[Closed] So, where does everyone stand on the Trident replacement?

Who are we deterring with the nuclear deterrent now? Russia? China? I thought the main threat now was supposed to be terrorism - in which case who will we nuke?

The lost jobs is nothing compared to the actual cost of Trident surely.

"Also, killing Trident, kills submarine building, marine nuclear capability and myriad other things in the UK to the tune of 20000 jobs and thousands of lost skills."

Hadn't considered that.

I find myself inbetween really. I would love us to get rid of it and hopefully others across the world would follow but cant help feeling we should have something if the need arose.

I personally think we should keep it. As pointed out below the jobs it creates and sustains is one thing, but maintaining our stature alongside the other nuclear countries is also equally as important.

it's hard to imagine a scenario where the military use of a nuclear weapon would [b]not[/b] be an obvious war crime. They should be disposed of a safely as possible.

The comical aspect was Alex Salmond talking in measured terms about how this government has presided over thousands of job losses, and that his solution would be to scrap Trident.
One wonders whether politicians genuinely don't see the disconnect, or whether they know it and just lie and hope people don't work it out for themselves...

Might it not give our arguments against countries like Iran trying to acquire nukes a bit more weight if we practised what we preached?

Scrap it, it's about time we stopped thinking of ourselves as a major power in the world. The money could be put to better use and really what does it matter as in 20 years China will be the major power in the world and it will be a very different place with them as good as running it.

it's about time we stopped thinking of ourselves as a major power in the world

Care to explain why?

As the graffiti in Brixton used to say..."let's be strident, let's ban trident".

Care to explain why?

Because our global influence is only going one way, and that's down.

our global influence is only going one way, and that's down.

Not sure i quite understand you on that one. Are you saying that as a political power in this world we are having less involvment and less effect today than we have done?

Might it not give our arguments against countries like Iran trying to acquire nukes a bit more weight if we practised what we preached?

Or course the flip side to that is; were we (and others) to get rid of NDs what would prevent Iran (or more likely North Korea) from creating and using NWs against us?

Orbiting nukes are the way of the future.

Subs are basically long tubes pressureised in one direction, rockets and orbiters long tubes the other way - transferable skills, jobs are safe, gets GB back into the space race etc, etc. What's not to like?

Estimated cost 70bn. 20000 people @ £15k/yr benefits = 23years of benefits per person.

The true cost of a Trident replacement is never officially discussed - we only discuss the cost of buying the system and tend to forget about the cost of the bases that could be closed, manpower to run both the subs and the support on land, the decommissioning costs etc etc.

I'd be up for scrapping it in totality. Threats to our nation for the foreseeable future will be either through terrorism (internally or externally derived), financial from the developing national taking over the world economy and oil supplies, or environmental from global warming and running down of world resources. Non of these would be prevented by lobbing warheads around. In terms of jobs - this is a by-product of the programme not the aim. I can't believe that some of that more put into scheme directly intended at job creation would not be more effective for a fraction of the money.

And besides, have you seen the turmoil from the Icelandic volcano to the rest of europe - imagine if that dust was radioactive? I just do not believe in this modern day we could go nuking other nations without considering the huge implications for those other nations downwind of the attack zone. It's just never going to happen making the whole thing an out of date empty thread.

and all this from an ex Naval officer!

There's also myriad knockon effects to the dissolusion of Trident.

1. No more Submarines built in the UK (UK sub builders aren't allowed to export)

2. No more Navy (you can't defend a task force without a nuclear submarine)

3. No more offshore Tomohawk capacity (as there's no platform from which to lauch it)

So? What's the Job loss tally now?

Simple maths states that 20000 workers earning an an average of 30k over 20 years = £6000million in taxes and ni contributions have just gone down the swanney.

Not sure i quite understand you on that one. Are you saying that as a political power in this world we are having less involvment and less effect today than we have done?

Yes, China and to a lesser extent places like India and Brazil are likely to be the big world players - US and UK influence is waning. US intelligence reports etc admit this.

Or course the flip side to that is; were we (and others) to get rid of NDs what would prevent Iran (or more likely North Korea) from creating and using NWs against us?

But why would they? Remind me again what is the only country that's ever used nukes in anger?

