Things have come to a pretty pass when Ian Blackford is the voice of reason. The SNP’s former Westminster leader has incurred the wrath of his party at all levels for his comments on nuclear weapons.
It is a sign of just how extreme the Nationalists are on this question that the instigating remarks were so bland and bloodless that you’d need an advanced degree in Kremlinology to parse them. (If Scotland ever left the protection of the UK nuclear deterrent, I suspect we’d all get a crash course in Kremlinology sooner or later.)
Reflecting on Donald Trump’s desire to offload the cost of European security onto Europeans, Blackford urged ‘a concentration of minds on a multilateral approach’ and said that ‘the UK’s nuclear capability needs to be addressed in the shifting sands of US and European engagement’. There must be, he added, ‘a journey towards nuclear weapon disarmament’.
A multilateral ‘journey’ is not party policy.
The SNP position is more or less the same donkey-jacketed ban-the-bomb unilateralism espoused by Michael Foot. At least Foot had the excuse of being a romantic radical. The SNP is a party of deeply cynical technocrats. They surely know that surrendering Trident would mean taking a massive gamble against history and human nature.
But, no. They still cling to the kumbaya politics of the campus. In response to Blackford, John Swinney prated: ‘I think the possession of nuclear weapons is immoral.’
Before saying what I make of those nine words, I will concede that many good and conscientious souls agree with the First Minister. Among their number are people of all political persuasions and worshippers of every god and none. Their ethics are sincerely held and their intentions honourable.
And they’re wrong, and so is John Swinney.
John Swinney remains opposed to nuclear weapons despite rising tensions across the world
My argument is not that nuclear weapons are a necessary evil, but that retaining them is the moral option. Disarmers tend to think of these tools only in terms of the grave destruction their use would unleash upon human life. But against this analysis, we must set two competing considerations.
One is that, in the most exceptional circumstances, grave destruction is essential or at least unavoidable.
Harry Truman’s decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki was responsible for the deaths of as many as a quarter of a million Japanese, a terrible toll which should be recalled with sober reflection and never anything approaching triumphalism.
Yet even while we lament the lives lost on that day and those that followed it, we cannot forget that it guaranteed the defeat of Tokyo’s Empire and the victory of the Allies in the Far East. A nuclear bombing helped end a six-year world war.
Another is that the greater potential of nuclear weapons lies not in their use but in the threat of their use. Because we know just how much devastation was visited upon those Japanese cities 80 years ago, we understand the awesome power of these weapons.
We know that the deployment today of (far more advanced) nuclear warheads would mean total annihilation within a radius of many, many miles.
It may scandalise hand-wringing schoolmarms who crow ‘not in my name’ at the mere prospect of Western force being put into action, but it is this destructive potential that makes nuclear weapons attractive to any country keen to give itself an advantage in war.
The threat of total annihilation reduces the likelihood of conflict. It gives pause even to the most martial of despots.
Former SNP MP Ian Blackford believes the SNP needs to rethink its stance on Trident
For proof, we need look no further than today’s headlines. Had Ukraine retained its nuclear arms, it is highly unlikely that Russia would have invaded its territory.
At some point in the next decade or so, China will almost certainly lay siege to Taiwan. If Taipei had the means to obliterate Beijing the chances of invasion would tumble to almost zero.
I don’t know whether Blackford has genuinely embraced the cause of multilateralism, or whether he sees it as a cover for holding onto nuclear weapons indefinitely, but if it is the latter he ought to do away with the pretence and be candid about it. For it is a message his party, and not just his party, urgently needs to hear.
Nuclear weapons are nothing more than a tool. What matters is who has them and how they use them. In the right hands, they can protect, deter and, where necessary, subdue an enemy with almighty force. In the wrong hands, they can be relied on to intimidate nations or eliminate large numbers of civilians.
The nuclear arms debate should not be about multilateral versus unilateral disarmament but concentrating possession of these weapons in the hands of states which contribute to a desirable global order (free, democratic, trading nations bound by the rule of law) and keeping them out of reach to states and other entities which threaten that order, such as Iran and terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
There are certain things nice Western liberals don’t like to admit, among them that strength works and that fear is a powerful motivator of our adversaries.
The answer to enemies with big sticks is not to try to convince everyone to give up sticks, because self-interest dictates that most won’t. The answer is to acquire a big stick of your own.
The First Minister disagrees. In a Holyrood debate last week, he remarked: ‘Despite all the possession of nuclear weapons today, Ukraine has been invaded… Nuclear weapons have not deterred Russia from invading Ukraine.’
If Swinney believes that, he is not a serious person, for if he were a serious person, he wouldn’t believe that.
The most fateful and foolhardy decision Ukraine has made since attaining independence was signing the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, by which Kyiv agreed to relinquish control over Soviet-era nuclear arms.
In return, it was promised protection from attack by the United States, United Kingdom — and Russia.
Ukraine put its faith in non-proliferation and the assurances of a since-vanished global order. Now it daily pays the most savage price for its idealism. That the first minister believes Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine can be divorced from Ukraine’s disarmament is not merely idealism but ideology — deadly, wishful ideology.
Swinney is a product of the 1960s and so perhaps all the peace, love and Joan Baez went to his head. Our times are far removed from those frivolous, self-indulgent days. This is and will continue to be a century of instability, regional conflict, terrorism and constant threats to national security. Not for us tie dyes, flower power and love-ins.
We need to protect ourselves and nuclear weapons are a vital tool in our arsenal. We should not turn to them with anything but horrified resignation, but nor should we be so sap-headed that we prefer to be intimidated or even invaded rather than possess the means to deter even the most fearsome foe.
This is a dark and dangerous era and we must be equal to the perils that confront us. The public understands this.
They do not wish to see their children or grandchildren marched off to war in years to come purely because nuclear arms made men like John Swinney feel queasy.
The SNP has never deserved to be taken seriously on defence and it never will until it sheds its irrational enmity towards weapons that would have saved Ukraine and might one day save our country.
