Trident Upgrade

[2NaFish]

I'm struggling to understand why we need this. Surely in the fight against international terrorism, nuclear weapons are kinda pointless as we're fighting self-governing cells capable of indepent organisation and means of creating the much feared "terror" they're so famous for. And surely anyone that is an enemy of ours will be an enemy of our "special friend", america.

if you're not british, do you think your country needs nukes? or that they pose any sort of deterrant to terrorists? cos i don't, and i dont really see the point in spending upards of $100 billion on stuff we don't produce and aren't being let in on technology to do ourselves.

[chineseroses]

I think i get your point, and i agree it is completerly pointless, you are not going to be able to nuke a terroist group as they are spread out through numerous countries, its not like their all in one place or can be defined as one country. i mean what are they gunna do? nuke them as they step outside of their houses without killing hundreds on innocent people?

[sunnyp]

The political agenda is currently focused on terrorism. However this has not and will not always be the case.

Unfortunately, if we do not have nuclear weapons, Britain will get bullied and coerced into situations which it would usually dictate, or have apart in controlling.

Whether we choose to like it or not, the quality of life we enjoy in the UK is a result of decades of political control and manipulation over others. Nuclear weapons remain the ultimate deterrant and also the ultimate tool of control.

Short answer, yes we do need them. However I wish we didn't have to.

[2NaFish]

so this buys us a ticket to eat at the big boys table? Fair enough answer.

However, we've been on the second tier (at best) of world politics since the falklands when it was made very clear to all and sundry we couldnt boss the world. That was during the cold war when with the exception of four or five other nuclear powers we could bully other quite well.  Fast forward twenty five years to the present, every man and his dog in "bad countries" is working on their nuclear program. Fast forward twenty years, to when this new system should be in place. What use is it against 40 or 50 other nations, one of whom atleast will presumably  back up any "thorn in our side" shithole of a nation that hasn't gone nuclear, that we want to dictate to.

its not a deterrent its a call to arms. we might as well start building dreadnaughts again and prepare for WWI; for the thrid time, making it.....errrm...hold on.....i always get this mixed up.....carry the two.....ermm....WWIII.

[RyanRose]

Britain is too small too make an impact. If America or Russia were to give up their Nuclear weapons this might Trigger a domino effect

[2NaFish]

Britain is too small too make an impact. If America or Russia were to give up their Nuclear weapons this might Trigger a domino effect

i really doubt that would happen. if the us/russia were to give up their nukes things would get worse. i'm just wondering the outcome of britain not having nukes.

[sunnyp]

Seems highly doubtful about America getting rid of it's nuclear programme since Bush pulled out of the nuclear non proliferation treaty a couple of years ago.

For Russia it is the only real influence they have left. Without it they would be sitting ducks because they have lots of oil. The cost/benefit analysis war machine that is America would take a few seconds before declaring war on them if they announced they had no more nukes.

[nemo]

I don't really see us giving up nukes as making a blind bit of difference to anyone other than the obvious fact it would give us an extra £100,000,000 (minus decomissioning costs etc) to spend on other, more useful stuff.

At the end of the day, we're honestly never going to use them and the world doesn't look like it's willing to ever let any one country build up an empire of any sorts again, so as long as we maintain powerful allies really I don't see the point in us having them.  I'm not sure how much political leverage they really provide us with anyway; put simply I hardly think many countries would be threatening to go to war with us if we got rid of them and we don't wave them around as a threat to anyone who disagrees with us so I don't see them as intimidating to anyone.

The cost/benefit analysis war machine that is America would take a few seconds before declaring war on them if they announced they had no more nukes.

I agree with the first part of your post, but that's a ridiculous assesment of things made on the back of an innaccurate presupposition, I don't see America ever doing anything that stupid.

[sunnyp]

I don't really see us giving up nukes as making a blind bit of difference to anyone other than the obvious fact it would give us an extra £100,000,000 (minus decomissioning costs etc) to spend on other, more useful stuff.

At the end of the day, we're honestly never going to use them and the world doesn't look like it's willing to ever let any one country build up an empire of any sorts again, so as long as we maintain powerful allies really I don't see the point in us having them.  I'm not sure how much political leverage they really provide us with anyway; put simply I hardly think many countries would be threatening to go to war with us if we got rid of them and we don't wave them around as a threat to anyone who disagrees with us so I don't see them as intimidating to anyone.

I agree with the first part of your post, but that's a ridiculous assesment of things made on the back of an innaccurate presupposition, I don't see America ever doing anything that stupid.

Fair enough. Maybe when Russian oil was Nationalised they would have thought about it, but now it's all privatised and owned by Chelsea they cant really get away with it.

The cold war showed us the only thing stopping America from attacking Russia was it's nuclear deterrant. If that was no longer there it would be a very different story. 

[RyanRose]

For Russia it is the only real influence they have left.

Oil and gas is where their power is. Hence how they can bully eastern block countries

[sunnyp]

And what protects that influence: Their severely underfunded armed forces? Their crumbling airforce and navy?

Their power comes from the Kremlin which is political and I am sure is based around threat alone. I fear that Russia's bark is worse than it's bite and that it might be put to the test if it doesn't turn things around economically fairly soon.

Just an opinion though.

[2NaFish]

you're right, russia has been declining ever since Rocky beet communism all the way back in Rocky IV.

[sunnyp]

'I got angry with you because you didn't like me, and then you got angry because I didn't like you'

Closing speech in Rocky IV just before Gorbachev starts a standing ovation.

What an inspirational, realistic and thoroughly philosophical take on the Cold war.

I still believe that Stallone and Chuck Norris have been the architects for post cold war US foreign policy.

[nemo]

If only they were, think how much quicker the Iraq conflict would have been over if we'd just parachute dropped Rambo in there in 2003, he'd have been in and out of there with Saddam's head in 3 days

[2NaFish]

i just love watching the end hearing the crowd going wild for the plucky yank, all the while thinking "if that was really good old communist russia, every single person in that crowd would be shot and all knowledge of the event would be erased from society. Or maybe even re-written with Stalin dropping Balboa in the second round with a thundering socialist haymaker."

alas, films are never that honest.

[lilwing]

The cold war showed us the only thing stopping America from attacking Russia was it's nuclear deterrant. If that was no longer there it would be a very different story. 

I disagree. It was the other way around. America won the cold war and did not attack Russia when the soviet union fell. I doubt the same could've been said about the soviet union had america lost the cold war.

[sunnyp]

Ifs and buts.

Lets not forget that the only country to use atomic weapons on civilian populations during a time of war is.......?

Lets not paint ourselves a false picture here. The Americans have historically been bastards.