Forums Forums General Forums A - Z Lifestyle Do we need Trident?

I don't know if it the only nuclear deterrent we have or if we have any land based one.
I think with the advances made with satellite surveillance drones,radar and computer hacking, that by the time Trident is built it would be too vulnerable to a first strike against it.
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Fact is, the Navy has been seeking—pretty much under the surface—a way to do underwater what the Air Force has been doing in the sky: prowl stealthily for long periods of time, and gather the kind of data that could turn the tide in war.

The Navy’s goal is to send an underwater drone, which it calls a “glider,” on a roller-coaster-like path for up to five years. A fleet of them could swarm an enemy coastline, helping the Navy hunt down minefields and target enemy submarines.

Its a very tricky question to answer. Whenever it comes up I'm always reminded how timeless "Yes Minister" was:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX_d_vMKswE

There is no scenario where "pressing the button" gains us any advantage whatsoever. We know that and any potential threat knows that as well so the "deterrent" is nothing more than status symbol.

Or ..... if we really want we could choose to potentially wipe out the human race and many other creatures as well.

Its all pretty mute anyway, we do not own any means to launch a nuclear warhead.

The UK doesn't even own a nuclear threat/attack detection system.

do we need a nuclear missile system/deterrent? i think so

does that have to be trident? not necessarily, but what better options are there?

I thought the submarines carried the ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, and launched from the submarines,not from land. So they could be launched anywhere in the world as we don't know where these submarines get to. Which would mean there would not have to be a threat to UK for them to be used. On a greater scale it could see off North Korea !

You are correct @granny, the only nuclear weapons we have are Trident which are launched from submarines.

We own the submarines, we own the nuclear warheads but we do not own any launch missiles (Trident II D-5's).

We do not own the monitoring systems that indicate a nuclear attack against us.

Mentioning North Korea .... going from information that is starting to come to light, in the next few months there could be a complete re-think on North Korea. The USA may have done a little bit of deception to the rest of the world - its going to be interesting to see what stunt the USA will do to avoid a complete expose.

Think along the same lines as Cuba but worse - in reality during at least the last 25 years what threat was Cuba to the rest of the world or even the USA but how was Cuba portrayed? The USA has had Guantanamo Bay continuously since 1898 which shows how little threat Cuba has been.

Don't really know much about Cuba. Used to listen to the news and wonder if my father was about to have a heart attack every time it came on. The reporting was pretty serious but I took little notice, being more interested in other things.
Fidel Castro was the fly in the ointment and only when he died did any changes really take place. Khrushchev was at the helm and I suppose it would be the same if US tried to place nuclear defence in Ukraine. Just assuming ,don't really know.

With regard to not owning any launch missiles, or the monitoring system, surely that is a means of security ? Meaning that when Mr Corbyn has a temper tantrum he cant say 'stuff the lot of you and goodbye' by pressing the button.

I don't think a submarine is a very good way to deliver nuclear weapons. We should learn from the IRA's delivery system - Ford cortinas - which were used as a form of cruise missiles. Despite the Army's best efforts, these proved impossible to prevent, and devastated the centre of Belfast.

In the case of a nuclear equipped enemy, one can never be sure that they have not smuggled a nuke into your capital city well before the outbreak of hostilities. Modern ones are extremely compact and not particularly radioactive until detonated.

Not only is this approach likely to be more effective, it is also a lot cheaper.

I'm best off saying nothing.

He is not dead, last time I looked

You are correct.Sorry, I thought he'd gone to greener pastures.
Taken last August on his birthday, but it looks as if it's time he was.

I guess that if people start actually loosing off nuclear weapons at any time it wouldn't be a good place to live in the aftermath.

No, indeed it wouldn't. It would certainly burst the property bubble if one went off in London!

If Russia declared war against the UK tomorrow, do you think we should still continue the moves to scrap Trident ?

Five scenarios come out of that:-

Russia presses the button first - UK gets obliterated, what would be the point of UK Trident's launching 12 hours later (or more) to wipe out a grand total of 2% of Russia.

Russia presses the button first and other countries join in with nuclear missiles flying everywhere - UK gets obliterated as does much of the rest of the world, what would be the point of UK Trident's launching 12 hours later (or more) to wipe out a grand total of 2% of Russia.

UK press the button first - Russia gets 2% wiped out, UK gets obliterated within 24 hours.

No nukes involved, Russia wipes out UK with conventional weapons at a cost of less than 1% of Russia.

No nukes involved, Russia wipes out UK with conventional weapons, rest of the world joins in and ends up with nuclear wipe-out of much of the world.

You can try and find a positive scenario but Trident doesn't help us one little bit.

I think the clue is in the word "deterrent".

But it can only be a deterrent if there is a situation where it is to our advantage to press the button.

Or would we press the button when it is not to our advantage?

One of those two sentences has got to be true for it to be an effective deterrent and that is why I just don't understand it as neither case makes any sense.

Why are nukes so important? The same amount of money and effort hasn't gone into very high power military lasers which would be a million times quicker and more effective and flexible in defensive and offensive roles with the greater advantage that they don't pollute the earth nor cause mass destruction and deaths.

If we opt out of Europe, maybe we won't have it. Scotland will stay with EU and they won't have it. Blair is asking the public to think carefully about the referendum because if we vote for out, then Scotland could leave the Union.

If Scotland want to leave us , good luck to them. Their choice why should we vote according to what they want ?

Still can't understand how just Scotland gets a vote on breaking up the union, surely all of the union should be able to vote?

It doesn't make any sense for Scotland to separate, its more about political careers than nations.

Oh dear, our hugely expensive nuclear deterrent Trident has failed in the last two UK test firings. Far from being a deterrent it is making us a laughing stock for being dependent on unreliable American equipment.

The American's have had failed Trident test firings as well, the number is kept secret but is thought to be around ten.

We are also in the process of building new submarines for Trident at huge cost. On average our 35 year nuclear deterrent program which is based entirely around Trident costs us around £5bn a year (and increasing).

Don't expect another UK test fire soon, the last two were eight years apart because of the cost of throwing a Trident away each time. We initially had fourteen Tridents earmarked for test firings, having fired twelve we have two remaining test Tridents left

It should be noted that Trident is purely the transporting rocket, the UK warheads and submarines are not part of the American Trident programme. A trident can carry eight Holbrook warheads, each Vanguard submarine can carry up to sixteen Tridents and we have four submarines. That would indicate a full operational capacity of 64 Tridents with 512 warheads however we only plan to stock around 50 operational Tridents and (eventually) 260 warheads.