Because it is broke. The subs and systems have already been extended past their initial life span. repairs and problems start costing more than a new system as well as time in dry dock and being non-operational. Things do not last forever.
Replacing The Trident Defence System
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Because it is broke. The subs and systems have already been extended past their initial life span. repairs and problems start costing more than a new system as well as time in dry dock and being non-operational. Things do not last forever.
it's not for the sake of it, it's to try and stop them launching more (at us or others).
or using their position as "the ****ing nutters who nuked Britain" to take land/demand things from non nuclear countries.
But we are using them as people are not going to launch against us.
Soldato
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So... tell me why this isn't the perfect opportunity to follow in the footsteps of a country that has pretty much got it right?*A sensible country. Say, Switzerland. If every country had the same attitude to war and conflict as they do then the world would be a better place.
because not every country does and it's not just countrys, it's groups.
The nuke is here to stay, it is not going to be un-invented, rogue countries/groups will always try and get their hands on it. It is for protection, it is the ultimate protection. Not just for UK mainland but for all our interests.
The world would not be a better place, without nukes it would be far more fragmented and unstable.
Man of Honour
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That is highly disputable. There is no evidence our security would be less and plenty of reasons to doubt it would be. So at least try and reflect that, it's pure opinion...
You just have to look back at the end of ww2 for what nukes did security.
Can you really say a world with out nukes would be safer, of course it wouldn't we would have had far more wars.
Do you know what is going to happen in 12months?, 5 years?, 50 years? 100 years?
can you say a rogue state/group will not get their hands on a nuke and threaten us?
Soldato
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Don't you dare try to call such a hellish device 'protection'. It's use will never be justified, by anyone. The very fact that somebody owns one only leads to more fear, and more people rushing to get more bigger better ones. This is called an arms race. Arms races lead to wars. Wars lead to nuclear weaponry being used. It is the cause of itself.
That's what it is protection, it also stabilises the world and secures it. That's human nature for you and why you hate the idea, but what you say is totally wrong.
Man of Honour
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We're not talking about the world, we're talking about this country. We could happily have left everyone else to it and everything would have turned out the same, there was nothing which was predicated on our possession of nuclear weapons.
And if you recall my post I'm not arguing against our possession of nuclear weapons, but against the renewal of a massively expensive unnecessary delivery system because in the million to one situation we need to use a nuclear weapon we probably don't need to hit anywhere on the planet in 20 minutes time.
And if a rogue state/group gets hold of a nuclear weapon, in the prevailing climate responding in kind would likely be impossible or inadvisable (Al Qaeda threaten us with a nuke - what use is a nuke? what are we going to do? irradiate the entire subcontinent?)
And if you recall my post I'm not arguing against our possession of nuclear weapons, but against the renewal of a massively expensive unnecessary delivery system because in the million to one situation we need to use a nuclear weapon we probably don't need to hit anywhere on the planet in 20 minutes time.
And if a rogue state/group gets hold of a nuclear weapon, in the prevailing climate responding in kind would likely be impossible or inadvisable (Al Qaeda threaten us with a nuke - what use is a nuke? what are we going to do? irradiate the entire subcontinent?)
Soldato
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Which is exactly the kind of attitude Switzerland have, and look how good their country is.
You do realise that Switzerland would be defended by nuclear nations as part of the various agreements Switzerland is involved in with NATO, right?
A point which hasn't been mentioned is that once you get rid of nukes , the know-how and knowledge of the people is gone and to build up that knowledge base would take decades. Nukes are not the sort of thing you can buy on the open market. It will be nigh on impossible to re-develop things in say 20 - 30 years time if everything is dismantled.
We have already shown are mind set, they can not hide behind a state (Afghanistan), for this fact they will not use it on us as they know at the very least we will invade.
Replace it with what though? cruise missiles are not effective, I would be up for replacing it with a cheaper system. But what system would that be. The only one I have heard it's replacing it with identical hardware. But the government has said the new system will add capabilities.So it also depends what the new roll plays in the navy and what the new capabilities are.
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Man of Honour
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Partially true, but all our knowledge is shared (officially, these days it's a one way street) with the US. Our weapons are just locally build versions of theirs, the submarines are locally build (and slightly smaller) versions of theirs.
We should for now keep the capacity to build weapons I believe, but such an expensive delivery system is a step too far...
Well we share data now, but I doubt that would be the case if the program was shut down.
Also worth pointing out that not all data is shared otherwise AWE wouldn't be building big new laser systems for our own experiments which will help model the types of nukes on trident.
sid
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So we invade, we don't need nuclear weapons for that and we're not ever going to nuke a country for harbouring terrorists surely? I imagine the ICC would be raising war crimes charges fairly soon afterwards...
I believe cruise missiles are effective enough, we don't need a gold plated solution, just something good enough that people don't fancy gambling - which isn't a huge hurdle in my opinion when you're talking about gambling with millions of lives.
Its more than just about nuclear weapons...
Our country simply does not have the ability to go toe to toe with a country like China, should they turn nasty, in a conventional military theatre. If you look back at history or at human nature itself you would never say that could never happen. Infact we are blessed in that we live in a period of relative stability and calm, as resources become diminished this world is likely to come a much less stable place.
China (or whoever) is much less likely to mess with us if they know we have the capability to hurt them significantly back even tho its unlikely we would use them they aren't going to chance it.
The day we no longer need a police force then maybe we can start thinking of nuclear disarmament.
Our country simply does not have the ability to go toe to toe with a country like China, should they turn nasty, in a conventional military theatre. If you look back at history or at human nature itself you would never say that could never happen. Infact we are blessed in that we live in a period of relative stability and calm, as resources become diminished this world is likely to come a much less stable place.
China (or whoever) is much less likely to mess with us if they know we have the capability to hurt them significantly back even tho its unlikely we would use them they aren't going to chance it.
The day we no longer need a police force then maybe we can start thinking of nuclear disarmament.
You seem to be totally ignoring there defence and that people aren't going to attack us in the first place if we have them.
You can never say never, what if that country was helping and funding terrorist groups, what if they had more nukes in their arsenal.
what happens if oil does run out and china does start taking over the world?
You do not know what will happen in the future, just look how the world has change in 50 years, or even 20 years.
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