The Letters of Last Resort

[Slim]

Shortly after Andy Burnham becomes Prime Minister, he'll receive a briefing from senior defence officials, possibly the Chief of the Defence Staff, and he'll be asked to compose four handwritten letters, supposedly identically worded, to be delivered to each of the four Vanguard class ballistic submarines carrying Britain's nuclear deterrent in sealed envelopes, then held securely in a safe.

Each boat likely has the capacity to cause a few dozen rather large nuclear explosions, though normally only one is on deterrent patrol at any one time.

In the normal course of events these letters are destined to be destroyed, unopened. They are the Prime Minister's instructions on action to take in the event that a nuclear attack is assumed to have taken place on the United Kingdom, and the normal chain of command has been destroyed. Worst case: the British state no longer exists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort

Andy will be presented with four broad options:

• Retaliate
• Do not retaliate
• Use your own judgement
• Place your boat and crew under allied command
   

He can qualify these of course, for example "retaliate only if responsibility for the attack is known to a very high degree of certainty", and so on. He can probably stipulate something else, if he's inclined.

Fun fact: Starmer's instructions are still in effect, for each boat, until Burnham's letter is physically delivered to it.

If presented with the broad options described above, which would you choose?

Note: I haven't posted this in the politcs section because it's a matter of personal judgement rather than contentious in a party political sense, so please do keep any political bunfighting to a minimum.

[The Picnic Wasp]

Dear Commander,

I used to be your PM. I'm probably now a sticky mess on a carpet that an old cat keeps licking to get it until tomorrow. Modern weaponry doesn't create so much of that dreadful radiation the way those of the 50s and 60s did, so the cat will probably make it. Thinking about it, we were building the Morris Marina at that time so no great surprise our warheads weren't the best in class.

I'd suggest keeping your heads down and heading for a sparsely populated region, with nice beaches and lots of young ladies as you guys have your work cut out to get us to a level of economic growth I can proudly hand to the Tories and declare "I did that". There was doubtless bit of a scramble getting to the bunker but Liz would probably have made it as she's always banging on about having something to prove.

Anyway, hope there's somewhere safe to tie up and the beer's good. Your not missing anything back home, except everything, and every cloud, I'm guessing the south coast dinghy issue is resolved.

Love, Andy x

[Slim]

Commander,

The United Kingdom has been devastated by a nuclear attack.

The formidable weapons at your disposal are intended to deter and prevent such an attack, therefore they have already failed in their purpose.

Do not retaliate under any circumstances. Otherwise, use your own judgement and prioritise the safety of your crew.

[The Picnic Wasp]

According to Vladimir, one Tsar Bomba (largely untested) would probably see us melted into Ireland. I think Boris might have had an involuntary wee during that phone call.

I have extreme doubts about Trident. Don't they usually just fall back into the sea?

Best case for the island formerly known as the UK would be Faslane and Coulport leased to the US as part of the Scottish independence deal. England would do well as a trading partner with a nation using either the Euro or Dollar. Donald's unelected, crooked successor (son?) will oversee the allocation of North Sea contracts to American leaning companies, if Andy hasn't emptied them beforehand, and we would all live under a protective Patriot missile shield until the next Wall St crash.

Hopefully.

[dom]

2 really interesting and thought provoking entries

@picnic - that's the first time I heard that less radiation was caused by modern nuclear weapons compared to previous incarnations. Does that mean the aftermath for survivors will be much better than that forseen in Threads or will it just be a different type of misery?

@Slim & picnic very interesting that you both decided not to retaliate. I particularly like that the point Slim made that the primary purpose of nuclear weaponnry was to prevent an attack not to retaliate after one had happened.

And thinking about it if a nuclear submarine can survive a nuclear war and its guidance and general functionally remains intact, it's one of the safest places to be. If the crew can work out the safest place to make landfall and have enough fuel to get there and are able to eke out supplies until they get there and/or the worst of the radiation has settled, they could be set.

[Nickslikk2112]

We're toast, toast them. It's all a big pile of shit now, bollocks to it.

Mind, that applies to current "peace" time...

