:00:21. > :00:26.It is mad and that is official. Mutually assured destruction kept
:00:26. > :00:29.the peace when the US and the Soviet Union confronted each other,
:00:30. > :00:34.but the Soviets are gone, and the nature of the threats the world is
:00:34. > :00:39.facing have changed. So do the nuclear deterrence still makes
:00:39. > :00:43.sense? North Korea is the new kid on the nuclear block, and China has
:00:43. > :00:49.promised not to have -- seems to have dropped his promise not to use
:00:49. > :00:55.its weapons first, and even Barack Obama has been asked why he is
:00:55. > :01:00.modernising part of the American arsenal. My two guests today had
:01:00. > :01:10.differing views. His nuclear the answer to global insecurity or one
:01:10. > :01:32.
:01:32. > :01:39.Douglas Murray and Kate Hudson, welcome to HARDtalk. You are
:01:40. > :01:45.associate director of the Henry Jackson Society, a society who
:01:45. > :01:48.would admire men like Henry Kissinger. Most alarmingly, the
:01:48. > :01:52.likely would that non-state terrorists will get their hands on
:01:52. > :01:56.nuclear weapons is increasing, and non-state terrorist groups are
:01:56. > :01:59.conceptually outside the bounds of a deterrent strategy. It is a
:02:00. > :02:05.changing world with new threats a nuclear deterrence no longer makes
:02:05. > :02:11.sense. You can come to that conclusion without having to agree
:02:11. > :02:15.with Dr Kissinger. Obviously the combination of nuclear weaponry and
:02:15. > :02:20.terrorist groups is a nightmare scenario. Of course they also
:02:20. > :02:24.oppose an issue of how on earth you would respond to them if you are a
:02:24. > :02:29.nuclear state, but to think that this means that nuclear weaponry is
:02:29. > :02:35.obsolete is ludicrous. Terrorist groups, if they were to obtain such
:02:35. > :02:38.weaponry, from Pakistan, would be able to be traced. They will be
:02:39. > :02:45.traced to the people who proliferated it, and allows such
:02:45. > :02:50.groups to acquire such weapons, but to think in any case, that there is
:02:50. > :02:54.only one answer to global security issues, is a terrible mistake.
:02:54. > :02:59.There are a state actors and non- state actors, there probably always
:02:59. > :03:04.have been, but the fact is to think that you only have one tool with
:03:04. > :03:10.which to respond to any security threat is a mistake. Nuclear is a
:03:10. > :03:14.response, a deterrent to other nuclear states. It is not a
:03:14. > :03:18.deterrent to terrorist actors without such weaponry is to have
:03:18. > :03:23.such forces, it is not an either or situation.
:03:23. > :03:27.Kate Hudson, let me put you what David Cameron the British prime
:03:27. > :03:30.minister said recently, in defending his commitment to
:03:30. > :03:36.renewing Britain's nuclear deterrent. The Soviet Union no
:03:36. > :03:40.longer exists about the threat has not gone away. There is a new risk
:03:40. > :03:44.of a new armed states emerging. The threat may have changed but it is
:03:44. > :03:49.still there. He is absolutely right and that is
:03:49. > :03:53.why we have to take major steps to ensure that the threat of nuclear
:03:53. > :03:58.proliferation is diminished and eradicated. The only way we can be
:03:58. > :04:02.certain is to deal with the problem now and move towards full global
:04:02. > :04:07.multilateral disbarment, or we will face an increasing number of
:04:07. > :04:10.nuclear weapons states, non-state actors, as Douglas suggests, will
:04:10. > :04:15.be an increasingly widespread access to nuclear weapons, which
:04:15. > :04:21.will end in use, either intentionally or accidentally.
:04:21. > :04:25.Hasn't deterrence get the peace? There has been an awful lot of war
:04:25. > :04:30.since 1945, so it certainly has not kept the peace.
:04:30. > :04:36.Obviously it has kept the peace during the Cold War. The Soviet
:04:36. > :04:41.Union was defeated by America, Britain, by NATO, without firing a
:04:41. > :04:45.shot. That is how the USSR crumbled, that is how it's turning over of
:04:45. > :04:51.Eastern Europe ended. To think that because you had that stand-off,
:04:51. > :04:55.that there would not be any other countries, is of course nonsense.
:04:55. > :05:02.There was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, many other conflicts,
:05:02. > :05:06.but it is a terrible mistake to think that the deterrence of
:05:07. > :05:13.complete annihilation is not a deterrent of some kind. Of course
:05:13. > :05:17.it is. It stops walls between such actors. We are in such a situation
:05:17. > :05:23.between India and Pakistan. It is such a volatile relationship.
