UK nuclear deterrent could do ‘untold damage', Healey warns
Britain could do 'untold damage' to adversaries with its nuclear deterrent, the Defence Secretary has said as military officials discussed plans to safeguard any ceasefire for Ukraine.
John Healey said the UK should not 'fight shy' of the fact it has such weapons, which he described as the 'ultimate guarantor' in a stark warning to Moscow.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer warned Moscow would face 'severe consequences' if it breached any peace deal with Kyiv amid fragile diplomatic efforts to secure a truce to end the war.
Sir Keir and Mr Healey met defence officials from 31 allied countries at the Northwood military headquarters in London on Thursday to firm up proposals for a so-called coalition of the willing to help enforce any agreement.
Mr Healey also laid the keel for Dreadnought, the first submarine being built to replace the Vanguard-class nuclear-armed submarines, in a ceremony in Barrow-in-Furness watched by Sir Keir Starmer.
In an interview with The Times newspaper afterwards, he said: 'Our nuclear deterrent is there as a deterrent. It is the ultimate guarantor to any would-be adversary. We have the power to do untold damage to them if they attack us.'
He added: 'We should not fight shy of the fact we are a nuclear power, that we do have an independent nuclear deterrent.'
The Prime Minister said the military planning involved offering support to Ukraine by air, sea and land if a deal were reached.
But he ruled out redeploying UK troops from countries such as Estonia to commit to Kyiv, saying: 'There's no pulling back from our commitments to other countries.
'The mood in the room – because this came up in the private briefing I had – was that this actually will help reinforce what we're doing in Nato in other countries, so they see it as an opportunity rather than a question of moving troops around.'
Thursday's gathering of defence allies marked a turning point in which the 'political intention' among western allies to provide safeguards for Ukraine's future becomes 'reality' with discussions of how best to deter future Russian aggression.
Sir Keir said: 'It is vitally important we do that work because we know one thing for certain, which is a deal without anything behind it is something that Putin will breach.
'We know that because it happened before. I'm absolutely clear in my mind it will happen again.'
He added: 'The point of the security arrangements is to make it clear to Russia there will be severe consequences if they are to breach any deal.
'That's why we need a forward-leaning European element, which is what I've been working on intensely – obviously with the French – that brings these allied countries together, and beyond.'
Calls this week between US President Donald Trump, Mr Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have failed to produce the 30-day ceasefire envisaged by the White House.
Instead, the Russian leader agreed to a suspension of attacks on energy infrastructure, although Ukraine has said other civilian targets including a hospital had been struck.
Speaking from the White House on Thursday, Mr Trump said that 'we're doing very well with regard to Ukraine and Russia'.
'We spoke yesterday with, as you know, President Putin and President Zelensky, and we would love to see that come to an end, and I think we're doing pretty well in that regard, so hopefully we can save thousands of people a week from dying.'
Mr Zelensky said he believes a 'lasting peace can be achieved this year' after his call with Mr Trump.
In the same call, the US leader suggested that Washington takes ownership of Ukrainian power plants to ensure their security.
However, Mr Zelensky later told journalists their conversation focused on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and the following day made it clear that 'the issue of ownership' of the other three plants was never discussed.
'All nuclear power plants belong to the people of Ukraine,' he said.
Elsewhere the Ukrainian president, who was updating European Union leaders on the discussions during their summit in Brussels on Thursday, said that overnight Russia carried out a series of drone attacks on the Kirovohrad region.
The strikes left '10 people wounded, including four children, and caused damage to homes, a church and infrastructure', he said.
