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MALCOLM CHALMERS & WILLIAM WALKER

The United Kingdom, Nuclear Weapons, and the
Scottish Question

MALCOLM CHALMERS & WILLIAM WALKER1
Malcolm Chalmers is Professor of International Politics at the University of Bradford, England, and William Walker
is Professor of International Relations at the University of St
...
Long established and recognized as a nuclear weapon state (NWS) under the Treaty
on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), it
has a stable democracy, competent administrative system,
disciplined military forces, and a cooperative approach to
international security
...

Yet a consensus on nuclear policy has not been easily
sustained at home
...
In the 1980s, unilateral disarmament was even adopted as the official policy
of the Labour Party
...
The divisiveness of the period nevertheless helped to create a climate in which U
...
governments became more concerned than ever to show that
the U
...
nuclear force was only a minimum deterrent,
and that the United Kingdom was committed to an international nuclear order built around the pursuit of arms
control and eventual multilateral disarmament
...
K
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Short of the emergence of a major new external threat,
an apparently durable consensus in the U
...
government
and Parliament therefore exists today around a low-key
minimum force posture combined with support for arms
control
...
S
...

Despite U
...
nuclear policy attaining this stability, a new
challenge is emerging from an unexpected source: the process of constitutional change initiated in the late 1990s
leading, in particular, to the establishment of a new legislature and executive in Scotland
...

Why does the establishment of the Scottish Parliament
and Executive have implications for the U
...
nuclear de-

1

MALCOLM CHALMERS & WILLIAM WALKER
terrent? The main reason is that the U
...
nuclear force
has been entirely located in Scotland since 1998, when
free-fall nuclear bombs previously deployed by the Royal
Air Force were scrapped
...
K
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Operation of Trident will henceforth require extensive cooperation between public bodies in England and
Scotland, some of which will answer to the Scottish Parliament and Executive, despite the U
...
government retaining sole responsibility for nuclear weapon policy and
for controlling the deterrent
...
If the SNP becomes the
largest party in the Scottish Parliament after a future election, it has also pledged to call a referendum on Scottish
independence
...
2 Three particular questions will be addressed here
...
K
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We do not wish to suggest that some imminent crisis is
about to befall U
...
nuclear policy
...
It would not be an event having anything
like the repercussions of the collapse of the Soviet Union
for international nuclear relations
...
K
...
Its future now
depends on developments in Scotland and on its relations
with the rest of the United Kingdom as much as on mili-

2

tary and economic calculations
...

THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF THE
UNITED KINGDOM
The United Kingdom is an unusual state
...
It has sometimes been
referred to as a union state, a coming together of three
disparate kingdoms (England, Scotland and Wales) and
an Irish province under a single political authority in London
...

The current political shape of the United Kingdom developed over many centuries
...
The
union gained strength from great economic dynamism in
Britain and imperial expansion in the 18th and 19th centuries
...

Prime Minister Gladstone’s vision of a federal Great Britain was finally abandoned after civil war resulted in
Ireland’s division into the Irish Free State and Ulster in
1921, the latter remaining part of the United Kingdom as
Northern Ireland
...
4 A Scottish Secretary was appointed in the
late 19th century to represent Scottish interests in the U
...

cabinet in London; the administration of health, education, and other social services were transferred to
Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, in the 1930s; and a
rapid growth in votes for the independence-supporting
SNP in the 1960s and 1970s led to a referendum in 1978
on the re-establishment of a Scottish Parliament with devolved powers
...
But widespread unease
at rule from London led to the convening in Edinburgh in
1989 of a cross-party Constitutional Convention which

