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Trident replacements

December 7th, 2006 · Posted by Skuds in Politics · 3 Comments · Politics

There was a telling phrase in an article I was reading today about David Cameron's first year as leader.  It was talking about how many of the Tories do not approve of his ideas for reform but are coming to a compromise as they see opinion poll results and start to get a whiff of power. The phrase was that many of them do not embrace the reforms but are going along with them.

In a way that is how many of us in the Labour party have felt about some of the 'New' Labour ideas, not wholly approving of them but considering them a price to be paid for getting other things done which would never have happened had Labour not won in 1997, like the minimum wage for example.

This latest sudden urgency to replace Trident is just the latest of many policies I never thought would come from our side of the fence, and I have to wonder if it will be the last straw for some people.  When I first moved to London and got actively interested in politics support for CND was almost a given if you were involved in the Labour party.

Back then we may have been wrong, but it can't really be proved either way.  Maybe our nukes did act as a deterrent in the cold war – but its like me saying that garlic in the house has kept vampires away: I have garlic in the house and haven't had any vampires, but are the two facts necessarily related?

But no matter whether the deterrence argument back then was right or wrong, it was at least plausible, which is more than the current arguments about rogue states and the war on terror are now.  Those arguments could equally apply to Germany or Spain but I don't see them rushing to become nuclear.

Isn't this just another example of international cock-waving, where we think that having a supposed independent nuclear capability makes other world leaders feel less butch at those G8-type meetings?  Its what it looks like to me. The whole thing is pointless, expensive, and quite probably against the spirit if not the letter of the non-proliferation treaty.

When Trident eventually comes to the end of its lifespan it will be a golden opportunity to lead by example in giving up the nuclear habit. It would break my heart to see that opportunity passed over purely for reasons of personal vanity on the behalf of someone looking to leave a legacy. 

Take the money and spend it on a few battalions of infantry with decent equipment and some spiffy helicopters, it would be cheaper and more likely to be useful against these unexpected eventualities.  

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3 Comments so far ↓

  • Danivon

    Trident is a really stupid idea. We can’t use it without the USA, so it’s not an ‘independent’ deterrent – if the US decides we can’t use it, we can’t. We might as well just hand them some cash to include us in their defence plans.

    Basically, we can’t live with the idea that France would be more powerful than use if we got rid of our nukes. ‘cock-waving’ is indeed the appropriate expression, Skuds

  • Skuds

    The test of whether a weapon system is truly independent is to ask the question “if we wanted to fire on America for some reason would we be able to?”

    If the answer is that we would not be able to do that then it is not truly independent is it?

    As for deterrence – it really worked with Argentina didn’t it?

    The way I see it, the only people with nuclear capability do not have the delivery mechanism to reach the UK anyway – apart from Russia, the US and France. Anyon else and we have the ability to intercept any planes, subs or trucks on their way here.

    The idea that a ‘rogue state’ would be deterred from smuggling in a suitcase bomb is laughable. If a terrorist managed to get a suitcase nuke here and set it off, do you really think we would, if we were 100% certain that a specific state aided them, go and wipe out a few cities in retaliation? Would we get involved in an attack merely for revenge on the principle that two wrongs make a right?

    Only if someone really believed that we would do that would there be any chance of a deterrent effect, and even then they would go ahead anyway if they were mad enough.

    Hell, even Tom Clancey doesn’t believe in that sort of thing and he is as gung-ho as they come (Ref – the end of the book Sum of all Fears where the US does not nuke Iran after they nuke theSuperbowl)

  • jamsodonnell

    I really can’t see the point of maintainig a nuclear force given that it s neuther undeoendent nor much of a deterrent to our most likely attackers. I was toying with renewing my CND subscription but I am not sure I care for what it has become.