The coalition needs to think harder about renewing Trident

PrimroseLeague

Mr Hoskin,

nice picture of a 1970s era O class diesel electric submarine - if you put a missile of any kind on it it would probably capsise - and there's no way you'd get Trident into one of its torpedo tubes.

It's the right navy I suppose though, even if it does lead one to question the Spectator's compentence to comment on defence matters - we haven't had d/e boats since the Options for Change review in the early 90s. If this was an article about Eurofighters would you have illustrated it with a Phantom?

Pete Hoskin

PrimroseLeague: I didn't select the image - but, even so, don't think it really weakens the Spectator's credentials for speaking on defence matters...

Neil Staton

Its simple to save money and keep a defence.

Bin it off but dont tell johnny foreigner!

For all they know we could have never had them from the start. So all we need to do is sail submarines around with "massive bomb inside watch it sonshine" wrtten on the side......and save 20 billion quid

Dig for Victory

Seconded Neil, or part of the spending review at the very least. It is a different World now.

Noa

Go compare Mr H!

Think about it as insurance against those pesky neighbours further down the road who've been threatening you and who've been developing their own nasties.

If you get rid and they don't you're scuppered.

So scrap DfID and use some of the money to renew this policy and find a better alternative.

denis cooper

Strange, last I heard the Ministry of Defence was still part of the central government ...

We can afford Trident, and we can't afford not to have it.

If necessary we'll just have to stop wasting so many tens of billions a year on welfare scroungers and overpaid useless bureaucrats, won't we?

PrimroseLeague

point taken, up to a, er, point. You wouldn't guess that I was a navy man would you?

I think though that sloppy subbing DOES detract from an article, and there is a lot of ill-informed talk about defence on all sides at the moment, which is making the boys and girls at the sharp end rather trigger happy when it comes to jumping on errors...

David Bishop

Two questions; one at a time.

1) Should we retain a nuclear deterrent?

I'd argue yes. Limits the risk of state v state industrial warfare. Seat at the top table. Deterrent to current and future nuclear and non nuclear 9including non state) adversaries.

So, question 2:

How do we deploy a credible deterrent?

Air launched missiles / bombs? Limited range. High chance the plane will get shot down. Not credible.

Submarine launched cruise missiles? Same problems of range and vulnerability. Not credible.

Land based ICBMs. No new systems are being developed. They are vulnerable to first strike. Would require entirely new infrastructure e.g. silos. Credible to an extent, but not value for money.

Submarine launched ballistic missiles. No problems with range. Very very difficult to shoot down. Very hard to find and sink the submarine first to prevent a launch. Credible.

If we want to retain the deterrent then SLBMs are the only credible means of deploying a deterrent that WILL work if you need it. Any other solution is flawed and tantamount to dropping the deterrent altogether.

The White Paper on Trident replacement goes into this in some detail and is a far better read than Des "part time defence secretary" Browne.

strapworld

I think we should refloat HMS Victory.

Build a new fleet of wooden warships powered by the wind, thus creating jobs in the carpentry and sailmaking trades! Name the first warship THE HUHNE.

Then create a new fleet of wooden submarines powered by rubber bands. Silent running and easily repaired using Nomorenails.The enemy would believe they are flotsum and jetsum and ignore them! Dastardly.

Learn from the past and order a squadron or two of wooden (balsa wood) planes. Powered by Morris 1000 engines. They would look very pretty in the air.

Arm the SAS with bows and arrows and individual catapaults. there are plenty of stones in Afghanistan.

Troops and Marines can be armed with similar cheaper catapaults and bows and arrows. REME could look at creating wooden horses to hide our men who have to go behind enemy lines. Learning again from history. Large catapaults for large rocks would be helpful and never forget the mace (which could have a wooden head) If the budget allows we could employ a few nails in the heads.

Uniforms could be bought at car boot sales and old routemaster double deckers (suitably camouflaged) could be used as troop transporters. They are quite cheap at breakers yards!

I do think Dr Fox will find this contribution helps him enormously.

Billy Blofeld

Trident is defunct.

Just parachute 20 Labour politicians behind enemy lines as a pre-emptive strike - and before you know it, Iran or whomever will be in total chaos and unable to afford nuclear weapons.

Once Labour has infiltrated an enemy government, they will be unable to wage war. Precision bombing has nothing on taking out entire administrations.

Labour Party paratroopers are the cheaper, more peaceful alternative.

The SAS fade into the background compared to what Gordon Brown could achieve with just Ed Balls and Charlie Whelan in Afghanistan.

Of course Gordon would need to be deceived into thinking he was creating a Socialist Utopia, rather than invading and crippling another country. Luckily, however,the sheer number of narcissists at the top of the party make this entirely possible.

TrevorsDen

The real need for this is still many years away. The basic requirement is a nuclear deterrent, not Trident replacement.

TrevorsDen

Dropping Labour politicians (not least Gordon Brown) on our enemies has its attractions. Unfortunately as a 'cruel and unusual punishment' it will be against all our treaty regulations.

quadratus

We must keep Trident even if we upgrade only two submarines for the time being (one on patrol at a time ,location secret,even from the Indian Navy.)
If we relinquish 'Trident' it means throwing away all that has been spent on it so far and if there is a decision later that a nuclear weapon is essential (as I believe it already is)the costs of starting again would be prohibitive;not to mention regaining the expertise of shipyards and crews which cannot be cobbled together overnight.We have to keep it.

Graham

Yeah, let's pay for it by cutting benefits, I'm sure there's a spare 100 billion lying around somewhere in the DSS.

Face facts, guys, keep Trident, shred the military. They know that, and that's why they tend to oppose it.