:05:23. > :05:32.Because they are both in nucleic States, has to date, manage to stop
:05:32. > :05:36.a full sake -- full-scale war. former commander of the US Air
:05:36. > :05:41.Force, he wrote in March of this year, scholars disagree on the
:05:41. > :05:44.extent of whether the existence of nuclear weapons on the subcontinent
:05:44. > :05:49.have lowered the presence of nuclear war, but the ever
:05:49. > :05:54.possibility that some future crisis could escalate out of control, the
:05:54. > :05:59.consequences could be horrific. That is not a voice, that is a
:05:59. > :06:02.military boys, and he is worried about that. That may suggest that
:06:02. > :06:09.deterrent is not doing it now, whatever it may have done in the
:06:09. > :06:13.past. Nobody is in favour of more proliferation. Both Kate and I, and
:06:13. > :06:17.she said she is in favour of non- proliferation, nobody wants any
:06:17. > :06:21.more countries to become a nuclear, ideally the number of countries
:06:21. > :06:25.that are currently nuclear would not be nuclear, but to think that
:06:25. > :06:29.the solution to current global instability, at the very moment
:06:29. > :06:34.that countries such as North Korea and Iran are seeking and acquiring
:06:34. > :06:41.nuclear weaponry, for countries like the US and the UK to dismantle
:06:41. > :06:47.their nuclear weaponry, is madness. It is a manners to propose it and
:06:47. > :06:53.there is no blueprint for doing it. There is not a blueprint. We have
:06:53. > :06:56.to look at this in the global context. I was at the Nuclear Non-
:06:56. > :07:00.Proliferation treaty conference in Geneva, and it reminded me in what
:07:00. > :07:06.a small minority Britain is in considering to be a nuclear weapon
:07:07. > :07:12.state. There are 180 countries there, the vast majority of which
:07:12. > :07:16.do not have nuclear weapons for their security, many of them in the
:07:16. > :07:21.whole of the southern hemisphere, is organised in very different
:07:21. > :07:25.nuclear-weapons resigns. All these countries believe that nuclear
:07:25. > :07:28.weapons are not necessary to their security, and to continue with them
:07:28. > :07:32.is a grave disservice to humanity. There is an increasing global
:07:32. > :07:36.dialogue about this when the majority of states are objecting to
:07:36. > :07:41.the fact that a very small number threaten their livelihoods, the
:07:41. > :07:47.continuation of their lives in fact, and the human race as a whole. That
:07:47. > :07:51.is the reality of the situation. Britain does not threaten the
:07:51. > :07:55.livelihoods at everyone around the world because we have got Trident.
:07:55. > :08:00.You conduct your remarks in a polite fashion. The fact that we
:08:00. > :08:06.are in a situation where a minority of states have nuclear weapons is
:08:06. > :08:14.of course the States. And they are all obliged... to undertake steps
:08:14. > :08:19.in good faith, towards disarmament. We are a nuclear-armed state for
:08:19. > :08:24.the next 50 odd years, it is not a good faith its mood. The minority
:08:24. > :08:31.of State is a good thing. We want as few countries as possible.
:08:31. > :08:37.less the better. Absolutely. We are in agreement on that. Fewer is
:08:37. > :08:40.better. However I do not think it is a wise situation, none would be
:08:40. > :08:45.wonderful, it would have been wonderful if this Pandora's box
:08:45. > :08:51.never opened, but it has, but the question for the future is whether
:08:51. > :08:55.we have countries like North Korea, as Iran may be able to in the
:08:55. > :09:01.picture, where they may be able to break out nuclear weapons, and
:09:01. > :09:07.countries such as the US have no response to that? And do we want a
:09:07. > :09:12.world... are able to have power, and we have established...
:09:12. > :09:16.North Koreans and the British are both proliferating. Exactly that
:09:16. > :09:19.point. You said in your remarks earlier that many of the countries
:09:19. > :09:26.do not want nuclear weapons and they do not want their neighbours
:09:26. > :09:30.to have them, but their neighbours to have them. Two surveys are
:09:30. > :09:36.conducted after the 30 nuclear test by North Korea, one by Deloitte and
:09:36. > :09:40.the other Institute for Asian Studies, it found that up to 65%,
:09:40. > :09:44.supporters South Korea's developing its own nuclear weapons, New York
:09:44. > :09:47.Times as bow to an injured knee in South Korea, saying having a
:09:47. > :09:51.nuclear North Korea is facing a person holding a gun with just
:09:51. > :09:56.their bare hands. South Korea should have its own nuclear
:09:56. > :10:00.capability, not least if the US pulls out, like it did in Vietnam.
