Nuclear Deterrent's Role In The Civil War

As the ‘East-West disagreements and disputes of 1946 and 1947 hardened into the Cold war of 1948, the production of atomic bombs by Britain inevitably took on military urgency.’ The British idea of independent nuclear deterrent was born out of its perceived vulnerability against the Soviet Union. As Clark and Wheeler argued that the British doctrine of deterrence was ‘ limited in scope and specific in intention.’ It was clearly understood by its proponents as a retaliatory deterrent against attack by the Soviet Union. ‘It was not a doctrine of competence, seen as having great potential for shaping the general diplomatic behaviour of the Soviet Union.’ It was resonated by the Chiefs of Staffs in early 1947 when they said, ‘Real defence in the atomic age must lie in making aggressor realise that while he may wreck the nation he attacks, he will at once subjected himself to such a counter blow …show more content…
Despite, the US Security guarantee to Europe in the form of North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, ‘Britain could not rely on America to threaten the use of atomic bombs to serve British interests.’ The sense of growing importance of having an independent nuclear deterrent could be gauged from Churchill’s speech in 1955 where he said the ‘our possession of nuclear weapons of the highest quality and on an appreciable scale together with their means of delivery, will greatly reinforce the deterrent power of the free world, and will strengthen our influence within the free world.’ There are critics also of the independent nuclear deterrent doctrine; Physicist P.M.S Blackett’s argued that Britain’s long-term security would be ‘undermined rather than increased by the acquisition of nuclear weapons. He conceded that ‘the threat to use such weapons as part of a deterrent policy, would be