Trident Is Go

Thatcher buys American

President Carter was delighted with the decision. So was West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Basking in the approval of major NATO allies, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government last week announced that it would buy the submarine-launched U.S. Trident missile system to replace an aging Polaris force and thereby upgrade Britain's nuclear deterrent. It was a ringing reaffirmation of the long-standing special relationship between Washington and London. The costly decision was also evidence of Thatcher's determination to keep Britain a nuclear power to be reckoned with.

In announcing the Trident deal to the House of Commons, Defense Secretary Francis Pym explained the government's politico-military rationale. "We need to convince Soviet leaders," he said, "that even if they thought at some critical point, as a conflict developed, that the U.S. would hold back, the British force could still inflict a blow so destructive that the penalty for aggression would have proved too high." Britain will be nearly tripling its nuclear striking power, from 192 war heads mounted on 2,880-mile-range Polaris missiles bought from the U.S. 17 years ago, to 512 independently targetable warheads on 64 Tridents with a range of 4,350 miles. Britain has also consented to deploy 160 nuclear-tipped U.S. cruise mis siles, beginning in 1983.

Pym assured the Commons that the Trident system was the "most cost-effective" successor to Polaris. The total program is estimated at $11.8 billion over 15 years--82.5 billion for the U.S. missiles, the remainder for four or possibly five new submarines and the warheads, all to be built in Britain. The U.S., it is understood, is offering special terms: part of the Tridents' expense will be offset by a U.S. purchase of British Rapier surface-to-air missiles at a cost of $370 million to guard American airbases in Britain.

Pym, however, was unable to win over Trident critics who fear that buying the system will weaken Britain's conventional forces. The Labor Party's shadow Defense Secretary, William Rodgers, told the Commons that "we simply cannot afford" Trident. But some Labor M.P.s cannot afford to attack the decision too hard: shipyard and electronics industries in their constituencies will benefit from the 200,000 new jobs that the Trident agreement is expected to create. qed

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