Former UK Naval Commander: We don't need nuclear forces to address aggression
Posted: 19th April 2023
Plus: Commander Robert Forsyth (Royal Navy ret.) and other prominent people endorse Nuclear Taboo, From Norm to Law
Commander Robert Forsyth (Royal Navy retired) has called on the United Kingdom to respond realistically to today’s military threats – including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – by adopting a policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons, downsizing the nation’s nuclear forces and reinvesting military resources from nuclear to conventional forces.
In a submission to the UK Secretary of State’s Office of Net Assessment and Challenge (SONAC), Commander Forsyth argues that UK reliance on nuclear weapons and massive investment in the ‘nuclear deterrent’ has actually weakened UK deterrence against an aggressor like Russia because it has consumed resources required for conventional forces – and it is conventional forces that can realistically be employed to address aggression without escalation to a nuclear war.
SONAC called for submissions from interested parties last month to help shape the next UK Defence Command Paper and the future direction of UK Defence, and will be considering the submissions over the next couple of months.
Commander Forsyth argues that UK conventional forces are necessary to deter and address aggression, but that UK nuclear forces are not: “As the US is quite capable of fulfilling NATO’s 2nd strike nuclear capability on its own there is a strong case for UK to redirect its massive expenditure on Trident into restoring its conventional forces.”
A call for No-First-Use policies
“I question why any nuclear state, whatever the provocation, would/should deliberately resort to First Use thereby provoking in return an exchange that would annihilate both sides’ civil populations and render their opposing territories totally uninhabitable for decades, if not centuries, to come? As it is unimaginable that NATO would carry out a first nuclear strike there is nothing to lose and everything to gain by it adopting a policy of No-First-Use.”
Commander Robert Forsyth, Royal Navy (retired)
Nuclear Taboo, From Norm to Law
A Declaration of Public Conscience
Commander Forsyth is an endorser of Nuclear Taboo: From Norm to Law, a Declaration of Public Conscience, which was launched by NoFirstUse Global last week and remains open for endorsement (also available in French and Italian). The Declaration will be presented to the upcoming G7 Summit in Hiroshima (May 19-21), G20 Summit in Delhi (September 9-10) and the UN General Assembly and Security Council in October.Other notable endorsers include:
- Hon Gareth Evans, Former Foreign Minister of Australia;
- Erkki Tuomioja, Former Foreign Minister of Finland, Chairman of Historians without Borders;
- Dan Ellsberg, Whistleblower (The Pentagon Papers), political analyst and author (The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner),
- Baroness Sue Miller, Member of the House of Lords and Deputy-Chair of the UK All-Party Group on Non-proliferation and Global Security;
- General Bernard Norlain, President of Initiatives pour le Désarmement Nucléaire. Former Air Defense Commander and Air Combat Commander of the French Air Force;
- Göran Lambertz, Former Justice of the Supreme Court, Sweden;
- Bishop Gunnar Johan Stålsett, Bishop of Oslo, Former Member of the Nobel Peace Committee;
- Ana María Cetto, Professor of the Institute of Physics, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Mexico’s Woman of the Year 2003;
- Dr Keith Suter, Member of the Club of Rome, Co-Chair of the International Peoples’ Tribunal on Nuclear Weapons and the Destruction of Human Civilisation;
- Dr Elizabeth Waterston, MEDACT – UK affiliate of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (a Nobel Peace Laureate organization);
- Enkhsaikhan Jargalsaikhan, President of Blue Banner and Former Ambassador of Mongolia to the UN;
- Sean Conner, Executive Director of International Peace Bureau (a Nobel Peace Laureate organization);
- Bill Kidd, Member Scottish Parliament and Co-President of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament;
- Uta Zapf, Former Chair of the German Parliament Subcommittee on Disarmament, Arms Control and Nonproliferation;
-
Dr. Harbeen Arora, Founder & President of G100;
and hundreds more…