The Trident Debate

Originally Posted by Warthog

Much that I would like there to be total disarmament of nukes everywhere, the fact is that whilst there are still enemies and rogue states, I would rather have the biggest possible stick to deter them with. Nukes have been invented, you can't change that fact, and so its better that level headed democracies control them than crazy North Koreans. If we get rid of ours, do you think the north koreans would stop making theirs?! No, they'd just buy a cheap diesel-electric sub from the Russian black market, and sail up the thames and throw a little a-bomb into the houses of parliament.

Having said that, is it not likely that all our allies would see this as an act of war and retailiate ie: America, France.......well maybe not France. But do you think we would be left alone to fight our own battles?????????? Or would they step in????

[arc123]

so its better that level headed democracies control them than crazy North Koreans.

The point is that we (western world) see ourselves as 'level-headed democracies' - ask you average Iraqi (or many other nations that we occupy or opress), and i'm sure they would have a different opinion - maybe their opinion holds more validity seeing as they are viewing us from the outside.

Them crazy North Koreans eh - what, so wanting to be on a WMD equal footing with our 'level-headed democracies' makes them crazy does it?

Originally Posted by Chief

The point is that we (western world) see ourselves as 'level-headed democracies' - ask you average Iraqi (or many other nations that we occupy or opress), and i'm sure they would have a different opinion - maybe their opinion holds more validity seeing as they are viewing us from the outside.

Them crazy North Koreans eh - what, so wanting to be on a WMD equal footing with our 'level-headed democracies' makes them crazy does it?

What you appear to be saying is that we should accept NK's (for example) image of us.

Of course they're crazy. What other country would rather pursue nuclear aims than feed its people?

And please list 'the many other nations that we occupy or oppress'.

Originally Posted by Ed

Of course they're crazy. What other country would rather pursue nuclear aims than feed its people?

Iraq....... oh yeah, bad example.

Originally Posted by donald_rumsfeld

Iraq....... oh yeah, bad example.

The Iraqis weren't starving. Or at least, only the Kurds.

[arc123]

What you appear to be saying is that we should accept NK's (for example) image of us.

Not accept - perhaps consider why their opinion is thus - or are you too narrow-minded to consider anything other than Christian gospel and the Daily Mail?

[northwind]

And they can do that whether or not we have our own, and with excellent deniability. Forget a submarine, you could put a decent yield warhead in the back of a van. A car, I suspect, but a van would make more sense. We've got thousands of miles of coastline with nothing but fisheries protection boats, hundreds of small ports without so much as a security camera... Strategic weapons are simply no defence against that sort of attack.

You're talking as though it's either or, either we have them or the north koreans do. Or as if they somehow balance out. They're genuinely going to be in the hands of the insane in north korea. Our only defence there is that we're low on their list of targets.

Situation with North Korea can be summed up like this, IMO. North Koreas has the capacity to cause megadeaths in South Korea without recourse to nuclear weapons, and yet they've chosen not to, so far. It does however make them basically inviolable, since you can't attack North Korea without sentencing, as a conservative estimate, half a million innocent south koreans to die in the first day of a shooting war. That's without nukes, purely because of the concentration of conventional artillery within striking distance of the Seoll locales. A nuclear capability obviously enhances that (or worsens it!) but combined with medium range delivery, maens they can threaten Japan- just in case the political climate shifts so that half a million south koreans becomes irrelevant. They don't have the long range capacity to attack us here, even if they had a dozen warheads tomorrow, but the ability to throw a low-yield device at Tokyo is more than enough when you're looking for a deterrant- and still utterly useless as a first-strike weapon.

North Korea do not have the ability to prevent retaliatory strikes- in fact, even America doesn't, and we certainly don't. So you either believe that they're never going to use them as a first strike weapon, or you believe that they'll use them whether or not it condemns them all to die in a nuclear fireball. Either way, Trident is not an asset.

Jelster mentioned becoming the "51st state" if we give up our own nuclear option- would you say the same of Japan? They have no nuclear option at all, and have never shown an interest in developing one since WW2, and in fact are more at risk from Korea than we ever will- so are they the 51st state? Or are they just not wasting their money?

I've no objections to spending 20bn of a defence project I just can't see any justification for spending it on THIS project. The whole government argument is back to front. As pointed out we have been told for the last four years that the big threat is not nations but extremists that would use a nuclear device in a second if only they could get hold of one. So in this case the deterrent part of nuclear deterrent is meaningless, they'd use them and be damned to the retaliation.


You could also make the argument that in 20 years time world geopolitics maybe different and we need that deterrent bit back, OK so get the Americans to bomb the hell out of them, frankly if we fell out with the US enough for them not to give a monkeys our nation would be in economic meltdown anyway and, besides, if we want to keep the independent bit we can still keep the warheads in land based silos for a fraction of the cost. If we are so inept that we can't fire back before they take out our silo's I'm not sure we should be trusted with them in the first place.

I'd much prefer to invest that 20bn in what we used to be great at, cutting edge warfare technology that will actually be used and raise our stock as a military player. Goldeneye maybe

[northwind]

I'd back investment in some sort of orbital laser cannon, just because it'd be immensely cool Summon Neo-Bahamut! Or was it Bahamut-ZERO?

Ah, since I appear to have gone a bit geeky, I may as well add "Our words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!"

Originally Posted by northwind

I'd back investment in some sort of orbital laser cannon, just because it'd be immensely cool Summon Neo-Bahamut! Or was it Bahamut-ZERO?

It was always Ruby Weapon I had problems with but that would be a cool deterrant