The Nonproliferation Review/Spring 2002

MALCOLM CHALMERS & WILLIAM WALKER
went on to develop a framework that would give Scotland greater autonomy within the United Kingdom
...
K
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The Labour
Party’s victory was followed by a second Scottish referendum in September 1997, which this time gave decisive
support to devolution
...
In parallel, Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies were established in Cardiff and
Belfast, albeit with lesser powers
...
The U
...
Parliament (also known
as the Westminster Parliament) has retained its constitutional supremacy and the principal tax-raising powers, but
responsibility for legislating on a wide range of policy issues in Scotland (such as education, legal reform and social policy) has now passed from its hands
...
K
...
5 Furthermore, members of the U
...
Parliament in Westminster
are elected through a “first past the post” or majoritarian
system, whereas proportional representation has now been
adopted in Scotland, leading to the unfamiliar practice of
coalition government north of the border
...
And the judiciary is the supreme arbiter in the new
Scottish polity, whereas parliament remains supreme in
the United Kingdom
...
Will devolution end
up preserving or destroying the union? No one can tell
...
Others are
less sanguine
...
K
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At present, the Labour Party
holds a majority in both Parliaments, ensuring some consistency of approach north and south of the border
...
K
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THE U
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NUCLEAR FORCE AND ITS HISTORY
The major decisions regarding the U
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nuclear deterrent were taken before devolution happened
...

The Capabilities at Faslane and Coulport
Located on Gareloch on the Firth of Clyde, some 25
miles from Glasgow, HM Naval Base Clyde at Faslane is
home to four Trident ballistic missile submarines
...
In addition, Faslane is the
main operating base for five Swiftsure-class nuclear-powered attack submarines and seven mine counter-measure
vessels
...
In total, the Clyde naval base houses
several thousand personnel, including large contingents of
Ministry of Defence Police and Guard Service and part
of the Fleet Royal Marine Protection Group
...
Situated on
Loch Long, Coulport is 5 miles from Faslane by road and
13 miles by sea
...
Coulport contains secure facilities for warhead maintenance and storage, and for the storage and
loading of conventional torpedoes, as well as a capability
for removal and storage of Trident D5 missiles for minor
repair and emergency work
...
K
...
S
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Trident boats now begin their
ten-year operational cycle by picking up missiles at King’s
Bay before sailing to Coulport to be armed with warheads
...
Refits and refueling of the submarines
(emptied of their missiles and warheads) will be carried
out at Devonport in England
...

Why Was Scotland Chosen in the First Place?
How did Trident come to be based in Scotland? The
story begins around 1960 with the U
...
search for operating bases from which the new Polaris submarinelaunched missiles could reach Soviet targets
...
Holy Loch
best satisfied the U
...
requirement for “a sheltered anchorage with access to deep water and situated near a
transatlantic airfield and a center of population in which
the American service personnel and their families could
be absorbed
...

When its attempt to develop an indigenous ballistic missile (Blue Streak) was abandoned in 1960, the government turned to the United States for an alternative means
of overcoming Soviet air defenses: the Skybolt air-launched
ballistic missile
...
9
A working party was established in February 1963 to
review possible basing options
...
In order to meet safety requirements, the armament storage
and maintenance facility (in the RNAD) would have to
be separated by at least 4,400 feet from the other elements, with its own berthing arrangements
...

Many sites were quickly dismissed because they lacked
deep water or other essential operating requirements
...
The final choice was between two
sites in Scotland: Rosyth near Edinburgh on the east coast,
and Faslane at Gareloch on the Clyde
...

Once the basing decision was confirmed in March 1963,
construction proceeded rapidly, with all essential facilities
available in time for the first Polaris boat to begin patrol
in June 1968
...

In July 1980, the U
...
government announced its intention to replace Polaris with the Trident C4 missile system, subsequently switching to the more capable, and
larger, Trident D5 so as to maintain commonality with the
United States
...
Despite the controversy over
devolution in the late 1970s, the possibility of future Scottish independence does not appear to have been mentioned
in discussions of alternative locations
...
K
...

Could Trident be Relocated?
A common initial response to the dilemmas revealed
by our studies has been—so what? In the event that the
basing of Trident in Scotland creates difficulties for the
operation of the U
...
nuclear deterrent, why not simply
move Trident elsewhere? The answer is that Trident could
only be relocated with the greatest difficulty
...
K
...

Many of the criteria used would be substantially unchanged
since that time
...

