Trident and stuff

[TheTeapot]

YEAH! NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOREVER! WOO HOO!

 

Keeping us safe for the next 50 years.

 

I despair.

[notwell]

It's brilliant. I don't understand why there was even a debate over it.

[TheTeapot]

Aren't nuclear weapons BRILLIANT! You get loads of explosive power in a tiny bomb, can hide them on submarines, submarines BRILLIANT, loads of countries don't have them so we're better than them, BRILLIANT EH? and they're totally safe yeah, just like Britain is. BRILLIANT!!

[notwell]

I think you are getting it.

 

They're like a big insurance policy with 60m lives insured. Bargain really.

[the stinking enigma]

insurance against what?

[the stinking enigma]

fucking joker

[notwell]

I'll increase that actually. It's like a big insurance policy for several billion people.

[TheTeapot]

Its to keep us safe from the USSR. And North Korea.

 

Amazing and BRILLIANT

[the stinking enigma]

trident or no trident, britain is completely inconsequential if it all kicks off. we can but dream though

[gerrydandridge]

LOL...notwell thinks nukes in the hands of licentious sociopaths is an insurance policy for keeping us all safe, and they say I am mad...

[the stinking enigma]

that does not mean you are not though gerry

[ballaughbiker]

Only a maniac would actually want these despicable weapons but were any of the ridiculers actually alive during, say, the Cuban missile crisis? What would have been the outcome if the yanks hadn't had them? Well nobody knows but I bet the world order might be a little bit different today.

 

Wouldn't it be great if we could all agree to get rid of them all together? It will never happen unfortunately and it would only be a matter of time before some religious or political zealots made a new one.

 

One thing I do agree with though is the highly questionable need for us to have them.

[notwell]

There is a need.

 

Of course, they are such a deterrent they will never be used and that means we'll never see the horrific events of World Wars 1 and 2 again.

 

Nuclear/Atomic weapons provide a definitive marker. Sure, they are expensive, but they are essentially a glorified insurance policy we'll never have to claim on.

 

And given the UK's general diminishing Armed Forces these type of weapons provide added comfort. There remains still a lot of fucking idiots in this world.

 

I had the privilege of being involved in the original contractor trials for the Vanguard in late 1991. It's an absolutely magnificent piece of kit.

[guzzi]

Nuclear weapons are ugly, dehumanising for those that have them and terrifying for those living under their threat. But I we have to learn the lessons of history. I am thinking particularly of the 1930s, where the widespread support for peace led paradoxically to 1939 and the necessity for military action against Hitler. In an alternative Europe where Germany did not calculate that it's aggressions would go unchallenged and that it's military adventures would succeed even where they were opposed, the 20th Century would have been very different.

 

It isn't hard to imagine a future where a nuclear weapon state is controlled by Islamic fundamentalists. Pakistan, for example. It isn't hard either to imagine a scenario where Russia calculates that the US will not retaliate to an attack on the UK or other European Country and incur destruction of its own cities through Russian counter retailiation.

 

It is deterrence and mutually assured destruction that kept the peace during the Cold War. The post Cold War era although more complex still poses threats from hostile states armed with nuclear weapons and the principle of deterrence is just as valid.

 

It would be naive to disarm unilaterally. It would be even more naive to argue for a reduced nuclear force based solely on land-based missiles or bombs, as these invite pre-emptive attack. Ballistic missile submarines are not easy to locate and thus are much less likely to tempt an aggressor to attack first.

 

Sadly, we must keep our independent nuclear deterrent. It is Corbyn and his supporters who would, through good intentions, increase the threat of war.

[woolley]

If we had had them in 1939, WW2 wouldn't have happened. Do you think that if Ukraine hadn't signed away its rights to nuclear weapons with territorial guarantees by all the major powers, it would be in the mess it is now? Some guarantee.

 

It's like all the other nice things the lefties dream of. You cannot uninvent nuclear weapons. And would it be such a good thing if you could? Conventional warfare is not a picnic. They have largely kept the peace in Europe for 70 years. Nuclear weapons, NOT the EU. All of those complaining about nuclear arsenals and marching around for CND like Corbyn, have spent nice comfy lives sheltering behind them. SNP? What a bloody disgrace they are.