Drone technology a threat to Trident submarines, MPs to be told

The controversial idea that Britain’s nuclear submarines could be rendered irrelevant before the new fleet is even launched, will be bolstered this week by a report to be presented to MPs examining the Trident programme. Emerging drone technology, which could make the oceans “effectively transparent”, will make the submarines that carry the UK’s nuclear deterrent vulnerable to attack, warns the report which was commissioned by the British American Security Information Council (Basic), a nuclear disarmament think-tank.

The report, to be presented to MPs on the Defence Select Committee this week, says rapid advances in technology mean the world’s oceans are becoming a “sensor rich” environment full of drones with “eyes and ears everywhere”. As a result there will be “no hiding place for submarines.”

If Britain’s submarines become easily detectable they will lose “all their advantages as strategic weapons platforms”.

The Defence Select Committee has written to BAE and Babcock, constructors of the UK submarine fleet, asking them to respond to the drone threat claims.

The report is a fillip for Emily Thornberry, the shadow Defence Secretary, who has faced fierce criticism of her review of the Trident replacement programme. Her suggestion that drone technology posed a threat to nuclear submarines, thereby diminishing the potency of the nuclear deterrent, has been ridiculed as “tired old science fiction”.

Lord Hutton, the former Defence Secretary, speaking on Radio 4’sToday, described the idea that technological advances posed a clear danger to Trident as “camouflage for those who want to espouse unilateral disarmament”.

[“Source-independent”]