Again, I strongly urge you to give this a watch Jamie. I think you'd really appreciate it and it challenges any kind of idea that what humans are doing to animals is benevolent: [Link]

If punk ever happened I'd be preaching the law, instead of listenin to Lydon lecture BBC4

Who benefits most from buying a new deterrent? Us or some 'friend' of government who will make some cash from it?
Or am I just being cynical?

Options to do what? Only five countries in the world acknowledge having nuclear weapons. Does that mean the other two hundred or so are in some sort of danger? Of course not. To renew Trident cost 100 billion pounds. To spend that sort of money would be insane when it could build houses, schools, hospitals, railways, roads etc.

Actually it doesn't. There are inherent problems with submarine based deterrents, not least the fact we'd only ever have two submarines at sea (and often one).

Trident submarines operate by sitting at the bottom of the ocean in range of a target nation for several months at a time, during which they remain in complete radio silence (they only monitor communications, they do not broadcast). As such, you can't really change targets, without giving away your location to the enemy, because that requires transmission and receipt of signals.

When Trident goes to sea, not even the crew or command base, will know where it will be located or its targets. Its utterly vital for Trident submarines to never be detected, because they'd be easy prey for destroyers and hunter-killer submarines because they won't have the Royal Navy to protect them.

The US don't operate a singular nuclear system (they have I think four different nuclear options at any given time). We however only have the missiles on two submarines.

Targets are usually programmed into missiles when they are in port (and there are always at least two Trident submarines docked, and one to two on patrol). In theory targets could be retargeted remotely, but that would mean not verifying the transmissions of data and verifying back with command (typically both command and the submarine will need to verify).

They incidently rotated targets in order to prevent the soviet being able to determine where the missiles would probably hit, and thus intercept them.

Part of the point of Trident, is that even if you hijacked the submarine, you couldn't launch or retarget the missiles (Only the PM or depuities can issue an order to launch, the commander has a locked safe which as a final fall back contains either a launch or no launch command, so that even if all communications along with the PM and nuclear deputies are lost, the UK can still retaliate

So whilst Submarines seem more flexible, they aren't. The UK system doesn't work like the US one. No one on the submarine has the capacity to target or order the launch of missiles (the commander doesn't have a launch code or even knowledge of where the missiles are targeted).

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

pakistan
India
France
UK
USA
Israel (has never admitted it but it seems to )
South Africa (had six but disarmed in the 90s).
China

Possibly North Korea has recently entered a nuclear capability, but its not certain. In the future Iran and Saudi Arabia are likely to eventually join 'the club'.

Realistically, only two of those are ever likely to be a threat to the UK, China and Russia. pakistan has its arsenal firmly targeted on India, and North Korea lacks missile capacity to hit the UK. Of those two I think Trident was only ever deployed against Russia (I think China is too far to ensure operational certainity - ie permanent cover of enemies).

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

But the threat today is surely radical groups rather than nations? And whatever else is needed to defend against them, it's not nuclear weaponry. We're not going to drop nukes on ISIS (if we could find where to drop them first) and possession of Nukes will do little to avert catastrophes like 9/11. In my view, nukes were relevant in a bygone age.

I would say the threat of a inter-nation "World War" has receded and whilst, yes, there's always a North Korea to prove the rule, does anyone really believe that particular "threat" will be curtailed by Britain's fleet of Tridents? If there is a World War, it won't be led by us and it likely won't be decided by our arsenal. We're already a near irrelevance in terms of real global influence so why be a heavily-armed irrelevance? Now that the world no longer looks to Britain for military leadership, why not take advantage of that fact and invest in the fabric of society instead?

I think the point is that we need to look at what we are (as a nation) and what we can potentially be. What we want to be good at. How we want our people to live. What role we can play in the world. I absolutely agree that we need to be safe and we need to have a functioning military which requires respect, support, and investment but I do not believe that millions spunked on a largely redundant nuclear system replicated anyway by our wealthier allies is a wise investment in present times. Even if I were to agree to invest those billions in the military, I suspect it could be spent on better things than Trident. It's a resounding "no" from me.

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

I think it's somewhat questionable whether Putin's Imperialism is directed beyond the former Soviet-bloc. And not even that to its full extent. Without Stalinism to export, it's more of a localised land-grab than a threat to the world -- can you really see him invading Germany at this point? -- though in economic terms no doubt he wants to extend Russia's influence further than that. Doing so, however, would not be a military threat and probably won't be best countered by military action.

Russia today, while still governed in an odious way, is far more pragmatic and less zealous than it was 50 years ago. Russia may not be our friend or, even, trustworthy, but it is not the same kind of enemy and I doubt they will become that kind of enemy again. Even if we do invest in Nukes, I suspect that it won't be from Russia they need to protect us.

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

7/10,eh?
I`m liking your style np.

Is this a five minute argument, or the full half hour? [Link]

Much as I observed a couple of posts ago. We don't actually need Trident in so far as we're subservient to America's weaponry anyway so it won't make us appreciably safer, if in any way safer at all. From reading the link, it would seem that what we're actually paying for isn't missiles so much as a protection tax levied by America. In exchange for putting ourselves in position to legitimise whatever nuclear strike they want to make in their own interests (by giving them the opportunity to say "we're not the only country in it" ), they're giving us whatever America gives us (in addition to protection, trade, etc.) So what Trident really represents is the outsourcing of our military decision-making process at the expense of investments in our own infrastructure. I'm amazed anyone would think that's a smart call....and yet many people here say Corbyn is mad. From where I sit, he's absolutely right.

Edited by sydtheeagle (01 Oct 2015 8.29am)

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

Yes,but as the following in Nick's link notes:

"The fact that, in theory, the British Prime Minister could give the order to fire Trident missiles without getting prior approval from the White House has allowed the UK to maintain the façade of being a global military power. In practice, though, it is difficult to conceive of any situation in which a Prime Minister would fire Trident without prior US approval. The USA would see such an act as cutting across its self-declared prerogative as the world's policeman, and would almost certainly make the UK pay a high price for its presumption. The fact that the UK is completely technically dependent on the USA for the maintenance of the Trident system means that one way the USA could show its displeasure would be to cut off the technical support needed for the UK to continue to send Trident to sea"

So,in reality, the "benefits" of the independent finger on the button (whether a PM would push it or not) are pretty illusory when set against the estimated cost of up to £100bn ...which could perhaps be enough to fully fund A&E services for many years, employ up to 150,000 new nurses, build up to 1.5 million affordable homes, build up to 30,000 new primary schools, or cover tuition fees for up to 4 million students.