Why we must keep Trident

James S

As a Conservative I believe in sound economic policies and sound defence. In that order. We seem to be happy to advocate tax rises to repair the public accounts, a nuclear cruise missle alternative to Trident must also be a serious option.

Tom Brown

Well said. I find the willingness of some Tories to compromise on Trident absolutely bizarre.

Simon Brock

Separate the two issues: nuclear weapons; and a delivery system. Pete did not say he wanted to get rid of nuclear weapons -- though, of course, he might. What is worth questioning is whether a Trident replacement is a good delivery system for our nuclear weapons. The answer to this is probably 'no'. After all, if you want to learn something from some other nuclear states -- Israel, India and Pakistan -- you don't need ICBM's to deliver nuclear warheads.

Ray

Scrapping Trident is not necessarily the same as scrapping the British nuclear deterrent, James.

Surely it is right to investigate the possibility of delivering that deterrent by means of cheaper launch platforms - such as cruise missiles carried on surface ships or standard SSN-type submarines.

This is especially so if the savings thereby accrued enables the Royal Navy to purchase far more ships from which to launch them, as well as the greater non-nuclear flexibility that possessing a larger fleet also offers. In addition, more launch platforms means less vulnerability to our costly deterrent being wiped out in a single knock-out blow.

Rhoda Klapp

The reason for Trident as the deterrent vice other cheaper alternatives is as follows. To an enemy power, incoming Trident from UK subs would be indistinguishable from those of the US. The system gave us the possibility, under extreme circumstances, of triggering a nuclear war and bringing in the Americans on our side without them having the option of not supporting us. It was a defence against a weak US President selling us, and all of Europe, down the river in the face of Soviet conventional warfare. It was an immense display of trust by Kennedy (who authorised Polaris) and later Presidents. Absent the cold war, perhaps any old nukes will do. I wouldn't feel confident in ditching them altogether, and I don't THINK that is proposed.

Verity

I too find this so bizarre as to be raving. Personally, I think the main danger comes from Pakistan, which is teeming with aspirant warriors for Allah.

Iran is a much older and more stable society and I don't think that nuking another country would win Ahmadinejad many points with the Iranians.

The idea of giving up our deterrent is foam-flecked lunacy. No doubt David Cameron thinks it's an idea he could go with.

Verity

Oh. I didn't realise we were talking about the delivery system. (Slinks away quietly.)

Richard

I'd be alright going halves with France perhaps.

Matt

Look, I've said this on the previous Trident thread, we cannot have tactical nuclear cruise missiles, they are illegal by international treaty. The option as I see it is either Trident or no nuclear weapons. There is no legal middle way here.

Ray, nukes on surface ships? Hell's teeth- even the Yanks don't have them. You immediately reduce the utility of your surface ship. Back in the eighties there was a persistent rumour going round the RN about nuclear depth charges. Because this was never confirmed or denied, RN ships were restricted in the countries they could visit simply because states have a perfect right to know what is going on in their waters and ports.

In addition, what you are suggesting would be ruinously expensive given that no surface ship has the capability to fire even conventional cruise missiles. You're not going to get them onto a type 23 frigate simply because there is no space. Type 45 potentially could fit them but not fire them out of the Sylver launcher (if we'd just gone for a Mark 41 silo....)

Given that Type 45 cost £1 billion each and are already 9 years late (and the order's been slashed from 12 ships to 6) I really don't see them going offline for a fndamental redesign any time soon.

Therefore, to decommission Trident and go for surface launched nuclear TacToms would require:

infringing international treaty

developing said nuclear TacTom

designing and building a class of ship capable of firing it and so restricted by this that it can't be used for general purposes- i.e. replacing a class of ballistic missile subs with a class of ballistic missile ships- which crucially lack the stealth capabilities of a dived boat.

Good Grief, suddenly Trident looks cheap if these are the alternatives.

Smaller doesn't mean cheaper in this case.

Olaf

We don't have our own delivery system for our nukes. What if the Yanks decide to take their toys home.

Forlornehope

Given the change in the nature of the threat, a possible compromise is to have the boats spend less time at sea. We are not expecting a disabling first strike from the Soviet Union any more. The less time that the boats are at sea the longer the fatigue life of the hull and the longer the operational life of the reactors. This should allow any real decision to be pushed well into the future.

joe

Why does it have to be on a boat at all why not on aircraft or land basd missle systems and looking at the current threats the use of nuclear weopons is more likely to be tactical or retaliatory than strategic

Will Rees

Funny that this comes out after FAA fixed wing gets stiffed. If we are look at where to to prune an already woefully under funded Defense bugdet (Afganistan has be going on longer than WW2!), then how about smaller UAV carriers that the senior service can defend itself with.

Would stop the glossing over of the lessons of Suez. Reducing the size of ships company will make them welcome in more ports, and you could have more of them for the money which would help the ship/Admiral ratio.

Matt

Forlornehope

and the more the deterioration in the skills of the ship's company- unless your talking about cutting them and rotating so that they're watch on stop on on the boat that's at sea?

I'm not blindly unquestioning here guys, but the 4 boat SSBN fleet is it if we want nuclear weapons. Any other debate is window dressing. Brown seemed to suggest a 3 boat solution the other day, but as usual he was talking through his hat.

If we don't want nuclear weapons then we bin them. If we do, it's a like for like replacement or nothing.

TGF UKIP

Bang on James and so many other Coffee Housers but as for sharing with the French why on earth would we have a defence interest in sharing with a country that is far more an enemy than an ally?

And, given the size of the deficit and his fondness for slinging money at national and international social causes such as the bottomless pit and African kleptocrats, you sure you can trust your mate Cameron with Trident - I'm certainly not.

ted

can you conceive of a situation in which the British Prime Minister would launch a nuclear weapon? No. A deterrent only works if people believe that deterrent might be used. Trident is an enormous waste of money.

