Sir, Should we be surprised when a field marshal and two generals (letter, Jan 16) express their preference for conventional warfare rather than nuclear deterrence?

My father described to me the carnage of the First World War, and explained that its horrors had not prevented 20 million lives being lost by conventional means in Europe after 1939. Fortunately, the nuclear possibility later dissuaded the Soviets from overrunning Europe with tanks.

In 1939, if Germany, Russia, France and Britain had had nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, war would have been avoided and the millions of lives would have been saved. Today it is impossible to have a world free from nuclear weapons; the design of atomic bombs cannot be uninvented, and belligerents can never be trusted not to produce them. A sensible policy would be to devise new premeditated deterrence systems.

Everybody, including terrorists, has targets that they would not countenance being destroyed, and what is needed is a sophisticated choice of responses and targets. Specific automatic responses, bypassing the uncertainties of “failure of human nerve”, could be developed, preferably with full public knowledge and international agreement.

I have no love of sabres; nuclear weapons will minimise casualties.

Peter Rice-Evans

Emeritus Professor of Physics

London NW1

Sir, The Government must not disregard the letter from such experienced and respected military figures. Their arguments are convincing. Not only has the Government been unable to specify a situation in which nuclear weapons might be used, but any argument that they are needed for ultimate security can be advanced with equal justification by any other nation, such as Iran and North Korea.

World opinion is becoming increasingly antipathetic to the possession of nuclear weapons and the use of force to settle international disputes. International respect can no longer be bought by a parade of nuclear weapons; economic strength and wise statesmanship are more likely to win a place at the top table. Only once, in all the Cabinet debates about nuclear weapons since the start of the Cold War, has the ethical question of their use been mentioned: in the post-Bush era it is likely to become more prominent.

The £20 billion allocated to Trident renewal may not be a large sum in terms of overall defence expenditure, but there has never been a time when financial considerations were more crucial, and reports on better civilian, as well as military, projects for which the money could be better spent appear regularly in the media. Moreover, in technical arguments presented to the Defence Select Committee at the time of the 2007 parliamentary debate on Trident renewal, acknowledged world experts convincingly demonstrated that the lifetime of the current system could — with further financial benefit — be extended. It was also acknowledged as a possibility by the Permanent Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence in recent evidence presented to the Public Accounts Committee. Were we to postpone a decision on renewal, we would not only save money, but also create a space in which to assess fundamentally how the UK can best respond to the threats of today’s world rather than of yesterday’s.

John Finney

Chair, British Pugwash Group

Robert A. Hinde

Deputy Chair, British Pugwash Group

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