When pushed this morning by Today presenter Sarah Montague on whether there would be any circumstances that he would use the nuclear option, Jeremy Corbyn said: ‘No.’
In other words, Britain under his premiership would no longer have a nuclear deterrent. Deterrence requires not just the capability to strike – a capability that cannot be pre-emptively neutralised or destroyed (hence the need for submarine-launched weapons) – but also the will to use it.
Or at least the question-mark in the mind of a would-be aggressor.
We’ve been here before. The Rt Hon Jim Hacker (Yes, Prime Minister) wasn’t as certain as Jeremy Corbyn that he wouldn’t use Trident, but he thought he probably wouldn’t and therefore that it was pointless. Until the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, explained the exquisitely Byzantine logic of deterrence:
Sir Humphrey: With Trident we could obliterate the whole of Eastern Europe.
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