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The writer is an FT contributing editor
There are questions about Britain’s national security that go unasked even in secret corners of Whitehall. The answers might be too painful. Donald Trump’s contempt for European allies throws up just such a query. As far as I can tell, no one has dared ask it, so here goes. What would the government do if a US president decided to turn off its Trident nuclear missiles?
The more you have to lose, the greater the temptation to avoid admitting that things could go badly awry. Human nature collides here with cold logic. The more serious the potential shock, the more important it is to think the unthinkable.
This is the position that Sir Keir Starmer’s government finds itself left in by the Trump administration’s bid to strike a bilateral Ukrainian peace deal with Vladimir Putin. This would see Russia exonerated, with Ukraine obliged to give up territory and denied a Nato security guarantee. Washington’s European allies would be consigned to the sidelines during this might-is-right redesign of the continent’s security architecture.
Trump’s message — a fundamental repudiation of Nato and the American security guarantee that has sustained the peace on the continent since 1945 — is painful for all Europeans, not least for the formerly communist states sitting opposite a revanchist Russia. Britain’s unique vulnerability lies in more than half a century of unquestioned Atlanticism — a dependency thrown into the starkest possible relief by its self-destructive departure from the EU.
Ever since the Suez debacle sounded the last trumpet of empire, Britain’s security has rested squarely on a “special relationship” with Washington. The armed forces are configured to fight wars alongside the Americans, and the two nations’ intelligence services are intertwined. It remains a nuclear power only because the US supplies Trident missiles to carry the atomic warheads. When ministers talk about a defence strategy rooted in Nato, they mean the US.
So no one should be surprised that Starmer, who next week heads to the White House for what once must have looked like a privileged audience, has been seeking to put a brave face on Trump’s belligerent unilateralism. It is wholly in the tradition of British emollience towards Washington. There is nothing new either in the suggestion from Downing Street that Starmer could act as “bridge” between Trump and other European leaders. The metaphor is an unfortunate one. When Tony Blair threw in his lot with George W Bush to topple Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, he discovered that bridges are walked over.
But then Blair once told me that he saw it as the “duty” of British prime ministers to get on with the occupant of the White House. For Starmer, the choice seems one between pretending the alliance can somehow be fixed and admitting that Britain needs an entirely new foreign policy. For now, there is nothing else, officials say, of the once-special relationship.
As for the nuclear deterrent, it has never been truly independent. That’s why generations of British politicians have insisted on always referring to it as such. When John F Kennedy agreed in 1962 to supply Polaris to Harold Macmillan’s government he attached conditions. The submarine-launched missiles would be assigned to Nato. As for independence, the best Macmillan could get was agreement that Britain could reclaim them in extreme emergency.
The same applies to the updated Trident, on which the government intends to spend tens of billions of pounds to keep the deterrent operational for a further several decades. The prime minister may have a notional right to “press the button”. But only the Americans can keep the system operational. Britain builds the warheads but leases the missiles from the US stockpile. So if the US president does not exactly have a key to “turn off” Trident, he could in effect disable it.
All of this remained entirely hypothetical, of course, for as long as the deterrent was part of a shared commitment to Nato as the anchor of western security. And, to be clear, I have not heard any hint that Trump would consider reneging on the bargain. But the world has changed. Nothing can be deemed impossible of a president who has chosen Putin as an ally and wants to incorporate Canada as the 51st state, grab Greenland from Denmark and seize the Panama Canal.
Trident has been a symbol of the “specialness” of the relationship. But it sits on the foundation pillar of a Nato alliance that it is cracking. Someone needs to ask the awkward question. And in formulating an answer they should start with geography. European and British security are indivisible. They always have been.