Royal Navy security personnel guard the Trident submarine HMS Vigilant in Scotland.
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LONDON – The UK has changed its defense policy which may allow it to use nuclear weapons in response to “emerging technologies”.
The country’s 111-page Integrated Defense Magazine, published on Tuesday, included a subtle line about when the UK “reserves the right” to use nuclear weapons.
He says the UK could use nuclear weapons if other countries use “weapons of mass destruction” against him. These weapons include “emerging technologies that could have a comparable impact” to chemical, biological, or other nuclear weapons.
Some British newspapers report that “emerging technologies” include cyber attacks, citing defense experts, but the report does not say so explicitly. The UK government did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
Tom Plant, director of the thought group at the Royal United Services Institute, told CNBC, “I wouldn’t interpret that to include cyberattacks in isolation, no.”
He added that “the understanding of what constitutes an emerging technology in government is not evenly distributed: cybernetics is definitely not ’emerging’, but has emerged quite substantially.”
Either way, Plant believes the language change is significant.
“I think it’s a marker that there is potential in the future for combining combinations of technologies and behaviors that create emerging risks, that might not arise through the development of an isolated technology, that are incredibly difficult to predict and that there are at least the possibility that one or more of these as-yet-unknown emerging challenges may rival ADM in the threat they pose, ”he said.
Trident tactics
The UK nuclear program, known as Trident, was established in 1980 and now costs the UK about 2 billion pounds ($ 2.8 billion) a year.
The Integrated Defense Review confirmed that the UK allows a self-imposed limit on its nuclear weapons reserve to 260, abandoning the previous limit of 225 warheads and the current reduction target of 180 by the mid-2020s. .
“This reverses the course of consistent nuclear reductions after the UK Cold War and goes against previous assurances that the program to replace the existing UK nuclear deterrent would not add to the number of nuclear warheads in service,” he said. wrote Plant in a blog post.
He added that the changes are presented as a reaction to a changed international security environment.
“The government paints a picture of a world with growing international competition and growing threats from Russia, China, North Korea and Iran,” Plant said. “In his view, opponents of the UK are increasing the variety and quantity of their nuclear capabilities and see nuclear weapons as a means of coercion, deterrence and even the fight against war.”
While the UK appears to be expanding the scenarios in which it could use nuclear weapons in a feasible way, US President Joe Biden said in his election campaign that the “sole purpose” of nuclear weapons should be deter or retaliate against another nuclear attack.
Indo-peaceful inclination
The Integrated Defense Magazine also outlined a new “inclination” toward the Indo-Pacific region.
“In 2030 we will be deeply committed to the Indo-Pacific as a European partner with the broadest and most integrated presence in support of mutually beneficial trade, security and shared values,” the document says.
He says the UK will push the Indo-Pacific region in part in response to “geopolitical and geoeconomic changes”, including China’s global “power and assertiveness”, as well as the region’s growing importance for the ” prosperity and global security “.
The report refers to partnerships with countries such as India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.