'Supreme National Interests': The Official History of Britain's Strategic Nuclear Deterrent and the Chevaline Programme, 1962-1982

20世纪60年代末，英国最资深的国防规划者清楚地看到，英国的北极星潜射弹道导弹打击苏联目标的能力受到了在莫斯科周围部署新的苏联反弹道导弹(ABM)系统的威胁。经过长时间的辩论，新的保守党政府于1970年决定开始一项高度保密的北极星改进计划的可行性和项目定义研究，该计划旨在使导弹具有穿透苏联反弹道导弹防御系统的能力。在拒绝了其他备选方案后，1973年底，部长们批准全面开发改进后的系统。尽管有巨大的预算压力，该项目的技术问题日益严重(导致重大升级)，以及工党内部的反核情绪，1974年上任的工党政府仍继续开展该项目，只允许一小群部长和高级官员了解现在所称的骑士团方案。1980年1月，当它的存在被透露给下议院时，立即引起了人们对该方案的高昂费用(当时约为10亿GB)、显然遇到的技术问题以及随之而来的时间尺度上的失误的关注。1982年，就在Chvaline最终部署的几个月前，公共账目委员会发布了一份报告，严厉批评国防部对整个计划的管理，以及自提出可行性和项目定义以来，该计划如何被隐藏在任何形式的议会审查之外。自那以后，骑士团计划作为战后英国国防政策中最具争议的方面之一而闻名。拟议的研究将在英国发展战略核威慑力量的背景下，审查北极星改进方案的历史，从1962年12月拿骚会议决定获得北极星系统，到20年后最后部署骑士林。研究的重点将是历届英国政府在寻求维持威慑力量的可信度时的政策制定，以及上世纪70年代随着时间进度的推移和成本的上升，改进计划所面临的问题。这项研究将在内阁府的官方历史系列中出版一卷，并将成为关于这一主题的全面和标准的参考工作，学者、政策制定者和对英国近代史、国防政策和围绕英国继续拥有战略核威慑的热点问题感兴趣的更广泛的受众感兴趣。

In the late 1960s, it became apparent to Britain's most senior defence planners that the ability of the United Kingdom's Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missiles to reach their targets in the Soviet Union was threatened by the deployment of a new Soviet anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system around Moscow. After prolonged debate, it was decided in 1970 by the new Conservative Government to begin a feasibility and project definition study for a highly-secret Polaris improvement programme which was designed to give the missiles the capability to penetrate Soviet ABM defences. Having rejected other alternative options, in late 1973 full development of the improved system was approved by ministers. Despite intense budgetary pressures, growing technical problems with the project (leading to major escalation), and anti-nuclear sentiment within the Labour Party, the Labour Government that assumed office in 1974 continued with the project, restricting knowledge of what was now called the Chevaline programme to only a small group of ministers and top officials. When its existence was revealed to the House of Commons in January 1980, immediate attention was drawn to the high costs of the programme (then amounting to about £1 billion), the technical problems it had apparently encountered, and the consequent slips in timescale. In 1982, just a few months before Chevaline was finally deployed, the Public Accounts Committee issued a report which heavily criticised the Ministry of Defence's management of the whole programme, and the way it had been hidden from any form of parliamentary scrutiny since instigation of feasibility and project definition. The Chevaline programme has since become renowned as one of the most controversial aspects of post-war British defence policy. The proposed research will examine the history of the Polaris improvement programme in the context of the development of the British strategic nuclear deterrent from the decision to acquire the Polaris system at the Nassau Conference in December 1962, to the final deployment of Chevaline two decades later. The focus of the research will be on the policymaking of successive British governments as they sought to maintain the credibility of the deterrent, and the problems that were faced by the improvement programme during the 1970s, as timescales slipped and costs escalated. The research will result in the production of a volume in the Cabinet Office's official history series, and will constitute a comprehensive and standard work of reference on the subject, of interest to academics, policymakers, and a more general audience interested in modern British history, defence policy, and the topical issues surrounding Britain's continued possession of a strategic nuclear deterrent.