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They knew we had a deterrent, it just didn't deter them
They perhaps thought we had no non-nuclear retaliation though.
Imagine it was the Shetlands or the Western Isles instead. Do you think nuclear weapons would have been deployed?
[quote=scotroutes ]They knew we had a deterrent, [s]it just didn't deter them[/s] they thought we wouldn't use it
Ok, we're agreeing. They thought we wouldn't use it so it didn't deter them. Not much bloody use then!
scotroutes.
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Just asked my mate about the Falklands issue & nukes (he was down that way, at that point, Royal Marines)
'Never in a million years would the UK have used nukes for the sake of the Falklands, didn't warrant it' was his reply.
I suggest you check:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/dec/06/military.freedomofinformation
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WE.177
Royal Marines have nothing to do with nuclear weapons unless their guarding them.
Certainly agree we wouldn't of used them, I was just surprised we had any even on the RFAs. Given it was SOP to sail with them on board you'd have thought someone would have had them unloaded but guess there wasn't the time.
Royal Marines have nothing to do with nuclear weapons unless their guarding them.
As in...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Escort_Group_(Ministry_of_Defence_Police)
Yeah, we already know that.
My post was simply my mate's thoughts on the subject.
if JC keeps up like this, he won't get a seat on the company board.
Yup and Margret Beckets report doesn't shy away from the issues. Not least of which is the change in social population towards more pensioners.
Labour needs to change radically. It needs to win votes and for that you have to drop the idological policies for ones people will vote for. I saw this is comment JC as simply another own goal. I had some respect for his principled stands up to now only to see him throw it all away.
I'm going to kill the next person to get that wrong!
That isn't much of a deterrent unless we know you will actually follow through. I mean, if it's only for show then the ongoing threat of retaliation is a bit of a mute point.
Labour needs to change radically. It needs to win votes and for that you have to drop the idological policies for ones people will vote for.
Which (from my perspective, YMMV) is what Blair did and it worked well for him.
If we had PR, both Labour and the Tories could split and you would end up with two broadly centrist parties from the moderates, then the Corbyn left and kipper Tory's. Most people would probably vote for the centre-right or centre-left parties but there are probably enough on the further left and further right to carry some sway. It could work quite well, but will never happen under FPTP.
If we had PR, both Labour and the Tories could split and you would end up with two broadly centrist parties from the moderates, then the Corbyn left and kipper Tory's. Most people would probably vote for the centre-right or centre-left parties but there are probably enough on the further left and further right to carry some sway. It could work quite well, but will never happen under FPTP.
Sounds pretty much like what we have now? Plus ca change and all that...
not in favour of PR, I'd rather have strong government of whatever flavour. Cant see that PR governments are better. Whilst we can look to other countries where it has worked or failed it doesn't mean its right for this country. No two countries are the same. Why do we need PR, aren't the Liberia's the natural home of centralist voters?
I was in favour of the coalition for the Liberals I thought it would give them a chance, after years in the wilderness, to be part of the decision making process and deliver their polices.
The British public thought otherwise. I thought any chance of getting your policies delivered would have been good. The alternative was to never deliver anything for your supporters. But it wasn't seen like that.
I didn't vote liberal BTW. Id suggest most centralists wouldn't either.
Well yeah if you dont count the number of parties and you ignore the two major ones splitting then yes it is just like now 😕Sounds pretty much like what we have now?
you ignore the two major ones splitting
What do you think the creation of the SDP and UKIP were?
[i] scotroutes - Member
Ok, we're agreeing. They thought we wouldn't use it so it didn't deter them. Not much bloody use then! [/i]
Not quite, the reasoning is flawed. Invasion by means of deploying conventional military assets where there wasn't previously. Is and will be met with a similar deployment of conventional assets to repel the invasion, etc, etc.
If someone decides to send us a nuke, then they can rest assured, that we can send one back! Well, so long as have them.
