Reply to: Gordon Brown to announce a cut to the UK nuclear fleet

[TimberWolf]

It's basically a contest between propping up house prices forever or protecting the realm. No contest really. Boomed.

[Moscow Mule]

Roughly since about 1958 or so. With the demise of Yellow Sun Mk I.

You could get a nuclear version of Tomahawk.

Whether we had any of those or not is a national secret

[BrilloPad]

I can hardly believe what I am hearing.

Trident fleet to be cut Gordon Brown to announce.
Linky (the Telegraph)

I am not saying that it is a bad thing. It is just that the reason for the cuts is much more likely to be because the country can't afford to run them any more.

I can see that. You can see that. The rest of the whole frickin world can see that and is unlikely to give us much credit for it.

What's that sound? Is that the sound of the rest of the world laughing at us? What has this country come to?

About time too. This country cant keep spending beyond its means.

[M_B]

I'm not convinced it's worth the money to maintain a nuclear deterrent in Trident form. Everybody assumes it's Trident or nothing, but we can maintain nuclear without Trident. From an operational standpoint, we can **** a country with nuclear cruise, equally as well as we can **** it with ICBMs.

However, I think nuclear cruise missiles are banned at the moment (not sure though) so there would be some politicking to get around that hurdle.

We don't have those anymore as we scrapped them in our agreement to have Trident.

As for Trident, we can't launch any of them without prior US approval. Our nuclear independence has been a myth for some time.

[TimberWolf]

Say the UK didn't have it's own deterrent and we relied on NATO to provide our nuclear deterrent, what would cause our partners to launch a nuke at our attackers? Could we be sure they would actually drag themselves into a global thermonuclear war?

I say keep nuclear, ditch Trident.

Sounds like a good reason to have an alliance - to drag feet (i.e use diplomacy) before launching a nuke attack. Would have been handy had this facility been in effect for Iraq.

What's the odds that our missiles would develop a mysterious fault were we ever to use them and the US weren't that keen on us using them anyway.

[Moscow Mule]

Deterrent against who though? Isn't a global alliance/initiative more sensible?

Say the UK didn't have it's own deterrent and we relied on NATO to provide our nuclear deterrent, what would cause our partners to launch a nuke at our attackers? Could we be sure they would actually drag themselves into a global thermonuclear war?

I say keep nuclear, ditch Trident.

[TimberWolf]

That's the whole point. It's a deterrent. Remove that deterrent and we open ourselves up to a lot more than just terrorism. Gosh even our entire Army could all take a seat in Wembley stadium with seats left to spare. What defence would we have left? A stiff upper lip? Good luck with that.

City greed has allowed the defences of this country to deplete further when actually an increase is needed.

Those short sighted fools.

Deterrent against who though? Isn't a global alliance/initiative more sensible?

[scooterscot]

Who are we going to fire nuclear missiles at? Can't really see it happening in Europe as the neighbours would complain. And I don't see any point in firing them at Russia or China unless we want to be vaporised in return.

That's the whole point. It's a deterrent. Remove that deterrent and we open ourselves up to a lot more than just terrorism. Gosh even our entire Army could all take a seat in Wembley stadium with seats left to spare. What defence would we have left? A stiff upper lip? Good luck with that.

City greed has allowed the defences of this country to deplete further when actually an increase is needed.

Those short sighted fools.

[The Lone Gunman]

You have just answered your own question. Russia or China will not fire them at US unless THEY want to be vaporised in return. That is what deterence is all about.

Mutualy Assured Destruction is what stopped the cold war happening.
The threat of being being wiped out is a strong deterent.
There is at least one exception here. When religion comes into the equation then MAD can be disregarded. The hard core religious right in the USA could decide to bring on the rapture, as could the Muslim leaders in certain knowledge that they will be received into paradise.

[Moscow Mule]

Or within about 7,000 miles thereof.

kms.

[Moscow Mule]

Trident is a waste of time unless you park it off the coast of the country you want to annihilate.

[TimberWolf]

You have just answered your own question. Russia or China will not fire them at US unless THEY want to be vaporised in return. That is what deterence is all about.

Well in that case we only need to pretend we have them.

[Doggy Styles]

Who are we going to fire nuclear missiles at? Can't really see it happening in Europe as the neighbours would complain. And I don't see any point in firing them at Russia or China unless we want to be vaporised in return.

You have just answered your own question. Russia or China will not fire them at US unless THEY want to be vaporised in return. That is what deterence is all about.

[sweetandsour]

I would not say its "trivial" but its certainly "affordable". The debate should be about if we need it or not. Not cost. That is my point really.

I am ambivalent to whether we need it or not.

I am irked that Gordon is making out that he has been inspired by Obama to take concrete nuclear disarmament steps while we all know that he has got to cut costs.

[Moscow Mule]

I bet they secretly scrapped Trident years ago. Obviously they didn't tell anybody, so it can still be a deterrent. But I've never seen one.

Me either, you're right - conniving bastards...