: WAR AND PEACE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE - TAPES C10037-C10038 RONALD MASON
Interviewer: OK, THIS IS C10037, INTERVIEW ON 4 NOVEMBER WITH PROFESSOR RONALD MASON.
Interviewer: RIGHT.
Interviewer: NOW I SUPPOSE THE FIRST THING REALLY TAKING IT CHRONOLOGICALLY IS AS FAR AS TRIDENT WAS CONCERNED CERTAINLY JAMES CALLAGHAN WENT TO GUADELOUPE ACCORDING TO HIS MEMOIRS TO DISCUSS THE POSSIBILITY OF THE BRITISH MODERNIZING POLARIS… TRIDENT WITH HIM ON A VERY AD HOC BASIS.
Interviewer: YOU THEN GOT SORT OF BROUGHT INTO THOSE NEGOTIATIONS WHEN HE, WHEN JAMES CALLAGHAN RETURNED FROM GUADELOUPE.
Interviewer: CAN YOU JUST DESCRIBE FOR US HOW YOU SAW THAT, THAT DEAL STARTING...?
Mason: ...
Mason: to anticipate the negotiations...
Mason: the Callaghan administration was in being when I first joined the Ministry of Defense late in 1977 and it was already beginning to be clear that on the table was the whole question of a successor system to Polaris or to the needed successor of Polaris, called Chevaline.
Mason: By the time therefore James Callaghan described in his memoirs, we were into something like the middle of 1978.
Mason: There was a clear decision, as he put it, to studying a range of options that could offer themselves for the succession system.
Mason: It's all so commonplace but that was the time when firstly there was a detailed study, detailed examinations of the whole concept of deterrence.
Mason: What constitu...
Mason: what did you have to do to be plausible, what did you have to be to be plausible perhaps for a timescale extending to 2010, 2020, and having decided what constitutes deterrence what are the criteria that should be made, and then along came the team, which I was fortunate enough to head, which looked at the way in which you would formulate and describe solutions that would meet those criteria of deterrence and that was therefore when you were talking about ballistic missile solution, the cruise missile solution, whether a ballistic missile should be launched with a submarine, as indeed it turned out to be the preferred solution or whether it ought to be...
Mason: cruise missile.
Mason: So that by the time that, as you saw from his memoirs, come to the turn of the year of 1978 those studies had been pretty much complete.
Mason: They had been informed with a good deal of information that we gathered, for example from the United States, and we’d gathered some information from France.
Mason: We were fairly clear in our own technical minds on the preferred solution and therefore when Guadeloupe came along there were questions such as what if we were interested would you be agreeable and so on and so forth.
Mason: Again the description's taken place that there was no fundamental difficulty anticipated, at least by the President, and therefore some two or three months later the nature of the information exchanged formalized and when we had decided that our data base, if I may use those words, was as complete as we could make it, then we began to talk very seriously about the possibility of following Trident I as the preferred system for the British successor system at that time from about 1990 onwards.
Interviewer: NOW, I MEAN THE SYSTEM THAT YOU WERE GOING FOR IN THE END, THE SYSTEM THAT YOU WERE GOING TO TRY AND PURCHASE FROM THE UNITED STATES WAS A VERY ADVANCED SYSTEM, IT WAS A QUANTITATIVE LEAP UP IN TERMS OF THE TECHNOLOGY IF YOU LIKE FROM THE EXISTING SYSTEM.
Interviewer: DID YOU HAVE, WHAT SORT OF PROBLEMS WERE THERE? HOW DID YOU GO ABOUT NEGOTIATING WITH THE UNITED STATES FOR IN THE END WHAT WAS A PRETTY MUCH STATE OF THE ART SYSTEM?
Mason: It would necessarily be a jump up wouldn't it because I mean after all you're talking about procuring a system say around about the 1990 mark, now 1995, compared to a system that you started procuring, understanding in 1963.
Mason: Many generations of technology have developed, had intervened.
Mason: Now I think what is interesting...
Mason: is that of course it was technically advanced.
Mason: The Trident ballistic missile has on its so-called front end what we call a multiple re-entry vehicle system, the MIRV system, and there hadn't been some ten years or so earlier the possibility that the British, instead of going down the Chevaline route, would have gone down the ballistic missile route involving the Poseidon.
Mason: I was not involved.
Mason: My understanding was that at that time the United States was somewhat less than ready to transfer MIRV technology to the United Kingdom for fear I think of being caught up in strategic arms limitation concerns, relationships with the Soviet Union and so forth.
Mason: One of the first things that I think we had to satisfy the United States was of our total seriousness to have a succession system and that we had a philosophy of deterrence, which if I may use the words, justified the transfer of strategically important technology to a senior partner of the United States in the alliance.
Mason: I can well remember that that was not straightforward.
Mason: That was not taken as read.
Mason: We had to argue that.