Perhaps the most plausible sites in England and Wales
would be Devonport (on the south-west coast of England)
and Milford Haven (on the coast of Wales)
...
It has logistic advantages
(shorter lines of supply to Aldermaston and to naval stores)
and is under MoD ownership
...
The location of all U
...
nuclear submarines,
together with related refit work, at a single location would
bring savings compared with building an entirely new base
...
12 The location of the RNAD could be an even more
serious obstacle
...
Safety
distances have increased subsequently, both because of
the greater explosive power of Trident missile propellant
and increased public sensitivity to risk
...
It has a deep water harbor, good
access to the Atlantic Ocean and is remote from large
population centers
...
13
However, relocation to Wales would raise many of the
same political difficulties as Scotland, particularly if the
success of Scottish nationalism were accompanied by
parallel developments in Wales
...
Even in the event
of Scottish independence, a London government committed to maintaining its nuclear force would first want to do
whatever it could to avoid having to contend with all the
difficulties that relocation would involve
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TRIDENT AND DEVOLUTION
The Scotland Act of 1998
The redistribution of powers between U
...
and Scottish political institutions that followed devolution was
elaborated in the Scotland Act, which the U
...
Parliament
passed into law in 1998
...
K
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The Nonproliferation Review/Spring 2002

The act unequivocally reserves defense and foreign
policy to London
...
K
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The Scotland Act reinforces this monopoly by its grant to the U
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government of rights to prohibit a bill passed in the Scottish Parliament from gaining Royal Assent (and thus becoming law) if it “has reasonable grounds to believe [that
it] would be incompatible with any international obligations or the interests of defence or national security
...
K
...
17
When the Scotland Act was being drafted, the MoD
did its best to clad it in a suit of armor to prevent any
Scottish intervention in nuclear policy
...
The devolution settlement of 1998 undoubtedly complicates the implementation of nuclear
weapons policy by the U
...
government
...
Examples
of the former are land-use planning, policing, and environmental protection
...
Thus the
implementation of nuclear weapons policy requires a close
and continuous cooperation between political and administrative bodies north and south of the border
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MALCOLM CHALMERS & WILLIAM WALKER
The Defense Concordat
An agreed “Concordat between the Scottish Ministers
and the Secretary of State for Defence” is the mechanism through which these objectives are being sought
...
Twentyeight fields of reserved activity are identified in an annex
to the concordat, including the “installation, operation and
decommissioning of any nuclear installation or device for
the purposes of the armed forces of the Crown
...
” Its five pages are subdivided into
“matters affecting defence activities,” “organizations and
personnel,” “information,” and “ownership of land and
property
...

The reality is that the U
...
nuclear force cannot now
be operated without the full co-operation of Scottish political and administrative bodies
...
The enhancement of protective measures will inevitably involve Scottish local authorities, police and other public bodies
...
K
...
On
paper and in law there is a division of labor between them,
with the Scottish Parliament only legislating on devolved
matters such as education and social welfare
...
S
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But it is not so simple: the U
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political system is not
federal, and Scotland has an identity as a nation, and a

6

historical memory of sovereignty and international standing that it enjoyed over many centuries
...
This shift
has happened despite much criticism in the Scottish press
of the performance of the Scottish Parliament in these
early years
...

For reserved matters, the difficulty is therefore that responsibility for policy formulation and for legislation resides entirely in London, but that the Scottish people
increasingly regard Edinburgh as their center of governance
...
This presence ensures Scottish
influence over and involvement in policy formulation, but
it does not alleviate the perception that the Scottish Parliament now has equal or superior rights and responsibilities to protect Scottish well-being and interests across the
board
...

Nevertheless, it needs emphasizing that the growing
political and institutional divergence of Scotland and England has at no time been evident in the armed forces
...
Indeed,
the armed forces remain one of the strongest sources of
political unity in the United Kingdom, even if this does
not discourage significant numbers of their members from
voting for the SNP
...

As a result, the reservation of foreign and security policy
to the government in London has been one of the least
contested elements in the Scotland Act, and the U
...

government’s conduct of that policy has been largely
uncontroversial north of the border
...
The opposition of the SNP to the stationing of nuclear weapons in Scotland has been unremitting,
there are anti-nuclear voices within the Labour-Liberal

The Nonproliferation Review/Spring 2002

MALCOLM CHALMERS & WILLIAM WALKER
coalition that holds power in Scotland, and there is a strong
protest movement which constantly makes its presence
felt around Faslane
...
Hitherto, it
has not exercised that right in the nuclear field, mainly
because the Labour Party in Scotland has not wished to
create difficulties with its parent party in London by intruding on such sensitive political territory
...

