Renewal of Trident (Commons vote today)

originally posted by: ScepticScot

originally posted by: SprocketUK

originally posted by: ScepticScot

originally posted by: SprocketUK

originally posted by: Soloprotocol
All weapons are a deterent but it doesn't stop countries with deterrents being attacked invaded and destroyed. Saddam was fireing scuds into Israel, did Israel's Nukes deter that.? 19 men flew 4 jets into the heart of America, did America's Deterrent prevent that. ?.......7/7 bombings,....... France under constant attack....... Pakistan...... india..Iran. The list goes on of countries with Nuclear deterrants under attack that will never ever use them because they know the concequences if they do.

And lets say some nutjob group gets their hands on a Nuke or Nuclear material and uses it against us....who we gonna attack.?

Can you imagine the UK dropping a Nuke on say Pakistan or Iran, Russia, North Korea or China because the material used for a dirty bomb was traced back to one of them. Think about that for a moment.

Pointless Waste of Money and the scenarios of what could go wrong are just horrendous..

Get them to #.

That argument can equally be countered by pointing out that even though the USSR had a bajillion missiles ready to go, even in the darkest moments of the cold war, they refrained.

That is the true power of a viable deterrence.

And the reason the USSR had those 'Bajillon' missiles is that the USA had already developed, used and massively produced nuclear weapons. From a Soviet Point of view America and NATO were the aggressors and their weapon stockpiles where there to deter attacks from us.

There were hawks on both sides.
Don't forget that the US developed nukes in WW2 and then improved the designs while kind old uncle Joe Stalin was in charge of the peaceful USSR.

By the time Russia tested its first atomic weapon the US already had a couple of hundred nuclear bombs.

Who was deterring who?

If the USSR had the capability to build one first, they would have.

Don't forget that the largest ever nuke was built by them.

In the mid 60s the USA had approx 32 000 nukes reducing to 25 000 in the mid 70's when USSR was on a par.
US levels continued to fall and USSR levels continued to rise until by the mid 80s the USA had 24000 and the USSR 40 000

So you can see that whilst the initial moves by the USSR could have been for deterrence, the subsequent growth (particularly in the portable devices) certainly wasn't.

a reply to: PaddyInf

A useless deterrent that no one has used in anger since 1945. Our leaders are stupid bastards, but there not that stupid.

Whats the point in mutually assured destruction when there nothing or nobody left around to see it?

There simply is no wining scenario where nuclear exchanges take place.

Even if we somehow managed to destroy the oppositions first strike capability and glass there towns and cities the fallout would destroy the planets ecosystem and render our atmosphere and environment toxic to all but the cockroaches.

That's not a deterrent, that's simple madness.

a reply to: corblimeyguvnor

I care...some Scots want to leave and chase their dream of fake independence, but some of us don't.

We voted to stay if you remember. I say, let there be a second referendum...it will fail, again. And every time the SNP fail their chances of a future referendum become slimmer and slimmer...time to put this tired little child to bed.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: PaddyInf

A useless deterrent that no one has used in anger since 1945. Our leaders are stupid bastards, but there not that stupid.

That's the point of a deterrent. If you have to use it, it failed.

Whats the point in mutually assured destruction when there nothing or nobody left around to see it?

There simply is no wining scenario where nuclear exchanges take place.

Again, MAD isn't supposed to be a tactic to win a war, it's supposed to stop one happening.

Even if we somehow managed to destroy the oppositions first strike capability and glass there towns and cities the fallout would destroy the planets ecosystem and render our atmosphere and environment toxic to all but the cockroaches.

That's not a deterrent, that's simple madness.

First strike capability has nothing at all to do with deterrence, it's an offensive act, not a defensive one.

a reply to: SprocketUK

"That's the point of a deterrent. If you have to use it, it failed."

Keeping doomsday devices is no deterrent, or if it is its a deterrent against humanity itself.

"Again, MAD isn't supposed to be a tactic to win a war, it's supposed to stop one happening."

How can it be a tactic when the goal is the end of our race? What kind of tactic is that?

M.A.D may have been a tactic that prevented conflict in the 1950s-1990s but today it serves no other purpose than to drain our nations coffers by way of paying for schemes such as Polaris and now Trident. Its sheer folly in this day of age imho.

"First strike capability has nothing at all to do with deterrence, it's an offensive act, not a defensive one."

Working along the premise of the best defense is a good offence i would argue that now we are discussing semantics.

I've said it before and i'll say it again. Lets have a UK wide vote on nukes. The county with the most votes gets to house and pay for them. Let's see if the people are willing to roll that particular dice. I know the answer already.

originally posted by: [post=21017368]SprocketUK


Again, MAD isn't supposed to be a tactic to win a war, it's supposed to stop one happening.

And how many Wars have we had since the invention of the Bomb. I've lost count...Prevention my arse.

originally posted by: Soloprotocol

originally posted by: [post=21017368]SprocketUK


Again, MAD isn't supposed to be a tactic to win a war, it's supposed to stop one happening.

And how many Wars have we had since the invention of the Bomb. I've lost count...Prevention my arse.

More pertinently we should ask how many nuclear wars have we had? The answer of course is zero. So it worked.

a reply to: andy06shake

Trident alone isn't a doomsday device in the way, say a cobalt bomb is. It's merely a method of enduring that anyone who seeks to wipe out the UK will suffer the same fate.

