already full of disagreements, provides some of the strongest push back ever given by the UK to the USA on defence matters. He stated that he ensured that in speaking to Hadley, he “left him in no doubt of the extent of concern at the highest levels in the UK Government”. In diplomatic speak, that is the equivalent of stating that you basically called the other persons parentage into question.

Summing up the meeting, Mottram stated that he felt “the Pentagon will be torn between the supporters of strategic deterrence, and US/UK nuclear cooperation and those in the GPALS lobby, although we should not in any way assume that the former will win out… we clearly need to do all that we can to keep our concerns at the forefront of American minds in the formative months leading up to the Bush/Yeltsin summit in Washington in June”.

Clearly the issue continued to dominate MOD minds, shortly after the election victory in 1992, the newly appointed Secretary of State for Defence, Malcom Rifkind wrote to the Prime Minister (John Major) setting out his concerns about GPALS and US policy. He stated that the UK differed from US in three core areas.

Firstly, the UK felt that US proposals could put the coherence of NATO at risk if the proposed cooperation with Russia came to pass – he stated “it is hard to see how the realisation of the global defence system envisaged by the Americans could leave the central position of NATO in Western security arrangements unaffected; indeed it looks towards an era of American/Russian cooperation and shift from east-west to a north-south threat axis from Europe”.

He went on to note that not only would these changes  risk the NATO alliance, but also, if the US continued to push for changes to the ABM treaty then it would allow “the Russians to deploy new defences which could compromise the effectiveness of UK Trident”.  He also noted that if GPALS were to continue to develop, then there would be huge pressure for the UK to play a part in it. In other words, if the US went down the path of developing closer links to Russia to enable GPALS to occur, it would potentially disrupt NATO, leave the hugely expensive UK strategic nuclear deterrent worthless against Moscow and give the UK huge moral pressure and a financial bill to participate in a system that it didn’t want to see deployed.

Feedback memo

This would be extremely challenging for the UK to overcome and could potentially pose huge financial challenges. Rifkind was blunt in his appraisal of the situation:

“These factors could have significant resource implications. Because of the risk of the improved defences, we need to retain the option of full missile outloads and a clear capability to sustain two  deployed Trident boats in tension and war. Depending on the possible scale of increased defences, we might need to increase the number of live warheads carried on each missile, or even to consider, in the longer term the development of penetration aids  (on which a small research programme, as a hedge, is being conducted).”

This is another incredible statement for it is essentially saying that even though the Cold War was over, the UK would need to increase its nuclear arsenal and forces to be able to respond to the security challenges posed by the US plans to cooperate with the Russians  and enable the UK nuclear deterrent to destroy Moscow.  Coming barely two years after the end of the Cold War, it speaks volumes to how much had changed in such a short time, and serves as a blunt reminder that the US would always place its national interests first, no matter how many concerns the UK raised.

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History thankfully records that for all the UK concerns, GPALS was to quickly cease to be a security concern. The arrival of the Clinton administration saw the cancellation of the GPALS programme, and a scaling back of aspiration on missile defence. The wider rapid decline of relations with Russia saw early aspirations of partnership replaced by a more wary approach. The arrival of President Putin saw the scene set for a return to the Cold War as Russia moved from prospective friend to potential foe.

The story of GPALS is a timely reminder on the importance of understanding that deterrence means different things to different nations. What may be a minor issue to one nation, can be a huge issue to another. For the UK the decision to remain in the nuclear game at the highest levels, means being able to continue to have the ability as a nation to overwhelm Moscows defences and destroy it – a task that gets harder each year as technology evolves. But it is arguably more crucial than ever – as the post 1945 and 1991 order collapses, the certainty that NATO would deliver deterrence with one voice is also going. It may be that for years to come, the burden of delivering a nuclear deterrence for NATO will fall on the British and French governments, who will need to plan on how they can hold Moscow, and by extension the Russian regime, at threat without the active support of the USA. Now, more than ever, small deterrents matter, and with this, the importance of being able to meet ‘the Moscow Criterion’.