How an earth do you figure a task force can be defended by a nuclear armed sub? A nuclear powered sub is a very handy deterrent under the seas to lurk around your carriers but that is a very different beast.

And your £6000million in Taxes and NI - who do you think is paying the wages to be taxed and NI - the government. Tax and NI paid for by government spending is just grabbing back some of the cash they spent, get rid of it and you have 100% of it rather than the 40% you rake back in tax.

Care to explain why?

We are a very small country with nothing like the resources/people of countries like Russia, China, America etc. The only reson we were a major power within the world is because we had the largest and most advanced navy, the most powerful military equipment of that era and colonized 3/4 of the world. Those days have long gone and we have slowly lost are world standing. The only thing still keeping the country as a world player is the fact that London is basically the financial hub of the world something in turn which will slow move to China and without that what have we to offer the world? We have no manufacturing, no natural resources, no massive labour force etc etc

We're not a superpower, we're a small island in the North Atlantic. Time we acted as such.

£70bn is a lot of dosh, 5% of GDP give or take a bit. You can either afford son-of-trident or take a £1160(average) tax cut. Which one would you rather? Hell you could spend £70bn droping food parcels and sweets over the 3rd world. Which would do a hell of a lot more for reducing the number of crazed lunatics who want to aim nukes at us than building more nukes.

It is naive and classic shorttermism to think that todays battles against terrorism and non-state actors will be the case tomorrow (metaphorically speaking anyway).

Proliferation continues to be an issue and we will no doubt be faced with a conflict against a state/nation sometime in the future. This is when the continuous at sea deterrent is at its most valuable.

It has been alluded to above but if we cancel the trident programme and lose the ability to operate such a system, it'll take decades to recover the capability. I'd like to see the bloke that signs the paperwork saying we won't need a nuclear deterrent in the next 30 years!

Proliferation continues to be an issue and we will no doubt be faced with a conflict against a state/nation sometime in the future. This is when the continuous at sea deterrent is at its most valuable.

Only because we keep picking fights with people.

How on earth do all the other non-nuclear nations cope without this deterrent exactly? Are the dutch and swedish cowering in fear due to a lack of nukes?

I don't believe a nuclear sub needs to be fitted with nuclear weapons...

Save the money and play military poker.

Tell everybody we've got nukes, really big whole country melting ones that cost bloody squillions, but in secret save the money and don't build 'em. Pay off some debt instead.

Just send the subs out with rockets full of strawberry jam!

We not ever gonna use 'em so why have ones that work??

Bluff.

And whatever we do don't post this strategy on a public forum! 😆

convert - Member
How an earth do you figure a task force can be defended by a nuclear armed sub? A nuclear powered sub is a very handy deterrent under the seas to lurk around your carriers but that is a very different beast.

Because they're one and the same, If you kill Trident, what are the Sub builders gonna do when there's no work? They'll drift into other fields or leave the country, so when the time comes and you want to build a replacement, the designers, welders, sparkeys pipefitters, NDT folks won't be about to do it.

Why do you think we now buy trains (that we designed) from Italy? VT jets from the USA? and sodding cars from Germany, France and a gazillion other places?

Scrap it.
And spend the money on developing technology more useful to our society.
That way everyone still get's jobs.
No idea what though.

Perhaps someone can explain for me why we can't just keep the system we have currently?

Dafy, you need to learn a little more about the Subs we own - they are not one and the same thing - never have been and never will be. We have plenty of nuclear powered, conventionally armed submarines - less than 20% of our nuclear powered subs are trident carriers. There is a VERY big difference between building nuclear powered subs and building nuclear weapons - totally different skill sets. We don't even build the trident missles - they are bought in from the states (as was polaris).

The maintaining skillset argument holds little water either. By the time son-of-trident is built (if it is built in this country that is), most of the workers who built the Trident subs in the first place will have retired.

The makers of Trident Gum were forced to drop their TV ads featuring a voiceover in a strong West Indian accent, because they were deemed racially offensive.

spend the money on developing technology more useful to our society.

No idea what though.

Nobody has come up with a really good alternative to the iron. I mean think about it if you could invent a machine that fitted in a kitchen, you just put clothes in and they came out wrinkle free and folded. You make millions!

