The Trident Debate

[northwind]

Originally Posted by Baph

OK, so lets assume for a minute the Iranians try to Nuke us. We realisitically wouldn't know the target of any nuclear weapon until it was too late, it's just that simple. So the knee jerk reaction would be to nuke them back.

Yes, because knee jerk reactions are exactly what you want with nuclear weapons

It'd be nice if they'd work out what to do with the old ones before they built any more though, Dreadnought's been sat at Rosyth for over 20 years (along with Swiftsure, Repulse, Renown, Revenge, Churchill, and resolution) in the hope that one day they crack it open and it's miraculously not radioactive any more. Or possibly that some fifers will nick it for scrap.

The fact of the matter is that the UK Military does not have infinite amounts of money.
If it it pouring money into these Nuc weapons, and they are expensive, as well as dangerous to keep, there will be less money for buying other things.

Like better protection / training / weapons for the guys actually doing things on the ground.

This is the way wars are being fought, and will be fought for a while, street stuff, close range stuff. The airforce can do the initial work, with strategic "conventional" weapons, and then there will be a lot of cleaning up by ground troops. Just lobbing in nucs at counties is no long an option.

Iran is no more going to make Nucs in the next little while than I am. N Korea, meh, yeah, if they want to Nuc us, they will, I dont think they are about to any time soon. They just want to be taken seriously.

The Argentines were not bothered by our nukes so there you go.

We need a big bang so we can be the big man on the world stage.

Hardly a conventional superpower but we can be a nuclear superpower.

Fifers nick for scrap?

[northwind]

Originally Posted by The Basket

The Argentines were not bothered by our nukes so there you go.

They were, however, pretty cincerned about our nuclear attack subs...

Originally Posted by northwind

They were, however, pretty cincerned about our nuclear attack subs...

The Royal Navy did have nuclear weapons in the falklands war...nuclear depth charges which they had no time to unload so had to take with them.

[Balky001]

it's an utter waste of money that could be spent on something we may get the benefit of. I can't believe I pay tax so we can have missles standing around for years totally idle. If they are used I'm hardly getting value for money! It would be better spent trying to increase the standard of living in this country.

[northwind]

Yup, but they were never likely to be used... The Conqueror, on the other hand, was nuclear carrying conventional weapons, which led to the rather odd sinking of a Pearl Harbour veteran battleship by WW2-design torpedoes, fired by a nuclear attack submarine. Like having the aliens arrive tomorrow and attack us using 6-guns

I'm deffo in favour. Yes of course it's yawning sums of money but I do think we have to take the threat from failed nations seriously. Mad mullahs in Iran, crackpots in NK, and a newly emergent nationalism in Russia.

And - is the United Kingdom a global policeman - do we believe we have something to offer in terms of keeping world peace, or do we retreat into our shells and let the rest of the world get on with it?

I firmly believe the former.

I agree that there is something to be said for the UK to be acting, in some way, as <EDIT> part of some kind of global police force.
The thing is this, I dont think wars are the same thing as they were 10 / 20 years ago. I dont think you are going to have "countries" waging war on one and other so much as small militant groups, like in Afghan / Iraq.

And you just cant go into these countries with nuc weapons, and start evaporating things. You need well trained, well armed ground troops, and good airforces.
I feel nucs are sort of a hang up from the cold war, and are past usefulness.

[northwind]

Originally Posted by Ed

IAnd - is the United Kingdom a global policeman - do we believe we have something to offer in terms of keeping world peace, or do we retreat into our shells and let the rest of the world get on with it?

I firmly believe the former.

I agree entirely... But you can't police with strategic nuclear weapons. The money spent on trident could go into our conventional armed forces, and make a huge difference to our real world day to day capabilities instead of being spent on something that's entire job is to never be used, and to be scrapped in 20 years.

You can't deter crackpots and fanatics with destruction, unfortunately. The point for a lot of them isn't to survive. It's like trying to intimidate a suicide bomber with prison or hanging.

Still, as nuclear options go, Trident's a relatively efficient and sensible one... And it looks like the next generation will lead to a reduction in warhead stock too, which is at least a step in the right direction.