,
7 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
1. Today, Boris Johnson will handwrite 4 letters known as The Letters of Last Resort. They contain instructions to the captains of the UK's nuclear submarines for what to do in the event that London is destroyed by a nuclear attack. What should he write? podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pow…
2. The letters are entirely secret. They are stored inside a safe on the Trident submarines. They are never opened, unless London and the UK government are wiped out. When a new prime minister takes office, the old letters are destroyed, so nobody really knows what was written.
3. The PM has effectively a binary choice: retaliate with nuclear weapons...or don't. On the one hand, deterrence requires credibility, so you have to be prepared to retaliate. But actually doing so could escalate to nuclear apocalypse, wiping out our species. That's the paradox.
4. In the latest episode of @powrcorrupts, I spoke with Lord Butler of Brockwell, who has personally briefed 5 prime ministers on that fateful decision. It's their first day of office, and they are given 4 sheets of paper, and forced to decide: to nuke or not to nuke?
5. I also spoke with Professor Jeff McMahan of Oxford, a philosopher who has thought deeply about the morality of nuclear weapons, Cristina Varriale of RUSI, and William Perry, former US Secretary of Defense and asked them: what would you write in *your* Letters of Last Resort?
6. One of the Trident submarines is always on patrol, ready to retaliate if the worst should happen. Its location is one of the most closely guarded secrets of the UK government, because knocking out that sub could knock out Britain's entire nuclear deterrent. So it runs dark.
7. Quite literally today, Boris Johnson is being handed 4 pieces of paper so that he can write down instructions to the captains of nuclear submarines - instructions that we hope will never be read by anyone. Listen to the latest episode of @powrcorrupts podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pow…