MAD is merely the name given to the most likely outcome of one side trying to go for a first strike.
As long as there is the capability to wipe out a country, another country will seek to make sure that threat is balanced by the cost of doing so.

Sporting metaphors aren't the best way to conduct our military operations.
It wasn't so long ago people thought letting soldiers wear camp would make them hide instead of fight.

a reply to: SprocketUK

Some of the Sanskrit teachings of the Mahabharata seem to imply the use of Nuclear devices in our ancient past.

There are even areas where radioactivity has been measured above the norm and buildings that have be scorched in the same manner atomic devices produce.

So you never know.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: SprocketUK

Some of the India teachings of the Mahabharata seem to imply the use of Nuclear devices in our ancient past.

There are even areas where radioactivity has been measured and buildings that have be scorched in the same manner atomic devices produce.

So you never know.

That is a whole different argument and food for a great thread.

I was reading a thing about desert glass the other day along the same lines.

I'd rather there were no nukes.
If we could come up with some system where say a UN type organisation held a bunch of nukes and promised to destroy any country using them on any other, then I'd be all for multilateral disarmament.

I just can't ever see the point in unilateral disarmament.

a reply to: SprocketUK

Lots of Trident warheads + there Russian counterparts equate to the same thing through.

Im aware of the terminologies pertaining to atomic conflict there crazy in the extreme.

"It wasn't so long ago people thought letting soldiers wear camp would make them hide instead of fight."

I take it you mean camouflage?

a reply to: andy06shake

I did mean camo, yes.
Stupid phone.

a reply to: SprocketUK

Easy done im in the same boat + dyslexic. Recipe for textual disaster if ever there was one.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: SprocketUK

Easy done im in the same boat + dyslexic. Recipe for textual disaster if ever there was one.

Just as well neither of us have to type in launch codes eh?

originally posted by: Soloprotocol
All weapons are a deterent but it doesn't stop countries with deterrents being attacked invaded and destroyed. Saddam was fireing scuds into Israel, did Israel's Nukes deter that.? 19 men flew 4 jets into the heart of America, did America's Deterrent prevent that. ?.......7/7 bombings,....... France under constant attack....... Pakistan...... india..Iran. The list goes on of countries with Nuclear deterrants under attack that will never ever use them because they know the concequences if they do.

Nuclear weapons would never have been used in the above instances because of the various conventions on proportional response. Just because one country drops a few conventional bombs on a country or sponsors terrorist attacks doesn't give free reign for a nuclear launch.

The 7/7 bombings, France incidents or the 9/11 attacks etc were not carried out by a state, they were carried out by relatively small organisations. Nuclear weapons are not there to deter this type of situation. They are to deter one nuclear armed state from attacking another.

Again, you appear to be unwilling to learn from the lessons of yesterday or consider the potential conflicts of tomorrow. In the late 1800s the biggest problem militaries faced was some fuzzy wuzzies with pointy sticks. Within a generation there were 2 world wars resulting in the deaths of millions. It's an unstable world out there and it is a fool who believes they know what tomorrow will bring. Removing a capability or deterrent is unwise.

a reply to: PaddyInf

The world has become closer than ever before through. The information age in which we live being mainly responsible.

Nations that openly trade with one another hardly inspire confidence in there respective populations by pointing nukes/ICBMs at each another.

I understand we cannot foresee the future or how we will relate to one another in 100 years or so but chances are there will be a unified Earth government(or at least some form of unified accord) long before then for better or for worse, that's the real question.

a reply to: SprocketUK



Rather apt, and to the point me thinks.

Poland released some of its Cold War archives a while back, specifically the Warsaw Pact attack plans for one of their wartime scenarios. It was interesting, the plans laid it all out as we knew it, WW3 and a massive Warsaw Pact land and air campaign, with Soviet tanks rampaging westwards ... then being stopped by NATO tactical nuclear weapons.

The Soviets wargamed a nuclear response, taking out many West German military, C3 installations ... Germany and Poland would've been laid waste by the escalation ... but their plans never anticipated the Warsaw Pact using nuclear weapons against either France or UK. Because the Soviets knew that a nuclear attack on two nuclear powers would result in the destruction of most of the cities of western USSR.

So perhaps deterrence does work.

My gripe about Trident is cost. I don't think there's a UK attack scenario where time is of such an essence that we'd need to destroy 30 Russian cities only an hour from now. By the point we'd decided to use Trident and the crew gone through its launch procedures, the UK would be a smoking ruin anyway. UK goverments, of both parties, have declared we'd only use Trident as a last resort if deterrence had failed (i.e. if we had already been attacked by nukes or other WMD's).

I'm pretty confident any UK survivors couldn't care less whether we retaliate immediately or 10 weeks later. Simply being nuclear is the deterrent. The method of delivery doesn't matter, for the UK at least. All the Russians have to worry about is somewhere, sometime we'll get them back in kind.

Scrap Trident. Build a few dozen cheap free fall bombs, disperse them. Equip every RAF plane with the mechanics to deliver them. That's every bit as much a deterrence as the UK would ever need.

Then use the colossal savings to buy new conventional weapons e.g. warships the navy desperately needs. Hell there'd be a ton of £££ left over for schools and hospitals too.

a reply to: TheShippingForecast

What UK survivors through? 3 or 4 ICBMs and there associated payloads would be enough to bathe this island in flame, never mind the radioactive fallout that would kill any and all life in no time flat.

Scrap Trident and fix the NHS would be my thinking.