We’ll keep the nukes, Fox tells US
By politics.co.uk staff
Britain will maintain its nuclear capabilities despite huge reductions elsewhere in military spending, Liam Fox has reportedly told US officials.
In a meeting with his US counterpart, Robert Gates, the defence secretary pledged that doing so would mean Britain’s military could only deploy a maximum of 6,000 troops to any warzone.
“We need to concentrate on where we think we can be best contributors as an ally to the US,” he told the Times newspaper.
The comments give an inkling of what can be expected in the strategic defence and security review, which is set to be published this autumn.
It follows Dr Fox’s failure to win a tussle with George Osborne over whether the bill for replacing the Trident system should be paid by the Ministry of Defence or the Treasury.
The pledge clashes with comments made by the Liberal Democrats’ defence minister, Nick Harvey, at the party’s conference in Liverpool earlier this week.
Mr Harvey told delegates that hoped to see the ‘main gate’ decision on whether to renew Trident on a like-for-like basis – the “point of no return” deferred until after the 2015 general election.
