[Closed] So, Trident...

You'd think they'd let just one off every now and then, so I could feel like I was getting my moneys worth.

Without it Barrow would be a desolate hopeless wasteland filled with economic zombies, drug addiction, petty violent crime and misery. Like now, but a bit worse.

I would rather see the same money spent on conventional weaponry that we could actually use.

Defence spending is a good thing. Defence spending on a weapon that almost no-one imagines would ever be used, even when deterrence has failed, is bizarrely wasteful.

Waste of money. We'll never fire one.

In my view worth it to occasionally see those subs but I love the comment about letting one off to get money's worth!

[i]I would rather see the same money spent on conventional weaponry that we could actually use.

Defence spending is a good thing
[/i]

I'd rather we concentrated on DEFENCE not OFFENCE, and then we wouldn't need to spend anywhere near what we currently spend.

As b r says- we aren't under active attack, and aren't likely to be so most military spending is a waste of money, let alone something as costly and horrific as Trident. Someone needs to break the nuclear arms circle first, why not us? If we drop it hopefully others will too.

I don't really see the advantage in blowing up other countries at our expense when we have an NHS that needs many more billions of pounds injecting into it.

Here's an idea: why not get rid of nuclear weapons but pretend that we still have them? It seems that those countries where we are not sure if they have nuclear weapons are the most dangerous.

I don't really know why we have such a national obsession with having global military influence. Germany, for instance, doesn't

Well, if you look at the last two times they tried, it's easy to understand why they've given that particular avenue a miss for a while, isn't it?

wanmankylung - Member
Here's an idea: why not get rid of nuclear weapons but pretend that we still have them? It seems that those countries where we are not sure if they have nuclear weapons are the most dangerous.

Or maybe they have..... Maybe those are just placebo subs that we see.

Could we not just say we have it... but actually build schools?

Trident has proved so useful in all the wars the UK has been involved in recently.

Look what good it did for Poseidon. Some touchy, feely, life ever lasting God comes along and suddenly your Trident and power of the Deep counts for nought.

[url= http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/war/tories-pledge-to-use-next-lot-of-trident-missiles-2015040997173 ]Daily Mash on it[/url]

Trident has proved so useful in all the wars the UK has been involved in recently.

And even more useful in the ones we haven't had to fight because of Trident's deterent?

Who exactly are we supposed to be deterring?

It's not a waste of money at all, even if we don't need it. All the money gets spent in the UK on R&D and maintaining the fleet, so it's all recirculated locally. It's no different to spending on any infrastructure. We get the actual warheads from the US, but everything else, submarines, propulsion, maintenance is all UK designed and built.

But it also imposes incalculable costs on generations to come as a result of disposing of the spent nuclear reactors, warhead materials, and other wastes associated with the construction and maintenance of the systems.

But it also imposes incalculable costs on generations to come as a result of disposing of the spent nuclear reactors, warhead materials, and other wastes associated with the construction and maintenance of the systems.

Given we have nuclear power plants, the marginal cost of the very small extra spent fuel from subs is in the noise.

IIRC We return the warheads to the US for maintenance / recycling.

unklehomered - Member

Could we not just say we have it... but actually build schools?

sshhh! - keep it quiet, or the Ruskies will figure out that we already did that...

(Trident subs don't actually exist, they're just 'ducks' with a body kit and grey paint)

Who exactly are we supposed to be deterring?

Given recent events Russia and North Korea would be fairly obvious candidates. With Russia it's probably less about deterring and more about the influence that the deterent confers.

I read a book a few years ago by one of our former Prime Ministers who explained that our permanent seat on the UN Security Council was entirely based on our possession of a nuclear deterent and that that permanent seat did afford us a lot of geopolitical influence.

Trident = a £130bn prosthetic willy.

Indeed, the issue of the disposal of the waste is equally an argument against nuclear power. Far from being 'marginal' the costs will mount over time; what a toxic legacy to leave to our descendants.

If this project goes ahead will the UK continue to lecture Iran and the DPRK about nuclear proliferation?

I really can't see why anyone would have them... all it does is escalate tensions and introduce the potential for some very nasty consequences that no species should have the right to inflict on a rare planet which has the wonderful ability to sustain life.

