[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.