Nukes

[DaveB]

The reasons we have the H bomb and most countries don't is entirely down to history. I'm interpreting your comment as a suggestion that we should seek for all nations to have the H bomb and join the MAD. I don't think that would be a good idea, in that I think it would be even worse (less stable) than the current MAD. All alternatives in this situation are pretty insane, but there it is.

FTFY.

There are currently 8 countries that have declared that they have nuclear weapons. 5 are signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

USA
UK
China
Russia
France

The other three are

India
Pakistan
North Korea

Finally there is Israel that refuses to say whether they have them or not. But everyone knows they do.

A number of other states hold weapons provided by the US but are unable to use them without US approval

Germany
Belgium
Italy
Netherlands
Turkey

So out of a total of 196 countries in the world there are 14 who have the notional capability to use nuclear weapons. 5 of them need the US to let them do it and one - North Korea - has a debatable capacity to do so under it's own steam.

Realistically this leaves 8 countries who have a useable, independent, arsenal of nuclear weapons, and yet this is reagrded as being the norm, not the exception.

188 countries managae to get along just fine without them, but apparently we can't.

[NotAllThere]

...
A potential nuclear strike is not going to come as a result of an escalation but as a sneak pre-emptive attack.

Salami tactics.

[sal]

So out of a total of 196 countries in the world there are 14 who have the notional capability to use nuclear weapons. 5 of them need the US to let them do it and one - North Korea - has a debatable capacity to do so under it's own steam.

I don't believe there is any doubt about N.Korea having a working nuclear weapon as seismic sensors and satellite images have confirmed numerous underground detonations indicating nuclear explosions from tests. In addition there are reports of mobile platforms equipped with short/mid range missiles capable of carrying said nuclear warheads. What they don't have (yet) is a delivery mechanism do deploy them at distances longer than couple of hundred miles, but they don't need to, all they need to do is nuke S.Korea and watch the world economy going down the drain imploding governments and mass unrest.

[DaveB]

Not forgetting that South Africa had some & gave them up.

Sweden contemplated building some back in the day.

As did Ukraine when they left the Soviet Union, decommissioned thousands of them.

[NickFitz]

Ex-military types reckon Trident's a useless and irrelevant waste of money:

The former head of the armed forces Field Marshal Lord Bramall, backed by two senior generals, argued in a letter to The Times that the nuclear deterrent is no longer truly independent and does not guarantee Britain a seat at the top table of international diplomacy in the United Nations Security Council.

The large sums being spent on replacing the ageing submarines which carry the Trident ballistic missiles could be better used on conventional weapons which are much needed by the armed forces, they suggested.

"Nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of violence we currently face or are likely to face, particularly international terrorism," the letter stated.

"Our independent deterrent has become virtually irrelevant, except in the context of domestic politics."

- Trident nuclear deterrent 'completely useless' say retired military officers - Telegraph

[DaveB]

I don't believe there is any doubt about N.Korea having a working nuclear weapon as seismic sensors and satellite images have confirmed numerous underground detonations indicating nuclear explosions from tests. In addition there are reports of mobile platforms equipped with short/mid range missiles capable of carrying said nuclear warheads. What they don't have (yet) is a delivery mechanism do deploy them at distances longer than couple of hundred miles, but they don't need to, all they need to do is nuke S.Korea and watch the world economy going down the drain imploding governments and mass unrest.

There is a huge differance between having a device that is capable of going bang under test conditions and one that can be strapped to a rocket and lobbed at the opposition with any degree of reliability.

[NotAllThere]

...
"Nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of violence we currently face or are likely to face, particularly international terrorism," the letter stated.
...

I don't know. A few well placed nukes could annihilate international terrorists.

[DaveB]

I don't know. A few well placed nukes could annihilate a few international terrorists.

If we know where they are. And we don't care about killing a few hundred thousand civilians in the process. Or making large chunks of other countries uninhabitable.

[unixman]

Not all - but that we do is crazy considering we're a minnow in world standards these days. It's probably best only 2 nations have them, if we must keep them... is UK really going to jump in and nuke country A on behalf of country B or would be jut sit on the sidelines unless WE were the ones at risk?

UK is not a minnow - 5th highest GDP in the world, 5th most powerful armed forces (excluding nuclear capability). But that's not the point. UK has nukes because of history. I interpret your point as suggesting that the US should be the only NATO member with nukes. Not a particularly bad idea. However it would represent a change in MAD, making it less distributed, and I think stable. The USA might also object to being the only nuke owner, and therefore, arguably, the only nuke target in NATO. Why should the UK, the 2nd or 3rd richest NATO member, not take a nuke responsibility ? Would we help the US with the cost of the nukes ?

I'm not saying you are wrong though.

That armed forces data came from here Global Firepower Military Ranks - 2015, the GDP one from wikipedia.

[VectraMan]

I don't know. A few well placed nukes could annihilate international terrorists.

The only terrorists to have successfully carried out attacks on the British people came from either Belfast or Leeds.

Which do you want to nuke first?