:10:00. > :10:05.They want to go nuclear, and the members of the Non-Proliferation
:10:05. > :10:09.treaty makes no difference. They would have to pull out like North
:10:09. > :10:14.Korea did. They were a member and the early to thousands, when George
:10:14. > :10:18.Bush said it was on the axis of evil, it left the NPD and said it
:10:18. > :10:23.had a deterrent need to develop a nuclear weapons for its own
:10:23. > :10:28.security. Exactly the same argument for Security and nuclear weapons
:10:28. > :10:31.possession as we and the other nuclear weapon states perpetuate.
:10:31. > :10:37.Would you recognise any moral difference between for instance,
:10:37. > :10:42.the UK and North Korea? I think any country having nuclear weapons is
:10:42. > :10:45.unacceptable, we are obliged under international law... but do you
:10:45. > :10:51.think there are any differences between North Korea and Great
:10:51. > :10:56.Britain? But in the case of nuclear position, it is wrong. Equally
:10:56. > :10:59.wrong, for any country to have nuclear weapons. You are aware of
:10:59. > :11:03.history and you know the only country that has ever used the
:11:03. > :11:08.nuclear weapons is the United States, and use them against a
:11:08. > :11:13.country which did not have a so- called nuclear deterrent. In order
:11:13. > :11:19.to close World War II. And we already know from the testing, many
:11:19. > :11:23.senior politicians and military people, that Japan was already...
:11:23. > :11:32.that is the CND's version of history. You would hear what people
:11:32. > :11:37.like Winston Churchill had to say. It is an accurate one. Let's not
:11:37. > :11:41.argue about the past too much. I'm quite keen to talk about the
:11:41. > :11:47.present and the future. On the present, Douglas Murray, we talked
:11:47. > :11:52.a bit about North Korea a way they -- why they may be motivated. Is
:11:52. > :11:57.there a danger, the system that we had at the moment, it is perversely
:11:57. > :12:02.encouraging proliferation? I give the example of North Korea. You
:12:02. > :12:05.wrote an article in which you specifically said that there is
:12:05. > :12:09.this does on it -- desire among rogue states and states that want
:12:09. > :12:16.to prove themselves on the international States to join the
:12:16. > :12:23.big boys' club. North Korea believes they can bypass all the
:12:23. > :12:31.team from -- all the tedious and steps, in getting an economy, human
:12:31. > :12:35.rights, a go straight to nucleic arms. -- to nuclear. It is a case
:12:35. > :12:40.for making sure that countries like North Korea never have nuclear
:12:40. > :12:47.weaponry. Where would that take you? Meaney you did everything you
:12:47. > :12:55.could to stop countries such as North Korea up and Iran... who else
:12:55. > :12:59.would you accept? It is a closed club. We do not know what the state
:12:59. > :13:04.of Iran's nuclear ambitions are. They say they are only interested
:13:04. > :13:10.in energy. Other countries say they want to acquire a weapon. If we get
:13:10. > :13:15.to that stage, where it is alleged... of North Korea's weapons
:13:15. > :13:23.programme, there is a moral obligation on other states to it
:13:23. > :13:27.eliminate them? To everything and anything you can. Sir bomb them?
:13:27. > :13:37.Including bombing. There is a very interesting lesson to be learnt
:13:37. > :13:40.
:13:40. > :13:43.from North Korea. Why, for instance if you were the regime in Pyongyang,
:13:43. > :13:48.use oil and this is an important point to make, you saw Colin
:13:48. > :13:58.Gaddafi volunteer up his nuclear programme to President Bush and
:13:58. > :13:58.
:13:58. > :14:03.Prime Minister Blair after the invasion of Iraq. Subsequently...
:14:03. > :14:08.there are some cases of May sent a nuclear programmes such as Libya.
:14:08. > :14:12.It was more advanced than some people thought. It was much further
:14:12. > :14:18.advanced than some people thought. Gaddafi gave them up as some years
:14:18. > :14:22.later, when he started brutalising his people again, there was in
:14:22. > :14:26.international intervention. But if you were the regime in Pyongyang,
:14:26. > :14:30.you would probably noticed that NATO was able to go and intervene
:14:30. > :14:34.when it was not nuclear, they're very much fears intervening in
:14:34. > :14:40.countries where there are nuclear. So the international community
:14:40. > :14:45.gives off a very bad signal. If you are able to nuke up fast, you can
:14:45. > :14:48.remain in power forever. It is the same idea meant that we need them
:14:48. > :14:53.for our national security and we are not prepared to give them up.
