Franco-UK deterrent idea set to resurface

LONDON - A "shared" British-French nuclear deterrent is set to be on the agenda of a summit between David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy in London next month.

A politically explosive proposal for joint nuclear-submarine patrols - an idea sunk without trace in the recent past - has been brought back to the surface by the draconian defence cuts in both countries.

Although talks are still at a preliminary stage, officials in Paris say the idea is one possibility for cost-saving military co-operation likely to be discussed by the Prime Minister and the President at the annual Franco-British summit in early November.

A senior British defence official acknowledged that the possibility of sharing nuclear deterrence capability with the French remained on the table, adding that a "number of options are being studied".

The official, who has advised the British Government on nuclear policy, said although Defence Secretary Liam Fox had vowed Britain would keep its independent nuclear deterrent, the £20 billion ($43 billion) cost of replacing Trident meant "one had to adjust one's sights".

The insistence of Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne that the money would have to come from the Defence budget rather than the Treasury has made looking at cheaper options even more imperative.

The idea of joint submarine patrols has been discussed before - most recently in March - when it was floated by Sarkozy but rejected by then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The change of Government in Britain and the sheer scale of the threatened defence cuts have revived the discussions but officials in both countries say technical and political obstacles have yet to be overcome.

The proposition is simple - if politically fraught. France and Britain each has four nuclear-armed submarines.

Each has at least one submarine permanently on patrol, ready to respond to a nuclear attack on its home country.

If the two countries pooled their fleets, there could be times when only one submarine - either British or French - would be stationed at the bottom of the ocean ready to retaliate against an attack on either country.

This would reduce the number of submarines each country has to maintain in order to preserve a "credible" nuclear deterrent.

It would also help to solve a huge political problem for the Coalition Government by reducing the cost of replacing the existing Trident submarines some time after 2015.

Sharing with the French could help to address that problem, the Defence official said.

The idea is believed to have been discussed by Brown and Sarkozy in March this year and ultimately sunk by Brown as politically infeasible in an election year.

Similar discussions on Anglo-French nuclear co-operation are believed to have occurred in the past, going back to the early 1970s.

Officials in Paris say new impetus has been given to the idea by the huge budget deficits and huge defence spending cuts, faced by both nations.

Other ideas for military "pooling" said to be under discussion before the Franco-British summit include a revised version of a recently rejected proposal for a "shared" use of aircraft carriers and a joint programme for building a new generation of frigates.

Mutual suspicion and fear of negative domestic political and media reactions have hampered talks in the past. The French did not like America's control over the supposedly independent UK nuclear deterrent. Britain suspected France of wanting a European defence policy to undermine Nato.

These doubts have now been eased, on both sides of the Channel (and the Atlantic), by Sarkozy's decision to return France to the joint military command of the Atlantic alliance. But politically it is accepted the idea might still be hard to swallow in both nations.

Could France be relied upon to retaliate against an attack on Britain, if that might then mean nuclear retaliation against France? And vice-versa.

Experts point out that, in practical terms, a nuclear attack on Britain by a foreign aggressor would also be an attack on France (and vice-versa).

If British cities were devastated by a nuclear attack, most of northern France would be rendered uninhabitable.

Like Britain's four-string Trident submarine fleet based in western Scotland, France's nuclear deterrent or "Force de Frappe" consists of four submarines, each armed with 16 missiles.

The fleet, now reduced to three with a new submarine under construction, is based at L'Ile-Longue, opposite the port of Brest in Brittany.

- INDEPENDENT