"Nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of violence we currently, or are likely to, face — particularly international terrorism; and the more you analyse them the more unusable they appear. [...] Our independent deterrent has become virtually irrelevant except in the context of domestic politics. Rather than perpetuating Trident, the case is much stronger for funding our Armed Forces with what they need to meet the commitments actually laid upon them. In the present economic climate it may well prove impossible to afford both."

Let's hope that the words of a former Chief of the Defence Staff might change the minds of the politicians who recently voted to renew Britain's nuclear deterrent. You can read the whole letter here.

There is also a very good article by Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University, on the need to change the Cold War mindset of our leaders, today's Doomsday Men, online at the New Internationalist.

A fascinating and chilling report by the BBC's Gordon Corera about the crash of a B52 bomber in northern Greenland in 1968, during which a nuclear weapon was lost beneath the ice, illustrates some of the dangers of the nuclear arms race. Read his report here.

A Nuclear Family Vacation: Travels in the World of Atomic Weaponry (Bloomsbury) is by Nathan Hodge and Sharon Weinberger, a husband-and-wife team of US defence reporters turned nuclear tourists. Rather than relaxing on the Florida beach for their holidays they travelled the world in search of nuclear sites. It's an entertaining and informative read with an important conclusion. The whole "nuclear weapons complex", costing billions of dollars a year, is an enterprise that has "lost its way". According to Hodge and Weinberger, it may be time for the US to think the unthinkable and "explore practical options for eliminating the nuclear arsenal". Read more in my review for the Guardian.

Also in the Guardian are a couple of paperback reviews.  Follow the Water: Exploring the Sea to Discover Climate (Basic Books) is an excellent introduction to oceanography by novelist and keen sailor Dallas Murphy. At nearly 900 pages, Cosmos: An Illustrated History of Astronomy and Cosmology by John North (Chicago) is a suitably monumental book about the biggest subject of all. First published in 1993 and now updated and reissued with many beautiful illustrations, this is a definitive history of our love affair with the stars.

Last but by no means least - because believe it or not this book is actually bigger than Cosmos - is the Chambers Dictionary of Science and Technology (Chambers). At over 1370 pages and a full 7 cm thick, this weighty tome is a must-have addition to the library of any science buff, fact checker, word lover, or wannabe contestant of University Challenge. Read my full review, intriguingly titled "Shish-kebab with a spud", in this week's Times Literary Supplement (August 15, 2008).

It sounds scarcely believable but it's true - as I found out writing Doomsday Men, truth is often stranger than fiction. Forget about all the sophisticated electronic fail-safe locks you see in Hollywood movies preventing someone from detonating a nuclear bomb. Until 1998 the UK's nukes could be armed with a small metal key. So if one had fallen into the hands of terrorists there were no safeguards - a combination lock, for instance - to prevent them from detonating it.

Equally disturbing is the fact that Newsnight has discovered that UK submarine commanders have the ability to launch their nuclear missiles without authorization from the British Prime Minister. France and the United States introduced a fail-safe system of release codes to prevent a general from starting World War III, as happens in Dr Strangelove.

According to Newsnight, as early as 1966 an attempt was made to introduce such safeguards for British nuclear weapons. The Chief Scientific Adviser, Solly Zuckerman, told the Defence Secretary, Denis Healey: "the Government will need to be certain that any weapons deployed are under some form of 'ironclad' control".

But secret documents from the time reveal that the Royal Navy prevented this from happening. They argued that officers of the Royal Navy could be trusted with these ultimate weapons of mass destruction: "It would be invidious to suggest... that Senior Service officers may, in difficult circumstances, act in defiance of their clear orders".

Given that the UK plans to spend some £20 billion updating its Trident submarine missile system, maybe our government should also think about introducing some twenty-first century safeguards to protect us all from the misuse of these terrible weapons.

You can read a summary of Newsnight's findings and watch part of Watts' report here.