:14:53. > :14:57.What I would be interested in hearing from Douglas, given that we
:14:57. > :15:02.are signed up to the Nuclear Non- Proliferation treaty, our own
:15:02. > :15:06.Government, they are very committed to that multilateral disarmament
:15:06. > :15:16.goal, about progress towards disarmament, how would you propose
:15:16. > :15:24.
:15:24. > :15:31.We should reduce the number of nuclear warheads worldwide. That is
:15:31. > :15:37.in the treaty we stand up for. should not at any stage be thinking
:15:37. > :15:41.of this arming ourselves. If America disarms itself, when we
:15:41. > :15:47.have seen in recent months, we will see in the months ahead, but rogue
:15:47. > :15:53.regimes are able to acquire weapons. It is madness. You are in a small
:15:53. > :15:59.minority win your opinions. So are you. No. In Britain, you have the
:15:59. > :16:06.opinion polls. The majority of the population is in favour of
:16:06. > :16:16.scrapping and counselling. Globally, it is massive. You are on a losing
:16:16. > :16:17.
:16:17. > :16:21.ticket. You are in the minority I cannot hear you when you are both
:16:21. > :16:28.Speaker at once. We are in the majority in Britain and around the
:16:28. > :16:33.world. The argument has not been listened to. Nor should it be
:16:33. > :16:37.listened to. Are things changing? Of course. Debates are always
:16:37. > :16:43.changing. It does not matter whether I am in the minority or not.
:16:43. > :16:53.I cannot keep count. Can I finish my case? No. We are allowed to talk
:16:53. > :16:54.
:16:54. > :16:59.over each other. They are both doing well at it. The point worth
:16:59. > :17:04.repeating, of course, we are all for non-proliferation. I do not
:17:04. > :17:08.think any of us would for nuclear weaponry in the world. If I can
:17:08. > :17:13.just finish. I would like to Britain retain a nuclear deterrent.
:17:13. > :17:17.With the US as well. I wish Pakistan and India did not have
:17:17. > :17:23.nuclear deterrence. We are where we are. Whatever decision you come
:17:23. > :17:27.from however, it is madness to think that we and Pyongyang are on
:17:27. > :17:33.a moral equilibrium. We touched on that already. On a specific point
:17:33. > :17:37.about we are where we are, do we have to be, Kate Hudson, where we
:17:38. > :17:42.are? Other incentives or mechanisms, given that non-proliferation for
:17:42. > :17:45.all of its virtues have not stopped country since the treaty being
:17:45. > :17:49.established in 1970 acquiring nuclear weapons and status were
:17:49. > :17:54.thereby leaving the MPT order the joining it in the first place,
:17:54. > :17:58.other incentives that could actually persuade some countries to
:17:58. > :18:03.leave? Is there a mechanism that would help people say, we want to
:18:03. > :18:09.relinquish NSW nuclear weapons? have seen some countries give up
:18:09. > :18:13.nuclear arsenals. South Africa, for example. It gave up after the
:18:13. > :18:18.apartheid regime. We saw some successor states from the Soviet
:18:18. > :18:24.Union give up their nuclear weapons. Many countries around thes, with
:18:24. > :18:28.the borderline technology capacity chose not to do that. I think that
:18:28. > :18:32.in terms of moving forward globally, there is a strong recognition that
:18:32. > :18:36.something else would be better in terms of Britain, what could be
:18:36. > :18:41.better. If you are looking at how we spend money on defence, for
:18:41. > :18:45.example, the opportunity cost in defence terms, of maintaining
:18:45. > :18:49.Trident is absolutely massive. There was an op-ed in the New York
:18:50. > :18:56.Times last week. A senior US official said Britain can either
:18:56. > :19:00.have tried and in terms of NATO a military capacity, it can be a
:19:00. > :19:06.nuclear weapon state or it can be a useful military partner. If we have
:19:06. > :19:10.a Trident, a nuclear weapon state. But if not, we can have a whole
:19:10. > :19:14.range of other things we can have, to restore some of the troops we
:19:14. > :19:18.lost because of the defence cuts. We could have used for things.