We have already alluded to the first circumstance
above—the prospect that different political parties will gain
ascendancy in the two parliaments, especially if the party
in Scotland were the SNP (possibly gaining sufficient MSPs
to lead a coalition but insufficient to justify calling a referendum on independence)
...
K
...

It has stated for instance that it would not feel bound by
the concordats, which have no legal status
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Secondly, the occurrence of a serious accident involving nuclear material at or near Faslane or Coulport would
bring intense pressure to bear on the Scottish Parliament
and politicians, of whichever party allegiance, to subject
the issue of basing Trident in Scotland to public debate
...

Such problems are especially severe when local officials
feel unable to guarantee their citizens protection from harm,
and if they believe that they have been denied accurate
information on the risks to which people are being subjected
...
The Royal Navy and MoD are therefore coming
to understand that Scottish tolerance of Faslane and
Coulport is now contingent upon the very highest levels

The Nonproliferation Review/Spring 2002

of safety and protection of Trident and its associated facilities
...
K
...
” Should the United Kingdom again be seriously threatened with military attack,
turning Trident into an active rather than a largely dormant military capability, its presence in Scotland would
probably become much more highly politicized
...
Postdevolution, a revived movement could have even greater
potency in Scotland, and would probably attract adherents from all the main parties in parliament (with the likely
exception of the Conservatives)
...
Such a shift could
happen, for instance, if the proposals now current in the
United States to deploy ground-penetrating nuclear weapons for tactical purposes were seen to be increasing the
possibility of their actually being used in practice (an unlikely prospect at the moment, but it cannot be ruled out
in the future)
...

Fourthly, there is the issue of replacing Trident
...
Grant it a 30-year operational lifetime and the MoD would have to begin detailed studies
of replacement options around 2010
...
Whether 30 years is the likely lifetime for Trident is open to question
...
23 Others claim that no system of this complexity
can be expected to meet exacting standards of performance
and reliability over such a long period
...
S
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MALCOLM CHALMERS & WILLIAM WALKER
The Scotland Act places no obligation on the U
...
Government to involve or consult with Scottish ministers or
the Scottish Parliament when considering the replacement
of Trident
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Too much has changed for the closed and centralized procedures followed in the 1970s to be repeated without substantial political fallout
...
Such an approach would not be easily
agreed
...
K
...

If that outcome could not be secured, the legitimacy in
Scotland of the replacement system would be thrown into
doubt
...
K
...
Come what may,
the “Scottish question” is therefore likely to be a significant factor when the replacement issue is addressed
...
If and when
a replacement decision becomes inescapable, moreoveer,
it may enoucrage the investigation of more radical options
than would have been contemplated in the absence of a
“Scottish question
...

Given the difficulties invovled in finding an alternative
site in the rest of the United Kingdom for a submarinebased system—and the political impossibility of contemplating such an alternative while Sctoland remains in the
United Kingdom—the MoD may seek to explore the
replacment of Trident by other delivery systems (such as
air-launched missiles), which could be located, albeit still
with difficulty and at lower levels of alert and survivability, in England
...
It therefore still seems
probable that a replacement for Trident, if there is one,
will be submarine system based at Faslane
...
In the near-term it is unlikely
...
K
...
That possibility has even been acknowledged by
political leaders, including Margaret Thatcher and Tony
Blair who have stated that the U
...
Government would
respect a Scottish decision to become independent, provided that it were freely arrived at through democratic
processes
...

The Soviet Union already provides a precedent for the
breakup of a nuclear weapon state
...
There are two fundamental differences
...
K
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The implication is that the disarmament of Scotland entailing the removal of Trident and its warheads from
Scottish territory (akin to what happened in Ukraine,
Kazakhstan, and Belarus) would be tantamount to disarmament by the United Kingdom if Trident could not be
relocated
...

