Royal Navy security personnel keep watch on the Trident submarine HMS Vigilant in Scotland.
Jeff J Mitchell | Getty images
LONDON – The UK has changed its defense policy, potentially allowing it to use nuclear weapons in response to “emerging technologies”.
The country’s 111-page Integrated Defense Review, published Tuesday, contained a subtle line about when the UK “reserves the right” to use nuclear weapons.
It says the UK could use nuclear weapons if other countries use “weapons of mass destruction” against them. Such weapons include “emerging technologies that may have a similar impact” to chemical, biological or other nuclear weapons.
Some UK newspapers report that “emerging technologies” include cyber-attacks, citing defense insiders, but the report does not say so explicitly. The UK government did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Tom Plant, a think tank director at the Royal United Services Institute, told CNBC, “I wouldn’t interpret it to include isolated cyber attacks, no.”
He added that “the understanding of what emerging technology is in government isn’t evenly distributed – cyber certainly isn’t ’emerging,’ it’s emerged quite substantially.”
Regardless, Plant believes the language change is significant.
“I think it is a marker that in the future there is the potential for combinations of technologies and behaviors to converge that create emerging risks – which might not arise from the advancements of a particular technology individually – that are incredibly difficult to predict and that there is at least the possibility that one or more of these hitherto unknown emerging challenges could rival weapons of mass destruction in the threat they pose, ”he said.
Trident tactic
The UK’s nuclear program known as Trident was founded in 1980 and now costs the UK about £ 2 billion ($ 2.8 billion) a year to run it.
The Integrated Defense Review confirmed that the UK will allow a self-imposed limit on its nuclear weapon stockpile to rise to 260, with the previous cap of 225 warheads and the current reduction target of 180 being dropped by the mid-2020s.
“This reverses the UK’s course of consistent post-Cold War nuclear reductions and goes against previous assurances that the program to replace the UK’s existing nuclear deterrent would not contribute to the number of nuclear warheads in service,” Plant wrote. in a blog post.
He added that the changes are presented as a response to a changed international security environment.
“The government paints a picture of a world of increasing international competition and increasing threats from Russia, China, North Korea and Iran,” said Plant. “According to her, British opponents are increasing the variety and quantity of their nuclear capabilities and seeing nuclear weapons as a means of coercion, deterrence and even warfare.”
While the UK appears to be expanding the scenarios in which it could feasibly use nuclear weapons, US President Joe Biden said in his election campaign that the “sole purpose” of nuclear weapons should be to deter or retaliate another nuclear attack. .
Indo-Pacific tilt
The Integrated Defense Review also outlined a new “tilt” towards the Indo-Pacific region.
“By 2030, we will be deeply involved in the Indo-Pacific as the European partner with the broadest, most integrated presence to support mutually beneficial trade, shared security and values,” the document reads.
It says the UK will invade the Indo-Pacific region, in part in response to “geopolitical and geo-economic shifts,” including China’s global “power and assertiveness,” as well as the region’s growing importance to “global prosperity and security” .
The report refers to partnerships with countries such as India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.