[quote=Solo ]
Not quite, the reasoning is flawed. Invasion by means of deploying conventional military resource where is wasn't previously. Is and will be met with a similar deployment of conventional assets to repel the invasion, etc, etc.scotroutes - Member
Ok, we're agreeing. They thought we wouldn't use it so it didn't deter them. Not much bloody use then!
If someone decides to send us a nuke, then they can rest assured, that we can send one back! Well, so long as have them.So - nukes are only a deterrence against a nuclear attack. Back to my other question then; what it was had been the Shetlands or the Western Isles? Or what of it had been all of the Highlands/Scotland etc. You're saying that we would never deploy nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear invasion force. That implies that the Russians (as an example) could roll into the UK and we (and none of our allies) would threaten nuclear retaliation?
I was in favour of the coalition for the Liberals I thought it would give them a chance, after years in the wilderness, to be part of the decision making process and deliver their polices.
I know hindsight is a wonderful thing, but doesn't that pretty much invalidate everything else you say? 🙂
So - nukes are only a deterrence against a nuclear attack. Back to my other question then; what it was had been the Shetlands or the Western Isles? Or what of it had been all of the Highlands/Scotland etc. You're saying that we would never deploy nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear invasion force. That implies that the Russians (as an example) could roll into the UK and we (and none of our allies) would threaten nuclear retaliation?
You understand the concept of escalation?
As (repeatedly) pointed out, nobody has ever suggested the response to an attacking or invading force would be immediate use of nuclear weapons. The classic scenario for use of nuclear weapons in an east-v-west scenario (or indeed a India-v-****stan, north-v-south Korea etc. Scenario) is where a large scale conventional confrontation descends into either threatened collapse (whereby the side about to lose uses nuclear or chemical weapons as a last ditch effort to neutralise enemy forces) or stalemate (where the attacking forces have run out of steam and resort to chemical or nuclear attack to break the stalemate by neutralising defending forces) - this would be an [u]escalation[/u] from conventional warfare to nuclear. Retaining a nuclear capability ourselves is not only the deterrent against [u]escalation[u] to nuclear confrontation - it is a strong argument that the inevitability of escalation from conventional to nuclear has prevented either side in the major "cold" wars from engaging in the risky business of large scale conventional "hot" warfare (forget your minor territorial squabbles).
(I have delibaretly included chemical weapons above, as soviet doctrine for conventional warfare very much included the use of chemical weapons, whereas NATO doctrine would almost inevitably seen the use of large scale chemical bombardment that led to massive loss of life as a serious escalation that may draw a proportionate nuclear response)
Note the use of words like escalation & proportionate - this is where your black and white 'we would never' argument falls down.
An excellent explanation of why we dont need a constantly deployed force in order to deliver weapons at any time- we just need weapons we could deploy after escalationThe classic scenario for use of nuclear weapons in an east-v-west scenario (or indeed a India-v-****stan, north-v-south Korea etc. Scenario) is where a large scale conventional confrontation descends into either threatened collapse (whereby the side about to lose uses nuclear or chemical weapons as a last ditch effort to neutralise enemy forces) or stalemate (where the attacking forces have run out of steam and resort to chemical or nuclear attack to break the stalemate by neutralising defending forces) - this would be an escalation from conventional warfare to nuclear.
Thanks you for taking the time to do this and explaining why we dont really need the subs
I know hindsight is a wonderful thing, but doesn't that pretty much invalidate everything else you say?
nope, I'm not against coalition's. I'd hope for a good stronger government with a majority to get policies through. It was if you like a form of PR, I take your point. More voters got represented. Just think a lot of the minority parties getting seats just confuse and slow down the process of good government without adding any value as well adding a huge administrative and financial burden.
