The new nuclear bomb...

The news report, here, describes the new nuclear devices the US and UK are developing and offers a decent history of Britains nuclear defences.

Interesting, hasn't the Cold War ended?
We should be putting our money towards counter terrorist efforts, not into creating new nuclear weapons when we already have enough to blow up the world many times over.

BlueAngel

Originally posted by BlueAngel
Interesting, hasn't the Cold War ended?
We should be putting our money towards counter terrorist efforts, not into creating new nuclear weapons when we already have enough to blow up the world many times over.

BlueAngel

well..... i can't agree with you more.....

The point of the program is to make sure the Brit nuclar deterrant reamins reliable without the need for fullscale testing. They aren't going to increase the number of warheads just replace them with warheads which are reliable and will work if needed.

No matter how sophisticated they are,they'll still be eaten by plasma streams.No matter how fast or stealthy they are,our devices will still detect and outrun them
Hopefully the little demonstration on 11th ,north of Sacramento was enough.

Originally posted by rogue1
The point of the program is to make sure the Brit nuclar deterrant reamins reliable without the need for fullscale testing. They aren't going to increase the number of warheads just replace them with warheads which are reliable and will work if needed.

By showing that your swallowing the governments reasons whole, you might as well not have bothered posting. Say they are telling us the truth (as if), then whats going to happen to the old stockpiles. Trident is described as one of the most advanced systems in the world, and considering no sane person ever wants to use nuclear weaponry, it should be disbanded, not upgraded.

BBC ReportLast year, a group of writers, led by Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter, wrote an open letter to MPs saying there was "no legitimate political, military or moral reason" for replacing Trident.

It's not just the weaponry, it's the underhanded means this government thinks it is entitled to use.

Also, following Bush's agreement with India, Iranian policys will become increasingly unrealistic as they push for war. It is these sort of double standards that increases aggressive fervour against the west.

Originally posted by Caligulas
No matter how sophisticated they are,they'll still be eaten by plasma streams.No matter how fast or stealthy they are,our devices will still detect and outrun them

Who's 'our'? And if this is true it even further undermines the need for obtaining a new nuclear deterrent.

Originally posted by byhiniur
By showing that your swallowing the governments reasons whole, you might as well not have bothered posting. Say they are telling us the truth (as if), then whats going to happen to the old stockpiles. Trident is described as one of the most advanced systems in the world, and considering no sane person ever wants to use nuclear weaponry, it should be disbanded, not upgraded.

On the contrary, I understand teh argument where obviously you do not.

• 1. The missile is called the Trident not the warhead
  .
  
• 2. The warheads have to be maintained as components lose their integrity over time, this costs hundreds of millions of dollars to do. The new warhead will vastly decrease the costs of doing this.
  
• 3. The old stockpiles ill be dismantled, to make new warheads. The UK does not produce plutonium anymore, therefore they have to recycle it from the current warheads. Even if they did keep the current warheads, they have no missiles to put them on and they can't be dropped from aircraft
  
  
• 4. Umm yeah good idea
  disband teh UK's nuclear deterrant, shame no other country would do the same. Hardly makes semse does it.
  

Unfortunately it seems you know very little about the subject, a typical headline reader.

Originally posted by rogue1
On the contrary, I understand teh argument where obviously you do not.
4. Umm yeah good idea

disband teh UK's nuclear deterrant, shame no other country would do the same. Hardly makes semse does it.

Unfortunately it seems you know very little about the subject, a typical headline reader.

Typical headline reader... ... bet you read that somewhere.

If I fully understood every argument I'd have no need to post here. Deny ignorance, but don't expect people to be infallible. IMHO we should be working towards global cohesion, not allow everyone to sit on a pile of nukes, in the hope that is deters others from bombing them. If these developments are for our safety, why weren't we told about it? It's a project thats been going on for a year.

I don't think you can say it's in our safety not to know, because that defeats your deterrent argument.

Now, as for allowing public money to fund this, where was the referendum?

As The Sunday Times reveals today, the data produced by the test were part of a much wider, secret research programme to build a new nuclear weapon that some experts say will breach the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT).

If this is true, it furthers my argument that this will increase tension with Iran.