[The Picnic Wasp]

2 really interesting and thought provoking entries

@picnic - that's the first time I heard that less radiation was caused by modern nuclear weapons compared to previous incarnations. Does that mean the aftermath for survivors will be much better than that forseen in Threads or will it just be a different type of misery?

@Slim & picnic very interesting that you both decided not to retaliate. I particularly like that the point Slim made that the primary purpose of nuclear weaponnry was to prevent an attack not to retaliate after one had happened.

And thinking about it if a nuclear submarine can survive a nuclear war and its guidance and general functionally remains intact, it's one of the safest places to be. If the crew can work out the safest place to make landfall and have enough fuel to get there and are able to eke out supplies until they get there and/or the worst of the radiation has settled, they could be set.

I watched Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about this. According to him the actual hydrogen weapon is cleaner but it's all down to how many or how big the weapons deployed would be. Due to the enormous power of the new devices the overall fallout would very likely be greater. So the Downing St cat is probably a goner too. I feel sadder about that fact for some reason.

[The Picnic Wasp]

Great thread, but three votes with four commenting.

Just saying (hate that expression).

[Nick]

I would push it onto AI

[Slim]

And thinking about it if a nuclear submarine can survive a nuclear war and its guidance and general functionally remains intact, it's one of the safest places to be. If the crew can work out the safest place to make landfall and have enough fuel to get there and are able to eke out supplies until they get there and/or the worst of the radiation has settled, they could be set.

They'd definitely have enough fuel - the Vanguard class subs are powered by Rolls-Royce PWR2 (nuclear) reactors, designed and procured at my old place of work in Derby and they usually go for more than ten years without a refuel. The fuel in question is highly enriched uranium. The stuff used to be transported out of the site where I worked in armoured container trucks escorted by heavily armed Royal Marines in Landrovers. Quite a sight reputedly, I never saw it myself unfortunately.

They'd probably have more than enough supplies for a few months. Not long after I started there I attended a talk by the Royal Navy Liaison Officer, a Commander Roger Liddiard. He'd been a sub commander and told us all about life on a nuclear submarine, living underwater for months at a time without ever breaking the surface sometimes. They had a false plywood floor on the boat, propped up by tins of food. They have their own desalination plants and get their oxygen from sea water.

[dom]

Fascinating!

[Thenop]

We have submarines, I think. Just checked, we do, conventional weapons only. Walrus class. Sounds friendly.
We build submarines, that's for sure.
No nukes though, except for the ones we keep for the Americans (shh, don't tell anyone!).

So I have no say or vote in the matter.

[Slim]

None of us has any say in the matter Nop, you're welcome to comment or vote on what a head of government with nuclear submarines should do.

[Thenop]

That is true of course, I am no Captain Nemo nor am I the PM (as we speak).

When it comes to nukes, I do not believe retaliation is the way. You can never win, and the chance there is a Tom Clancy scenario ongoing in these times might be bigger than we anticipate.
Sound judgment on the Captains' mind, well, these military types are good at following orders but if asked to use their toys or not, I am not sure I trust them to do the right thing.

Being born in 1970, I grew up (like many of us I suppose) with this dark cloud over my head. Nuclear threat was real, an attack was imminent. War rethoric everywhere and that has made me cautious of anyone that wants to use atomic force.

Allied forces. Hmm. Since the Americans have gone haywire the only allied forces with experience and sound mind enough to place any form of governing under, need to come from Europe and would porbably be the UK. I am not against that option, and I can only hope it rules out immediate retaliation. But when reading most replies, I suppose it does just that. 

[Slim]

There is an interesting question as to what authority the letters really have if the British state, and the Prime Minister, are assumed no longer to exist. At that point the submarine commander is answerable to no-one.

What if he holds strong views on the matter?

Let's imagine he's a crusty old Tory, a bit gung-ho.

He didn't vote for Andy Burnham. Actually no-one did, he might reflect. He's just a northern upstart who took power in an internal Labour coup. And this instruction not to retaliate is typical lefty do-gooder nonsense. Break out the launch codes! Let's have a go at Moscow and Volvograd.