The second difference is that Scotland has a developed
capitalist economy with substantial natural and human
resources, and well-established administrative, legal and
educational systems
...
There would therefore be nothing approaching the
wrenching social, political and economic changes that had
to take place in Ukraine, Russia and other parts of the
former Soviet Union, and the challenge of building a new
state would be much less formidable
...
In addition, the U
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nuclear force and its associated infrastructure are much
smaller than their Soviet counterparts
...
Before considering this issue, it is necessary to
examine how the NPT would bear upon the fragmentation of the United Kingdom
...
There is no reason to doubt
this intention, nor that it would be put into effect by whichever parties were to form a post-independence Scottish
government
...
Furthermore, it would have no means of manufacturing warheads
(all relevant facilities are in England), and the seizure and
operation of Trident would be impossible to organize
...
K
...
As a result,
we cannot imagine Scotland following the example of
Ukraine and using the threat of appropriation to gain concessions from its neighbor and other states
...
Implementing that pledge would not be problematic
...
The two exceptions are the Chapelcross
reactors, which are being used for tritium production, and
the Vulcan submarine reactor test facility at Dounreay
...
The
Vulcan facility creates greater complications, which we
have addressed elsewhere, largely because it serves a nonexplosive military purpose whose exclusion from safeguards is permissible in principle but frowned upon in
practice
...

The more interesting question concerns the status of
the rest of the United Kingdom (rU
...
) under the NPT
...
K
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Russian succession to the
equivalent status of the Soviet Union was essentially a
political decision taken by the United States and other

The Nonproliferation Review/Spring 2002

states for pragmatic reasons during the upheavals of December 1991
...
K
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It could be more controversial for two reasons
...
26 In political practice, the
acts of succeeding to the Soviet positions in the UNSC
and NPT were linked
...
K
...
K
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Depending on the circumstances in
which the breakup of the United Kingdom occurred, its
succession rights might be contested by other contenders
to permanent membership and by any who might see an
opportunity to push for UN reform
...
K
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Although not necessarily a dangerous precedent, it would
certainly cause discomfort
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Trident after Scottish Independence
Assuming Scotland pursued its aim of becoming an
NNWS Party to the NPT and rU
...
succeeded to the
position of the United Kingdom under the treaty, what
might be the fate of the U
...
nuclear deterrent after Scotland had asserted independence? A central conclusion of
this study is that the government in Edinburgh could not
impose nuclear disarmament on the government in London
...

Both would be driven to find a mutually acceptable solution
...
A Scottish government would desperately need
to achieve two objectives in the immediate aftermath of a
declaration of independence
...
K
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Without that settlement, there could be little hope of macroeconomic stability and economic development
...

The rights of an independent Scotland to EU membership have already been the subject of much political and
academic debate
...
One
is that Scotland would have the same rights of entry to
the EU as rU
...
, since both would be successor states of
the United Kingdom
...
A departure by Scotland from
the union would dissolve the state that is the United Kingdom, giving each emerging state equal rights to succession under international law
...
Furthermore, Scotland is already subject to European Law
and fully satisfies the “Copenhagen Criteria” by which the
fitness of states in Central and Eastern Europe to join the
EU is currently being assessed
...
That being the case, Scotland would have to begin from a “clean
slate” when applying for membership of international organizations
...
Existing members would also favor this interpretation, the argument goes,
out of concern that other regions might follow Scotland’s
example and bid for independence if they knew that EU
membership would be open to them
...
They
all have strong reasons for upholding the unity of fellow
member states
...
There is no precedent for a region
of an EU member state bidding for membership after a
declaration of independence, and the Treaty of Rome does
not anticipate this possibility
...
We
share Robert Lane’s opinion:
Independence in Europe for Scotland (and
for England) can be brought about only if action at the national level proceeds concurrently
with action at the [EU] level, thus producing,
at the end of the day, an agreed result which
necessarily includes the concurrence of the
Community institutions and all member states
...
28 (emphasis added)
It follows that EU member states would be inclined to
accept Scotland’s application for membership, but their
acceptance would be contingent inter alia upon Scotland
and rU
...
reaching a settlement governing their future
social, economic and military relations in whose durability there could be confidence
...
The one
outcome they could not tolerate would be a fragmented
United Kingdom, whose emergent states were at loggerheads with one another on vital issues and probably unstable as a result
...
K
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The Scottish government would therefore be faced with a choice (assuming rU
...
wished to
maintain the nuclear deterrent): accede to the basing of
Trident in the Clyde, albeit for a fixed period of time that
might be negotiated (see below); or, in all probability, sacrifice its early membership of the EU
...
The irony
is that, far from being the liability that it is painted to be,
Trident could provide the Scottish nationalists with their
most reliable entry ticket to the EU and other organizations
...
We noted in
the earlier discussion of devolution that the cooperation
of numerous public bodies in Scotland was already required to maintain the nuclear deterrent
...
For one
thing, a high proportion of the naval personnel on Royal
Navy submarines (and almost all the civilian personnel at
the base) would probably hold Scottish citizenship
...