(Edit: Mods, think this may be better placed in governmental projects, sorry for not realising before)


[edit on 13/3/06 by byhiniur]

Originally posted by Caligulas
No matter how sophisticated they are,they'll still be eaten by plasma streams.No matter how fast or stealthy they are,our devices will still detect and outrun them
Hopefully the little demonstration on 11th ,north of Sacramento was enough.

what demonstration?

The US should be spending their money on their own citizens instead of this nuke research and this terrorist crap. There is a lot of poor people in you're own country isn't that much more important than this boogeyman of Ben Laden?

Originally posted by byhiniur
IMHO we should be working towards global cohesion, not allow everyone to sit on a pile of nukes, in the hope that is deters others from bombing them.

In a perfect world that would be nice, but we live in anything but that

Still others are rushing towards nuclear weapons as we speak. Father of Pakistani Bomb Abdul Qadeer Khan confessed to selling North Korea, Libya, and Iran nuclear weapons technology and information for decades.

www.armscontrol.org...

More and more countries are developing nuclear weapons the number aint going down. The NPT which allows the UK among others to have nuclear arsenals was designed to prevent this type of nuclear proliferation but its not working all that great anymore.

(This does seem to be quite rantish, but I would really appreciate peoples responses )

The issue of defence is difficult in general, because it seems there will always be 'enemies' attempting to gain more than their fair share. These 'enemies' will use force, but I don't see how us having a nuke is going to prevent any attacks if they believe in their cause.

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
In a perfect world that would be nice, but we live in anything but that

More and more countries are independently developing nuclear weapons, like you point out, and there are probably biological and chemical weapons being produced which we don't even hear about. Maybe even "plasma streams"?
We live in "anything but that" due to ignorance and lack of education. Ghandi told us the concept of western civilisation is nothing more than a "good idea", and now we see why. The West is built on capture and control, whereas we need a world based on human progress in all its forms.

Originally posted by Vitchilo
The US should be spending their money on their own citizens instead of this nuke research and this terrorist crap. There is a lot of poor people in you're own country isn't that much more important than this boogeyman of Ben Laden?

I think the most pressing issue facing the world is climate change. The scariest thing is that this government website will be information the prime-minister has. Blair is a self-centred d*ck... His holidays to Tuscany, use of sensitive data to pick the best school for his son and did you know he has a £4,000,000 mortgage, he and cherie earn £400,000 combined, therefore it is an illegal mortgage. I'm using Blair to exemplify how many ministers in England behave. Tessa Jowell (sorry if its wrong, but I think thats her name) payed her mortgage using money she claims she doesn't know where it came from. I just can't figure out how we, as the general public, can bring our ministers to justice, and ultimately knock sense into them.


As for our 'enemies', I'm not going to pretend to fully understand Islamic-terrorist goals, but it seems to me they aren't happy with the way the West is running it's ship... and at this point in time I am not entirely unsympathetic to this view. We need vast reform, in all areas.

Returning to the issue, as our leaders race to cement there infamy, it seems they don't care if the world will be hospitable at the end or not. The effect of our leaders actions on the general population is apathy, meaning we all sit around and remain ambivalent to their actions because we have no path of recourse. The world's affairs can be as simple or as complicated as our leaders make them. We will suffer for their elementary mistakes.

Originally posted by byhiniur
These 'enemies' will use force, but I don't see how us having a nuke is going to prevent any attacks if they believe in their cause.

You might not understand how nukes prevent such wars but history shows they do. The Soviets and the US never came to blows because of M.A.D for some 50 years. Both sides believed in their cause and fought abunch of Proxy wars to prove it. But even they were not about to start direct combat with each other because it would only result in their own destruction.

"If you can't win a pot if you don't play a hand"

Can you name a single time a nuclear power was invaded by another country? I can name thousands of time non nuclear powers were invaded by others.

Interesting, hasn't the Cold War ended?

Perhaps, however one thing is for sure, time has not ended, neither has the need for nuclear weapons. Nothing last forever, and everything has a shelf life, most of the US ICBM’s and nuclear warheads were designed during the cold war, their time is coming to an end. To ensure that MAD still exists we have to upgrade and eventually replace our Nuclear Force.


[edit on 13-3-2006 by WestPoint23]

Originally posted by byhiniur
These 'enemies' will use force, but I don't see how us having a nuke is going to prevent any attacks if they believe in their cause.