Mason: We did argue it successfully.
Interviewer: WHAT WAS THE POSITION IN TERMS OF ANY DEBATE ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY RATHER THAN GO TO THE UNITED STATES FOR THE POLARIS, BUT ACTUALLY TO FIND AN ALTERNATIVE PARTY IN EUROPE, SAY FOR EXAMPLE, THE FRENCH HAD THEIR OWN SYSTEM UNDER DEVELOPMENT? WHAT WERE THE PROS AND CONS AND HOW SERIOUS WERE THE NEGOTIATIONS OR WHAT THOUGHTS ABOUT COLLABORATION THEN?
Mason: Well we had, we were simply concentrating on ballistic missile options.
Mason: There were two real possibilities.
Mason: The first is that after the disaster of Blue Streak we should regenerate a national capability in Britain, in this case say for a submarine-launched ballistic missile.
Mason: That could be very quickly ruled out on the basis of cost.
Mason: There was only one conceivable scenario that I understood in 1978 which would take that possibility even further and that was, and I think it's rather ironical though to think about this possibility in 1987 with all the debate going on about British investments in space and so on.
Mason: But if we were serious about space, if we were going to if you like work with the French on what has now become the Arianne launch program, then in fact there would be the opportunity of developing at a reasonable cost a ballistic missile capability that is being shared between France and Europe.
Mason: There was that possibility but in the end the decision was that to get a unique system, and we were already beginning to be very nervous about the uniqueness and the cost of uniqueness of Chevaline in this country, to developing unique systems would be extremely costly and I think would carry with it severe risks and penalties.
Mason: The other opportunities that we knew were, at the time ’87, ’88, I beg your pardon, ’77, ’78, we knew at the time that the French were developing the N4.
Mason: We had a reasonable understanding of the capability.
Mason: We had reasonable understanding of the cost and again in cost-effective terms it wasn't a match for what in the end became the drive, which is commonality with a program in the United States, a contemporary, a simultaneous contact which will allow the United Kingdom, let us say, to take roughly 7 or 8 percent of the total missile production of the United States wanted for their own needs to take that off the missile production line, there could be no question about it that that was by far and away the most cost-effective way into the future.
Interviewer: DESCRIBE THE SOLUTION AND THE REASON BEHIND IT, I MEAN JUST NOW I S'POSE IN TERMS OF COST-EFFICIENCY BUT I MEAN WERE THERE ANY OTHER POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONS?
Mason: Oh yes, oh yes, there were major problems, which continued and are indeed continuing, the whole question of, you know, what is an independent deterrent.
Mason: Does the great British public in fact perceive a British independent deterrent because clearly you have a submarine which is largely British, manned by British, targeted by a British Prime Minister with front ends that are prescribed to be British and therefore the only thing that is American for me is in fact the carrier, the missile.
Mason: I, at least, was certain this was a political joint, alliance was satisfied and that that was a fair trade-off, that it would be perceived as a British independent deterrent.
Mason: Now, as we now look at the present situation as we went on there was then the strategic position when I was still in office in 1982, ‘83 to transfer the major servicing of the Trident missile to Kings Bay in Georgia.
Mason: They were entirely responsible for that, in the same instance some very significant sums, virtually 8 percent of the total program cost.
Mason: I must say that I had to at that stage worry about whether perceptions of independence were being affected.
Mason: I could see considerable technical advantages coming out of a Kings Bay basing and a Kings Bay servicing, but at that stage I was beginning to be concerned about perceptions, as I say, of independence.
Mason: Now when we come to what I would call the rather silly leaks some two or three weeks ago, I can't for the life of me believe that the British Government has entered into a situation I believe was called on one occasion a Moss Brothers lease-loaned or what have you.
Mason: I think there are some clear well-defined servicing arrangements.
Mason: The simple facts of course are these, that with the Trident II missile, with the improvement of technology vis-a-vis Polaris, that would be independent of the regular servicing of the regular changing of such systems and so on and so forth but we'd had to experience over the last 20 years.
Mason: There is much more natural independence in technical terms on the way ahead of Trident II.
Interviewer: RIGHT.
Interviewer: I'D LIKE TO COME TO THE QUESTION OF INDEPENDENCE AT A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT, RATHER MORE DIFFERENT ANGLE BECAUSE SEVERAL PEOPLE, MAINLY IN THE UNITED STATES, HAVE SAID TO US RECENTLY THAT IN FACT THE, THE, THE COMMITMENT TO BRITISH INDEPENDENT NUCLEAR DETERRENT AND THE STRATEGIC FORCES, THE...
Interviewer: IS NOW BY AND LARGE JUST A FICTION, A METHOD BY WHICH THE UNITED STATES IS...
Interviewer: IT'S A CURTAIN BEHIND WHICH THIS TRANSACTION CAN ACTUALLY TAKE PLACE.
