You say disarmament, I say renewal

[studentmadwife80]

Why is it when the USA and Russia do something amazing, a pledge to reduce nuclear weapons, does our government refuse to mention, during budget announcements, the almost £100billion on renewing nuclear weapons. Surely all the closures to the NHS, increased classroom sizes, unemployment, and university costs could all be aided if we followed suit and saved this money.

Nuclear weapons are the reason our troops originally went to Irag, hello they were in our backyard all along!!
Surely everyone here can think of a million, if not 100 billion better things to spend that money on!

Both Brown and Cameron want Trident renewal, but Clegg doesn't! Maybe we need to make sure Labour and Tories know we don't want these weapons either!!

If they are that easy to take out, why didn't that happen during Kosovo?

As the UK Tomahawks are submarine delivered, you'd presumably have to know where the boats are and what the targeting is to achieve this. How is that going to happen? There is going to be a 747 stooging around all the oceans of the world all the time just on the off chance? I think not. The US are so convinced that they've cancelled the second aircraft.

I may be young but I'm your future, and my future is nuclear free!

"having nuclear weapons is like having an insurance policy"

Understood, but "nuclear weapons" does not have to mean only Trident is acceptable, which is why the Lib Dems consider it questionable that the future of Trident has been taken for granted by Labour, as it wasn't going to be included in the next (overdue) review.

Personally I'd like to see the spending of 100 billion delayed, or spent on other things. I know it is in stages over a number of years, but if it can be (1) avoided, or (2) delayed, I'd be far happier.

@scaryteacher

because we didnt have B-2 Spirit Steath or the PAC-3 Patriot upgrade in Kosovo. In 1993 Tomahawks were relatively effective, in 2010 all you need is a fly swat. Weapons systems move on a lot in 20 years.

Student - you are not my future, I am my future.

WebDude - having the infrastructure in place for Trident means that it wouldn't be cost effective to change the nuclear weapons we have; and using submarines means that the deterrent isn't in one place and is difficult to find.

Lincstash

1: Kosovo was 1999, not 1993, so you are not talking about 20 years but 11.

2: 'We' still don't have B-2 stealth planes as they are US, not RAF. I fail to see why the US would want to shoot down a UK TLAM as we are supposedly allies.

3: Some weapon systems are basically the same, but integrate new technology - submarines still fire torpedoes for example, and have done since early last century. They may be larger now and equipped with a greater explosive charge, be wake homing or wire guided, but they still do the same thing - put a hole in something and interfere big style with it's watertight integrity and it's ability to float.

Actually nuclear weapons aren't hard to find...
www.nukewatch.org.uk/

They are when they're at sea which is the context I'm talking about.

You can keep on as long as you like Madwife - I am not going to change my mind about the efficacy of the deterrent or the need for it. I am a cold war child and I have seen nothing over the past 44 years to make me change my mind on the need for Polaris and then Trident.

It is a big bad world out there and we need to be able to defend ourselves.

But as we keep saying, WHO is the enemy. The cold war is over, no one is going to risk the destruction of there civil infrasructure, 6,7 or 8 digit civilian dead, and there country returning to the middle ages i na nuclear exchange.

The only likely scenario at all is a limited middle east exchange, and thats still not very likely.

Like I said earlier, WW3 will be fought with killer-hunter satellites, robot tanks and network hackers. If an enemy wanted to take us out, there most cost effective and cheapest way is to bring down the network and banking infrastructures with hackers and viruses.

In fact, the Chinese are already practicing this form of attack - read here . China has a detailed plan to wage cyberwar against the west, by crippling an enemy?s financial, military and communications capabilities early in a conflict, according to military documents and generals? speeches that are being analysed by US intelligence officials. Describing what is in effect a new arms race, a Pentagon assessment states that China?s military regards offensive computer operations as ?critical to seize the initiative? in the first stage of a war.

The plan to cripple the US aircraft carrier battle groups was authored by two PLA air force officials, Sun Yiming and Yang Liping. It also emerged this week that the Chinese military hacked into the US Defence Secretary?s computer system in June; have regularly penetrated computers in at least 10 Whitehall departments, including military files, and infiltrated German government systems this year.

So wake up - stop arming for the last centuries' war. WW3 will be a cyberwar.

What an incredibly interesting thread.

Excuse brevity and crassness - in rush.

My position has changed quite dramatically over the last ten years. Like many others I feel that the rise of endgame fundamentalism in general, and 9/11 in particular, has shifted the terms of the debate.

I accept that there's probably a deal of naivety in this, and that 9/11 has been hugely useful in general, for quashing objections to all sorts of nefarious agendas.

And, in and of itself, my position-shift isn't logical: the value - moral, military, political, strategic - of a nuclear defence policy of course doesn't change because some new, really-really-bad thing comes into existence.

