Simon Tisdal, foreign affairs commentator for The Guardian, condemned the Strategic Defense Review, the defense strategy document released by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on June 2, for risking the “normalization” of nuclear warfare. “Plans by Keir Starmer’s government to modernise and potentially expand Britain’s nuclear weapons arsenal, unveiled in the 2025 strategic defence review (SDR), seriously undermine international non-proliferation efforts,” Tisdal wrote in a column posted yesterday. “They will fuel a global nuclear arms race led by the U.S., China and Russia. And they increase the chances that lower-yield, so-called tactical nukes will be deployed and detonated in conflict zones. This dangerous path leads in one direction only: towards the normalisation of nuclear warfare.”
The proposals in the SDR “are a continuation of a redundant, inhuman, immoral, potentially international law-breaking deterrence policy that cash-strapped Britain can ill afford, will struggle to implement at cost and on time, and which perpetuates illusions about its global power status,” Tisdal adds.
Tisdal calls the scenario, reported by The {i Paper on June 6, that the U.K. may be considering acquiring a fleet of F-35A’s to carry American-supplied B61 nuclear bombs “chilling,” but he also is unable to break entirely from the U.K./NATO narrative about the supposed Russian nuclear threat. “Retaining nuclear weapons at current or increased levels does not make Britain safer,” he nonetheless argues. “Their use would be immoral, irrational and catastrophic. They are grossly expensive, consuming resources that the U.K., facing painful Treasury cuts again this week, could more sensibly use to build hospitals and schools and properly equip its armed forces.