Interviewer: I MEAN WHAT, HOW WOULD YOU COMMENT ON THAT?
Mason: Well I think the principle that is this: there can be no doubt about it, when Trident II is operational the opportunities for flexibility and dedicating capability say to sack our targets is much greater than what we have with Polaris or Polaris Chevaline in technical terms.
Mason: In practical, political terms I do not believe in fact that really you will have changed the situation quite fundamentally.
Mason: But what I have in my mind is this: in the end it's a weapon of last resort and it's a weapon of last resort nationally, which only the Prime Minister of Great Britain can in fact authorize, and I simply find it very difficult to believe that there is a scenario where the British Prime Minister will authorize the leasing of what is a strategic system set in the theatre nuclear context.
Mason: I just do not for one moment believe that.
Mason: I think again in what I might call technical terms, if you set off what is a strategic weapon system in the context let us say of a warning shot in the theatre, the possibility of a misinterpretation by potential adversaries of that are to my mind very, very considerable indeed.
Mason: So I would have thought there are really very, very substantial reasons against in fact an equation on the day of a British strategic force with its theatre nuclear capability.
Mason: Now that of course if I may say so takes you on to thinking about an intermediate nuclear force and there we are now surrounded by what some people believe to be an impending intermediate nuclear force agreement.
Mason: What has happened, as you know, is that as the negotiations over INF have gone on, as they have gone back to thinking about twin-track decision of 1979, so in fact we've evolved I think an increasing gap between the United States pillar of the alliance and the European pillar of the alliance.
Mason: There has been more and more emphasis on the part of the European allies that flexible response doctrine must maintain a theatre nuclear goods capability and there have been arguments in the media that these will continue to be met let us say by the diversion of the United States Poseidon force, Trident I force when it come to that, of in the future perhaps of the French and the British strategic forces.
Mason: For the reasons that I've already given, I think that is very, very plausible.
Mason: We are already beginning to talk about, having got rid of the Pershing and Cruise under the INF agreement, what theatre forces do we need? It will be an extraordinarily interestingly difficult political way ahead because I think in the United States and indeed in Western Europe I suspect the public are not prepared simply to take with the one hand and give with the other, and therefore I think the United States will have very, very clear ideas as to what theatre nuclear force modernization must mean.
Mason: It will almost certainly mean sea-launch cruise missiles, if perhaps and almost certainly mean stand-off air-launch cruise missiles.
Mason: Now if that analysis is roughly right do the European nuclear countries, i.e.
Mason: Great Britain and France, believe that that is the optimum way ahead.
Mason: I think we are at least approaching a crossroads at the moment, that some of the traditional assumptions about so-called extended deterrence, the reliance, they broad reliance of the European pillar of NATO on an extended nuclear umbrella from the United States, more and more people are calling that will to commit into question.
Mason: I hope, I hope we are wrong in calling that will to commit into question, but I can see an almost inevitable trend to say in the context of what the United States themselves are encouraging, which is that the European pillar of NATO should be stronger.
Mason: Let us build up a stronger conventional defense in Europe, but probably since the commitment to the unique quality of nuclear deterrence may easily today at least be stronger in Western Europe than it is in the United States, then it seems to me, and we're beginning to see this move along the arguments for enhanced nuclear co-operation between Britain and France do seem to me to be presenting themselves on a stage today in a way that I suspect would have been unthinkable ten years ago.
Interviewer: WELL, YOU KEEP IN TOUCH WITH THE DEVELOPMENTS THAT TAKE PLACE IN...
Interviewer: YOU KEEP IN TOUCH WITH THE DEVELOPMENTS THAT ARE GOING ON AT A REASONABLY HIGH LEVEL IN BRITISH GOVERNMENT AND AMONGST BRITISH MANUFACTURERS, I MEAN COULD YOU TELL US WHAT, IF THERE HAD BEEN ANY CONCRETE STEPS TOWARDS SOME FORM OF, OF COLLABORATION BETWEEN THE BRITISH-AND THE FRENCH...
Mason: I don't think I can tell you that.
Mason: I would be very surprised this evening if my thoughts that I've just shared with you were unique to me.
Mason: I'd be very surprised indeed.
Interviewer: SO, WELL, THE COLLABORATION BETWEEN FRANCE AND THE UNITED KINGDOM, WHAT DO YOU FEEL ABLE TO SAY ABOUT THAT?
Mason: There is, at this time, a very, very considerable move to enhance cooperation in defense matters between countries of NATO Europe.
Mason: In particular, just several weeks ago, there was, at the highest level, a fairly intensive discussion between the secretary of states, between senior civil servants, to enhance Anglo-French cooperation in defense matters, for very, very good, sensible, pragmatic reasons: sharing development costs, sharing production lines and so on.
Mason: I would be very surprised if into the future the possibilities for cooperation stopped at conventional weapons systems.
