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Well at the time of those invasions they didn't have nuclear weapons. No active nuclear power has ever been invaded by a hostile force. As a deterrent, they work really well.

Both India and Pakistan have nukes and have fought after they got them.

Hilariously stupid statement. If you don't have warheads and have told the world you don't intend to renew them, the whole thing is a white elephant. Which he only wants to pay for as a sop to the unions. Let's get this right. He doesn't see the value in paying to renew it to protect our national security, but he will pay to keep the submarines bobbing around empty solely to protect jobs.

It's the absolute worst of both worlds. The only good reason to abandon trident is economic and he wants to keep a large part of the expense and neutralise it.

Next he'll be telling us to pay farmers not to grow alfalfa.

Barely, Pakistan had it's first nuclear test in 1998, and there was a small border war a year later. They had two large scale wars in the sixties and seventies, but it went quiet after the first Indian test in 1974.

 jhe90 wrote:
Plus comments on negotiating over Falklands. Only about 3 chose not to stay British....

To expand on that, they didn't vote against being british, they asked for the current position to be reconsidered/renegotiated.

Cheers

Andrew

 welshhoppo wrote:
No active nuclear power has ever been invaded by a hostile force. As a deterrent, they work really well.

The UK was in 1982, nuclear weapons worked really well then didn't they.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
The only good reason to abandon trident is economic and he wants to keep a large part of the expense and neutralise it.

Nuclear disarmament is also complying with the terms of the Nuclear non proliferation treaty that the Uk signed up to in the 60s. Another good reason is that no one needs nukes.

Multilateral disarmament makes sense. Unilateral disarmament is tying your arm behind your back.

His comments on the Falklands are nonsensical. Argentina have no reasonable claim are are in no position to threaten their security. There's nothing to gain at all in sharing any aspect other than to give them a foot in the door. None of the people on the Falklands would agree to this, so where's the democracy in Corbyn's suggestion?

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
No active nuclear power has ever been invaded by a hostile force. As a deterrent, they work really well.

The UK was in 1982, nuclear weapons worked really well then didn't they.

I think that everyone knew that the political fallout to the UK would cause more damage than losing the Falklands would.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Multilateral disarmament makes sense. Unilateral disarmament is tying your arm behind your back.

His comments on the Falklands are nonsensical. Argentina have no reasonable claim are are in no position to threaten their security. There's nothing to gain at all in sharing any aspect other than to give them a foot in the door. None of the people on the Falklands would agree to this, so where's the democracy in Corbyn's suggestion?

Doesn't renewing Trident violate the treaty?

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

I think that everyone knew that the political fallout to the UK would cause more damage than losing the Falklands would.

Exactly

 Da Boss wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Multilateral disarmament makes sense. Unilateral disarmament is tying your arm behind your back.

His comments on the Falklands are nonsensical. Argentina have no reasonable claim are are in no position to threaten their security. There's nothing to gain at all in sharing any aspect other than to give them a foot in the door. None of the people on the Falklands would agree to this, so where's the democracy in Corbyn's suggestion?

Doesn't renewing Trident violate the treaty?

Not even a toe, toe nail clipping or mm.
They are British, they want to be British.

So Argentina can leave them alone and stop trying to steal them.

Not talking about the Falklands. I mean by renewing Trident aren't you violating the non-proliferation treaty?

That treaty was passed but has never gone into effect for lack of being ratified by the sufficient number of Annex 2 states.

Umm, not sure. Our arsenal is "legal" as in non proliferation etc.
We do not have the Israeli "I don,t have nukes" nukes

Renewing trident, is delivery systems. It was stated there not increasing the weapons capabilities.

So lopp holes?

Good to see hypocrisy is still the order of the day so.

 Da Boss wrote:
Good to see hypocrisy is still the order of the day so.

Aye, its new more capable sub's, new missiles but not more dangerous, same warhead designs so not breaching various laws and treaties.

Delivery upgrades only.
US is designing and thinking about same renewal of submarines.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Honestly, when are you going to "need" nuclear weapons? If someone's insane enough to press the button, you're either retaliating out of spite or you're the insane person who launched first.

Because the fact if you fire, you know your going to be killed in response

You're assuming someone's mad enough to use nuclear weapons but still sane enough to care about living.

Both The USSR and NATO assumed plans and strategy where opposition use of tactical battlefield weapons would be met in kind and not lead to escalation to the use of strategic weapons.

The US has considered strategy regarding the use of low yield devices in a conventional setting and has research into a new generation of weapons excluding the usual 'bunker busters'. I believe Russia has also looked to developing small weapons for deployment in conventional strikes/conventional war fighting.

