British Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday urged nuclear-armed states to begin drawing down their arsenals, saying his government was willing to do its part by dropping one of its ballistic missile submarines, CNN reported (see GSN, Sept. 23).
"All nuclear-weapons states must play their part in reducing nuclear weapons as part of an agreement by non-nuclear states to renounce them," Brown told the U.N. General Assembly in New York. "This is exactly what the [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] intended. In line with maintaining our nuclear deterrent, I have asked our national security committee to report to me on the potential future reduction of our nuclear weapon submarines from four to three."
The British nuclear deterrent dates back to the 1950s and is based entirely on submarines, at least one of which is at sea at all times. London currently plans to replace all four Vanguard-class vessels, at an estimated cost of roughly $30 billion.
Brown's offer is believed to be contingent upon similar moves by other states possessing nuclear weapons and does not involve cutbacks in warheads.
"Once there were five nuclear-armed powers," he said. "Now there are nine, with the real and present danger that more will soon follow. And the risk is not just state aggression, but the acquisition of nuclear weapons by terrorists. So we are at a moment of danger when decades of preventing proliferation could be overturned by (a) damaging rise in proliferation. If we are serious about the ambition of a nuclear-free world, we will need statesmanship, not brinkmanship."
The proposal is intended to promote nuclear nonproliferation and should not be seen as a money-saving endeavor, said British Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
U.S. President Barack Obama "has injected new drive into the effort to meet the goals of the nonproliferation treaty, which is a world free of nuclear weapons, and our prime minister, Gordon Brown, is determined that Britain plays its full part in those discussions," Miliband said (see GSN, Sept. 23; CNN, Sept. 23).
Brown described a "grand global bargain" in which nuclear-armed states make moves toward disarmament while other nations pledge not to develop nuclear weapons. Those countries would stand to receive support from the United Kingdom in developing civilian nuclear power programs, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
The prime minister took aim at the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran, which are known or suspected of aiming to produce weapons.
"Let there by no ambiguity: Iran and North Korea must know that the world will be even tougher on proliferation and we are ready to consider further sanctions," Brown said.
"Britain will insist that the onus on non-nuclear states is that in future it is for them to prove they are not developing nuclear weapons," he added (Xinhua News Agency, Sept. 23).
More specifics on Brown's proposal were anticipated at today's U.N. Security Council meeting on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, the Associated Press reported (Pan Pylas, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Sept. 23).