Nevertheless, a kind of relativism of horror is important to this debate. Nuclear defence, which during the Cold War never did, despite the fears of two generations, result in the degree of death and destruction which 9/11 visited on us in what felt like a millisecond, gains a strange kind of moral heft from the comparison.

Were we all creatures of logic, we would be able to take 9/11's terrible toll of 3000 dead, compare it to Nagasaki-Hiroshima's beyond-imagining 150-246,000, and take a deep breath. But we're not, and the suddenness, the incomprehensibility - the utter otherness - of the former has now replaced our horror of another Hiroshima.

All this psycho-social stuff is easily dismissed as nonsense in this context. But in a debate in which we discuss apocalypse, but in which there is disagreement amongst best strategic minds - and philosophers - about whether we can ever defend ourselves against threats which haven't yet been conceived - the tenor and quality of the terror we feel can be a useful moral guide.

The terror inflicted on ourselves and others during any particular course of action is morally significant; for me - in the absence of strategic certainties - the moral likelihood of the damage done to us all by engaging in the nuclear stand-off was enough to justify an anti-nuclear stance.

We used to live in world in which the citizens of the East faced those of the West in utter terror, and living in terror decreased our wellbeing.

I don't think that is the case any longer - apart from the massive geopolitical shift of the end of the cold war, we are no longer quite so politically naive, so in thrall to domestic propaganda, I don't think. And history, too, is on our side: we know that there was no apocalypse in the 40-odd years of the Cold War.

And - though it's certainly true that the spinning of MAD as its own raison-d'etre was an infuriatingly circular argument ("Because I exist, I should exist") - it's also demonstrably true that MAD worked.

Even though we now live in an utterly unpredictable world (as if we haven't always done so..) a locical course of action would be to continue with what has worked till now, while attempting to develop new strategies to deal with changing patterns of global aggression. Spread betting, as ST did.

ST - I think I can count on the fingers of no hands the times I've agreed with you so far, but I think you've argued very convincingly on this.

LOL 'excuse brevity'. Sorry

Onebat - thank you, that's made my day.

Lincstash 'But as we keep saying, WHO is the enemy.' We don't know that, that is why as Onebat puts it we need to be engaged in spread betting.

The cyber-war threat is well known - that article you linked to was 2007, and in 2008 NATO set up the CCD COE to counteract that sort of threat.

I don't think there will be WW3 in our lifetimes but no-one knows what forms the conflicts will take that will arise.

I have to say that I am far more scared now than I was during the Cold War, and that it's the 'endgame fundamentalism' that scares me rigid.

onebatmother I can agree on "has now replaced our horror of another Hiroshima" but I am far from convinced that a nuclear war is likely, and therefore far from convinced that having the deterrent (in the form of Trident, in particular) is still justified.

I am perhaps less swayed by arguments as my family (what remains) has no military connections. I'm sad for you, scaryteacher, that you have seen nothing to reduce your qualms. I am a touch older than you, and feel exactly the opposite.

"I am not going to change my mind" equally applies to me, so I'll get off this thread, simply "agreeing to disagree".

But the fact remains in 1970 and 2000 England pledged to get rid of nuclear weapons, building new ones only tells other countries that they must need them too.

Why else would chief of defence lord Bramall, former general lord Ramsbotha and Sir Hugh Beach all ask for the Uk to scrap these 'irreleant' nuclear weapons. Even new head General Richards has warned governments not to spend large amounts on new weapons that are not relevant to modern conflicts. Army men and women are the ones at threat and dying, protect them.

Only 9 countries in this world have nuclear weapons. Our submarines hold up to 48 warheads, each right times more powerful then the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. You want these that could fall into hands of terroists?

54% of Britain oppose Trident, and in Scotland 75%! surely this a no brainer for parties?

Sorry should say eight times not right

'Why else would chief of defence lord Bramall, former general lord Ramsbotha and Sir Hugh Beach all ask for the Uk to scrap these 'irreleant' nuclear weapons. Even new head General Richards has warned governments not to spend large amounts on new weapons that are not relevant to modern conflicts. Army men and women are the ones at threat and dying, protect them.' See earlier in the thread - they are ALL ARMY. This is about turf war as well.

I beg to differ about it being the Army who are fighting and dying as well young lady. Just because you don't know what goes on in submarines, doesn't mean that they aren't fighting and dying as well. In fact, my brother, who is a Naval Officer NOT Army, is currently in Afghanistan. When the Royal Marines go out to Afghanistan on deployment, they are NAVY, NOT ARMY. Please get the 'it's the Army who fights' right out of your head. Afghanistan, like Iraq, is a TRI service operation, so all three services are involved. I am sick to the back teeth of people peddling the 'it's only the Army' line - of course the Generals don't want Trident, as it's Navy. Offer them a land based delivery with the Army in charge, and they'd take your arm off for it.

