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This analysis examines NATO’s tactical/non-strategic nuclear weapons in the Cold War both for their perceived deterrent value against the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact and as potential war fighting weapons. Within this debate lay questions related to extended deterrence, security guarantees, regional or theatre conflict, and escalatory potential. A central tenet that emerged in Europe was that nuclear weapons needed emplacement on the territory of non-nuclear NATO members to make deterrence more tangible. It raised huge questions of consultation. Once the Soviet Union had intercontinental missiles, the credibility of American readiness to use nuclear weapons in defence of its allies came into question. European alternatives and different consultation mechanisms to facilitate nuclear use became central to intra-NATO relations. Actively debated across NATO, they directly concerned above all the United States, Britain, and France—the nuclear weapons states in the NATO area—and West Germany, the potential main battleground in a Warsaw Pact invasion. Although dormant in NATO since the end of the Cold War, these issues will likely see revisiting in both Europe and other regional trouble spots. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Any risk analysis of a large infrastructure that does not account for external dependencies is dangerously introspective. A top-down, goal-to-dependencies modeling approach can capture interdependencies and allow supply-chain entities to securely share risk data, calculate the likely impact of a failure, and respond accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores a number of debates that have dominated intelligence studies since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. It examines a number of inherent tensions, involving individuals and institutions, which threaten the long-term compatibility of the national security state with liberal democracy. The notion as to whether or not the use of extreme coercive measures (such as torture) can ever be justified is examined, as is the question as to whether such measures are self-defeating. The piece examines how liberal democracies seek to protect themselves in the light of rapid changes via a globalised media, the Information Revolution, and the proliferation of advanced technology and weapons of mass destruction amongst state and non-state actors. These issues are discussed with particular reference to the use of intelligence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and other global trouble spots. Finally, the article speculates on the future of the increasingly enmeshed relationship between policy-makers, intelligence agencies and the media. It is concluded that, without a clear agenda for the modification of the mechanisms for accountability and oversight, this triangular relationship will, despite its interdependence, be fraught with increasing difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Part One of this article, which appeared in the last edition of Diplomacy and Statecraft, argued that the origins and early development of British nuclear weapons was largely driven by the particular ideas and beliefs of a relatively small political, scientific, and military elite. It is also argued that these beliefs, which developed into a “deterrence state of mind” amongst the elite, derived in part from a traditional strategic culture that emphasised the importance of producing the most sophisticated weapons of the day to protect Britain's diplomatic and security interests in a largely anarchic international system. Part Two argues that these ideational factors, based on a “realist” perspective of international security held by Britain's political-military leadership, have remained of crucial importance through to the present day. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Strategic culture, beliefs, and perceived status in an anarchic international system played a crucial role in the development of British nuclear weapons policy from its inception in the Second World War through to the Nassau Agreement in 1962 that provided Britain with a sophisticated submarine nuclear deterrent—Part Two, in the next issue of Diplomacy and Statecraft, will look at the period from 1962 to the present day. Adopting what has been described as a “Conventional Constructivist” approach, the argument is that these ideational factors have helped to shape the character of Britain's nuclear capability and the operational plans for the potential employment of those capabilities. It also provides an insight into how these factors have shaped elite views of the UK nuclear deterrent in the crucial early years of its development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Between 1974 and 1979 the British Labour Government, led first by Harold Wilson and then by James Callaghan, developed a programme of improvements to the British Polaris Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) system initiated during Wilson's first government between 1964 and 1970. This Polaris improvement programme was known from 1974 onwards as Chevaline. Chevaline offered Britain an indigenous solution to meet the 'Moscow Criterion' - the requirement that British strategic missiles had to be capable of penetrating Moscow's 'Galosh' Anti-Ballistic missile defence system (ABM) even in the absence of US support. This came during a time of economic austerity in a changing strategic environment which led Labour to explore nuclear cooperation with the French. It also led to calls from within the party to renounce nuclear weapons through unilateral disarmament. This article will shed fresh light on the bitter internal debates that ensued and how a select band of senior ministers responded to this dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most pressing questions for the new government of Harold Wilson following the Labour Party's slender General Election victory of October 1964, as far as the UK's nuclear deterrent was concerned, was how to shore up the credibility gap that was in evidence with the decline of the effectiveness of the V-bomber force.1 Already in train was the Polaris programme agreed by the Conservative Macmillan government at Nassau in December 1962, in which five submarines were planned.2 However, Polaris was not due to be fully deployed until the first quarter of the 1970s and doubts were already beginning to emerge regarding their perceived effectiveness. This article will ask two main questions: first, why did the development of anti-ballistic missile defences by the Soviet Union threaten the credibility of the UK strategic nuclear deterrent?; and second, what was the UK's response to this development? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to analyse British strategic nuclear targeting between 1974 and 1979, prior to the successful completion of the sophisticated modification to Polaris submarine-missile system codenamed Chevaline. It will use as its starting point the parameters for UK strategic nuclear targeting, and the foundation of the 'Moscow Criterion', prior to the deployment of Britain's Polaris submarines which began in 1968. It will then discuss the recommendation by the Chiefs of Staff to retarget Polaris in 1975/76 and the implications of that recommendation in terms of the British approach to strategic nuclear deterrence. The article will conclude with an assessment of these retargeting decisions on the decision to replace Polaris with the US Trident system in 1980. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will attempt to draw attention to the Anglo-French nuclear weapons negotiations that ran alongside the British applications to join the EEC during the years 1960-1974. It suggests that the prospect of an entente nucléaire was an issue that played a unique role in the UK's negotiating strategy. It will argue that three successive Prime Minister's - Macmillan, Wilson and Heath - attempted to forge an agreement in the hope of overcoming French objections to Britain's entry, albeit for different reasons. All three were hampered by the "special nuclear relationship" with the Americans and this eventually precluded a mutually beneficial resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the words quoted above, the new Secretary of State for Defence in the Thatcher government revealed for the first time the existence of a project that had remained a closely guarded secret, even from many Cabinet members of four governments, since the late 1960s. Despite the passage of more than 20 years since Mr Pym's announcement, the story of the Chevaline project still remains largely unknown outside a small group of select politicians, officials and scientists. This article sets out to use recently declassified documents and what is in the public domain to tell the story of Chevaline from the secret debates about the need to improve Britain's Polaris deterrent force shortly after it was deployed in the late 1960s to the official announcement of the project in 1980 and its eventual operational deployment in 1982. In particular, attention is focused on three main questions: Why was the project kept secret for so long? Why did the improvement programme take so long to come to fruition? Why, given the spiralling costs involved, was it not cancelled? In order to consider these questions relating to what Pym described as 'the front end' of the Polaris missile, it is necessary to begin by looking at the background to the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]