Chuck Unsworth

@ Pete Hoskin

"...but, even so, don't think it really weakens the Spectator's credentials for speaking on defence matters..."

Possibly, but it does slightly dent the confidence of the cognoscenti....

Sack the picture editor, eh? That'll resolve it.

TGF UKIP

Much easier to talk about nuclear subs than about nuclear energy, or any sort of energy for that matter.

Huhne announces this week week the green mish mash that is the Coalition's energy "policy" which will put electricity costs on the most favourable politicians' take by a third (Ofgem said last year by 60%) but not a peep from the teemagers who write and edit the Speccie.

Can't blame them though, they know the house mag and their jobs ain't there to embarrass Dave and his mates, so energy, and especially the politics of energy, must stay strictly off the agenda.

Malbrouck

It matters because of Britain's rightful place in the world and the weak, piping hope that me may at some point in the future regain it.

Richard of York

Just do a Saddam, scrap it and then tell everyone you've up graded it to a super stealth system that no-one can see. Have it based in a cloud hidden in some frontal system over the North sea.
Create a fake ministry of national security and self defence then sack the navy and airforce on mass leaving a few squaddies to change the guard once a week not four times a day.
Should take about 10 years before we are found out but by then we would have saved enough to by a few scuds and an ex Korean destroyer.
Why do we need a military......just be nice to everyone and stop poking our noses in where its not wanted.

steveal

Two questions:
1. Who are we deterring? Do you think our subs deter Al Queda? Armadinadjad? Pakistan?
2. Under what circumstances are we to fire a nuclear missile? Can you think of ANY?

Bin it. Grow up.

David Brooking

As I am on the other side of the world and just logged I must say I agree with 'Primrose Leaque' and Chuck.

The use of a D/E submarine completely removes any credibility that the writer has.

Reasons include:

RN does not operate D/E submarines and has not done so for over 20 years.

Oberon class has been retired by the RN for many years.

Wrong propulsive system --the debate is about nuclear submarines not D/E.

Oberons have never carried any sort of missile (cruise or ballistic).

Mr Hoskin I read your articles and am mostly impressed by the erudite comments, but in this case the spectator has made an error which has reduced credibility. Please do not dig your self in any deeper. Admit error, apologise and replace the photograph.

Dave

Hysteria

here's the thing

Can we conceive or any scenario where we could be threatened militarily by any ONE of the following - America, Russia, China, France, Israel and (maybe) India or Pakistan...?

If the answer to any one of these is "yes - we can conceive that threat" - then you need a nuclear deterrent.

alexsandr

we could refurb the existing kit....

yank

This will be a tough sell, I'm sure, but I'm going to attempt to make it anyway. Audacity always.

Nukes are a symbol. Yes, they're a nasty bit of symbol, because they have to be fit into a strategic doctrine calling for their use, so they're more than just a symbol. But the symbolism is important... and that importance is not easily quantified, but it can be qualified.

The wellspring of western civilization has been that pile of rocks over there. The rest of us will jealously carp over that, but it is so. Much of what we are has flowed from that spring, and for some of us, MOST of what we are.

Now, that can eventually change, as the centuries pass, and maybe it must. Wellsprings do go dry. Is this the time for it to change? Does changed symbolism signal the change? I think that portion of the debate is just as important as the finances. Not sure the debate's outcome, and perhaps my read of it is off.

Jannie Geldenhuys

There are three different components to Trident:

- the subs that carry the missiles

- the missiles

- the warheads

The debate is really about the cost of building new subs. As the cost of upgrading the missiles and warheads is only about 1/4 of the cost of the programme.

It is not clear to me why the Vanguard class subs cannot have their lives extended beyond 2020. The US is planning to extend its Ohio class SSBNs to 2040 or thereabouts. Sure an extension would cost but it would be much less than the cost of new subs.

But there is more to this than just cost. If we do not build new SSBNs (or extend the Vanguards) then we will lose the skills to build nuclear submarines once the Astute class programme is completed. This would be a very serious loss of capability.

There is much at stake here.

Personally I think Osborne is wrong and the Trident cost should not come out of MoD budget. Few of the Top Brass care about Trident - it is the only weapon system the MoD is told it has to have by central government and therefore central government should pick up the tab.

David Lindsay

Might George Osborne be going back to his High Tory roots? His insistence that any like-for-like replacement of Trident be funded by the MoD rather than by the Treasury indicates an almost Cameronian or Haguesque aversion to vast financial profligacy, to subjugation to a foreign power, to vanity projects, to violations of classical theology (in this case, the just war doctrine), and to Liam Fox, whose position as of today is as untenable as Michael Gove's.

Stephen Green

What does it matter as to whose budget it akk comes out of. At the end of the day it's the taxpayers who have to cough up. The rest of it is just Whitehall musical chairs.
Scrapright has the correct approach. All that he missed was that we could put wind turbines on top of our wooden submarines which would, of course, be painted bright yellow

jdg

I live in Scotland where we have incursions by the USSR bomber fleet testing our defences,actually within our borders and our bases,in lossiemouth and kinloss, I believe, respond rapidly and with good humour (taking pics and waving).I have heard these bases will go in the current economic crisis, and the news we may be losing our base at Coulport with 4 submarines who protect Britain from the emerging countries with nuclear capability seems a bit worrying when Bankers are given billions for sitting at a PC and looking at green or red and going 50-50 to make a profit.

dave

Many of us in the MOD would prefur the trident money be freed up to procure equipment that we can actualy use. We are still at war and purchasing a nuclear deterent with our contries limited defense budget as a terrible investment choice.