Markus Petz received this article from Francis Blair a Young Green who lives in Cumbria (the doorstep of Sellafield Nucler Powerstation). He also thinks that this article is ”certainly thought provoking due to NMD being linked inextricably with Full Spectrum Dominance of the USA in most people’s minds here. Part of that dominance is seen as Nuclear weapons so one without the other maybe difficult for people to accept…
The Green Party is quite rightly, in my opinion, in favour of nuclear disarmament. In theory all the major nuclear powers are suppose to be working towards nuclear disarmament. In practice little is changing. This is particularly unfortunate as following the collapse of the Soviet Union; nuclear disarmament is an idea whose time has come. I believe Britain should set a historic precedent and become the first of the major powers to disarm.
However if those of us who believe this is the right course of action are to win the argument, we must appear to have a realistic alternative. NATO is in crisis at present; with the end of the cold war many people are wondering what the alliance is for. If the Nuclear NATO mem bers were to decommission their nuclear weapons, they would individually be vulnerable to nuclear attack. However a military machine of the size of NATO cannot be wiped out by a single nuclear strike. Only the major nuclear powers are, in the foreseeable future, capable of crippling NATO with a large-scale nuclear strike. Anything less would leave enough of Americas conventional forces and other Alliance forces ready to respond and win any conflict.
National Missile Defence is probably going to happen anyway. If we can persuade people that it means we can be militarily secure without nuclear weapons, nuclear disarmament becomes a realistic alternative to nuclear deterrence. If we start linking National Missile Defence with Nuclear Disarmament NOW! When it comes it will be a natural, logical point to start a new campaign for nuclear disarmament. Perhaps most importantly of all when the none NATO nuclear powers realise that they can, or very shortly will, not be able to deliver their nuclear warheads they may well decide that it is safer to disarm themselves. Even if the current power crazy American administration would never give up its weapons of mass destruction, we must hope missile defence will give the American People the confidence to vote for one that will. It is worth remembering the billions this labour government is spending on new weapons, nuclear subs & aircraft carriers, which can only be used to attack other nations. This money would almost certainly be enough to give Britain missile defence. This is a purely defensive system. We should not let the fact that we don’t like George Bush blind us to its possibilities.