That article makes no sense, what did he actually say.
Does not compute, and the second quote is so wrong.
North Korea threatens US with a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
- Thread starter illuz
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That article makes no sense, what did he actually say.
Does not compute, and the second quote is so wrong.
Oh just what we need, Cameron is now beating the drums of war just like Blair did. This is going to be the next Iraq/Afghanistan a this rate.
Overreaction much?
You've skim read it?
Cameron says "NK can hit us; we need Trident."
Mark Fitzpatrick, Director of Nuclear Non-Proliferation and disarmament at the International Institute for Strategic Studies says, "No they can't, and wouldn't want to anyhow."
Soldato
Trident is a tricky issue...
I would love to see the day where a nuclear deterrent was "clearly" not needed. Unfortunately, I don't think we're really there yet. In 20, 30 years I really hope we are, but for the time being my *personal opinion* is that we should keep the nuclear deterrent.
I pay (what feels like) a fair whack of tax every year. The system costs ~£20Bn, and with 26million taxpayers that works out at around £770 per taxpayer. For me, given the global situation, it's still a worthwhile investment (for now). Consider that this is a tiny percentage of the money spent on bailing out the banks in 2008 / 2009 (~£955Bn), and a relatively small percentage of our national defense budget (~£45Bn per year).
Regarding Cameron's statement... Its language is clumsy and imprecise, yes. But let's be realistic: If North Korea continues its development unchecked, then it will have the capability to strike anywhere in the world with its long range missiles within a decade or so. The decision on whether or not to renew Triton spans well beyond that time-frame, so it's something that must be considered.
It's a cliche, but in this case I'd say "better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it". The trident nuclear deterrent allows us a certain amount of military independence from major world powers, and it's hard to put a price on that.
I would love to see the day where a nuclear deterrent was "clearly" not needed. Unfortunately, I don't think we're really there yet. In 20, 30 years I really hope we are, but for the time being my *personal opinion* is that we should keep the nuclear deterrent.
I pay (what feels like) a fair whack of tax every year. The system costs ~£20Bn, and with 26million taxpayers that works out at around £770 per taxpayer. For me, given the global situation, it's still a worthwhile investment (for now). Consider that this is a tiny percentage of the money spent on bailing out the banks in 2008 / 2009 (~£955Bn), and a relatively small percentage of our national defense budget (~£45Bn per year).
Regarding Cameron's statement... Its language is clumsy and imprecise, yes. But let's be realistic: If North Korea continues its development unchecked, then it will have the capability to strike anywhere in the world with its long range missiles within a decade or so. The decision on whether or not to renew Triton spans well beyond that time-frame, so it's something that must be considered.
It's a cliche, but in this case I'd say "better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it". The trident nuclear deterrent allows us a certain amount of military independence from major world powers, and it's hard to put a price on that.
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Soldato
That is simply a stupid ideology, maybe if nuclear weapons were far surpassing the yield of current known nuclear devices, lets say 1gigaton. Then that would make sense.
However the reality is that a nuclear bomb is just a large bomb, you will need hundreds, even thousands for example USA vs USSR nuclear arms race as both countries are vast and accounting that they will shoot down half of them, or more and that some will malfunction. So sending 10 at the same target will increase the success rate from very unlikely to very likely.
Soldato
I think you over-estimate the effectiveness of such systems at shooting down ICBMs. Also, the US is the only nation with an "effective" anti long-range ballistic missile system (and that system has never been put into effect so we don't know how effective it actually is).
Anyway, the main concern is not simply annihilating enough cities to wipe out a significant portion of the population, it's kicking up enough dust into the atmosphere to create a 'nuclear winter'. That is the scenario that Sagan is alluding to.
Besides, that quote was from the cold war era, where both the US and USSR had insane numbers of overly powerful nuclear warheads, and the threat of global nuclear catastrophe was much more tangible. You have to consider the context of the quote...
Soldato
That's fantasy land. I don't think nuclear weapons will ever cease to exist. States are always aspiring to acquire nuclear weapons, because once you have the bomb you have greater political weight. I also don't see nations like the US ever saying "hey, you know what, you're right. Lets dismantle all our warheads!" No doubt they would keep some on the sly
I laughed at that too.
Soldato
I agree, but a nuclear deterrent is only useful against nation states. Rogue groups (i.e. "terrorists") who would use nukes without regard for retaliation always going to be a problem, but potentially a separate problem. Trident would do nothing to deter such groups, now or in the future.
I can envisage a day where the threat from nuclear-armed nation states is reduced to the level where we no longer need a national nuclear deterrent. "But it is not this day" [/Aragorn].
At the time of the quote Russia had nukes large enough the shockwave from one would go around the world ~6 times (I don't mean by that that it would cause worldwide devestation but a few of those would cause quite a bit of damage on a country scale).
Is there any source on that?
Soldato
This is a decent site for figuring out the devastation from nukes of various size:
http://www.nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
Pick a target, pick a nuke yield, and see the likely destruction
As you can see, even the largest bomb ever created ("Tsar bomba") creates destruction in the region of tens (not hundreds) of miles.
edit: Of course, this map does not describe the effect of tens or hundreds of nukes being detonated in a short space of time. The possibility of a global catastrophe ("nuclear winter" etc) is entirely separate from the localised damage from a single nuclear detonation.
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No, the second quote is what he said verbatim, and is true and also doesn't actually contradict the first quote
Actually it is an amazing piece of political doublespeak. How he delivers the second quote above is all important, he starts off with heavily emphasising the
Cameron said:
and under plays the next part
to follow on with the remainder of the sentence...Cameron said:
Cameron said:
So actually all he is saying is that the NK's are claiming they have such a missile, not that we are saying they do, which is why it doesn't contradict the first quote in Glaucus' post of
Cameron said:
So he manages to infer and instil the fear of attack, a justification of renewing Trident, while at the same time saying there is no threat. Brilliant, straight out of 1984
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Its awhile since I read it but the big Russian bombs of that time had a blast radius of 20-30miles and a shockwave that was measureable after going around the world multiple times (it wouldn't be causing devestation around the world).
Soldato
In 1961 I think it was, Russia tested a bomb called Tsar Bomba or something like that. It was meant to be 100 Megatons but even they knew that was too powerful so they reduced the blast to 57 Megatons (still 1,500 times the power of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Combined). With a handful of these you could wipeout the entire UK.
But those warheads were too big for missiles and since then they went from stupidly powerful bombs to more accurate tactical nuclear weapons for use on missiles which are far more useful than bombs, since it is easy as hell to shoot down a massive subsonic plane compared to a missile.
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Carl Sagan was a communist, and one of their goals was the nuclear disarmament of the West. He was (probably unwittingly) contributing to a soviet psyops campaign. CND and all those other peace movements were run by communists and their useful idiots.
I don't think so. Blair spouted familiar rhetoric about Britain being threatened by Iraq's because of their WMD's and the reason given why we went to war in the first place.
Soldato
Heh - nice try
Go troll somewhere else, please. It's been a while since we've had one of your attention seeking threads. I almost miss them. Almost...