Forget the nuclear! History strikes?

I was perhaps ten feet from Gorbachev, fifteen from Reagan.

I was lucky enough to have been nominated for the first ‘pool’ of reporters to witness the first ever US Russian (Soviet) summit that would ever discuss and eventually implement a mutual cut in nuclear weapons. We were crammed into a small sitting room in a lakeside chateau next to Lake Geneva. We were witnesses for history, watching the first ever handshake between the ‘leader of the Western world’, and the man Reagan had dubbed as ‘the leader of the Evil Empire’.

What a contrast from today! Obama – more exciting than either of the above, and Medvedev – less intriguing or mysterious than his Soviet forebear, moving seamlessly to inaugurate one of the greatest cuts in nuclear arsenals of all time. That day, in 1985 was one of the most exciting and uplifting days in my reporting life. Today when the two leaders sign in the Spanish Hall of Prague Castle, the story will struggle to lead the news.

I grew up in the shadow of the bomb. The mushroom cloud struck awesome fear into our small hearts. Neville Shute’s ‘On the Beach’, dominated our schoolboy book shelves. We knew there were others of our age who practiced survival beneath their desks. We actually feared radiation, nuclear fallout, radiation sickness, and oblivion. I was an impressionable fifteen years old amid the terrifying events of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Today who gives the detail of nuclear war a thought?

Thus far we have been engaged in an election campaign in the UK in which both major parties have committed to replacing Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent – rather pre-empting the strategic defence review that both say they want after the election. The Lib Dem’s Nick Clegg doesn’t want to replace  Trident but was rather hesitant about his commitment to a continuing nuclear deterrent when questioned on the Today programme yesterday (April 7th).

Most intriguingly, the former Chief of the Defence Staff Sir Richard Dannatt, now a Tory adviser on defence, raised the possibility that Britain should not keep its nuclear weapons forever. One senior military source told Channel 4 News recently that senior forces commanders support for Trident was conditional upon the government continuing to meet their needs for conventional weapons and equipment. If that didn’t happen, then ‘the deal’s off’, he said.       

For some bizarre reason, France’s consideration of a shared nuclear deterrent with the UK is regarded as somehow ‘politically unacceptable’. So what effect will the Obama/Medvedev move today have upon the UK stockpile and its renewal? None? We are told by the experts that the asymmetric warfare that has dominated the opening of the 21st century calls for ever lighter, more mobile, fleet of foot defences. Against the backdrop of an election campaign so far dominated by cuts and efficiency savings, where does Trident fit?