How important is an independent nuclear deterrent for UK security?

At the moment Britain has 16 Trident missiles on each of four nuclear submarines, providing a total of 200 warheads. The problem is that the missiles will reach the end of their operational life by the year 2024 and it is argued by some experts that a decision is needed now to allow enough time to replace the system, if indeed Britain is to retain a nuclear weapons capacity.

Should Britain be spending £25bn? How important is the nuclear deterrent today? Is the world safer or more dangerous than during the Cold War? Does the possession of a nuclear arsenal deter potential foes from attacking you or is their use so inconceivable as to make them in the end a poor deterrent?

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I like lamp


(I really dont know..if other people have them then we should, but it could be the motivation for others to have them in the first place1)

Personally I say yes, a deterrent is required, but at the minimum level possible. Something like cutting the next gen fleet to 3 subs, each with 12 missiles, so a total of 36 missiles would be sufficient to make any future state think twice before attack, but also show to the world that the path to a total future disarmament (if ever totally possible) continues.

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I honestly don't see why we'd need nukes.

Who the fuck is going to honestly launch anything at us? We're political bum-boys with America (Read: Nuke central), and we don't honestly do that much except nod along with America.

Education and the NHS are a much more valuable resource than missiles which are designed to just sit there and do shit all. If someone wants to fuck us over, they'll probably toss around with dirty bombs and all that jazz. Launching a nuke at another nation in this day and age is just asking for a Yank bitchslap to the face.

But what if a giant meteor was heading directly for Skegness? We don't have the option of sending up a titanium plated space shuttle and landing people on it with a gattling gun equipped moon buggy and blowing it up from the inside. So we'd have to launch nukes at it. If we didn't have nukes, then the kids of the future could be deprived of boring caravan based holidays and our very society would crumble from the inside.

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Cheers,

Ratel

I'm struggling here, help me.

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MIRVs

Multiple re-entry vehicles...each missile contains multiple warheads, when the missiles re-enter the Earth's atmosphere they split up and each warhead can hit multiple targets....I think that's how it works anyway.

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Cheers,

Ratel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIRV

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Except 200 isnt divisable by 16 , so their arent 200 warheads.

its actually 12 per missile , giving 192.

And yes. We need them.

Seriously, the america argument is a crock of horseshit.

If anyone thinks that nato, or the US would retalliate for us, and guarantee total global nuclear war you are mistaken.

They wouldnt, and rightly so.

60 million in britain. If someone fired a nuclear barrage at us, who would risk the other 6 billion on the earth?

If it was my desicion I wouldnt.

I guarantee the US administration wouldnt either.

Ok, the maths makes sense now I know the 200 was a 'rounded' figure.

Of course we need them, the 'deterrent' factor is too big to ignore, especially being that every tom dick and harry have their own nuclear armaments these days.

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The current figure is actually 4 subs x 16 missiles x 3 warheads = 192 warheads

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I once knew a guy called Richard Head.

Oh, the laughs...

PS, the subs in origanal spec had 4 subs x 16 missiles x 8 warheads = 512 warheads, but we already cut back after the cold war ended...

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Me too, well actually his name was Richard Edmund Broadly...parents are cruel.

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Cheers,

Ratel

I went to school with one called richard payne.

Yes we do, it would be nice if we didn't need them, but with do. Mutual assured destruction is the only thing stopping a total world genocide i think.

The French teacher at our secondary school was Master Bates...

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It's a fact that during the dark days of the cold war, and MAD, we saw probably the most peaceful 50 years ever...

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We should sell the nukes and buy a Transformer from Cybertron.

Fuck nukes, Optimus Prime > nukes!

Sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads > Optimus Prime

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