1. You thought i was serious about germans invading
2. you thought i thought we still had the empire.

You seem to think as long as we have nato and the us nobody dare attack us.
Ever heard of standing up for yourself?

[edit on 23-9-2009 by Haydn_17]

I note with a heavy heart, that the bickering amongst posters has started already.

If you know nothing about the subject, why bother posting such utter drivel?

For the record, we do need 4 submarines to maintain any type of deterrent, let alone a nuclear option.

We Brits agruably make the best hunter-killer submarines in the world, the Astute class. Why, it can even detect American subs leaving their bases in the US whilst it sits in dry dock at Devonport!

What we don't need, is Trident D IV or Block IV or whatever else Donald Rumsfeld's company calls them.

In buying Trident, all we are doing is creating defence jobs in the US, jobs in Devonport (owned by Rumsfeld), creating American manufacturing jobs in the US for it's citizens - all at a cost to the British economy.

Yes, we should replace Trident with another nuclear deterrent, but one which is designed, developed and built by British companies.

I suggest a British cruise missile which can mount a smaller nuclear warhead. Any nuclear warhead can destroy a city or hundreds of thousands of people - you don't need a big bomb to do that.

As I said, the Astute class of boats is the best in the world - so why can't it be refitted to take long range cruise missiles - job done!

[edit on 23-9-2009 by fritz]

Originally posted by Haydn_17
Right so when the SHTF everyone else has got thousands of nukes and we sitting here with mumbling brown " Oh we got rid ouf ours mumble mumble"

A country with no defense makes for an easy target.

Should it ever hit the fan, the number of nukes we have won't be a problem, because if we ever get to the stage where they are used we'll be more concerned with trying to rebuild whats left of civilisation.

I think UK try to save some money after the economic crash.
One way to do it is to cut in the army size.

The idea as I remember it, was that having an independent nuclear deterrent would make another [nuclear] nation state think twice about attacking us.

This was what was laughingly called "Mutual Assured Destruction". A 'You attack me first and kill me, but my retaliatory strike will kill you as well!' scenario.

Nuclear weapons and the immediate threat of their deployment and use, has kept the peace in Europe since the mid 1950's.

In the 60's and 70's, smaller more accurate systems were developed and deployed, along with mobile weapons.

For the first time, the US and Russian missile forces could, in theory, launch a pre-emptive first strike that could again, in theory, destroy the target country's ability to launch a retaliatory strike.

Then in the 80's, mainly thanks to Thatcher and Reagen and the so called 'Star Wars' ho-ha, the 'West' won the arms race and bankrupted the Warsaw Pact in the process.

That created the conditions whereby Berliners pulled down the hated wall and started the collapse of the communist union across Europe.

During the late 80's and early 90's, we saw the proliferation of nuclear weapons when India and Pakistan obtained the wherewithall to obtain and indeed manufacture the centrifuges required to enrich uranium and produce weapons grade materiels thereby taking the first steps in developing nuclear weapons.

The invasion of Iraq, ostensibly to look for WMD, has done little to assure the world at large that those with nuclear weapons will not bully those without.

So just where does one see a future threat to this tiny and somewhat insignificant little island of our?

A resurgent Russia? An expanding nuclear equipped China? Perhaps, with India's backing.

I cannot see a threat from Iran, North Korea, Syria or any other Arab or nation state around the world.

I see it coming from some British born fundamentalist scumbag who detonates a home-made dirty bomb at the behest of some nutter who hates this country and all it stands for.

But, in case man does not loose his wanton ability to assure mutal destruction, we'd better have a deterrent - just in case!





[edit on 23-9-2009 by fritz]

Personally I believe that Islamification and The Lisbon Treaty are the two biggest threats our nation has faced since WWII.

And no sub will defend against those threats.

The UK should spend the money on on its most valuable military resource, its soldiers. Instead they are underpaid, under protected and generally treated with disdain.

Can someone tell me what country would have any interest in nuking the UK?? Which country would be deterred by the UK's limited amount of missiles? Sorry, but there isn't enough to mutually assure destruction.