[i]Well, if you look at the last two times they tried, it's easy to understand why they've given that particular avenue a miss for a while, isn't it? [/i]

Of course it is, and they've put that behind them and got on with being a global industrial and economic force (see also Japan). We however still keep banging on about how well we did in those last two times, and to the time when we had an Empire, and using that as the basis for our need to remain as a global military power.

You could argue that Germany's learnt the lesson that we need to.

[i]All the money gets spent in the UK on R&D and maintaining the fleet, so it's all recirculated locally. It's no different to spending on any infrastructure. [/i]

It's a fair point, but why not spend it on useful infrastructure, rather than white elephants?

It's no different to spending on any infrastructure.

Except that when you spend on roads, railways, hospitals etc. you end up with something *useful*.

We get the actual warheads from the US, but everything else, submarines, propulsion, maintenance is all UK designed and built.

We get the missiles from the Americans, the warheads are our own (to a largely American design)

Rachel

It's not a waste of money at all, even if we don't need it .... so it's all recirculated locally.

Sounds [i]quite[/i] wasteful compared to spending the same money on something useful, assuming the same "local recirculation" of the money.

EDIT: too slow... 😉

Far from being 'marginal' the costs will mount over time

It is still marginal compared with running power station reactors 24/7 generating 10s GW.

What I find amusing is that the portrayal of Putin as some kinda meglomanic hell bent on restoring the soviet union!

i'll willing to bet a large wad of cash that as soon as the trident contracts are signed, Putin and Russia will disappear into obscurity! 😆

[i]and that that permanent seat did afford us a lot of geopolitical influence. [/i]

Which gains us what? Many successful, prosperous nations do not have such a seat and, it would seem, don't need it.

ohnohesback - Member

what a toxic legacy to leave to our descendants.

which will be tiny compared to the toxic legacy our Grandparents have left us from the early days of the Nuclear industry.

Once we agree where to bury all of that, the waste from the Next generation of Trident will look like an after8 mint.

It's not a waste of money at all, even if we don't need it. All the money gets spent in the UK on R&D and maintaining the fleet, so it's all recirculated locally. It's no different to spending on any infrastructure. We get the actual warheads from the US, but everything else, submarines, propulsion, maintenance is all UK designed and built.

That argument is rolled out every time and still makes no sense. It's a bit like saying we could employ an extra half million road workers not to actually maintain roads but dig random holes in fields and fill them in again. They are all gainfully employed and the money we pay them is recirculated back into the local economy......... except we don't need a bunch of holes dug and filled in again and we could spend the same amount of money employing people to do stuff that we actually want and the money we spend would STILL get recirculated back into the economy.

It's a fair point, but why not spend it on useful infrastructure, rather than white elephants?

I agree that Nuclear Subs might not be as socially useful as say Hospitals, but the money isn't completely wasted, a huge amount of the spend comes back as revenue in taxes (salaries, VAT, rates) as it's all spent locally. So you aren't just throwing it away with nothing to show for it, you get jobs, taxes, regional development (Nuclear Subs aren't in the well off SE).

Deterrence of Russia is genuinely interesting at the moment.

I doubt anyone thinks they're poised to invade Germany, or even Poland.

Does anyone think our government would even seriously consider nuking Moscow to protect Latvia from partial Russian annexation?

At a technical level, the Trident missile is a very impressive piece of engineering:-

[quote=From Wikipedia]The launch from the submarine occurs below the ocean surface. The missiles are ejected from their tubes by igniting an explosive charge in a separate container which is separated by seventeen titanium alloy pinnacles activated by a double alloy steam system. The energy from the blast is directed to a water tank, where the water is flash-vaporized to steam. The subsequent pressure spike is strong enough to eject the missile out of the tube and give it enough momentum to reach and clear the surface of the water. The missile is pressurized with nitrogen to prevent the intrusion of water into any internal spaces, which could damage the missile or add weight, destabilizing the missile. Should the missile fail to breach the surface of the water, there are several safety mechanisms that can either deactivate the missile before launch or guide the missile through an additional phase of launch. Inertial motion sensors are activated upon launch, and when the sensors detect downward acceleration after being blown out of the water, the first-stage engine ignites. The aerospike, a telescoping outward extension that halves aerodynamic drag, is then deployed, and the boost phase begins. When the third-stage motor fires, within two minutes of launch, the missile is traveling faster than 20,000 ft/s (6,000 m/s), or 13,600 mph (21,600 km/h).

