PETER Thomson has written a thought-provoking letter (Apr 2) regarding the pointlessness of hosting nuclear weapons in Scotland. However, he makes one assumption on their absence – that we would no longer be a “target” – which requires us to rely entirely on the good intentions of nuclear-armed potential enemies respecting our lack of equal retaliatory capability.

The debate on nuclear weapons is more nuanced than a simple binary choice, and while I fully support the removal as soon as possible it is not without some trepidation. The “assumed” enemy states, in particular Russia, have a completely different approach to the use of weapons of mass destruction, where authority for their use is delegated to battlefield commanders with apparently no political control, and as we have seen in recent weeks we have already been threatened with them in an attempt to prevent us from going to the aid of Ukraine.

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In an unstable military situation and in the face of losses that could be attributed to other-state interference, what is his last-resort option – already declared? In addition it is reasonably well known that Putin has already stated that he doesn’t care about the rest of the world declaring that a world without Russia is not worth being part of, implying that he would initiate nuclear Armageddon with no concern for the consequences.

Unfortunately, Nato and the rest of the Western world have diminished their conventional military and hence come to depend too much on the possession of nuclear weapons, and unable therefore to assist conventionally in the defence of world order when a nuclear state embarks on a military adventure.

One significant question that remains unanswered is – if a nuclear weapon is used for “demonstration purposes” against a small state lacking its own retaliatory capability, would the UK and US governments then initiate a retaliatory strike when they themselves have not been directly threatened?

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Once again we have to rely on the good intentions and benign restraint of other parties. What we really need to focus our efforts on is verifying the removal of all nuclear weapons, not just our own, in which respect the UK only owns the warheads and not the missiles used to deliver them.

This debate is further complicated by states such as Iran and Korea both overtly seeking to develop their own nuclear arsenals, both capable of delivering them almost anywhere in the northern hemisphere and both under autocratic dictatorships, with the declared intention of destroying other states in pursuit of ideological or imperialistic goals.

The further unanswered question is: what would the world do if such a state did use them? Removal of our capability has to go hand in hand with a similar reduction across the entire world, even if that does mean making political compromises in international arrangements, and quite possibly having to give in to nuclear blackmail.

Nick Cole
Meigle, Perthshire

SO Boris Johnson wants six or seven nuclear power stations to make him atomic Boris. Another bird-brained plan by Tories and a great rip-off.

From water cannon and flower garden bridge to tunnels to Northern Ireland, this fool takes the cash for his latest crash.

Time to ditch atomic Boris with his atomic waste.

Glen Peters
Paisley