The Peacenik's At It Again

[Baldric]

This man must be borderline certifiable, does he not understand the word deterrent.
Who knows what threats we might face in the next decade or two.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/648071/Jeremy-Corbyn-Labour-leader-MPs-civil-war-CND-anti-nuclear-rally-London-Trafalgar-Square

[EDDIE51]

We have nothing to fear from Russia with nuclear weapons.Problems will be if places like North Korea get the missiles /aircraft to deliver the weapons they already have.
Do all of you on this thread realise that although we have nuclear weapons we can not launch them without permission from the USA ! Though that may become a lot easier to obtain if ( God forbid!) Trump was in the White House.

[Baldric]

Just a thought

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3093244/ISIS-claims-infinitely-closer-buying-nuclear-weapon-Pakistan-smuggling-US.html

[jourdain2]

Thanks, fender, I have worried about N. Korea a bit.

[EDDIE51]

Baldric, Very worrying, but a nuclear deterrent will not stop that kind of terrorism.

[EDDIE51]

fender62 The problem is North Korea are quite stupid enough to load a nuke on a truck and crash it through the border to S K then explode it. They don't give a s**** about killing a few thousand of their own people as long as they take a few thousand of the 'enemy' with them.

[Baldric]

Don't think I said it would Eddie, but someone did ask 'which Country would launch a nuclear attack on the UK?'

[EDDIE51]

^ I can't imagine any country launching a nuclear attack on the UK, which is why I think a nuclear deterrent is useless. The risk is from groups like ISIS, no nuclear deterrent is going to be any use against them. The money would be far better spent on conventional forces and weapons able to respond to such threats. I would scrap Trident but build aircraft carriers instead. That would save the shipyards and jobs, reinforce the navy and have something that is actually of use in the world of 2016 rather than world of the 1960s.

[Gromit]

The UK maintaining a Nuclear capability is nothing to do with having a deterrent (let's face it, it hasn't deterred anyone in the last 50 years).
It is about keeping our seat (and veto) on the UN Security Council. We get to run the world because of our ability to destroy it.

The questions we should ask ourselves are:

Do we still want to rule the World?
Is it worth the £100BILLION+ fee?
Can we afford to be the World's policeman in Syria, Libya, Iraq etc? ...
And does that benefit us at all?

If we cannot answer an unequivical yes to every one of those questions, then we must consider not renewing Trident.

[Baldric]

///it hasn't deterred anyone in the last 50 years///

I don't remember the UK being attacked in the last 50 years so as deterrents go it looks like it's working.

[Gromit]

Baldric,

It hasn't deterred ISIS or alqaeda making attacks on the mainland UK. It didn't deter the Agentinians from invading British territory. Do youu think it has ever stopped the Russsians doing anything the Russians wanted to do?

[Baldric]

In the event of ISIS or Al-Qaeda launching an attack on the UK where/who would you suggest we point Trident at? You know as well as I do the deterrent is on a Nation vs Nation level and not aimed at Terrorist organisations.

[Gromit]

So you agree it is useless in a modern context?

[Baldric]

No.

[Gromit]

Do you think Trident has stopped Russia (or any other nation) from doing anything it wants to? If so, examples please.

[Hypognosis]

@Gromit

The reason nukes don't stop small-scale wars is because that is not the principle on which they are intended to be used. They are (rather, were) a "last-ditch defence", to be rolled out when a full-scale conflict has caused all our planes to be shot down, our navy sunk and our land forces unable to stop further assaults. The message they put out is, "if you don't stop your aggression, we will take out a major city".

Yes, that is first use but the required circumstances are that you are on your knees.

Ideologically, we will not accept conquest by another power ("never, never, never will be slaves" and we are prepared to inflict megadeaths (or cause civilisation to collapse, worldwide) in order to live up to that song lyric.

Who's mad?

[Baldric]

I think that the fact that we have Trident may well have stopped an attack on the UK over the years, but, and you may need to think about this for a minute, as it worked so well as a deterrent that no attack took place it's kind of difficult to give an example.

[Hypognosis]

At any rate, Nukes are regarded as cheaper than conventional forces. Our current army is puny compared to the Cold War era, when their population was ~260m (in 1979), down to 143m, post breakup, compared to our 60-70m. We lack the numbers to bring the conflict to a ceasefire but nukes make up for that weakness.

In reality, of course, other nations should (*should* but no actual compulsion, viz Ukraine) come to our side. But that's when war gets really ugly, when neither side is strong enough to win but the frontline continues with its meat-grinder routine, as with World War I.

If Corbyn had prefixed his nuke stance with "I can not conceive of conventional war breaking out in Europe ever again", then what he went on to say would have made sense (to me, at least) but he did not. Instead, he practically said "please invade us, I will not stop you, I've always wanted to be a forelock-tugging Russian serf."

[Baldric]

We've got a few on here that would consider that an honour.