Good for you mate. Seriously. Funny one Trident. It needs scraping. That's undeniable, it's in a terrible condition. Do we replace it? Can we afford to? I'm very much against 1st & 2nd strike policy but understand it's a deterrent but it's only a deterrent to stop people attacking our allies not us. So long as the Yanks have nuclear weapons and they're our allies we're never getting nuked imo. Not that bothered if it goes.
Agreed. Stick with the Yanks and spend the money on other things, including conventional forces, which are stretched thin ATM...
I would love to see the end of all nuclear weapons, but I certainly do not believe we should get rid of them unilaterally due to all the uncertainty in the world, and I most certainly don't believe we should be dependent on a Trump lead USA..
Europe has been dependent on the USA since the 1940s throughout the presidencies of people like Ronnie Reagan and George W. Bush. The Trump thing will pass and we'll still be dependent on them, unless we have effective conventional forces of our own. It's about time someone said enough with this massive waste of resources that are nuclear weapons, which we'll probably (99.99%) never use. Unless we can get "the rich" to pay for them...?
i just feel that the world is less stable now than ever..After the 2nd WW at least the dividing lines were pretty clear between East and West and we all new where we stood. These days the dividing lines are far less clear with religion, race as well as politics coming into play and physical borders less important due to the development of networks. This is why I don't believe we should be relying on the USA as we have done in the past and need our own deterrent at this time. Hopefully one day we will be in a position to ditch all nuclear weapons, but not at this moment in time.
There's no point having effective conventional weapons if the other guy has nukes. You need the same size stick as the other guy! Maybe not the same number but definitely the same effective uncertainty.
I think because the enemies we face now are less obvious and less big we should emphasize our conventional capability more than ever. How do you deal with Iran & North Korea if they keep trying to develop nukes? Answer, bomb the you-know-what out of their development facilities. Better than waiting for them to get nukes and then have to blitz Tehran or Pyongyan with an ICBM. And conventional forces can take on the idiots in the Taliban, Daesh etc. in a slightly more specific way than 20 megatons' worth of nuke. When I met up with Smug for a pint he put it rather neatly. Having nukes is a bit like taking a bazooka to a pub fight...
Not all our enemies are the same though. As for North Korea, if conventional forces could've stopped them developing nukes, Uncle Sam would've done it already.
They probably would. They don't mind strong action and they'll be a damn sight more angry with a nuclear stand-off on their doorstep when Kim Jong-Twat gets his hands on a miniaturized A-bomb.
Out comes the magic money tree(which doesn't exist, the very foundation of the Tory election campaign) to bung off the DUP with almost 2 billion while austerity keeps front line services teetering on the edge of collapse and our NHS is cut further. She doesn't have the balls to announce it herself of course, no surprise there, all she does is run from responsibility. Glad I didn't vote for these scumbags. I couldn't live with the shame. Embarrassment from top to bottom. To a prosperous Northern Island while the rest of Britain suffers.
It's 2 billion to retain her legacy ultimately. This country is nothing but a CV entry for her and she'll do anything to preserve as all of her recent actions and decisions show. People can say what they want about Corbyn, lot of it valid, he ain't perfect(Show me a politician who is) but his interests are in the country, not himself. That's something the Tories can never take from him while they're on self serving.