PRESS RELEASE

6 July 2000

NMD: UK Must Decide

Britain’s Threat Assessment At Odds with US Plans 

LONDON – With the United States on the eve of its third intercept test for a National Missile Defence system, the UK Government must soon make a choice on its participation and the future of its Fylingdales radar facility in Yorkshire. While the outcome of the 7 July test is not certain, it is nonetheless clear that US plans to move toward deployment are not likely to be halted by a failure. 

Fylingdales is crucial to a workable US NMD network. Under current US plans – which, if pursued, would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty – the first stage of deployment, involving up to 100 US interceptors, would require a software upgrade at the UK facility. Under the next stage of the Pentagon’s public plans, Fylingdales would be the site for a new, more powerful X-band radar that, if built, would also violate the ABM treaty. As Russian President Vladimir Putin said in The Times 12 June, “Washington cannot realise its plans alone. It needs European help, above all from Britain, Denmark and Norway. These states risk being drawn into a process that will lead to an unpredictable destruction of strategic stability. The price could be very high." 

The UK Government must be clear about its decision, and transparent about what criteria are used. Obviously, the impact of participation in the US NMD network on UK security writ large must be a key criterion. 

One question that must be addressed is the fact that UK Defence Ministry assessments currently find little threat to the UK itself from ballistic missiles. “We assess that there is no significant threat to the UK from nuclear weapons at present,” Secretary of State for Defence Geoff Hoon stated in a House of Commons debate on 5 June, in describing the Government’s assessment. The British mainland is judged to be secure from ballistic missile attack, with the possible exception of a highly unlikely strike by Russia. 

In fact, the UK Strategic Defence Review does not even mention a risk to the British Isles from weapons of mass destruction, dealing with the subject rather as a regional problem: “At present, any risk to Britain from the ballistic missiles of nations of concern in terms of proliferation is many years off… .” 

“The UK Government must ask itself whether agreeing to link Fylingdales to the US system actually might undercut its own security. Participation in NMD raises the spectre that Britain – now relatively safe from missile attack – could become a direct target,” said BASIC Research Director Theresa Hitchens.  

Another question that must be addressed is the potential effect of building an X-band radar facility at Fylingdales, which lies in North Yorkshire Moors National Park, on the local environment. The Pentagon has already completed a Draft Environmental Impact Study reviewing the “potential impacts of deployment and operation of the land-based NMD system” at the proposed US X-band radar site. This huge study, on page 2-15 of Chapter 2, shows the proposed X-band radar, similar to the one that could be deployed at Fylingdales, encompassing an area of approximately 7 hectares (17 acres). The site would require a complex of security structures, as well as the establishment of an airspace blackout zone of about 6.7 kilometres (4.2 miles) around the radar unit to protect pilots from potential electromagnetic interference hazards. Other steps would be required to prevent local exposure to electromagnetic radiation. 

“While Ministers claim that they cannot make a decision about giving the US permission to include Fylingdales in the NMD system, the US is pressing ahead with plans to do just that,” said BASIC Director Dan Plesch. “Publicly available documents prove that the US is planning to use Fylingdales for NMD, and here in the UK we are unable to have a proper debate about it.” 

For more information, please contact:
Dan Plesch and Stuart Samuels on
+44 (0)20 7407 2977 or +44 (0)771-2833909

Back to Nuclear and WMD home page

Back to BASIC Publications home page