Given this inevitable interdependence, it would be difficult to envisage continued basing of Trident (and maintenance of other key military facilities, such as the naval
gunnery test site at Cape Wrath) in an independent Scotland unless the two states were committed to a deep level
of defense cooperation
...

It might even require that some identifiably “Scottish”
military capabilities remained part of the U
...
armed forces
even after independence
...
Politically, it could be a
step too far for the SNP
...

There is also a precedent in British politics for a u-turn on
nuclear weapon policy—the Labour Party’s pragmatic
abandonment of unilateral disarmament when it faced up
to the electoral damage inflicted by this policy in the 1983
and 1987 general elections
...
In its 1997 election manifesto, for instance, that
statement “the SNP have a long-standing objection to
nuclear weapons,” was followed by a pledge that “we will
negotiate a phased but complete withdrawal of Trident
from the Clyde” (author’s emphasis)
...


The Nonproliferation Review/Spring 2002

However, basing Trident in an independent Scotland
could also be regarded with trepidation south of the border
...
Both sides would need guarantees for the
situation to be at all palatable
...
It would entail firstly an expression of
political understanding between Scotland and rU
...
, possibly entailing a joint statement of the fundamental principles and norms that would guide relations between the
two states in security and other fields
...
K
...
K
...
Such a
Treaty might cover:
• a joint commitment to the NPT, CTBT and other international treaty goals and undertakings;
• provision by rU
...
of positive and negative security
guarantees to Scotland (they would be automatic if both
were NATO members);
• commitment that Trident missiles would not be fired
within Scottish territorial waters without Scottish consent (a concession previously granted by the United
States to the United Kingdom when U
...
ballistic missile submarines were based in Scotland);
• principles governing the use of approach waters to
the nuclear bases and the transport of nuclear warheads
to and from the bases;
• procedures for consultation between the Scottish and
rU
...
governments on all matters other than the detailed operation of, and command and control over, the
nuclear deterrent;
• principles governing the cooperation between Scottish and rU
...

Thirdly, the commitment to cooperate would entail a
military base agreement identifying the bases and their
facilities and setting out the rights, duties, privileges, and

11

MALCOLM CHALMERS & WILLIAM WALKER
powers of the respective parties in and around them
...
We reject as impractical and
politically unacceptable the option of creating a sovereign
base area under rU
...
jurisdiction encompassing Coulport
and Faslane and their approaches
...
Leasing is now the
standard international practice
...
A
possible compromise (which would help to assuage elements of the anti-nuclear lobby in the SNP) would be to
agree to a fixed term lease followed by an open-ended
review leading to either extension or phase-out
...
K
...
The London government might therefore insist
on a time period (perhaps 15-20 years) that did not immediately plunge it into all the uncertainties involved in
relocation
...
But they could at least take comfort from the acceptance that the basing could only be
extended with the consent of the Scottish government
...
The possibility
that it will choose to abandon its nuclear arms cannot be
ruled out
...

Indeed, the Strategic Defence Review of 1998 by the
Labour government can be seen as a deliberate attempt
to furnish U
...
defense policy with two doors—one leading
still to deterrence, the other opening to disarmament
...
Nevertheless, its commitment to nuclear deterrence has probably been strengthened by the events of September 11, 2001, and the lack

12

of progress in curbing nuclear proliferation in South Asia
and the Middle East, among other recent developments
...
K
...
Who would pay,
where would the decommissioning take place, what would
happen to the materials and wastes—these would be the
principal questions
...

But these are questions beyond the scope of this article
...
K
...
The United Kingdom has an especially important role within NATO and a
close relationship with the United States, partly due to its
nuclear history
...
K
...
S
...
K
...
S
...
K
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Any disturbance of Trident basing in
Scotland would therefore have implications for both NATO
and the United States
...