Anand

Who in their right mind can see any soverign state attacking us without first having a go at either the US or Mainland Europe? I honestly cannot think of many plausible scenarios where Trident would be an effective deterrent, seeing as most violent acts are being carried out by terrorists! We need better border controls and homeland security, not more clunking submerged warmachines floating around the worlds oceans!

Richard

Ted - lots of things are a waste of money that no one has the foggiest what purpose they serve - at least that reasoning can't be applied to nukes.

Fergus Pickering

A team of trained runners to carry the thing into enemy territory? Not my idea. I'm sure you all know who suggested it. It would mean all that money poured into the Olympics wouldn't be a total waste.

ted

what purpose do nukes serve though? the deterrent point is a red herring

Verity

Richard - Going halves with France? Why?

France will always ditch agreements and do what is in the interests of France. I wouldn't like to see us giving up our power to make decisions over our own wellbeing.

John Wilkes

What must be beyond argument is that the possession of a nuclear deterrent is the mark of a country of world power and influence. The technical arguments about delivery, and this issue as a whole, make it plain that the cost to the UK is now prohibitive. Such is the measure of our decline. As a lay reader, the arguments of historians over the last 20 years have all been about the rise and fall of great powers - Kennedy, Corelli Barnett, Niall Fergusson et al. Anyone who harbours the idea that we either are, or deserve to be, at the top table must now be able to see the truth. It only goes to underline how pathetic the Prime Minister appears running around the world claiming to be in charge. He should have discharged the first function of government, to defend us. Instead he has left us bankrupt, powerless and, no doubt, defenceless.

Scott

If you want to keep Trident so badly, keep it in the Thames. We dont want London's WMD up here any longer.

Verity

John Wilkes - and not even elected.

THX1138

No way is Trident an Independant nuclear deterrent, does anyone really imagine that a British PM can nuke anyone without the say so of the President of the USA.

I bet that if we ever got as far as to try and launch a missle in anger the Captain of the submarine would get a message on his computer screen telling him to call the Joint Chiefs for the real go code.

mac

Scott -

Fine, send them to Devonport. However, if it's an 'English' Navy then you can also give up all the aircraft carrier work which someone, somehow fixed for that centre of traditional shipbuilding excellence, Rosyth.

David

Fallout in the office chaps? James, how come you never wrote anything so condescending and bitter when Matthew Parris, Tim Montgomerie and others suggested similar to Pete?

True Bred Pomponian

Quite correct.

As our short trousered Foreign Secretary said, "it's a scarey place out there".

Joss Cope

Greenpeace has just produced a new report, In The Firing Line, which reveals true costs of £97 billion for Trident: five times government estimates.

How can this expensive project be justified at a time of economic crisis and emerging threats to national security such as international terrorism, failed states, pandemic diseases and above all, climate change?

And does it really deliver genuine security for the UK?

The report has received the backing of many senior political and military figures, including former shadow defence secretary Michael Ancram, who wrote the report's forward, Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable, and Lord Ramsbotham, former Adjutant-General of Defence Management.

You can read a summary of the report’s findings at: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/ITFLsummary

And the full report at http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/ITFL

Paul Sav

The point about our 'independent' nuclear deterrent is that it is NOT INDEPENDENT. Hugh Beach (hardly a loony leftie as he is a retired General!) produced a good report on this:
http://www.pugwash.org/uk/documents/RUSI%20Journal_200902_Beach1.pdf

I doubt we could even fire a missile if the yanks did not want us to. The very concept that this is anything other than a client state arrangement is farcical.

We we want an actual independent weapon, then we would need to develop one ourselves, which is course if not going to happen. We cannot afford to rent the kit off the Yanks, never mind build our own.

So, can we afford a replacement, no. Can we build our own, no. Do we actually have a weapon which is ours to use as we see fit, no- of course we don't.

So, what is the point of replacement? We cannot use the weapon without the Americans agreeing, we cannot maintain it without the Americans continued support, the software to drive it is American and might contain all sorts of hidden safety features to stop us launching it. Hell, in a reply to the commons defence select committee it was agreed that Britain lacks the skills to be even able to check that the code does not contain nasties.

DaveCrouch

Much as I support a well-defended Britain, replacement Trident really isn't the way. First of all, we can't afford it - estimates vary depending on what is included, but development, construction, maintenance etc etc add up to nearly £100bn. If we pay for this, what DON'T we pay for (education, health...)? This figure is something like half our national deficit and getting on for 3 times the military's existing deficit. Second, as mentioned above, it isn't independent, it not ours, and however much you might feel we benefit from our US-UK arrangements, we won't get to make any major decisions about it. Third, we definitely don't want Iran etc to develop similar weapons - we're in a pretty weak moral position to argue this while we're redeveloping a new generation of the same (we signed up to the non-prolieration treaty and should honour the spirit of it). Lastly, there will be threats and no-one can predict them all, but even our own Srtategic Defence Committee sees them as being non-national (e.g. terrorists), against whom a Trident strike would hardly be a relevant (or sane) response. As I say, I'm all for a well-defended Britain, but this isn't the way.

Edgar

I disagree with the person in this thread who insists that Amedinajad would baulk at nuking a foreign country because it would make him unpopular at home.
That nutter is champing at the bit to get a deliverable nuke developed that he can dump on just about anywhere. Preferably Israel but he's not too fussy.
Nuke response from the attacked power does not worry him one bit. He would gladly martyr every single one of his countrymen, including himself in the nuclear furnace.
An RN submarine which he cannot see, hear or imagine is no deterrent to him whatsoever.