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China was in the shadows, wasn't really a big player at all, and we thought globalisation was a great idea.' 'So that world has gone. We now have a great power competition playing out in front of our eyes,' he adds. 'We have geostrategic shifts taking place all the time in terms of industry and commerce. The volatility of events in the world is unprecedented, probably in history.' For that reason, the SDR devotes several pages to home defence and resilience, ensuring continuity of national life in the event of infrastructure failures and 'build national preparedness and resilience, ensuring the UK can withstand attacks and recover quickly'. Its prescriptions include renewing the contract between the Forces and the country, enhancing protection for critical national infrastructure, making sure that industry knows what is expected of it in case of war. All of this will be useless without one crucial, but unquantifiable factor. Just as nuclear deterrence depends on the willingness of national leaders to use it, whole-of-society deterrence will only be as credible as our own – that is, ordinary people's – willingness to endure hardship our enemies can inflict upon us. Those hardships will be enormous. Experience from Ukraine shows that full scale war involves electricity, water, and energy supplies being targeted. There will be shortages of fuel and possibly of food. We have already had tasters of the chaos to come. 'If the lights go out in this studio and this building here today,' Lord Robertson says, gesturing around The Telegraph's podcast studio, 'do we know how to get out of it?' I'm not entirely sure I do. He carries on: 'A few weeks ago, the whole of Spain and Portugal lost power. Two modern European countries lost power. Paralysis was the result. 'A transformer blows up and Heathrow airport, the busiest airport in the world, has to close down for 24 hours. Something like 90 per cent of the data that we are using in this country and in Europe as a whole, comes in under sea cables. 'About 77 per cent of the UK's gas imports come from Norway and one in one pipeline. So the vulnerabilities from cyber and from the grey zone, disinformation, targeted assassinations, electoral interference, all of that is part and parcel of today's world.' Once confrontation moves from the grey zone to open war, there is a question of casualties. How would the British public respond, I ask, to cruise missiles slamming into Catterick Garrison leaving dozens, possibly hundreds, of young soldiers dead? Or glide bombs ripping women and children into pieces as they shop? Or a Royal Navy ship being lost with all hands? Are we, as a nation, psychologically and culturally prepared to shoulder the kind of hardship and grief unseen since 1945? 'We'll need to make sure that that is the case and remind people about what it is. And I think that's the job of the media. It's the job of politicians. 'And we need to raise awareness of the issue. What is it you want, what is the insurance premium that will keep you and your family safe in the future. 'But we in the review are talking about how to avoid it. Deterrence is the question. You know, we all go to our beds at night safe because of Article 5 of the Nato treaty.' However Nato – the bedrock of British defence – is under strain. And Britain's relationship with its allies is about to be tested at the annual alliance summit in the Hague later this month. Robertson, Barrons and Hill wrote the Review to parameters set by the government: specifically, a commitment to raise defence spending from 2.3 per cent to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027 and to 3 per cent in the next parliament when economic conditions allow. Nato officials told The Telegraph this week that they expect Starmer to commit to 3.5 per cent at the alliance's annual summit in the Hague. Donald Trump and his defence secretary Pete Hegseth are demanding a much higher bench mark of 5 per cent. Lord Richard Dannatt, a former head of the British Army, said earlier this week that postponing three per cent target is 'tantamount to back in 1937 saying to Adolf Hitler 'please don't attack us until 1946 because we won't be ready'.' Although Robertson argues the money question is a distraction from the 'guts' of the review, it is not difficult to see where the tight budget has constrained ambition. The review clearly states that none of the three Services – Army, Royal Navy, or Royal Air Force can afford to lose any more highly trained and equipped regulars. Yet the authors' proposed remedy is strangely modest. For example, it says the Army should have a total strength of 100,000, consisting of the current nominal 73,000 regulars (the smallest since the Napoleonic wars) and the difference made up by an expansion of the number of reservists. It argues that new technology can make this small force '10 times more lethal' than it is now. And it is true that automation is changing warfare. The audacious Ukrainian operation to strike Russian airbases last weekend, points out Robertson, is a perfect example of the kind of thing Britain should be planning to carry out – and defend against. But high intensity peer conflict still involves casualties. Heavy casualties. In the trenches in Donbas, there is a constant threat of shrapnel, bullet, and blast wounds. Drones may now be inflicting more casualties than artillery, but that is of little comfort to the infantry: unlike a 152mm shell, a quadcopter loaded with plastic explosive can chase your car or fly right through the door of your dugout. That is one reason why this month Russia is projected to suffer its millionth casualty, including dead and wounded. No one is suggesting the British Army should fight with Russian-style tactics. But can a force of 73,000 regulars and 27,000 reservists really sustain modern levels of attrition? 