We're not a superpower, we're a small island in the North Atlantic. Time we acted as such.

I think we are. We only have a few subs, it's not like we are trying to maintain fleets of aircraft carriers like the US do.

Plus we're not that small - one of the biggest countries in Europe.

Oh and that £70bn that get spent - where does it go? How much of it leaves the country?

@tiger-but think of all the unemployed ironers!

We don't even build the trident missles - they are bought in from the state (as was polaris).

And thats why we will ultimately end up buying them.

and why we should...(if we need them)

[i]Nobody has come up with a really good alternative to the iron. I mean think about it if you could invent a machine that fitted in a kitchen, you just put clothes in and they came out wrinkle free and folded. You make millions![/i]

Good call!
I saw that robot that could fold towels last week. If they could make it iron, put duvet covers on, and give hand jobs we'd be onto a winner.

Nobody has come up with a really good alternative to the iron.

life is too short for ironing - I'm happy for my clothes to be slightly crumpled.

On my small list of concerns this matter doesn't even make the future concerns list.

Simple maths states that 20000 workers earning an an average of 30k over 20 years = £6000million in taxes and ni contributions have just gone down the swanney.

Also, killing Trident, kills submarine building, marine nuclear capability and myriad other things in the UK to the tune of 20000 jobs and thousands of lost skills.

One wonders whether politicians genuinely don't see the disconnect, or whether they know it and just lie and hope people don't work it out for themselves...

This is very true and Im sure trident also indirectly creates jobs, Ie research spin offs etc etc.

But surely you could spend the money on something else which would create an equal number of jobs and hopefully would help create more jobs indirectly.

Like spending the money on improving the transport system in the UK ie roads+pulic transport. Or delivering Broadband to every part of the country. Or putting the money into power generation ie nuclear + renewable.

Surely these schemes would be better for the economy and generating jobs + money in the long term ?

Yeah but you don't get a big phallic submarine spurting its nuclear sperm then.

Tiger6791 - Member
Nobody has come up with a really good alternative to the iron. I mean think about it if you could invent a machine that fitted in a kitchen, you just put clothes in and they came out wrinkle free and folded. You make millions!

That'll be a tumble drier then, minus the folded bit. 😛

Personally, I'm with some of the others here. We need to maintain a nuclear detterent. Although terrorism is the main threat to us as it stands there is a reason we still have Typhoon, AS90, Chally 2 and the like. We made the mistake of planning for only one outcome during the cold war, and we were unprepared for Bosnia and Kosovo. If we focus all our efforts 100% on helicopters and anti IED vehicles in light of the current threat, we are in danger of being caught un-awares again.

Trident makes up a tiny part of tax spending in % terms, and there are other places the fat can be trimmed first.

For those who say that other European nations must be bricking it because they have no ND, they are obviously unaware of NATO and the EU, that means our ND covers them as well, as the US's covers us. Trident isn't a million nukes sat ready and waiting to go, it's a small deterrent that is a small part of our military force that ensures the safety of the UK, her overseas dependents and the EU and NATO.

Imagine if the £70bn equivalent that was spent on the trident programme a couple of decades ago had been spent on R&D into non petrochemical energy sources. We might now be sitting pretty as an energy independent state telling the arab nations to go f*ck themselves. No messy little interventions in Iraq or Afghanistan, no need for Islamic extremists to hate us. Now that would have been national security.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

For those who say that other European nations must be bricking it because they have no ND, they are obviously unaware of NATO and the EU, that means our ND covers them as well, as the US's covers us.

So if we're covered by the US why do we need our own? So we can feel important?

France has got nukes too, so wouldn't we be covered by them as they are part of the EU?

Without trident we would have to buy more non-ballistc missile subs in order to keep the engineering capability within the UK.

Compare this with civil nuclear where we are now about to buy-in the technology from abroad.

Defense spending has always been used to maintain industrail capacity. Just look at how the USA operates.

Imagine if the £70bn equivalent that was spent on the trident programme a couple of decades ago had been spent on R&D into non petrochemical energy sources. We might now be sitting pretty as an energy independent state telling the arab nations to go f*ck themselves. No messy little interventions in Iraq or Afghanistan, no need for Islamic extremists to hate us. Now that would have been national security.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

Great Comment ! Not guaranteed but the gist of it is true.

