To Renew Trident?

[Abaddon]

I see no reason not to renew it. You have to maintain your arsenal or you are screwed.

By who? Nukes are irrelevant now.. heck, even our Army is.. we only use it to exert ourselves where we dont need to.

 

[emzie]

Sell them to Canada. We like buying British subs.

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

How is this hypocrisy?

Invading a country because they might have the intention of getting nukes while you yourself invest £20 000 000 000 in nukes.

 

[JohnRM]

Invading a country because they might have the intention of getting nukes while you yourself invest £20 000 000 000 in nukes.

The UK is not Iran, and yes, there are different rules for different nations, especially based on how many bombs they strapped to 12 year old kids to kill Jews, how many times they've kidnapped Westerners, and how many times they say scary stuff like 'Hitler is a cool guy.'

Of course, I could just bring up the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which both the UK and Iran signed, which specifically allows the UK to possess nuclear weapons and prohibits Iran from developing them.

Of course, none of that probably matters to you. You don't have time for facts, just your ultra-left liberal vomit that you can't help but to defend at any cost, even that of the lives of perhaps millions of people around the world.

 

[El Justo]

We would be far better off forming a partnership with France to jointly develop and manufacture an Anglo-French SLBM to replace the current RN Tridents and the French M51 in due course.

That way both production and maintenance could be kept under local control (identical maintenance facilities in both countries) and you still get some benefit from a longer production run.

Hoping that US/UK relations remain cordial to the extent they'll maintain our nuclear missiles until the second half of the twenty-first century seems to me to be crossing your fingers and hoping for the best. I'd rather not have all my eggs in one basket and have the ability to maintain a far more independent deterrent than we have now.

this is perhaps the most logical response i've seen yet in this thread. well done

people seem to forget that SSBNs are WITHOUT A DOUBT the sinlge most effective nuclear platform in the world. think about it for a second...SSBNs are floating/submerged missile platforms which are just about invulnerable to a first strike. they can remain at sea almost forever due to their nuclear reactors and can launch at a moment's notice.

iow, they are a safety net against any first strike - and they can form quite a formidable line of defense/retaliatory strike capabilities in the event that a nuclear war erupts.

now - i am absolutely not trying to convince everyone that this is what is needed. to each their own in this regard. however, do not underestimate the utility of SSBNs.

 

[Kozmos]

By who? Nukes are irrelevant now.. heck, even our Army is.. we only use it to exert ourselves where we dont need to.

From a viewpoint of a common UK citizen yes nukes are irrelevant.

You cannot comprehend the ins and outs of geopolitics as greatly as the people in charge simply because you lack the information.

And besides you dont want nukes to decay and become a risk.

 

[Gogf]

The world would be much better off without nuclear weapons, but nonetheless, they exist. It would be supremely foolish of the industrialized nations to bend their knees and give up on nuclear weapons. Remember, it's more likely that nuclear weapons will be used if only one major power owns them.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Unless the UK gets full control of the Tridents from the US, it shouldn't renew them. As you said, it really has no need for new nuclear weapons. The only time might be in an Anglo-American War, but even then it's only a matter of time (more like a few minutes) before your fair island keeps the French awake at night with a pale green glow. I guess you could take Boston with you, but AFAIC, you can have it.

 

[Sophie 378]

If I was playing Civ, I wouldn't even consider scrapping Trident. I'd probably build even more, and then start invading <whoever's closest/whoever's got some good stuff/whoever's Been Looking At Me, Pal>.

Since I'm not playing Civ, I don't think &#163;20B would be more beneficially spent on Trident than other things.

 

[GinandTonic]

Not that we actually need to make a deision any time soon. As much as there is a 20-25 year lead time between starting to have a chat about what we want to do and sea trials being completed we still have a few years to mull it over. The current debate has more to do with Blair taking another upopular decision on the chin before he hands over to Brown.

However, I say step down the deterrent.

While the UK is presently trying to step away from the present wild over-representation of SSN's in the RN in favor of more carriers etc we will clearly commission another generation fairly soon.

I say we dont need dedicated SSBN's with the capacity to lay waste to smallish contenents. I just dont see the UK alone in that kind of fight. Maintain SSN's with a tactical nuclear capability. Developing a new generation of stealthy/ hypersonic cruise missiles for such a platform that would satisfy the brass would be cheaper, more independent, coventionally useful and we can flog em to to our buddies for a mint to boot.

 

[Irish Caesar]

If I were y'all, I wouldn't want to have any sort of dependence on the USA or any other nation for your defense. Other than that, I don't really have any strong opinions on the matter; I prefer having strong allies, but it's up to the UK to decide how it wants to be strong.

But it seems to me that the UK always prided itself on its kick-butt navy, is that still the case?

 

[PrinceOfLeigh]

More of a range of opinions than I expected

I personally think that the money would be better spent elsewhere. That said, we do need some kind of nuclear deterrent and Trident is perhaps the best for reasons others have mentioned. So, I've not come to a conclusion yet.

Because I'm too lazy and busy to research it at the minute, does anyone know if Britian's place in the Security Counsel would be at risk if we lost our nuclear capability? Especially if other nations gain it?