Way OT sorry
An excellent explanation of why we dont need a constantly deployed force in order to deliver weapons at any time- we just need weapons we could deploy after escalation
Thanks you for taking the time to do this and explaining why we dont really need the subs
thats an oxymoron - the only way we can guarantee having weapons we can deploy [u]after[/u] escalation is through having them constantly deployable (or for "deployable" in a submarine sense, read it as "widely dispersed in unknown locations underwater making decapitation essentially impossible)
Well now you have changed your account and altered your view that is another excellent post. I will forgive the complete reversal of opinion as its you and its what you do to just keep arguing
PFFttt to consistency eh
@ junky - Have just Edited the above to clarify between deployed and deployable
Your own argument that "we just need weapons we could deploy after escalation" underlines everything, and is exactly why trident works.
that argument was yours not mine and no it does not support your view that we need them for instant deployment as your whole argument was about escalation
you know this but you wont back down as we were and why I rarely bother. Waste of a good mind IMHO.
PS thanks for saying about the edit.
it does not support your view that we need them for instant deployment as your whole argument was about escalation
and you well know that 'instant deployment' isn't what I said.
Whichever side you fall (ignoring tabloid hysteria) Corbyn has opened up the debate about Nukes, better than it ever would have been
[i] kimbers - Member
Whichever side you fall (ignoring tabloid hysteria) Corbyn has opened up the debate about Nukes, better than it ever would have been[/i]
Needlessly! Come on, I'm sure there's other, more significant issues of the day, that could use some useful consideration/debate.
Have any of your noticed the state of the MTB industry?
🙄
quiet alot of miss information about submarines on here but then thats not surprising. having a deployable submarine thats actually alongside is no cheaper than having it at sea.
quiet alot of miss information about submarines
You mean all the armchair generals and sealords on here have got it all wrong?
[url= http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/11/trident-the-british-question ]the long read[/url]
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38711418 ]looks like we'll be more dangerous to our allies than our enemies, and why so evasive [/url] 😯
Russians hacked it whilst captain of boat was being pissed on I reckon.
A non-story. A high tech piece of kit malfunctions during a test.
That's the point of "testing".
Even less of a story than that, as the accepted miss fire rate for an ICBM is about 20%, because they sit unused for years, and aren't tested much (because of costs) and ultimately, if one misses, we've got another 30 in the back of the boat, each of which has the capability of erasing a large city off the face of the earth.........
each of which has the capability of erasing [s]a[/s]several large [s]city[/s]cities off the face of the earth.........
FTFY
Poor wee missile was just trying to do its best and fix the Trump situation for us 🙁
A high tech piece of kit malfunctions during a test.That's the point of "testing".
which is fine if it's a new radio, more of a problem if it's a weapon with the destructive power of a small sun, going entirely the wrong way isn't really a "malfunction".
If it's such a non-story why was May so evasive in her answer to Andrew Marr?
If it's such a non-story why was May so evasive in her answer to Andrew Marr?
it is odd, for sure, in some ways makes the case for upgrading 😕
which is fine if it's a new radio, more of a problem if it's a weapon with the destructive power of a small sun, going entirely the wrong way isn't really a "malfunction".
You do realise the test missiles don't have warheads in them?
What goes on in the military is generally subject to the official secrets act, this includes a missile going off track on a test. As above this is the perfect demonstration that the kit needs updating. The delay in doing so during 2010-15 Coalition has a cost in functionality and increased risk.
You do realise the test missiles don't have warheads in them?
no shit Sherlock, I think we can all pretty much agree that the most basic thing that ANY weapon from a catapult to a nuclear tipped missile has to be to achieve is that it goes where you point it, no?
I mean that's a pretty fundamental cock up! Great! We ****ing daren't use the damned thing 'cos it might hit us! I don't think that's what they meant when they said it's a deterrent 😆
I think Corbyn's unarmed subs might actually be safer...
What goes on in the military is generally subject to the official secrets act
especially so when it's a bloody embarrassing cock up like your missile doesn't go where you aimed it...
Do you think the designers of the missile might have thought about just such an eventuality, and included suitable safeguards, or perhaps the firers just have to sit around and watch as the missile veers out of control and explodes some kittens or something?? 😆
Who really gives a shit whether it works or not ? ..........anyone ?