The British Nuclear Defence Option

Abstract

In the contemporary debate about European defence policy the case for a non-nuclear defence option has been powerfully argued by a number of left-wing inclined analysts as well as by those who could be regarded as being to the right of the political spectrum. Thus a kind of coalition is being formed at the level of the intellectual exchange on the place and role of nuclear weapons in modern warfare in which a number of options have been developed in favour of an essentially conventional response to a possible Soviet attack. This coalition of diverse opinion embraces a spectrum from Lord Carver through the late Lord Mountbatten to the spokesman of the School of Peace Studies in the University of Bradford.