User:Dumelow/Moscow criterion

Possible launch locations for the Polaris system (blue and green) and Chevaline (green only) to hit Moscow

British nuclear weapons, initially air-dropped by the V-force bombers but from 1968 including submarine-launched Poalris missiles, could have been deployed as part of a NATO commitment or on a unilateral basis as part of the national deterrent. In the former situation targeting was decided jointly with the Nuclear Operations (NUCOPS) branch of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. NUCOPS would have nominated targets which would then be approved by British representatives. Decision to launch lay solely with British government. Britain's national deterrent was targetted purely at Soviet cities and based, from as early as 1962, on the need to be able to guarantee destruction of Moscow, the Moscow Criterion. Moscow was the administrative, political and military centre of the USSR, British planners thought it an important target to destroy. The planners were also unwilling to abandon the capability of successfully penetrating Moscow's anti-ballistic missile defences as to do so would remove the possibility of attacking part of the USSR measuring tens of thousands of square miles. Moscow was not the only city to be targeted by Polaris, but is known to have been a priority target. The UK nuclea plan initially targetted 40 Soviet cities but this was progressively reduced to 20 and by 1962 to 15. A plan by Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Sir David Luce in October 1964 called for the number of cities to be increased to 20, which would have required two Polaris-armed submarines to be on station at any one time, requiring a minimum of five to be built. In the end the devision was taken to reduce the targetting to 7-10 cities, which required only one submarine on station and four to be built. The plan called for Mopscow and Leningrad (the two most populous Soviet cities) to be targetted with a mininium level of destruction of 50%, plus a further 5-8 cities of populations in excess of 300,000. The estimated reliability of the Polaris against Soviet defences was 71%, each subamrine carried 16 missiles. The Moscow Criterion was developed with the knowledge that the UK was very vulnerable to nuclear attack which could wipe out its air and ground-based forces. By 1975 British planners though that there was a credibility gap in the ability of Britain to maintain the Moscow Criterion with an unimporved Poalris facing new Soviet ABM systems. A November 1975 memorandum by Chief of the Defence Staff Field Marshal Sir Michael Carveto Labour's minister of defence Roy Mason noted that it might be impossible to guarantee a missile could penetrate Moscow's defences from a submarinme in the Atlantic by the end fo the year and proposed relocating the submarines to the Mediterranean to outflank SOviet radar and maintain the ability to meet the criterion. Submarines in the shallow mediterranean would be much more vulverable to Soviet anti-submarine warfare and, Carver thought, new radar defences would be deployed by the Soviets to cover this flank by 1977. Carver thought that a tactic of two submarines, one in the Atlantic and one in the med, could still meet the criterion at least until 1979. Carver suggested instead that the criterion be dropped and ten cities west of the Urals be targetted instead of the capital. Carver thought that the Soviets would view the loss of these cities as unacceptable damage, even if Moscow survived. The Chevaline programme to imrpove the ability of Polaris to penetrate Soviet ABMs was progressed to maintain the criterion and the Moscow Criterion was promoted to PM Harold Wilson and Foreign Secretary James Callaghan in lieu of Carver's alternatives. AFter the introduction of the Soviet ‘Chekhov’ Battle Management Radar in March 1976 Carver advised Mason that the targeting should be switched to ten cities apart from Moscow or to move the submarines to the Med. A 1 June 1976 MoD meeting considered that five non-Moscow cities would suffice as a credible deterrent, though this would have rendered Chevaline as unecessary. Mason instead made the case for Chevaline to reinstate the criterion, though by 1976 ririsng costs threatened its future. Simultaneously plans were prepared for the replacement of Polaris with a new system, for which the criterion might not be essential, switching to targetting the next nine largest cities of the USSR. The December 1978 Duff-Mason Report, by the MoD cheif scientific adviser Professor Sir Ronald Mason and Foreign Office deputy under secretary Sir Anthony Duff stated that the requirement for a deterrant was to destroy the USSR's capacity to compete industrially or militarily with other superpowers. THis required the disruption of the major government organs, destruction of a number of cities including moscoe, destrruction of a larher number of non-Moscow cities or severe damage to at least 30 major targets. The Defence Policy Staff argued agaiunst the last measure, which they thought would not deter the Soviets, noting the nation had survived the loss of 20 million dead from the Second World War and a similar number in Stalinist purges.The DPS argued for the retention of the Msocow Criterion which they thought would render the nation inferior to the US and CHina. The Duff-Mason report recommended that a greater number of warheads either on cruise missiles or via a MIRV system be implemented to maintain the crierion in spite of improved ABM defences, and considered that 300 cruise missiles (such as Tomahawk) would be necessary. David Owen and Dennis Healey both though Chevaline too expensive and teh Moscow Criterion unecessary but Callaghan was in favour of the replacement of Polaris and approached Jimmy Carter about using Trident to maintain the criterion. This decision and the completion of Chevaline were made by Thatcher in July 1980 (Callaghan had broken protocal to pass onto Thatcher details of Trident and his dscussions with Carter.) Chevaline was deployed from 1982, to maintain the ability to destroy Moscow until 1994, when Trident was introduced. Sir Frank Cooper regarded the criterion as making the USSR consider the UK as a second deterrent (alongisde the US) and a means of "an ultimate, national response to any political blackmail which may be used against us". THe 1972 ABM TReaty and 1974 Vladivostok Accords the USSR agreed that it would use ABM to protect only Moscow but the Chiefs of Staff were concerne dthat the USSR could renounce the treaty and quickly protect other cities. Carver intended his altenatives only as tempoary measures until Chevaline provided a means of reinstaitng the criterion. Foreign Secretary Own doubted whether the UK could keep up with the USSR's development of ABM systems. Criterion was central to the UK's conception of a minimum level of deterrent until the end of the Cold wWar.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43299378

The British Labour Government and the development of Chevaline, 1974–79 https://www-tandfonline-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1080/14682741003679375

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12712608

Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell called for the UK to publicly abadnon the criterion at the 2012 NATO CHicago summit. He stated that it was irrelevent given the ending of the cold war and the nature of the British nuclear deterrent as one of minimum deterrance to be used as a last resort only.