 

[Disgustipated]

they are called permanent seats for a reason. . So I'd imagine, no, they would not lose their seat. Unless the entire goverment collapsed for some reason. But 2 goverments have collapsed, and their successors still retain their permanent seats.

 

[PrinceOfLeigh]

they are called permanent seats for a reason. . So I'd imagine, no, they would not lose their seat. Unless the entire goverment collapsed for some reason. But 2 goverments have collapsed, and their successors still retain their permanent seats.

The Governments may have collapsed but their nuclear arsenal remained. I wonder if other nations would accept that Britian should have such international power as the UNSC Veto allows, when we are no more influential than anyone else.

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

The UK is not Iran, and yes, there are different rules for different nations, especially based on how many bombs they strapped to 12 year old kids to kill Jews, how many times they've kidnapped Westerners, and how many times they say scary stuff like 'Hitler is a cool guy.'

Of course, I could just bring up the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which both the UK and Iran signed, which specifically allows the UK to possess nuclear weapons and prohibits Iran from developing them.

Of course, none of that probably matters to you. You don't have time for facts, just your ultra-left liberal vomit that you can't help but to defend at any cost, even that of the lives of perhaps millions of people around the world.

Who decides who has the right to build nukes? If I recall correctly your country has colonized most of the world, you where a major slave trade country and my family is French Canadian. Trust me ou are as racist as everyone else.

 

[El Justo]

PrinceofLeigh,

i would think that the UK would never be removed simply b/c they don't have a nuclear arsenal. of course, i don't know all of the UN by-laws etc. but it seems to me unlikely they'd ever be removed per se.

on another note - anyone who thinks that the UK is not a world power anymore is kidding themselves. they are clearly one of the top diplomatic and military nations in the world today and i see no reason why this would change any time soon. sure, the british empire no longer has sway over a quarter of the planet...but the english certainly have got a lot of 'pull'

 

[GinandTonic]

If I were y'all, I wouldn't want to have any sort of dependence on the USA or any other nation for your defense. Other than that, I don't really have any strong opinions on the matter; I prefer having strong allies, but it's up to the UK to decide how it wants to be strong.

But it seems to me that the UK always prided itself on its kick-butt navy, is that still the case?

For sure. The question is do we want to spend such a big chunk of the budget on something with only one capability, and that one we hope never to use.

More of a range of opinions than I expected

I personally think that the money would be better spent elsewhere. That said, we do need some kind of nuclear deterrent and Trident is perhaps the best for reasons others have mentioned. So, I've not come to a conclusion yet.

PoL - do we need the capability a couple of SSBN's offer us? In terms of deterrent far less megatonnage still represents an unacceptable cost for any potential agressor. Eg four trident subs could make two contenents uninhabitable, but two dozen tatical warheads could destroy the dozen major cities and the dozen major military instilations of any country. As I see it that remains a sufficient deterrent.

Cruise misiles were rejected as a platform as being too slow and too easy to intercept. If we were to give QuiniQ and BAE a couple of billion to get the stealth/ scramjet cruise designs off the drawing board and into subs they could carry tactical warheads.

Since such missiles can be carried by SSN's (that are actually useful the rest of the time) the degredtion would only be gross megatonnage not capability as such. Such missiles would also be versitile in as much as they can be carried by surface vessles and air wings - not to mention that they could be fitted with a conventional warhead.

With the proposed three SSBN's there is a concern that a nation could know that ship A was refitting, ship B's loction was known (say a high profile prang with a serface vessle, limping to port or similar) and that therefore if they could get the drop on sub C they would be certain to remove our entire deterrent. If the detterent can be deployed from subs, destroyers, jets etc such impunity can never be assured.

The re-sale value of the missile would mitigate design costs, as well as the far higher volume bringing unit cost down.

While there is a concern about such a key plank of defence being dependent upon research we have time to sink a couple of years and a billion quid into this. This is all existant tec, not pie in the sky.

With the ten billion quid change we can by an awfle lot of armoured land rovers and fast patrol ships and still have enough left over for some decent small helicopters and a tax cut.

 

[Yeeek]

Lets build European loveboats instead. I hear german's birth rate is pretty low.

 

[Steph]

Lets build European loveboats instead. I hear german's birth rate is pretty low.

Ah... the phallic symbol of a could old missile... You cannot simply remove that!

It should be complementary to the loveboats.

 

[Princeps]

The UK is not Iran, and yes, there are different rules for different nations,

Wait - there's are word for this--- hypocrisy.

especially based on how many bombs they strapped to 12 year old kids to kill Jews,

Of course, you have nothing to prove this. This is just typical western black-painting of Iran.

But, assuming that there is "different rules for nuclear weapons, depending on how aggressive they are", than why is US allowed to have them? United States has a habit of invading soverign states, killing hundreds of thousands as a result, funding oppression of millions, funding terrorist states and dicatorships... while Iran has no armies invading other countries, no proven aggression against any country... why shouldn't Iran have nukes for self-defense?

Of course, I could just bring up the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which both the UK and Iran signed, which specifically allows the UK to possess nuclear weapons and prohibits Iran from developing them.

It is a voluntary treaty, IIRC, Iran could get out of it any time it wishes.