You dont need to be insane when its reasonable to assume your use of a hiroshima sized weapon wont lead to retaliation against your person.

 Mr. Burning wrote:

You dont need to be insane when its reasonable to assume your use of a hiroshima sized weapon wont lead to retaliation against your person.

The political fallout from any 'tactical' nuclear weapon would be almost as lethal as the actual fallout.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:

You dont need to be insane when its reasonable to assume your use of a hiroshima sized weapon wont lead to retaliation against your person.

The political fallout from any 'tactical' nuclear weapon would be almost as lethal as the actual fallout.

Not be sane times if you ever planned to use such things.
There North Korea invasion level stuff.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
As things stand, Corbyn wants the Labour party to take an anti-nuclear stance. Unfortunately, the unions are dead set on the trident submarines, as they represent a considerable amount of work. Corbyn's proposal here is an attempted mid-way meeting, essentially he's saying to build an equivalent number of submarines, and just equip them with conventional weapons. That way, the work is guaranteed, the Unions come on board, and he can advance his anti-nuclear weaponry agenda.

Of course, the newspapers portray as if he's talking about building submarines with no weapons on though. Because y'know, anything for a headline. It's not like he has enough radical ideas without weighting headlines, y'know...?

They aren't weighted headlines. ICBM launchers aren't much good for anything else, you cant just fill them with torpedoes.

Conventional warheads on the ICBMs then?

For regular bombing it would seem cheaper to take the warhead and deliver it by valets riding a gold plated train, laying track along the way.

ICBMs go into space and come back down halfway around the planet. They arent a casual munitions launch system.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Da Boss wrote:
Not talking about the Falklands. I mean by renewing Trident aren't you violating the non-proliferation treaty?

The UK is one of the five formal powers: US, Russia, China, France and UK. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council, so non-proliferation doesn't apply as the UK is formally permitted to openly design, produce and stockpile nuclear weapons. The Uk is subject to arms limitations, as are all the formal powers but has never had enough warheads for this to be a concern. the UK is also subject to limitations on chemical and biological weapons and also biological research. Since the mid 70's here are only two locations on Earth which are permitted to have any biological weapons material, one in the US and one in Russia, and they purportedly may only stockpile biological weapons materials for countermeasures research.

As the Uk's nuclear deterrent and UN Security Council seat are linked getting rid of one undermines the other.

So... he's replacing a policy position which has some ideology behind it, whether you agree with it or not, with a policy which is purely and simply crazy.

Wow.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:

You dont need to be insane when its reasonable to assume your use of a hiroshima sized weapon wont lead to retaliation against your person.

The political fallout from any 'tactical' nuclear weapon would be almost as lethal as the actual fallout.

The purpose of strategic nuclear weapons is to deter other people with similar strategic nuclear weapons. I.e. NATO versus the Soviet Union. They worked pretty well for this purpose because we are still alive. As noted in earlier posts, countries with nuclear weapons have been attacked a number of times conventionally, so the possession of strategic or tactical weapons does not act as a deterrent for conventional attacks. This no doubt is due to the fact that the political fallout from countering a conventional invasion by nuclear weapons would be unacceptable in the modern world. The exception to this is if the invaded state was pushed into a do or die situation.

The proliferation of, and escalation from tactical weapons to strategic level was a big worry in the cold war, but fortunately things never kicked off, so although both NATO and the SU had weapons and plans for using them, the whole thing was never tested.

It's hard to say if nuclear weapons are still a necessity to modern Britain for any reason including remaining a post-imperial power that punches above its weight. I suspect that better conventional forces would be more useful for situations where out soft power needs to be backed up by hard power.

OTOH £100 billion isn't a lot of money these days, and there's no reason why we can't have good conventional forces and a nuclear force.

At any rate, it seems totally pointless to have the submarines but not the missiles to put in them.

I find myself increasingly impressed at Corbyns ability to make the most colossal pigs ear out of almost any situation.

Also, it's bizarre that he's chosen this policy to make his stand on - if the recent articles about his reshuffle are correct then he was trying to make sure that his new shad cab would be on board with scrapping Trident.

Nuclear weapons haven't been a major political issue for what? 30 years?

Pistols at Dawn wrote:
I find myself increasingly impressed at Corbyns ability to make the most colossal pigs ear out of almost any situation.

Also, it's bizarre that he's chosen this policy to make his stand on - if the recent articles about his reshuffle are correct then he was trying to make sure that his new shad cab would be on board with scrapping Trident.

Nuclear weapons haven't been a major political issue for what? 30 years?

Old left dinosaur. He seems to be bringing back the 70,s and 80's

Also sympathy strikes so that you can have one strike shut down other places. Basicaly a way to grind the entire country to a hault on a whim. Been banned for 25 ish years.

