Russia and Iran today rebuked Britain after it announced plans to increase its nuclear arsenal from 180 warheads to 260 by the end of the decade.
Moscow’s spokesman accused Britain of ‘harming international stability,’ while Tehran’s official slammed Boris Johnson’s ‘utter hypocrisy.’
Britain on Tuesday published a document outlining a ‘recalibration’ of its foreign policy that included the announcement to grow its nuclear arsenal, reversing a previous commitment to reduce its stockpile.
‘We are very sorry that the UK has chosen this path of increasing nuclear warheads. This decision harms international stability and strategic security,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The Kremlin today said it regretted the UK’s decision to increase its nuclear arsenal, after Britain unveiled plans to bolster its stockpile from 180 warheads to 260 by the end of the decade. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin
Missile firing from HMS Vigilant, which fired an unarmed Trident II (D5) ballistic missile. Boris Johnson raises the cap on Britain’s stockpile of Trident nuclear warheads
‘The presence of nuclear warheads is what threatens peace throughout the world,’ he added.
Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif tweeted: ‘In utter hypocrisy, @BorisJohnson is ‘concerned about Iran developing a viable nuclear weapon’. On the very same day he announces his country will increase its stockpile of nukes. Unlike the UK and allies, Iran believes nukes and all WMDs are barbaric & must be eradicated.
The UK’s move is at odds with a recent agreement between Moscow and Washington.
In January, Russia agreed with the United States to extend a key nuclear pact between the two countries that was the last remaining arms reduction agreement between the former Cold War rivals.
Moscow has also pushed for Washington and Tehran to return to the Iran nuclear deal.
Signed in 2015, the accord offered sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and guarantees it would not seek an atomic bomb.
Britain on Tuesday published a document outlining a recalibration of its foreign policy that included the announcement to grow its nuclear arsenal, reversing a previous commitment to reduce its stockpile. Pictured: UK PM Boris Johnson reveals document to parliament on Tuesday
However its signatories are scrambling to keep it alive after former US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from it in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran.
Britain’s foreign policy document also identified Russia as the ‘most acute direct threat to the UK,’ posing ‘the full spectrum’ of dangers.
Peskov on Wednesday said that the UK had cited ‘an ephemeral threat’ without ‘an explanation’.
‘This is not true,’ he added. ‘No threat comes from Russia.’
Moscow and London have seen their relations greatly deteriorate over the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the English town of Salisbury in 2018 with the Novichok nerve agent.
Russia’s relations with the West are at their lowest point since the Cold War, marred by allegations of election interference and sweeping cyberattacks.
MARK NICOL: I fear Boris Johnson’s ‘nuclear or bust’ policy may leave us less safe
By Mark Nicol for The Daily Mail
This is as dystopian a vision of the future as any British Prime Minister has offered the public since the Cold War. In Boris Johnson‘s dark new world of international relations, the 2020s will see the breaking down of rules-based world order, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and, more than likely, a successful chemical or nuclear attack by terrorists.
And that is before we get to the apocalyptic double whammy contained in the Government’s landmark review of defence, security and foreign policy – the shock pledge to increase Britain’s stockpile of nuclear weapons by 40 per cent followed by a broadening of the scenarios in which the UK would consider using these very expensive missiles.
The Government’s view is that in the decade ahead conventional threats and weapons will pass into obsolescence. This may explain why the British Army is to lose thousands of soldiers – perhaps as many as 10,000 – while the RAF and Navy will lose frontline aircraft and ships.
They will be replaced eventually by high-tech alternatives – drones, for example, instead of minehunters and submarine-hunting frigates – most of which come with a huge price tag for Armed Forces so indebted they could effectively be declared bankrupt.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves to give his Integrated Review statement in the Houses of Parliament from 10 Downing Street, Tuesday
Who needs infantry battalions when we’re prepared to increase the size of our nuclear armoury? That at least seems to the logic behind the PM’s ‘nuclear or bust’ approach.
My fear is that his dramatic move could make people less safe. Because the reduction in the scale and capability of the UK’s conventional military options may restrict our ability to intervene effectively in any international conflict. The review makes clear the past decade has seen an increase in conflict globally and the years 2016 and 2019 witnessed the highest number of active armed conflicts internationally since 1946.
The majority of these were civil wars – the sorts which call not for nuclear capability but back-to-basics soldiering in hot, dusty climates if the UK wants to bring any influence to bear on the ground. And while Boris says he wants to revolutionise warfare with investment in ‘artificial intelligence’ and ‘directed energy weapons’, the review concedes our enemies do not need to spend fortunes on shiny, computerised kit to be effective. It says: ‘The advantages offered by high-tech capabilities may be eroded by affordable, easily-available, low-tech threats such as drones and improvised explosive devices.’
Any UK soldier who served in Afghanistan could have reminded the Prime Minister that the British Army lost more than 100 lives and countless more wounded to basic Taliban roadside bombs.
As for the escalation in nuclear capability, nobody predicted such a dramatic shift of emphasis. The UK was one of the first signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in the 1960s and in recent years had abided by a capability ceiling of 180 warheads. Raising the total to 260 undoubtedly sends a strong message to US President Joe Biden that Britain remains committed to global security and perhaps strengthens the UK’s position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
But it also sends a clear signal to Russian leader Vladimir Putin that the era of disarmament in the West is over and could possibly trigger a new nuclear arms race.
Equally, Iran will now surely redouble its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons capability. One of the most dramatic proposals concerns the use of the new nuclear weapons. Previously the UK’s position was that it would only use them against another nuclear power. Now Britain reserves the right to review this position and engage non-nuclear states ‘if the future threat of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological capabilities or emerging technologies that could have a comparable impact, makes it necessary’.
These are not small bombs. While the UK’s nuclear arsenal will remain tiny compared to Russia and the US – with an estimated 4,300 and 3,800 warheads respectively – each bomb will be around seven times as powerful as the atomic device dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
And yet despite the bellicose content of the Government’s plans, there was widespread confusion and despair yesterday among defence-minded MPs over ministers’ hesitant approach to China and the failure to identify the country as a hostile state.
The description ‘systemic competitor’ smacked of not wishing to offend the Chinese and was in stark contrast to the rhetoric towards Russia, which is singled out as posing ‘the most acute threat to our security’.
Remarkably, there was scant mention of China’s vast and rapidly expanding naval and air forces, its unilateral territorial expansions or its occupation of island chains in international waters. The undeniable reality is that the strategic balance of global security and influence has shifted, if not entirely from Nato countries towards China, then much of the way there.
China’s influence is undoubtedly malevolent. Yet Britain’s defence review for 2020 to 2030 declines to declare China an enemy.
The PM’s claim yesterday that Britain had ‘led the international community’ in expressing concern over China’s human rights abuses had a deeply hollow ring.