THE editor of Peace News newspaper and author of the 1994 book Tactical Trident: The Rifkind Doctrine and the Third World, peace activist Milan Rai has recently written several articles about Britain’s nuclear arsenal.

Ian Sinclair: There is a consensus in Britain’s mainstream political culture — from the media to politicians to academia — that Britain’s nuclear weapons are primarily used for deterrence. What’s your take?

Milan Rai: For the general public in Britain, the idea of using nuclear weapons is so deeply horrifying, so taboo, that it is unthinkable. It isn’t unthinkable for the British military establishment.

The propaganda version of “deterrence” that has been sold to the British public is that the British government only has nuclear weapons to defend Britain itself from nuclear attack and they’re only there in order to be able to threaten nuclear retaliation against a nuclear attack on the territory of Britain.

In other words, British nuclear weapons are focused just on hostile nuclear weapon states, they’re about protecting the British homeland from nuclear attack, and they’re retaliatory weapons. They just sit there, unused, like (incredibly expensive) insurance that you hope you’ll never have to claim.

On all counts, this version of deterrence is a big lie.

In fact, British nuclear weapons have also been pointed at non-nuclear weapon states: they have been used repeatedly to threaten countries that posed no possible threat to any part of Britain.

The US has been lucky enough to have had a former nuclear war planner explain the realities of US “deterrence” — Daniel Ellsberg, the US insider who leaked the Pentagon Papers, the top secret internal history of the Vietnam War.

Ellsberg wrote in 1981: “The notion common to nearly all Americans that ‘no nuclear weapons have been used since Nagasaki’ is mistaken. It is not the case that US nuclear weapons have simply piled up over the years... Again and again, generally in secret from the American public, US nuclear weapons have been used, for quite different purposes: in the precise way that a gun is used when you point it at someone’s head in a direct confrontation, whether or not the trigger is pulled.”

Here is one of the dozen or so examples that Ellsberg listed in his 1981 essay: “[US President] Nixon’s secret threats of massive escalation, including possible use of nuclear weapons, conveyed to the North Vietnamese by [US National Security Adviser] Henry Kissinger, 1969-72.”

Here in Britain, there are several known examples of similar threats.

In the 1960s, Britain’s “strategic nuclear deterrent” was the V-bomber force of Valiant, Victor and Vulcan aircraft. In December 1963, V-bombers from Bomber Command were sent out to Singapore during Britain’s 1963-66 “confrontation” (war) with Indonesia.

Andrew Brookes, a former Vulcan pilot and a historian of the V-bomber force, wrote that the V-bombers were kept in Singapore longer than usual, “positioned to be seen as ready to eliminate Indonesia Air Force capabilities if they launched air attacks.”

The Sunday Times revealed on December 31 2000 that RAF Tengah in Singapore started storing 48 Red Beard nuclear bombs in 1962, the year before the V-bombers arrived there. The squadron began low-altitude nuclear bombing exercises, signalling British intentions to Indonesia.

This is one example of how the British state has used nuclear weapons “in the precise way that a gun is used when you point it at someone’s head in a direct confrontation, whether or not the trigger is pulled,” as Ellsberg put it.

RAF Air Chief Marshal Sir David Lee later wrote about the nuclear-capable Victors sent to Singapore: “Their potential was well known to Indonesia and their presence did not go unnoticed.”

Lee added: “The knowledge of RAF strength and competence created a wholesome respect among Indonesia’s leaders, and the deterrent effect of RAF air defence fighters, light bombers and V-bombers on detachment from Bomber Command was absolute.”

Lee is pointing us to one of the true meanings of “the deterrent effect” or “deterrence” — creating a “wholesome respect” among the natives in far-off lands that Britain wishes to dominate.

Can you give examples of when Britain has carried out what you call nuclear terrorism?

Iraq has been threatened with British nuclear weapons at least four times.

In 1961, Britain sent nuclear-capable Scimitar aircraft to the Gulf on an aircraft carrier and put strategic nuclear bombers in Malta on alert during a (manufactured) crisis with Iraq.

There were many British (and US) nuclear threats against Iraq in the run-up to the 1991 Gulf War. Here are some examples. On August 10 1990, just eight days after Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Daily Star reported: “Whitehall sources made it clear that the multinational forces would be ready to hit back with every means at their disposal... [including] using tactical nuclear weapons against [Iraqi] troops and tanks on the battlefield.”

On September 30 1990, the Observer reported on its front page a warning from a senior British army officer with the 7th Armoured Brigade: if there were Iraqi chemical attacks, British forces would “retaliate with battlefield nuclear forces.”

On February 4 1991, the Guardian carried this report of a statement by the then foreign secretary, Douglas Hurd: “Hurd said that if Iraq responded to an allied land assault by using chemical weapons, President Saddam [Hussein] would be certain to provoke a massive response — language the US and Britain employ to leave open the option of using chemical or nuclear weapons.”

Those threats took place under Conservative governments.

In February 1998, during a crisis over UN weapons inspections, a Labour foreign secretary, Robin Cook, told the House of Commons that if the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein used chemical or biological weapons in retaliation for a US-Britain attack, “he should be in no doubt that, if he were to do so, there would be a proportionate response.”

In other words, Cook threatened that Britain or the US would use weapons of mass destruction, either nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

In the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war, there were more Labour nuclear threats. Then defence secretary Geoff Hoon told the House of Commons defence select committee on March 20 2002 that states like Iraq “can be absolutely confident that in the right conditions we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons.”

Four days later, Hoon appeared on ITV’s Jonathan Dimbleby show and insisted that the government “reserved the right” to use nuclear weapons if Britain or British troops were threatened by chemical or biological weapons.

All of these were nuclear threats against a non-nuclear weapon state (which posed no military threat to the territory of the British homeland).

These are examples of state nuclear terrorism — by the British government.

You’ve argued that Britain’s peace movement hasn’t even begun to engage with the fact British nuclear weapons are tied up with British colonialism. Can you explain what you mean?

The nuclear weapons debate in Britain has been about the rights and wrongs of “deterrence” in the sense of “having nuclear weapons to threaten retaliation if Britain itself was ever at risk of being attacked by nuclear weapons.”

By taking part in this Eurocentric debate, we have reinforced the idea that this is all that nuclear deterrence is about.

We have not exposed the history of British nuclear threats which show a very different side to Britain’s nuclear history.

Has anti-war activism or public opinion impacted British nuclear policy in the past?

The government is clearly terrified of the possible public reaction to its policies and actions in this area, which is why so much effort has been put into distorting the record. For example, it’s clear that after the upsurge of CND in 1958, ministers and military officials became a lot more careful about how they spoke about nuclear weapons.

Where do you think the anti-nuclear campaigners should focus their energy going forward?

If the British disarmament movement focuses on preventing the use or threatened use of nuclear weapons, it will prioritise holding back British military intervention and calming nuclear danger zones such as the Middle East and South Asia, as well as challenging the development and deployment of new nuclear weapons and exposing British nuclear threats.

Milan Rai is giving a talk on this topic at 7.30pm on Thursday November 16: Vital Interests and British Nuclear Threats: 30 Years of the Rifkind Doctrine. Registration: www.tinyurl.com/peacenews4122.