person:whitehall

  • Le désarmement n’engage que ceux qui y croient :

    Whitehall told US to ignore Brown’s Trident statement | The Guardian
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-cables-trident-nuclear-us

    The London embassy sent a secret cable back to Washington last autumn reporting conversations with the two civil servants, Richard Freer and Judith Gough, in which they cast doubt on the significance of Brown’s announcement at the UN general assembly that Britain might cut the number of planned new Trident submarines from four to three.

    Pour la France, réduire l’armement nucléaire, c’est de la démagogie :
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/218931

    Araud and the Elysee’s Guillaud fear British nuclear policy is being guided for the moment by Labour Party “demagogues” for domestic political consumption. Briens added that Gordon Brown seems to have decided disarmament will be his legacy, and the UK has moved from talking about disarmament as a political sop to gain parliamentary support for renewing its Trident force, to embracing disarmament as an end in itself. According to Briens, in some fora, the UK has shown willingness to accept clauses calling for a “ban on nuclear weapons.” Critically, UK rhetoric suggests that nuclear weapons are inherently bad, thus implying that maintaining a deterrent force is immoral. For France “nuclear weapons are not bad or good, they just are.” Thus, France continues to oppose the phrase “a world free of nuclear weapons,” which in Araud’s view implies a moral judgment. However, France can accept “a world without nuclear weapons,” which the GOF thinks is more neutral.

    Ne pas perdre de vue que la bombe atomique, c’est une question d’identité nationale (je savais pas, mais bon, sur ce sujet tout est possible) :

    However, France’s concerns about U.S. rhetoric go beyond RevCon tactics and to the heart of French nuclear theology. Araud said that any statements that are seen to delegitimize the idea of a nuclear deterrent capacity directly threaten French strategic interests, which are fundamentally and “psychologically” bound to France’s deterrent. France’s policy of nuclear deterrence is supported by parties across the political spectrum and has become an essential part of French strategic identity.

    #désarmement #Grande-Bretagne #cablegate #France #armement_nucléraire #bombe_atomique