Fascinating subject.
I sat down and re-read the second edition of Peter Hennessy's Secret State, chapter The Human Button. I recommend it as background to the CDS/ Corbyn issue.
Hennessy [who had unprecedented and long-term access to very delicate material] stresses that the essential of nuclear deterrence is that no potential enemy KNOWS what one's response would be. This is most sharply focused in the "last resort letters", held on every Trident boat containing the PM's personal instructions regarding release or non-release should the PM and his deputies [and the country] disappear in a preemptive strike.
Hennessy tells us that only one ex-PM has revealed what he wrote.
Were Corbyn to be PM, we know, or very strongly suspect, what he would write; he has spent his entire career stressing the point.
No uncertainty, no deterrent. This is not political, it is military.
Last edited by langleybaston; 10th Nov 2015 at 15:12.
Reason: errata