This stance has been changing: SNP leaders have been
trying to edge it towards acceptance of NATO membership on the Norwegian model
...
How a Scottish government could persuade NATO
to extend an invitation to join its ranks when the same
government was simultaneously bent on evicting a NATO
nuclear deterrent force is a question to which the SNP
currently appears to have no answer
...
S
...
Although the U
...
nuclear deterrent may have lost
some of its significance in U
...
eyes since the end of the
Cold War, it would probably look askance at any Scottish
move to upset the longstanding transatlantic nuclear relationship and to force the United Kingdom to disarm against
its will
...
S
...
K
...

CONCLUSION: DEVOLVING, FRAGMENTING
AND COLLAPSING STATES
Let us be clear: we are not arguing that the U
...
nuclear
deterrent is in crisis
...
K
...
”
Our purpose has been to draw attention to a set of problems that will require careful management, to point out
complexities that political parties and administrations tend
to overlook, and to provide some prior appreciation of
what would be entailed if this nuclear weapon state did
break apart
...
It would not be an event
having anything approaching the repercussions of the collapse of the Soviet Union
...
Besides the
former Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, the unity,
authority and reliability of the Pakistani state have recently
been in the spotlight, and questions will continue to be
asked about the future stability of the Indian and Chinese
states, in both of which there are centrifugal forces at play
...

The nuclear-armed powers in which there currently appears to be no risk of internal upheaval or fragmentation
(France and the United States) are in a minority, not a
majority
...

We concluded our recent book on this issue with a postscript drawing some broad lessons from the examples of
the former Soviet Union and the United Kingdom and from
imagined circumstances in other states
...


The Nonproliferation Review/Spring 2002

• The term “break-up” is usually used to describe the
fate of the Soviet Union
...
One is devolution, when regions of a state gain
greater constitutional autonomy without depriving the
political center of its monopoly of defense and foreign
policy
...
A third is
state collapse, when the institutions and processes that
brought and held a state and society together no longer
function effectively
...

Obviously, the greatest dangers attend some combination of state fragmentation and collapse
...

• Each devolution, fragmentation, and/or collapse of a
nuclear-armed state will be sui generis and will need
to be dealt with in its own special way
...
K
...
In addition, the nuclear force cannot be easily redeployed to
the part of the country (England) that would have the
greatest desire to inherit NWS status
...

• The physical scale, nature, quality, and distribution
of nuclear assets matter
...
K
...
Furthermore, U
...
nuclear infrastructure is in comparatively
good repair
...
This
conjunction of the locations of political power and technological capability strongly influences the choice of
successor state among other things
...


13

MALCOLM CHALMERS & WILLIAM WALKER

• The “maturity” of political and economic institutions
within fragmenting states matters
...
There
would probably be more social and institutional continuity than discontinuity if the United Kingdom did fall
apart
...

• The framework of international law has great importance in providing clarity and predictability in these circumstances, as well as a starting point for framing
international responses
...
The NPT is therefore important to the
management of dramatic change within state structures
in addition to the management of relations between
states
...

In retrospect, the presence of nuclear weapons may have
helped rather than hindered the establishment of stable
relations among the new states
...
The same would
probably apply in our case: Scotland and rU
...
would
be forced to settle their differences and immediately to
place their relations in a cooperative framework
...
Furthermore, the Soviet example shows that
short-term gains in state-building and inter-state relations can be offset by long-lasting risks if the new states
lack the will or capacity to manage their technological
or material inheritances in the interest of global nonproliferation
...
It should also
encourage wider questioning of the robustness of the
policies and practices of such states were their internal
cohesion to diminish
...

The order in which the authors’ names are cited here implies no seniority in the
article’s preparation
...

3
Among the huge literature on the political evolution of the United Kingdom,
good recent accounts are provided by Norman Davies, The Isles: A History
(London: Macmillan, 1999) and Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation,
1707-1837 (Vintage Press: London, 1992)
...

5
As many have pointed out, the lack of an English Parliament may increasingly lead to a perception that English interests, and English regional interests, are being under-represented just as Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish
interests are being over-represented at the U
...
level
...