At the same time, isn't it a disgrace that Cameron has given members of the government free rein to act against government policy in relation to the EU referendum?

In both cases it is a party leader who has to placate a large grouping that doesn't agree with the official party line.

Corbyn gets it in the neck more partly because we have a pretty right wing press in the UK.

I think the argument for Trident has somewhat weakened since the cold war ended. It wasn't useful in Iraq, it wasn't useful in the Falklands, it wasn't useful against the IRA, it isn't useful against ISIS, in fact the only thing it has been useful for lately is attacking Jeremy Corbyn, but it also takes money away from the defence budget that could be used on stuff we really need in the current geopolitical climate.

It would be wrong to confuse having a nuclear deterrent, and having Trident as being the same thing. It's very easy to be in favour of a nuclear deterrent and still be against Trident. It's expensive, it's overly dependant on America etc, etc... If we were able to shelf it, until a realistic nuclear threat appeared, and save money in doing so, then that might actually be quite sensible.

 Smacks wrote:
I think the argument for Trident has somewhat weakened since the cold war ended. It wasn't useful in Iraq, it wasn't useful in the Falklands, it wasn't useful against the IRA, it isn't useful against ISIS, in fact the only thing it has been useful for lately is attacking Jeremy Corbyn, but it also takes money away from the defence budget that could be used on stuff we really need in the current geopolitical climate.

It would be wrong to confuse having a nuclear deterrent, and having Trident as being the same thing. It's very easy to be in favour of a nuclear deterrent and still be against Trident. It's expensive, it's overly dependant on America etc, etc... If we were able to shelf it, until a realistic nuclear threat appeared, and save money in doing so, then that might actually be quite sensible.

It is arguable that as long as NATO persists, a nuclear deterrent is unnecessary, purely because as long as America retains a nuclear deterrent, that deterrent is theoretically extended to all NATO members.

The issue with this is that it effectively hands over control of the defence of your nation to the taxpayers and vagaries of another nation. If America decides to remove their own deterrent, or to leave NATO because it feels it gains insufficient benefit, you are then left at the mercy of any nuclear capable nation. This in turn means that it is conceivable that you are vulnerable to 'blackmail' (for want of a better word) by America, because they can threaten to withdraw their protection if you take any form of action they do not agree with.

So long as aggressive nations exist in the world who retain nuclear weapons or the capacity to create them, I personally believe a deterrent is necessary. I am of the opinion that attempting the halfway house is still ultimately pointless, as we already have sufficient conventionally armed submarines. Whilst narrowing the window in which we could decide to become nuclear again is a welcome shift in the disarmament policy, I still think it is best to either do it, or not do it. Either have the nuclear weapons, or do not have them, and kit out another four or five destroyers (which are of much greater general fleet utility than a handful of cruise missile armed submarines).

I believe that being against Trident and being against nuclear weaponry in this country is more or less the same thing. Unless you're proposing we replace trident with land based missiles (which would be a tactically foolish idea to save a few pennies), there's not many other options.

 Ketara wrote:
So long as aggressive nations exist in the world who retain nuclear weapons or the capacity to create them, I personally believe a deterrent is necessary.

But I would posit that they do not exist, it's an entirely hypothetical argument. Who is realistically going to nuke the UK? China? North Korea? Iran? Perhaps in some improbable dystopian future I could see those countries trying to nuke America, but who really cares about the UK in this day and age?

Obviously, the situation could change, but the days when the U.S.S.R. was lining tanks up in eastern Europe are gone. We have new enemies now who aren't phased by nuclear weapons, and who happily take advantage of the fact that we don't have the balls to actually deploy them. Instead of addressing those real threats we're insuring ourselves against phantoms.

I believe that being against Trident and being against nuclear weaponry in this country is more or less the same thing. Unless you're proposing we replace trident with land based missiles (which would be a tactically foolish idea to save a few pennies), there's not many other options.

I think that's debatable, and probably something that should be reviewed very seriously, even a 1% saving on Trident would be serious money. I'm not "proposing" anything, I'm just trying to keep an open mind.

I'm not really sure what the pros and cons of a land based system would be realistically, but we're talking "minimal deterrence" here, not all out war with the Russians. A land based system might actually be sufficient for that.

 Smacks wrote:
Obviously, the situation could change, but the days when the U.S.S.R. was lining tanks up in eastern Europe are gone.

Right, now the Russians are actually invading instead of just standing on the border.

If a deterrent is necessary I'd like everyone to be allowed to have them. Or is the sauce for the goose not good enough for the gander?

Of course the nations on the security council are all perfect moral paragons who deserve them, and the rest of us filthy proles couldn't be trusted with them.