HMS Victorious. Wikimedia Commons/UK Ministry of Defence. Public Domain.The debate in Britain over the renewal of the Trident nuclear-missile programme continues to develop, despite great efforts to close it down. One issue in particular is of deep concern to the authorities: whether the oceans are in the process of becoming transparent. If the submarines which carry the missiles become detectable, they will no longer constitute a secure nuclear force (see "Britain's deep-sea defence: out of time?", 3 March 2016).
Much of the technical work on this issue is being done by the British branch of the Pugwash movement. Some succinct briefings have also been published by the British American Security Information Council. The leading conclusion is that a variety of new technologies, detailed in earlier columns in this openDemocracy series, point the way to much greater transparency, not least with remarkable developments in unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV).
The process is boosted by undersea technologies, many of them of considerable value to the military. Such technologies were originally developed for industrial use in resource extraction, especially oil and gas, using the considerable funds available for research and development (R&D).