6
Elections to the Scottish Parliament are held every four years (129 MSPs, or
Members of the Scottish Parliament, are returned) at a fixed time
...
The General Elections to the Westminster Parliament have to occur within five years of
each other, but the Prime Minister can choose to ‘go to the country’ at any
time within that five-year period
...
8 percent of the popular vote giving it 55 out of 129 seats (or 43 percent
of the total)
...
In the 2001 first-past-the-post
election to the U
...
Parliament in Westminster, by contrast, Labour won 40
...

7
See Tom Nairn, After Britain: New Labour and the Return of Scotland
(London: Granta, 2000) and Alan Taylor, ed
...
Andrew Marr,
now the BBC’s Chief Political Commentator, concluded a recent book by expressing his “profound belief in the likelihood of the British Union dissolving
within a decade
...
245
...

This decision was not without controversy, and was initially strongly opposed by then U
...
Prime Minister Harold Macmilan
...
12-17
...
K
...

10
For further discussion of the Polaris programme, see John Simpson, “Lessons of the British Polaris Project: An Organisational History,” Royal United
Services Institute Journal (March 1969), pp
...

11
Another possibility would be Falmouth in Cornwall
...
As a last
resort, the option of permanently basing the U
...
deterrent in the United
States or France might be considered, and might even appear attractive on
cost grounds
...

12
The scope for relocating the nine Faslance-based submarines would be
constrained by restrictions (imposed for reasons of safety) on the minimum
distances that are allowed between Trident and other ships, as well as limits
on the weapons movements of other ships when stationed near ballistic missile submarines
...

13
The proximity of medium-size towns (Milford Haven and Pembroke) could
provide a source for civilian personnel, as well as providing possible locations
for housing naval personnel
...
In remains the case that refineries (now operated by Texaco and TotalFinaElf) would have to closer if a new submarine base
were to be located here
...

The U
...
government insisted that the term “government” should not be used
to describe this administrative capability
...
Although lacking sovereignty, the Scottish Executive has many of the attributes of a government in a parliamentary democracy including ministers appointed to identified
departments
...

16
These powers are defined in Section 35 of the Scotland Act
...
K
...

17
Scotland Act 1998, Schedule 5, Sections H2, D4 and E5
...
scotland
...
uk/concordats
...
The Sheriff
dismissed the charges on the unusual grounds that, as nuclear weapons had

The Nonproliferation Review/Spring 2002

been pronounced illegal by the International Court of Justice in its 1996 Advisory Opinion, the defendants were not committing a crime when taking actions against in illegal activity
...

20
The SNP is well aware of the failure of the independence movement in
Quebec to win referenda despite its success in parliamentary elections
...
K
...
On ground-penetrating nuclear weapons, see Martin
Butcher, “New Nuclear Weapons and the War on Terrorism,” Physicians for
Social Responsibility, Washington, DC, November 2001
...

23
It is also claimed that the Trident submarines are submitted to less physical
stress and strain than their Polaris predecessors in the post-Cold War operational environment
...
136-137 and 188-189
...
However, a distinction has been
made here, in the interest of clarity, between today’s United Kingdom and the
reduced state that would succeed it
...
K
...
Its usage is becoming widespread in literature about Scottish independence
...
354-361, and
Edwin Williamson and John Osborn, “A US Perspective on Treaty Succession
and Related Issues in the Wake of the Breakup of the USSR and Yugoslavia,”
Virginia Journal of International Law 33 (1993), pp
...

27
See, for instance, Scottish Centre for Economic and Social Research (SCESR),
Scotland’s Government—the Transition to Independence (Peterhead: SCESR,
1996); Matthew Happold, Scotland Europa: Independence in Europe?, Centre for European Reform Working Paper, April 1999; David Sinclair, Issues
around ScottishIindependence, The Constitution Unit, University College
London, September 1999; Neil MacCormick, “Is there a constitutional path to
Scottish independence?” Parliamentary Affairs 53 (2000), pp
...

Schieren, “Independence in Europe: Scotland’s Choice?” Scottish Affairs 31
(Spring 2000), pp
...
Finnie, C
...
Walker (eds
...
154155
...
Many Irish citizens have served with
distinction in the U
...
armed forces (and, at times, on Royal Navy submarines)
...

30
In keeping with its longstanding martial traditions, Scotland is disproportionately represented in the U
...
Army, with 6 of its 40 regiments being identifiably Scottish, recruiting mainly from Scotland
...


15



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