'The Army's lethality is what matters. It's the effectiveness of our forces that actually matter, at the end of the day. And Ukraine is an example, but it's not a template. 'People say that generals, and even strategists are busy fighting the last war, and in some ways, Ukraine is the last war. The next war will be a very different war in many ways with very different sets of circumstances that we have to deal with,' says Robertson. Yet it is difficult to shake the feeling that although Robertson, Hill and Barrons did the best they could within the financial parameters they were set, they would have liked to do more. Would he have liked more money to work with? And does he believe Labour will deliver? Everything in the review has been 'ruthlessly' costed, he says, and the Prime Minister has explicitly promised its recommendations are going to be implemented. 'So the three of us are going to be right there, you know, sitting there like crows on the branch of a tree, watching carefully as to how the recommendations are implemented and how, and, and when and when they are,' he says 'So Labour has created a bit of a rod for their own back by having independent reviewers, but at the same time, it should galvanise them.' The question of raising the budget, he says, is a question for voters. 'What we can say is what we think is necessary, in terms of reference [we were given]. If the British people as a whole decide they want to spend more money on defence and less money on other things, then they will make that decision,' he says. 'At the moment they don't. We had a general election campaign last year where defence wasn't really mentioned at all. We had a Conservative party leadership campaign where defence wasn't mentioned as an issue. So people in the country have to see the threats that exist at the moment and the threats that will be there in the future and make a decision about what they have.' It's a fair point. For all the grumbling about Keir Starmer's timidness, the truth is his government – and British taxpayers – face three equally unpalatable options. They could borrow, while national debt is already at 95 per cent of GDP and growth anaemic; raise taxes, when the tax burden is already on course to be the highest since the Second World War; or make cuts elsewhere, when public services are already struggling. Is the blunt message, then, that to be safe ordinary Britons will have to make sacrifices? 'I think so. Unless the economy improves and unless we get growth – and a lot of what we are doing is promoting growth, defence expenditure is a way of gaining growth – then that makes the pie bigger and the choice is less difficult to make. 'We don't live in a world where there is an infinite amount of money available. It's a question of priorities. And if in a national conversation, which the Prime Minister has promised he's going to lead, people come to the conclusion that they want to avoid the lights going out or the hospitals being shut or the airports being shuttered and the data cables being broken, then the insurance premium that keeps your family safe has got be afforded.' As Robertson leaves The Telegraph, I remark that there is something about our conversation that leaves me uneasy. Here we are, a journalist in his 40s and a peer of the realm in his 70s – blithely discussing a war that neither of us will probably have to fight in. Does he find it morally awkward, talking about sacrifices today's teenagers and twenty-somethings will be asked to make? 'It is, and that's why I'm so obsessive about deterrence,' he says. 'The idea is to do this now so we don't have to fight.' He returns to the nuclear question, and three decades of interactions with top Russian officials. 'I've been in the Kremlin. And I am convinced that even if we did everything you've suggested – double the size of the army, and so on – the one thing that will really get their attention is the independent nuclear deterrent.' 'You know, there are people who will still argue that if Ukraine had not given up its nuclear weapons in 1994, in return for the paper assurances of the Budapest memorandum, that Russia would never have dared to have crossed the border. I don't know if you can prove that or disprove that. 'All I know is that Nato and the Article 5 guarantee is a deterrent to any aggressor who thinks that they can take on these 32 countries. So all of the missiles, all of the submarines, all of the planes that we are proposing are part of the build-up to war readiness are designed not to be used. 'They're designed to make sure that nobody fires that cruise missile.' Watch the full Lord Robertson interview on the Battle Lines podcast here. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
