Scrap Trident ICBM program?

divosuk said:
I don't care how we make it - or how we get it to it's intended target.

As I said.....I think it's highly unlikely we will ever need it - and there's a lot more stuff we could spend 20billion on other than some steroids for our military muscles

and if it happens, we will still be kissing the USA's behind (who will still have many more nukes than we could ever dream of affording and probably have no trouble in firing on our behalf if someone decides to target us ) ;)
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The US would tell us to do one.
 
Strife212 said:
I don't care if Trident costs 100 billion, we need it.

I can't understand people who advocate scrapping our last nuclear weapons in a world where nuclear proliferation is rife and tensions are rising.
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Funny that, I can't understand people who advocate building something that will either cost billions and never be used or cost billions and kill millions. Far better just not to build it at all and use the money on something else that won't ether be a complete waste or end up killing millions.

Nuclear proliferation is not rife. If anything the world is becoming less nuclear. The US and Russia have dramatically reduced their counts and South Africa dismantled theirs.

If terrorists get their hands on weapons somehow - they aren't likely to care about any deterrent anyway. So what are we left with? Iran and Syria? A far better course of action is to ensure they don't make weapons in the first place!

I accept the deterrent offered by MAD during the Cold War, but I simply don't think that thinking applies now. It's not 1980, the rules of the game are all different now. Nuclear weapons are no more than an out of date status symbol.
 
The only reason it's safe enough not to have nukes is because we have nukes.

They prevented world war, why would we get rid of them?
 
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Damn right we need the Trident replacement. If we don't retain our own (semi) independent nuclear deterrent force, we will lose our seat on the permanent five members of the UN Security Council pretty quickly, and with that any real pretentions we had left that we are/were a 'world power' with major world influence.

On the flipside however, anyone that thinks that retaining or replacing Trident means that we have a indepenent nuclear deterrent is deluding themselves. Trident is US technology and reliant on US satellites which if the 'special relationship' were to degenerate siginifcantly, the datafeeds for which would magically 'break' overnight.

As for the new carriers, the F-35 and the current 'Joint Force' Harrier group; I've always felt that the 'Joint Force' Harrier group was always a political MoD bodge to make up for the fact that the Fleet Air Arm/Navy did not have any significant Air-to-Ground capability, & therefore brought the RAF GR9s in on 'floating airbase' aircraft carriers to cover their own capability gap (mostly due to lack of budget). Ironically the FAA/Navy now have a air-to-air capability gap after the retirement of the Sea Harriers, due to their age and their inability to carry a full weapons load in 'hot and high' environments (such as Afghanistan) meaning that if they took off with missiles they had to be fired or jettisoned before landing :D, until the introduction of the F-35C.

I am personally in favour of fully equipping our carriers with arrester gear and catapults, along with nuclear powerplants so as to fully futerproof them against the failure of the F-35 programme, the success of which is by now means is guaranteed. If the F-35 does fail then we could buy the F/A-18E or even the Rafale off the shelf.
 
Zefan said:
They prevented world war, why would we get rid of them?
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Because they are expensive and dangerous. We get rid of them on a trajectory of a world 100% free of nuclear weapons one day. If we can all agree that the world would be a better place with no nuclear weapons we need a way of getting there. Trident has a "shelf life" until the 2040s? But the Vanguards need replacing some 20 years before that? So lets take this opportunity to disarm and let this country claim the moral high ground it has sorely lacked in recent years.
 
Stop press.

There is a better way to spend billions of taxpayers hard earned pounds:

LETS HOST THE OLYMPICS11111

Funny how during this economic crisis we've heard very little about the Orimpics isn't it? We can't afford new supply teachers, healthcare investment, schools, care for the elderly and anything else you could think of.

Just make sure that everyone forgets the billions that are being 'invested' and focus on more irrelevant things like cutting VAT a couple of points.

I'm sorry to sound like a troll, but I can't help feeling that we're being treated like idiots by our government. They'll no doubt say that they're saving money by cancelling it (ICBM programme). All they're really doing is cutting corners to cover their sorry behinds. We shouldn't be entertaining the thought of cutting down our security for some dimwit who wants to use our money how he thinks.

We must keep our security as a priority. That does not mean creating plastic cards for one and all.

/rant over.
 
I did hear Tessa Jowell on the radio today saying something along the lines of "if we knew about the coming recession we wouldn't have bid of the olympics".
 
£20bn is a drop in the ocean for this government, less than 1/3rd of what they've pumped into the banking system. It is still a good idea. I can see the topics on here "Nuclear fallout - is it bad for my hair?" or " GF nuked by China :( "
 
JonnyT said:
On the flipside however, anyone that thinks that retaining or replacing Trident means that we have a indepenent nuclear deterrent is deluding themselves. Trident is US technology and reliant on US satellites which if the 'special relationship' were to degenerate siginifcantly, the datafeeds for which would magically 'break' overnight.
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The missiles are inertially guided and need no outside help to find their targets.

The submarines of course therefore need to know exactly where they are when they launch and i'm sure GPS is used for this, but since Trident and certainly Polaris predate GPS i'm sure its a nice to have rather than something that is needed.

have a read of this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_guidance_system
 
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Why not use silos? Should be cheaper, no? Sure the missle would take longer to get to the target but, if they can defend themselves from that they should subs.
If the subs can even make it..

I dont understand the guy who said the UK isn't "big" enough to have them.

Heck, what about invested in some stealth bombers ;)
 
ChrisJSY said:
Why not use silos? Should be cheaper, no? Sure the missle would take longer to get to the target but, if they can defend themselves from that they should subs.
If the subs can even make it..

I dont understand the guy who said the UK isn't "big" enough to have them.

Heck, what about invested in some stealth bombers ;)
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You must be joking, just where in the UK would we put these targets ?

We spend decades getting a runway through the planning process, do you think people will be queing up to have targets for Russian first strikes dug into their back yards ?

There is a reason the US has their silos in North Dakota etc etc...nobody lives with any distance of them....
 
Stolly said:
We spend decades getting a runway through the planning process, do you think people will be queing up to have targets for Russian first strikes dug into their back yards ?
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If we are having silos i absolutely want one in my own garden. If something happens I want to be the first to go. :)
 
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