The missile attains a temporary low-altitude orbit only a few minutes after launch. The Guidance System for the missile was developed by the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory and is maintained by a joint Draper/General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems facility. It is an Inertial Guidance System with an additional Star-Sighting system (this combination is known as astro-inertial guidance), which is used to correct small position and velocity errors that result from launch condition uncertainties due to errors in the submarine navigation system and errors that may have accumulated in the guidance system during the flight due to imperfect instrument calibration. GPS has been used on some test flights but is assumed not to be available for a real mission. The fire control system was designed and continues to be maintained by General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems.

Once the star-sighting has been completed, the "bus" section of the missile maneuvers to achieve the various velocity vectors that will send the deployed multiple independent reentry vehicles to their individual targets. The downrange and crossrange dispersion of the targets remains classified.

[Posted only for interest into how the thing works]

BigDummy - Member

I doubt anyone thinks they're poised to invade Germany, or even Poland.

lots of People in Poland will be reassured by your confidence.

I just do not buy the North Korea threat. Their scientists may help proliferate weapons technology for a price but that couldn't be stopped by Trident.
Putin, etc. I can see as being a concern but I'd rather have the money spent down a blind alley to go on conventional shiny planes and ships and uniforms. Though how much the Harrier equivalent tech will cost for the carriers would add up quickly.

We have 'used' nukes as allegedly Thatcher threatened to nuke Argentina if the French didn't hand over the info for the Exocet missiles

[url= http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/22/books.france ]Guardian linky[/url]

Lets face it the Yanks, Russian's, Israelis, India and ****stan are all unlikely to give them up, so I don't see how us giving them up making a jot of difference in terms of global dis-armament.

That argument is rolled out every time and still makes no sense. It's a bit like saying we could employ an extra half million road workers not to actually maintain roads but dig random holes in fields and fill them in again

Not a bad idea, you could use it as a replacement for benefits - much better than just paying people not to work 😉

Without the fear of mutual destruction we would have lost many many lives again since the last two world wars.

No one is going to enter a full on fight knowing you can't win.

Its all about proxy's. For that reason I think Trident is worth every penny.

lots of People in Poland will be reassured by your confidence.

Assuming my confidence is indeed unwarranted, do you think the British government would seriously consider a nuclear strike on Russia in the event of a Russian invasion of Poland?

[i]do you think the British government would seriously consider a nuclear strike on Russia in the event of a Russian invasion of Poland?[/i]

I refer the gentleman to my opening post... 🙂

Waste of money if we never fire one? You're missing the point, It's worth the money if we never fire one - its failed weapons system and therefore a waste of money if we do fire one.

The concept of mutually assured destruction is the essence of the deterant - it effectively renders the weapon useless. It is in that regards the most effective peacekeeping tool ever envisaged by mankind.

It's not just about protecting our shores, its about being part of NATO and a defence structure that has kept the peace and halted the advance of dictators over the past 60 years. The money it costs us is a small price to pay, which at the end of the day is a tiny proportion of what we spend as a nation on the NHS and Benefits - we only spend something like 4% of GDP on our whole armed services so forget any notion that by cancelling Trident will suddenly move the dial on any othe area of public spending. Its a drop in the ocean in the grand scheme of things.

The cold war wasn't that bad in hindsight - at least the Russians understood the concept of mutually assured destruction, but the future we face is one of the real possibility of religious fundamentalists getting hold of them. Now more than ever is not the time to be giving them up.

Go on i'm not going to convince any of the doubters and am fanning the flames for another epic STW debate. I'm staggered at the willingness of some to relinquish our hard earned power and influence in the world. It's lunacy of the highest order. You can argue that we might not weild our power and influence well and could do more good with it, that's a different debate, but who in their right mind would willingly give up power and influence in a world where so many other nations are spilling blood to acheive it, and wether you like it or not, the fact we've got Nukes puts us in a position of power and influence.

[quote=wobbliscott said] but the future we face is one of the real possibility of religious fundamentalists getting hold of them. Now more than ever is not the time to be giving them up.

But they're not going to give a monkey's about trident.