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Writer is an entarler of FT

There are questions about British national security, which is not going in the secret angles of Whitehall. The answers may be very painful. Donald Trump’s contempt for European allies only casts such a query. As much as I can say, no one dared to ask that, so here he goes. What will the government do if an American president decides to stop the Terident nuclear missiles?

The more you have to lose it, the more temptation, avoid admitting that things can go badly. Human nature is collision here with cold logic. The more serious shock, the more important the thinking.

This is the position that the Sir Kerr Starmer government finds itself in an attempt to manage the Trump to establish a bilateral Ukrainian peace agreement with Vladimir Putin. This will witness that Russia is absolved, while forcing Ukraine to abandon the lands and refused to ensure NATO security. European Washington allies will be sent to the side lines during this summer redesign in the continent’s security structure.

Trump’s message – the basic damage to NATO and the American security guarantee that has preserved peace on the continent since 1945 – is painful for all Europeans, not the least of which is the former communist countries sitting in front of Russia’s specialists. Britain’s unique weakness in more than half a century of the Atlantic Ocean, which is indisputable-is the dependency that has been thrown in the first possible comfort through its destructive departure from the European Union.

Since the Suez disaster looked the trumpet of the last empire, Britain’s security has been directly based on a “special relationship” with Washington. The armed forces were formed to fight wars alongside Americans, and intelligence services are intertwined in the two countries. There is still a nuclear power only because the United States provides Traidnets missiles to carry atomic warheads. When the ministers talk about NATO defense strategy, they mean the United States.

Therefore, no one should be surprised that Starmer, who is heading next week to the White House of what should have had seemed to be a distinguished audience, seeking to put a brave face on the mono warrior in Trump. It is completely the imitation of the British confirmation of Washington. There is nothing new, whether in the Downing Street proposal that Starmer can serve as a “bridge” between Trump and other European leaders. The metaphor is an institution. When Tony Blair threw a lot with George W. Bush to bring down Saddam Hussein Iraq, he discovered that the bridges had been walking.

But then Blair once told me that he saw it “the duty” of British prime ministers to continue with the White House worker. For Starmer, it seems that the option between pretending to coalition can somehow and recognize that Britain needs a completely new foreign policy. At the present time, there is nothing else, as officials say, the relationship once.

As for the nuclear deterrent, it was not really independent. For this reason, generations of British politicians have always insisted on reference to them. When John F. Kennedy agreed in 1962 to provide Polaris to the Harold McMilalan government, linking the conditions. The submarine fired missiles will be set to NATO. As for independence, the best that McMilalan can get is to agree that Britain can restore them in severe emergency situations.

The same applies to Trident, which has been updated, which the government intends to spend tens of billions of pounds to maintain the operation of deterrence for several other decades. The Prime Minister may have a virtual right to “pressure the button”. But only Americans can maintain the operational system. Britain is building warheads, but it rents missiles from the US stock. So if the US President does not have the exact “stop” key, he can actually disable him.

All this remains completely virtual, of course, as long as the deterrent is part of the joint commitment to NATO as an anchor of Western security. To be clear, I did not hear any hint until Trump might think about getting rid of the deal. But the world has changed. Nothing can be considered impossible for a president who has chosen Putin as an ally and wants to integrate Canada as a state of 51, Greenland extract from Denmark and seize the Panama Channel.

Trident was a symbol of the “privacy” of the relationship. But he sits on a column of the NATO coalition, which is cracking. Someone needs to ask the embarrassing question. In formulating an answer, you must start with geography. European and British security is indivisible. They were always.