Associate
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Renew, you can't protect the country with harsh language and diplomacy.
Poll: Trident - would you renew? (Poll)
- Thread starter Nitefly
- Start date
What makes you think a missile we won't launch is a better deterrent than equivalent spending on conventional military that we will actually deploy? Would a third aircraft carrier, for example, not make a bigger difference? Or better equipment for our ground troops? Or more specialist units?
Do people really think that Japan and Germany, for example, are unsafe because of their lack of nuclear weapons?
If they were to attempt to invade Poland they would.
The problem with scrapping Trident and spending it on conventional arms is that over time we would simply erode the military budget again. In 10 to 20 years we wouldn't have a nuclear deterrant and our military probably wouldn't be any bigger or better than it is now.
Soldato
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Agree on National service, but I would not make it military based, I would make it potentially military based, and then based in every ancilliary services, paramedical, health care, home support, care in the community, lots of our crippled services could do with this beneficial service. And national service would mean something, the key to some door or other, be it reduced uni fees, be it apprenticeship starter years.
There is a use for this, if the country would get off its arse and get behind it.
thats great..but surely the americans are also targeting the same cities with their much larger arsenal...so you cant destroy the same place twice
in reality..the americans and the russians have enough between them to destroy the world
our 1 submarine at sea offers nothing that the united states are not already offering
Man of Honour
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Nuclear weapons, the dumbest most dangerous invention so far.
We are trapped into keeping them because others have them, furthermore there is the prospect that even worse regimes may acquire or develop them.
We could have the most powerful military in the world but without nuclear weapons any country that has them could simply by threat of use make us sit in the barracks unable to do anything.
As much as I hate the idea, we need them, they act as a last line of defence to prevent nuclear aggression, a shield that if used turns into a sword and gives the ultimate riposte.
We are trapped into keeping them because others have them, furthermore there is the prospect that even worse regimes may acquire or develop them.
We could have the most powerful military in the world but without nuclear weapons any country that has them could simply by threat of use make us sit in the barracks unable to do anything.
As much as I hate the idea, we need them, they act as a last line of defence to prevent nuclear aggression, a shield that if used turns into a sword and gives the ultimate riposte.
Man of Honour
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This is just a materially wrong statement.
The Government does continue to protect the country using diplomacy, indeed it's probably the most effective tool for preventing conflict.
Nukes are when you're giving up keeping the nation safe.
Soldato
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And for when you're happy to cause hundreds of thousands of INNOCENT deaths.
Doesn't work like that - nukes compliment diplomacy in keeping the country safe - if they have failed i.e. if we ever actually had to seriously contemplate using one, we ran out of options for keeping the nation safe.
Nuclear weapons tend to defer the escalation to full scale conflict in most cases while a larger conventional force for a country the size of ours is less so - spending the money on conventional capabilities instead potentially means 100s or thousands of our countrymen losing their lives in a conventional war that could have been avoided entirely - or a very very slim chance we'll bbq thousands of innocents but far far less likely.
Unfortunately we can't un-invent nuclear weapons so it is better that a spread of countries have a few than we reduce down to where 1-2 countries are all powerful because they have them and no one else does - absolute power and all that.
Plus with a resurgent Russia, China a bit of an unknown but also pushing more outwards these days it would be tactically insane to reduce our defensive capabilities at this time - beyond insane it would be contemptibly short sighted lunacy.
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But isn't that kind of the point? They're not really a shield or a weapon and they certainly aren't the ultimate riposte because if you've resorted to using them then there's nothing left to use them for. What difference would it make to an annihilated country and a near-wiped out population if we decide to retaliate? (and it would be near-wiped out because no country who decided to deploy nuclear weaponry would do so with minimal effect - if they're going down that route it's all or nothing)
I just find something deeply flawed with the logic of having an un-useable weapon as a shield or a weapon - by definition it is neither
Associate
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Indeed and that works because we have a serious deterrent in our back pockets without that diplomacy would be a lot less effective, without some sort of military back up to fall back on.
My comment was based on not having Trident, and not having it would leave us open to all sorts, just look at how the Russians routinely push the limits of our airspace etc. I'm sure we'd get a lot more of it and not just that.
Permabanned
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That is excellent thinking, a true National service giving young people experience in how communities work and their upkeep, but I would still want to see some military training. Has this ever been mooted at government level?
Man of Honour
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It would be crazy expensive to run, which is probably why it doesn't get very far in discussions.
I certainly think the team work and mental adjustment to dealing with crisis situations, etc. from something like that wouldn't go amiss and might even make society healthier and better adjusted in general though I wouldn't hold my breath on that.