:19:19. > :19:23.Which is one of the reasons why some senior military figures say we
:19:23. > :19:28.should scrap Trident because it is a useless and we should spend it on
:19:28. > :19:32.his fourth defence capacity. In this government's own national
:19:32. > :19:38.security strategy a couple of years ago, they downgraded the threat of
:19:38. > :19:42.State on a state of nuclear warfare. Level one threat, things likes of
:19:42. > :19:48.warfare, terrorism, pandemics, climate change, will things we need
:19:48. > :19:52.to change. Do you find it perverse that the British Government wants
:19:52. > :19:56.to spend billions on renewing weapon it has no intention of
:19:56. > :20:01.using? It would be a failure of diplomatic a military strategy if
:20:01. > :20:04.it had to use it. At the same time, it cannot find the money for an
:20:04. > :20:10.army any bigger than it was when Napoleon was the biggest threat in
:20:10. > :20:14.Britain? This is like talking about the NHS in terms of should the NHS
:20:14. > :20:18.cure cancer or should we have hospitals? The NHS tackle diabetes
:20:18. > :20:24.or should be deal with another disease? You deal with the problems
:20:24. > :20:30.in front of you. Is this the right day of dealing with them?
:20:30. > :20:37.cannot have all that rare to early. Yes, you can. -- militarily.
:20:37. > :20:41.can have cuts. We have already had cuts. The money is not there for
:20:41. > :20:46.the profits. Personally, it is obvious he could have a nuclear
:20:46. > :20:49.deterrent and have conventional forces. In the world of living
:20:49. > :20:54.today, we both need nuclear deterrence for nuclear-armed states
:20:54. > :20:59.to deter them and we need commercial forces. That is wishful
:20:59. > :21:09.thinking. The money is not there. You have been thinking like that
:21:09. > :21:19.
:21:19. > :21:24.for many decades. The money is not He should be a gentleman. Of course
:21:24. > :21:29.senior members in the military are always going to be aggravated. They
:21:29. > :21:32.see their own troops being cut. They see people being sent off to
:21:32. > :21:36.Afghanistan on very low pay, of course military leaders are
:21:36. > :21:41.aggravated by that. But to think you are not going to need all of
:21:41. > :21:44.these tours in the talks to respond so to the problems of the could
:21:44. > :21:54.first sentries ludicrous. Where would you cut the money from to pay
:21:54. > :21:54.
:21:54. > :21:58.20 years from now, what will the state of the world's nuclear
:21:58. > :22:04.arsenal look like? What will be different as a result of the debate
:22:04. > :22:09.taking place internationally? 8? Had a year's time.I would like
:22:09. > :22:17.to think that an optimistic forecast would be that we would be
:22:17. > :22:20.the final stages are for global eradication. -- complete. What is
:22:20. > :22:25.possible is that we will see increased bilateral reductions
:22:25. > :22:31.between the US and Russia, which are both committed to. When we get
:22:31. > :22:35.down to a certain level, it is possible, this is being mooted in
:22:35. > :22:41.international circles, that other nuclear weapons states will be at
:22:41. > :22:47.the table and talk about reducing together. That is a very possible
:22:47. > :22:53.thing, in terms of nuclear weapon Estates and state with nuclear
:22:53. > :22:57.ambitions, they can also be drawn into the discussion. I want to see
:22:57. > :23:04.a situation in which countries like the US, US as are, scale down the
:23:04. > :23:09.number of warheads the half. Russia. I'll like to see a situation where
:23:09. > :23:13.this country retains its nuclear deterrent. Award nobody else
:23:13. > :23:19.joining the nuclear club. Iran was not a nuclear power. Pyongyang was
:23:19. > :23:22.not a nuclear power. I would a situation where no more countries
:23:23. > :23:28.break out. For the years from now however, if those believe that the
:23:28. > :23:34.onus is on us to have their way, he was Richard will have the worst
:23:34. > :23:43.weapons and the best way should will have none. -- the West regimes.
:23:43. > :23:49.Nuclear weapons charitable thing. Does that mean there is a moral
:23:49. > :23:53.obligation to eliminate them? Bombing weapons sites? I do not
:23:53. > :24:00.believe that bombing is the way to resolve what is very often the
:24:00. > :24:04.result of complex regional problems. We talked about proliferation. We
:24:04. > :24:10.have to prevent nuclear proliferation through the peaceful
:24:10. > :24:15.dialogue process. We have to be aware that steps we take ourselves
:24:15. > :24:20.will have consequences. If we decide to replace stride and now,
:24:20. > :24:25.will be contributing to global proliferation. -- Dryden. Pyongyang