A similar point is that in the 1500/1600/1700 England should of pored all of its money into naval defense, due to the threat from the spanish/dutch/french.

Any money going into education was a waste of resources, however without the standard of education improving the industrial revolution may never have happened so its always difficult to know where to channel resources without hindsight.

We made the mistake with Polaris of keeping it on past when the americans phased it out of their fleet, then we had to pay to bring the facilities back online at huge expense to service them - we shouldn't make the same mistake with Trident, saving a few pennies and having to spend as much or more in the future to service them - either pay for the up to date version or get rid.

Personally, I think that the answer lies in getting rid of trident and filling the tubes with multiple clusters of tomahawk, both with and without sunshine buckets on the end - we don't really need to achieve what we did in the days of long range ballistic missiles and MIRV's any more, we can more than counter any enemy with accurate cruise missiles and 250kt rather than megatonnes from subspace.

Completely useless a waste of time - its only function is to boost the egos of the politicians.

Spend the money on something useful instead - like hospitals and trains - that would generate more jobs.

Scrapping trident does not mean no more subs - still easily have conventional weaponed nuclear subs if wanted.

Its a hideous waste of money.

grum - Member
So if we're covered by the US why do we need our own? So we can feel important?

France has got nukes too, so wouldn't we be covered by them as they are part of the EU?

Because it's part of our commitment to NATO and still in our best intrests. To follow your argument to it's logical conclusion, we need no armed forces at all, because as a member of NATO the Americans will help us if the shit hits the fan.

Each submarine carries an unopened message from whoever is the current Foreign Secretary which either 1: Gives permission to use the weapon or 2: Denies it.

Interestingly, long after he sloughed off any responsibility for policy making (due to retirement), Dennis Healy was asked if, as the result of a nuclear strike on the UK, he would have authorised (then) Polaris retaliation.

He said no, there'd be no point in simply upping the kill rate - we'd all be dead anyway from the first strike, so what would be the point...

tj - regards should we have the deterrent, and is it really worth all that money - I'm afraid I'll quote a great politician, Dennis Healey

Once we cut defence expenditure to the extent where our security is imperilled, we have no houses, we have no hospitals, we have no schools. We have a heap of cinders.

I think the fact our top nuclear armed sub is on exercise in the south atlantic along with a squadron of Typhoons at Port Stanley acts as a very effective deterrent to the argies that have been stirring about the sovereignty of the Falklands and the associated gas/oil supplies down there

Orbiting nukes are the way of the future.

Subs are basically long tubes pressureised in one direction, rockets and orbiters long tubes the other way - transferable skills, jobs are safe, gets GB back into the space race etc, etc. What's not to like?

I think the big advantage of submarines is that nobody knows where they are. With space-based platforms everyone would know where they were all the time.

[i]I think the big advantage of submarines is that nobody knows where they are[/i]

[url= http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/12/sub_prang/ ]Esp. If you're using an ipod[/url]

zulu - I agree with that quote - its just that its not reffering to nukes and nukes do not make us any safer in any way.

Its just a huge waste of money. I'd rather half was spent on conventional forces and half on schools hospitals and roads.

germany and italy manage to be safe without nukes.

germany and italy manage to be safe without nukes.

See above.

votchy - Member
I think the fact our top nuclear armed sub is on exercise in the south atlantic

There's nearly always a nuclear armed sub in the south atlantic.

keep them and for all those people who say it's a waste of money as they will never be used, well lets blow up france if it makes you feel better

Because it's part of our commitment to NATO and still in our best intrests.

In what way is it in our best interests? How do Germany, Spain, Italy etc fulfil their commitment to NATO?

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I think the fact our top nuclear armed sub is on exercise in the south atlantic along with a squadron of Typhoons at Port Stanley acts as a very effective deterrent to the argies that have been stirring about the sovereignty of the Falklands and the associated gas/oil supplies down there

Though if you read the drill report for the first bore you'll see that reserves are way below expectations.

grum - Member

In what way is it in our best interests? How do Germany, Spain, Italy etc fulfil their commitment to NATO?