Mason: I would be very surprised if the logic for cooperation in certain areas of nuclear matters weren’t exposed.
Mason: And in the context of the nature, likely nature, of the INF agreement, I would be very surprised if there weren’t on the table at the moment the possibility of France and Great Britain collaborating on an air-launched cruise missile solution to the theater requirement.
Interviewer: GREAT.
Mason: Is it alright?
Interviewer: YES, THAT WAS FINE.
Interviewer: I MEAN, ACTUALLY GOING ON FROM THERE, I DON’T KNOW IF YOU FEEL YOU CAN SAY THIS, BUT WE NEED SOMEBODY TO SAY IT PROBABLY: THERE’S A NUCLEAR PLANNING GROUP MEETING TAKING PLACE, IT’S TAKING PLACE NOW, IN THE UNITED STATES NOW.
Interviewer: AND IT’S THEIR TASK TO, AGAIN, AS YOU SAY, THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE IN THE LIGHT OF WHAT THE PROPOSED INF DEAL IS GOING TO SUGGEST.
Interviewer: WHAT DO YOU THINK THAT THEIR PREFERRED SOLUTION, PERHAPS, WOULD BE? CLEARLY, THEY’VE GOT A LITTLE PRESSURE ON THEIR MINDS AND PUBLIC OPINION, AS YOU’VE ALREADY SAID, WHAT DO YOU THINK THE SOLUTIONS ARE THAT THEY’LL COME OUT WITH NOW?
Mason: I suspect the preferred American solutions will, in fact, be a sea-launched cruise missile and the air-launched cruise missile, that the enhancement of, for example, the F-111 capability via a stand-off missile will be a very serious candidate, as indeed will be the B-52-launched air cruise missile.
Mason: But I would see the F-111 solution and the sea-launched cruise missile coming to the forefront.
Mason: Now, if that analysis is roughly right, we, in Europe, would find it very, very difficult, I think, to run an indigenous, a bilateral sea-launched cruise missile program.
Mason: It would be extremely expensive for the requirement, for the theater requirement.
Mason: And, therefore, I think what we’ll be talking about as a possibility is of the European intermediate nuclear force having a degree of symmetry with the United States F-111 improvement program, with the B-52 improvement program.
Interviewer: OKAY.
Interviewer: WOULD YOU NOT SAY ANYTHING AT ALL PURELY ON THE TECHNICAL SIDE ABOUT CRUISE AND PERSHING? THAT’S THE QUESTION.
Interviewer: DO YOU REGRET THE PASSING OF CRUISE AND PERSHING? YOU KNOW WHAT THE QUESTION IS?
Mason: I do have very considerable reservations about the way in which intermediate nuclear force limitations, negotiations, the form of the, likely form of the agreement has evolved.
Mason: I think it is worthwhile just reminding ourselves that cruise and Pershing, the decision for deployment wasn’t simply, as if often announced, a response to the Soviet deployment of SS-20s.
Mason: It continued to be in response to a perception of tremendous conventional asymmetries between the Warsaw Pact and, in fact, the NATO alliance.
Mason: And that conventional asymmetry certainly hasn’t diminished with time.
Mason: And, therefore, like the Irishmen, you know, who wouldn’t start from here to get there, I would feel much more attached to an INF agreement if I was running parallel to that agreement on the very short range systems, nuclear systems on the battlefield that is, even more on arms limitation in the conventional area, to reduce the enormous offensive air power of the Soviet Union, to reduce the immense offensive land power of the Soviet Union, to change, in fact, the defense-offense balance between the Warsaw Pact and NATO.
Mason: So that until, and it’s going to be extraordinarily difficult, because the amount of leverage that NATO has on the Warsaw Pact, leverage to encourage the Warsaw Pact to reduce these asymmetries, that leverage is very, very small, if you take away the nuclear element.
Mason: And so, of course, what I am concerned about, therefore, two things: First of all, have we really got the tools, the equipment, to encourage the Soviet Union to move towards a more stable balance in and around the German border? And the second thing that I’m worried about, and I do have some sympathy with my military friends, is that all of us, basically, have some subscription to the lack of utility of nuclear weapons.
Mason: Nuclear weapons are there to deter.
Mason: They are not there, we all hope to God, to be used.
Mason: But on a scale of utility, then those nuclear systems that belong to the intermediate nuclear forces, the use of them, for example, as a demonstrator shot to tell an adversary that, in fact, enough is enough and that there is now a significant danger of escalation, the end point of which is impossible to predict, then the utility of the intermediate nuclear forces threatening, in fact, some of the most significant resources, let us say, of the Soviet Union, that undoubtedly to my mind is much more plausible than the use of a short-range nuclear system on the battlefield or, indeed, obviously, of a strategic system when none of us believe we could possibly escape the catastrophic consequences of out and out escalation.