No disrespect but if I done a dirty harry and said "Give me your money....punk..." then would you dive out the way and do a james bond or just give me your money?

Originally posted by byhiniur
I'm not going to pretend to fully understand Islamic-terrorist goals, but it seems to me they aren't happy with the way the West is running it's ship

and you care why...?

Islam seems to me to be a rediculous religion, in no other religion do people go blow them selves up by a group of people then they do...I couldn't give a damn what they think about the west.

and considering no sane person ever wants to use nuclear weaponry, it should be disbanded, not upgraded.

Do you consider the leaders of Iran & NK sane?
What would be the scenerio if they aquired or produced nukes, and we no longer had them? It wouldn't be a world I'd want to live in.

Originally posted by Westpoint23Perhaps, however one thing is for sure, time has not ended, neither has the need for nuclear weapons. Nothing last forever, and everything has a shelf life, most of the US ICBM’s and nuclear warheads were designed during the cold war, their time is coming to an end. To ensure that MAD still exists we have to upgrade and eventually replace our Nuclear Force.

It was pointed out in the Sunday Times article that this is a necessary upgrade, removing the need for testing while ensuring the warhead will go "kaboom". Why be underhand about it?
Everyone is sayin we should have nukes to prevent being attacked, so we spend all this money on nukes noone ever plans to use. If instead of looking after our own backs we helped each other, there'd be no need for defence.

Originally posted by devil wasp
No disrespect but if I done a dirty harry and said "Give me your money....punk..." then would you dive out the way and do a james bond or just give me your money?

I'd tell you no and walk away. Violence, as I said, is caused by ignorance, it is unnessecary.

Originally posted by Shadow XIX
"If you can't win the pot then don't play a hand"
Can you name a single time a nuclear power was invaded by another country? I can name thousands of times non nuclear powers were invaded by others.

I do understand how nukes stop wars, it is a deterrent. Yet surely loss of life should be a larger detterent. For every person that dies in war a family is likely to have been destroyed. We should agree to have no war, not stockpile weapons so we aren't attacked. Being able to say "don't attack us because we'll nuke you" isn't diplomatic, its barbaric.
Do you really believe everybody having nukes weapons is going to stop attacks?

Originally posted by Murcielago
1.and you care why...?
Islam seems to me to be a rediculous religion, in no other religion do people go blow them selves up by a group of people then they do...I couldn't give a damn what they think about the west.

2.Do you consider the leaders of Iran & NK sane?
What would be the scenerio if they aquired or produced nukes, and we no longer had them? It wouldn't be a world I'd want to live in.

Firstly, I don't think you understood what I'm sayin. But say you did.
1. I care whether our nations are hated by others because it probably means we are doing something wrong. Indiscrimenant bombing is not confined to Islam, and Islam is no more ridiculous than any other religion. The West could learn alot from their rules, and should if we want to achieve global cohesion.
2. I don't think Iran will care if the US has nukes or not, and it's unfortunate the UK will be dragged into the impending confrontation there. The worlds leaders cannot arbitarily decide one nation is allowed weapons and another isn't, its all or nothing. I vote nothing.

Corruption can only be prevented through transparency.

[edit on 14/3/06 by byhiniur]

Originally posted by byhiniur
I'd tell you no and walk away. Violence, as I said, is caused by ignorance, it is unnessecary.

You'd say no and get shot, ok.....

Originally posted by devilwasp
You'd say no and get shot, ok.....

I'm not sayin have no defences. But nuclear weapons are too extreme.

Your shot hits my bullet proof vest, I grab your gun... now run boy, run.

[edit on 14/3/06 by byhiniur]

Originally posted by byhiniur
I'm not sayin have no defences. But nuclear weapons are too extreme.

Nothing except an ABM shield can stop a nuke and frankly even they arent operational yet. A nuke is frankly the only strategy avaliable until they develop the ABM shield (which btw the nuke powers are researching.)

Your shot hits my bullet proof vest, I grab your gun... now run boy, run.

[edit on 14/3/06 by byhiniur]

Lol ok mate if you could take a bullet to the chest, grab my gun then try and shoot me with it I'd be impressed.