As a personal deterrent. It is, after all, a part of the UK forces first, NATO second. Germany, Spain, Italy etc all provide elements of their own forces to NATO. The only country that is a member but has no forces to provide are Iceland, but they do provide a air monitoring base that covers most NATO countries, and they have provided peacekeeping forces on various NATO deployments.

Dafy, you need to learn a little more about the Subs we own - they are not one and the same thing - never have been and never will be. We have plenty of nuclear powered, conventionally armed submarines - less than [b][u]20% of our nuclear powered subs are trident carriers[/u][/b]. There is a VERY big difference between building nuclear powered subs and building nuclear weapons - totally different skill sets. We don't even build the trident missles - they are bought in from the states (as was polaris).

I need to learn? really? I never argued that a Submarine with a nuclear payload was the same as one powered by either a PW1 or PW2 nuclear reactor. I said that by killing the replacement program you kill the workforce. When Barrow was building the Trafalgar class, they were designing the Vanguard class, as the Vanguard class was being built, they were designing the Future Attack Sub, which became Astute (they also designed and built 2 RFA support ships) During the Astute build phase, they are currently designing the Successor program, during that build program they design the replacements for the Astute class.

20% are nuclear armed? really? By my estimations we have 10 nuclear submarines in service of which 4 are Vanguard class! 40%

I think the fact our top nuclear armed sub is on exercise in the south atlantic along with a squadron of Typhoons at Port Stanley acts as a very effective deterrent to the argies that have been stirring about the sovereignty of the Falklands and the associated gas/oil supplies down there

That and the fact that there isn't any oil there...

I don't think we should keep the nuclear missile deterrent, it should just be replaced with cheaper systems that are more relevant/easier to deploy & actually use without ending up a war criminal for irradiating everyone.

The point of the jobs & skills retention, is that if you don't do it yourself then you can only buy whatever foreign countries develop themselves and if they'll even sell it to us.

The only country that is a member but has no forces to provide are Iceland, but they do provide a air monitoring base that covers most NATO countries, and they have provided peacekeeping forces on various NATO deployments.

It does, however, have a bloody great volcano...

I said that by killing the replacement program you kill the workforce.

is it like building pyramids then ?

They should all be put to work building horse drawn carriages. Or perhaps steam engines. Or VCRs.

Or... this is genius. Half of them dig holes in the ground.. and then, wait for it, the other half fill them back up again. They could be digging one and filling in another at the same time! Full employment!

I wonder why this hasn't been thought of before.

Scrap it and campaign for the rest of the world to follow.

Deterrent relies on the person you're trying to deter being logical before they press the button.

If we scrap them what happens when we are attacked by aliens?

We just start playing Slim Whitman's Indian Love Call.

The deterrant force as it stands represents a cost that we cannot afford.

The Lib Dems are not advocating unilateral nuclear disarmament, merely that we cannot justify the cost of replacing the current system. If at some stage the economy picks up and as a Nation we can justify spending money on a class of submarines with no other task than lurking in the ocean depths, then so be it.

The use of attack submarines with cruise misiles offers a level of deterrance more appropriate to current world issues.

The argument about losing our military industrial capacity hardly holds true. Nobody is suggesting not having nuclear powered subs in the Navy - sub construction would not cease. We haven't built an aircraft carrier since WW2, but that isn't stopping us designing and building a new class of carriers for the 21st century..

what would happen it you fired a nuke into a volcano?

Keep the Trident.

😈

No UK, . . . no X-Factor!

That there is deterrent enough.

Someone may correct me on this...
But I've read somewhere that Trident is not an independent deterrent anyway, that the system 'needs American permission before it can be used'
If thats the case, then surely we're nothing more than a glorified American frontline force, and we're ACTUALLY PAYING for the privilege.

If its true or not, I'm still in favour of getting rid, as others have said, its time this country stopped trying to kid on that we're the school bully's 'second hardest' wee mate.

Why not spend the money on ensuring our countries food security.

Perhaps someone can explain for me why we can't just keep the system we have currently?

Why not spend the money on ensuring our countries food security.

Konabunny - good question but you are thinking old world with NK comment.

Food security, energy security, they are all linked. Since when has self relaince been the long term way to security?

OK, then, fair enough - what is "food security"? There is no problem with supply so long as we have the money for it - same with oil.