In nuclear politics, every action is justified by the response it provokes. The US explains its missile programme by claiming that other states are developing new wea-pons systems, which one day it might need to shoot down. Russia has activated a new weapons system, the Topol-M, designed to “penetrate US anti-missile defences’’.

Israel, citing the threat from Iran, insists on retaining its nuclear missiles. The Iranian president says he wants to wipe Israel off the map, and appears to be developing a means to do so. Israel sees his response as vindicating its nuclear programme. It threatens an air strike, which grants retrospective validity to Ahmadinejad’s designs. Everyone turns out to be right in the end.

Tomorrow the deadline passes for the only objection any Briton is likely to be allowed to make to the latest 100 million pounds of UK government spending on Britain’s nuclear capability. West Berkshire council (local) is permitted to ask the government for a public inquiry into whether the Orion laser project in West Berkshire should go ahead. The government is under no obligation to grant it. The Orion programme seems to be one of those projects whose purpose will be determined after it has begun, but it appears to have something to do with evading the comprehensive test ban treaty. It might help British engineers to design a new generation of bombs. This will strengthen the suspicion that the government is considering not only replacing the existing Trident missiles, but also building a new class of weapons.

The British Royal Navy says it is spending 125 million pounds for upgrading the Faslane naval base on the River Clyde in Scotland. The base houses the submarines which carry the UK’s Trident missiles. The UK defence secretary explains that a new missile system is necessary because “some countries’’ have not been “complying with their obligations under the non-proliferation treaty’’. In response, the UK will refuse to comply with its obligations under the non-proliferation treaty. This provides other countries with their justification for ... well, you’ve got the general idea.

Last week, France joined the exclusive club of responsible nations (the UK, US and North Korea) which have threatened other countries with a pre-emptive nuclear strike. What greater incentive could there be for the rogue states Chirac spoke of to “consider using weapons of mass destruction’’?

Unlike the British parliament, the US Congress has been permitted to vote on such matters, and despite a great deal of bellyaching from the administration, has sought to block a new nuclear programme. For two years in a row it has refused to approve the money for Bush’s “robust nuclear earth penetrator’’, a mini-nuke which could have reduced the threshold for first use. But now it seems to have been duped.

David Hobson, a Republican who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, and has led the fight against new weapons, was persuaded that “this is not a sneaky way to get a whole new powerful warhead type of thing in the future. We’re not trying to do separate missions than those the warheads were designed for today.’’

Ellen Tauscher, a Democrat who is fiercely opposed to proliferation, insisted “this is about tinkering at the margins of the existing weapons systems, nothing more’’. The programme would concentrate on replacing a few non-nuclear components, such as wires and electronics, in order to extend their life. Writing in online magazine OpenDemocracy recently, professor Paul Rogers suggested that an early candidate for replacement under the new programme would be America’s Trident missiles. If this is the case, it “would suit the British very well, with the prospect of close collaboration and maybe even the sharing of some development costs’’.

Meanwhile, when Iran is referred to the UN Security Council, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be able to turn every accusation it makes back on his accusers. He will insist that the council’s members are asserting a monopoly of ultimate violence; that while there is as yet no definitive evidence that he is in breach of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, no one can doubt that they are. He will point to America’s tacit endorsement of Israel’s nuclear status and its overt endorsement of India’s. He will assert that the enforcement of the global nuclear regime discriminates against Muslim states. And though he is wrong about many things, he will be right about all that.

This is not to say that the horripilation Iran’s nuclear programme inspires is unjustified; nor is it to claim that no other state would seek to develop or maintain nuclear weapons if the official nuclear powers gave theirs up. But the refusal of the members of the Security Council to make any moves towards disarmament, their threats of pre-emptive bombing and their quiet development of new weapons systems guarantees the failure of both the UN and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Nothing could make us less secure than the billions we are spending for security. — The Guardian