Tom Griffin (London, OK): As much as Charles Clarke deprecates talk of 'Blairite plots' against the Prime Minister, his article in the New Statesman today will inevitably be seen in that light.

However it is worth noting some less predictable and more interesting elements, notably a significant departure from New Labour orthodoxy on foreign policy:

Liberal interventionism must be underpinned by military force, but its moral authority was undermined by the glacial progress in preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the ill-considered determination to renew Trident.

It seems that Clarke has joined the growing number of Western politicians who believe that nuclear de-escalation by the major powers is necessary to prevent proliferation of WMD.

However, as reader David Habbakuk noted in an OK thread on this subject last month, the Georgian crisis and the prospect of operational NATO missile defence may make that much harder to achieve.

If the Georgian government had decided to attempt to reincorporate a reluctant South Ossetia in such a situation, the Russians could be inhibited from responding by the proven capability of the U.S. military to destroy the infrastructure of adversary states by conventional methods. They do not want to be in this position.

If people are seriously interested in a nuclear-free world, they must take the security concerns of countries who perceive themselves at potential risk from U.S. military power seriously. Otherwise this is just pious woffle.

Reconsidering Trident renewal might be one way of demonstrating a serious intent to avoid a new cold war that would provide a fertile ground for illicit WMD proliferation.