Trident - email your MP
There's a vote in Parliament today on the renewal of Britain's nuclear capability. There's still time to email your MP and get them to vote against it. Here's what I wrote:
"Keith - I write as one of your constituents on the issue of the renewal of Trident.
The bottom line on the Trident debate is that renewal would be extremely damaging to our national security.
Today's nuclear weapons are many, many times more powerful than those that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 60 years ago, causing scenes that have been seared into our collective consciousness. There are thousands of these devices throughout the world, and many of them are on automatic trigger systems (often in a serious state of disrepair, as in the case of Russia). This means that once the launch sequence is begun, whether in error or otherwise, a human being has mere seconds to intervene before a holocaust ensues.
Close calls have occurred on numerous occasions, most famously in the Cuban missile crisis but there have also been examples since the Cold War ended. Given the stakes, humanity does not have the luxury of waiting for an accident to occur before learning the lessons.
There are two ways in which this 'sword of Damocles' type situation can play out. One is that states will retain or enhance their nuclear capabilities. At best this will mean that the danger continues at its current level. But more likely it will lead to a chain reaction of proliferation materially increasing the danger of what Robert McNamara calls "apocalypse soon". The other route is the NPT. The global deal of the NPT is that the nuclear states will completely disarm themselves of their nuclear weapons (not merely reduce their stockpiles) in return for the non-nuclear states never acquiring nuclear weapons themselves. The converse scenario is obvious. If the nuclear states show no sign of ending their capabilities, proliferation will increase and the thread the sword hangs by will continue to fray.
The case for Trident is often made by those who would assume the role of sober, hardheaded realists driven by pragmatic national security concerns. This is an unlikely stance, to put it mildly. Few things could be more damaging, even potentially disastrous for our security, than the renewal of Trident. Please vote against it today.
Best wishes
David Wearing"
"Keith - I write as one of your constituents on the issue of the renewal of Trident.
The bottom line on the Trident debate is that renewal would be extremely damaging to our national security.
Today's nuclear weapons are many, many times more powerful than those that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 60 years ago, causing scenes that have been seared into our collective consciousness. There are thousands of these devices throughout the world, and many of them are on automatic trigger systems (often in a serious state of disrepair, as in the case of Russia). This means that once the launch sequence is begun, whether in error or otherwise, a human being has mere seconds to intervene before a holocaust ensues.
Close calls have occurred on numerous occasions, most famously in the Cuban missile crisis but there have also been examples since the Cold War ended. Given the stakes, humanity does not have the luxury of waiting for an accident to occur before learning the lessons.
There are two ways in which this 'sword of Damocles' type situation can play out. One is that states will retain or enhance their nuclear capabilities. At best this will mean that the danger continues at its current level. But more likely it will lead to a chain reaction of proliferation materially increasing the danger of what Robert McNamara calls "apocalypse soon". The other route is the NPT. The global deal of the NPT is that the nuclear states will completely disarm themselves of their nuclear weapons (not merely reduce their stockpiles) in return for the non-nuclear states never acquiring nuclear weapons themselves. The converse scenario is obvious. If the nuclear states show no sign of ending their capabilities, proliferation will increase and the thread the sword hangs by will continue to fray.
The case for Trident is often made by those who would assume the role of sober, hardheaded realists driven by pragmatic national security concerns. This is an unlikely stance, to put it mildly. Few things could be more damaging, even potentially disastrous for our security, than the renewal of Trident. Please vote against it today.
Best wishes
David Wearing"
More info and campaigning material at CND.
Labels: Nuclear weapons
posted by David Wearing at 11:13 AM
3 Comments:
Sadly, it failed. I emailed my MP too - he didn't reply. Not sure how he voted on it in the end.
Ah, well. It's a real shame, because this could have been an opportunity to show some leadership for a change. Instead, Parliament chose to continue to undermine precisely the multilateral institutions we need to be strengthening.
Very disappointing.
David,
I agree with you entirely. This is a worrying situation, which, under the present global security situation could lead to disaster. I no longer see how Blair can, with all legitimacy, demand that other countries cannot develop nuclear weapons.
The only postive to come out of this is Blair's final removal of any pretention to being "socialist".
Fantastic Blog.
Vee Barbary
http://veebarbary.blogspot.com/
thanks to both of you for your comments.
I doubt that my email did much good since my MPs Tony Blair's PPS. Still, this should be seen as the start of the campaign, not the end. The renewal project is about to enter its initial research stages so there's plenty of time to bring pressure to bear to call it off. The rebellion and the demonstrations are an ok start to the campaign. Just needs to be buit on now
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