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British Prime Minister Tony Blair has announced plans for Britain to retain its nuclear deterrent but promised to cut the number of nuclear warheads by 20 percent.
Outlining the government's proposals to parliament, Blair said it would be “unwise and dangerous” for Britain to unilaterally give up the US-built Trident missile system in an uncertain world.
Blair proposed building new submarines by the 2020s to deter nuclear threats, including from state-sponsored terrorists.
“The government's judgment is that, though the Cold War is over, we cannot be certain in the decades ahead that a major nuclear threat… will not emerge,” he told lawmakers in the lower House of Commons in a statement on Monday.
“In these circumstances it would be unwise and dangerous for Britain alone of any of the nuclear powers to give up its nuclear deterrent.”
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But he promised to cut the number of stockpiled warheads from under 200 to fewer than 160 as well as study whether it could offer a deterrent with just three new nuclear-powered submarines instead of the current four.
The new proposals would protect Britain into the 2040s, when Trident would have to be replaced, the government said in a policy paper, which will be debated in parliament early next year.
The government said a renewed deterrent force was needed amid a lack of certainty over whether the number of nuclear weapons states would continue to grow or whether rogue states would try to sponsor attacks by terrorists.
Blair said the overall cost of developing the new system would be spread over three decades and come to between 15 billion pounds and 20 billion pounds (22.2 billion-29.7 billion euros, 29.6 billion-39.5 billion dollars).