Much as I admire Gen Richards, (who is head of the Army, not the Armed Forces, that is Jock Stirrup, RAF) as does dh who used to work for him in a tri service post; he is focussed on the Army view. That is not enough - he needs to be looking at the bigger picture. He does not know where the next threat will be from - it may be that someone attacks the choke points in the shipping lanes and means that we have problems importing goods - you only have to look at Op Atalanta to see the problems that this can cause; or Iran may decide to inderdict or mine the Straits of Hormuz - neither of those scenarios will involve the Army.

Studentmadwife - part of being a member of HM Forces is knowing that there is a risk you will be killed. Your family lives with that. I've lived with that every day since I was born, with my Dad, husband and brother.
To do their job properly means that they can't be protected.

I also fail to see how a Trident missile could fall into the hands of terrorists. It won't happen at sea, and even if they did capture a missile, they are bloody great things and can't be easily moved or hidden. A terrorist is going to have a suitcase bomb like the ones that went missing after the break up of the USSR. We also have a good record of nuclear weapons not being captured by terrorists in the UK. I can't recall one incident of either a Polaris or Trident missile being hijacked.

It's also about the iron fist in the velvet glove. Diplomacy with teeth if you like. Whilst we can negotiate to prevent war, and war is always the last resort, at least we have something concrete to back up our 'red lines' with.

Do you not remember 9/11? Terroists were flying these planes, what stops terroists joining these submarines? It can happen.

I'm not disputing that navy men and women put their lives at risk, I know I have family in the navy, but I know that the equipment they need to better protect themselves is not there.

The navy and army all need things they can use not things that are there to be 'insurance' as you put it. I'd rather have my house then the insurance and that's the choice they have right now with a debt of £35billion in the defence, use it wisely.

What stops terrorists joining submarines is that they are not public transport you can buy a ticket on and then overpower the pilot. It is most unlikely to happen.

To get to be a member of HM Submarines you have to join the RN. Next you have to get through basic training. Then, you have to volunteer or be posted to the Submarine Service. Then you have to undergo intensive training to be up to speed. If you don't make the grade you are not in the submarine service any longer. That is not to mention the degree you need if you wish to work in the technical areas as an officer. If you got through all that and then decided to sabotage a boat, then you'd also have the rest of the crew to contend with, and they live at very close quarters indeed, so would pick up on anything odd. Submariners don't tend to take prisoners so to speak, so anyone attempting anything would be on a hiding to nothing, given that they would have to take out the rest of the crew first.

You also have to be vetted - that is, your family and your background are investigated very thoroughly, as is your financial situation.

'but I know that the equipment they need to better protect themselves is not there.' Such as?

You may rather have the house than the insurance. I would suggest that the house is already there, and we need the insurance for when it burns down.

There is no guarantee that Trident submarines are undetectable though, and definitely will not be in the not so distant future, so this deterrent you hold so highly, will in fact be a threat.

And £97billion is probably an under estimate, look at the Astute class submarine programme that is almost 4 years late and 47.3% over budget!

There is no guarantee that any boat is undetectable, but I would argue that once submerged, a terrorist is going to have a problem getting on one.

I'd like to know what you think you know about submarine detection as you claim they 'definitely' will not be undetectable in the not so distant future. I was taking your arguments seriously up to this point; not sure I can now. Tried finding a hole in the water lately, in all the oceans of the world with limited resources? Thought not.

I fail to see what £97 billion on Trident has to do with the Astutes, as they are SSNs not SSBNs. The overspend and delays could be down to the well known ministerial trick of putting delivery dates back to square the current year budget, and paying the contractors penalties as a consequence.

I am quoting Mr Ancram, with reference to being detectable in the future, and Im afraid his word is much more crediable than yours.

And the overspend with Astutes is very relevant to this argument, as the price of Trident under estimated and with the defence budget already in trouble, don't reaqlly think this is the right time to be throwing money at a weapon that is illegal and not relevant to our times.

Disarm now - we don't need nuclear weapons and we can't afford them anymore - lets spend the money on decent childcare instead.

WebDude, we don't have nuclear weapons because a nuclear war is likely. If a nuclear war is likely, God help us all.

We have nuclear weapons to maintain a balance of power, the tiniest shift in which makes ripples which affect all sorts. They are strategic, geo-political, global coins.

Also, as ST says, to maintain our seat at the UN table - though I know bugger all about this really.

We actually wouldn't be very favourable with the UN if we create new weapons, we would be breaking the NPT and that would put us in the same group as Iran.

But we're not creating new weapons are we? Or have I misunderstood?

onebatmother - there are other options - we don't have to get rid of all nuclear weapons - we can still keep our seat at the UN by just not having trident.

We wouldn't have the submarine capability but we could still belong to the nuclear club as we would technically have one or two 'lying about' in case we wanted to use them.

Actually that sounds bad but what I mean is that we don't need a whole programme - we have the bombs - lets just strap a few to some jets and stick them in a disused hangar somewhere.