We need something to deflect from the new police powers bill, what have we got?

Nuclear weapons?

Excellent idea, release the press hounds

I don’t really see it as a bad thing per se.

There are 1000s of warheads in the world, so adding a few 10s more in the UK makes no real difference.

On the plus side, expanding Trident and the UK Nuclear fleet means billions spent in UK ship yards and UK engineers building / maintaining it all, which is good for the economy and British engineering, which could really use some good news. (NB The warheads themselves come from the US).

In fairness the article talks about stronger co-operation with India, Australia, etc and its the first deployment of the carrier to that region, so it is kinda flying the flag

**** sakes, Empire 2.0. Our neighbors are literally 20 miles away, and this bunch of boneheads have a semi-on for wading about the Asia Pacific region with a carrier and some nuclear equipped subs. It’s really really pathetic. The sooner sections of this country get over the fact that weren’t not 1. a major power, or 2 that the empire has gone, the better.

I don’t really see it as a bad thing per se.

There are 1000s of warheads in the world, so adding a few 10s more in the UK makes no real difference.

On the plus side, expanding Trident and the UK Nuclear fleet means billions spent in UK ship yards and UK engineers building / maintaining it all, which is good for the economy and British engineering, which could really use some good news. (NB The warheads themselves come from the US).

You could spend billions on education / infrastructure / global aid / transport / research / healthcare / defeating climate change / etc etc without spunking it up the wall on something that will never get used and will quietly rot away in a submarine somewhere.

Oh, and Trident warheads are supplied by the USA and I imagine that as far as we’re concerned they’re a black box that gets stuck on the top of a missile. I’d also be willing to bet that they wouldn’t actually detonate in the infinitesimal chance that they were used, because what moron sells a *working* nuclear weapon to another country?

**** sakes, Empire 2.0. Our neighbors are literally 20 miles away, and this bunch of boneheads have a semi-on for wading about the Asia Pacific region with a carrier and some nuclear equipped subs. It’s really really pathetic. The sooner sections of this country get over the fact that weren’t not 1. a major power, or 2 that the empire has gone, the better.

Even the Guardian agrees that keeping trade free in the South China sea is important – and it’s important to the many democratic and semi-democratic countries on the periphery of China. South East Asia is going to account for a huge amount of world trade over the next 50 years.

That means aligning with smaller democratic/semi-democratic countries who have shared interests with us.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/15/why-britain-is-tilting-to-the-indo-pacific-region

But the economic and political forces pulling Whitehall back to the region are real, and not all built on an imperial nostalgia.

Oh and Boris will be dead pleased to be extending the global reach into the Pacific with the carriers, but we have no fleet to accompany them. So we have to borrow some frigates and destroyers off the French/Danish/Canadians/whomever.

There’s enough to put together a strike force if we had to, the fact that we operate alongside other nations destroyers and submarines is all about building interoperability with players who have the same interests as us.

It may be nothing but in the mid 90’s the first place I ran into a company called Serco was at Coulport.

but investing in British Engineering isn’t a bad way

So that’s a bit to Rolls Royce and BAe, and the rest to the USA. Which bit of British engineering are we investing in here?

Oh, and Trident warheads are supplied by the USA and I imagine that as far as we’re concerned they’re a black box that gets stuck on the top of a missile.

Nah, the go-bang bits are built here. The delivery bits are bought from the Americans. So it will go bang, just not necessarily exactly where you want it to go bang.

It’ll be on Jeremy Vine this lunchtime – that’ll be a fun listen.

There’s enough to put together a strike force if we had to

honestly I doubt that very much. and TBH why would we need to. Who are we going to attack this time?

 Instead the idea is that we bring specialist capability to whatever party our allies get involved with

I read this alot, and TBH  (using Johnson’s own phrase) it doesn’t pass the piffle test. Do you honestly think that the US, or Chinese lack capacity or capability to overcome whatever special sauce we think we have. The idea of doing “more with less” in military terms at least is an absolute non starter.

I see two sides,

one) trying to buy favour with the US, it really isn’t an “independent” arsenal, it’s US.

two) trying to get votes in Scotland by guaranteeing jobs, whether they are wanted…. These are Tories after all.

When Indy Ref happened, plans were apparently in place to remove the nuclear arsenal south if the result was “out”. That would have been immediate withdrawal. Like next day sort of stuff, of the whole thing. This isn’t about Scottish votes, it’s about BJoris’s playing to his core.

When Indy Ref happened, plans were apparently in place to remove the nuclear arsenal south if the result was “out”. That would have been immediate withdrawal. Like next day sort of stuff, of the whole thing. This isn’t about Scottish votes, it’s about BJoris’s playing to his core.

This is more complicated than it sounds – apparently there are very few viable locations for this.
The favourite is a liquid gas port facility near Swansea – which i believe is currently owned/used by BP.

Is this BoJo’s attempt to keep the UK united? Was only last week there were headlines wrt to the Union.
Nuke’s seem like a strange thing to want more of, economics aside. More flag waving nonsense

I’ll tell you what, have a look at the comparison between wars of aggression started by NATO countries, vs those started by Non NATO countries since 1945, and we can use that as a starting point for any need for South China Sea gun boat diplomacy

I agree with that sentiment.

But I disagree with the rest, mostly because lots of my friends through my wife are South East Asian so they understand just what’s at stake.

You either make a stand in the South China Sea or keep your mouth shut when the rules and human rights based order that the UN/the EU built post world war 2 comes crumbling down.

Democracies need to stick together.

lots of my friends through my wife are South East Asian so they understand just what’s at stake

Here’s a thing. When the UK started negotiating with the Chinese about handing over Hong Kong, the UK made all sorts of noises about “honoring the need to keep democracy alive and well in Hong Kong” which came as something as a surprise to both China and (to be fair) the people of Hong Kong…who had long recognised that it was in fact as far as it could be from actually being democratic under British rule, and every time they’d asked the British Govt for a bit of self goverment, the British had basically told them them not to worry their pretty little heads about it.

Again, I’ll ask; show me the wars of aggression started by China aimed at it’s near neighbours since 1945…In fact, I’ll tell you what, Kabul is about 4500 miles away from London. Has China started, looked it’s about to start, threatened with sanctions, tried to topple the govt of, started a proxy war with, started an actual war with, or otherwise imperiled it’s neighbours within a 4500 mile radius…on a scale that even comes close to that of the US and the UK

Also, “South China Sea”.

But what matters now are that there are democracies around the world that are being undermined by both Russia and China

And also by the US and by extension the UK…perhaps it’s high time we stopped creating bogeymen? The last significant excursion made by the PLA in any great numbers into foreign territory was 1979 into Vietnam, compare and contrast that to our record. The Chinese govt have long realised that money/trade was the real power, and they won that game a while back.

The last significant excursion made by the PLA in any great numbers into foreign territory was 1979 into Vietnam, compare and contrast that to our record. The Chinese govt have long realised that money/trade was the real power, and they won that game a while back.

That’s not how wars are fought now.

They’re fought like the heat map above, using deniable assets. Everything is now war, the clearly defined boundaries between a state of war have now been eroded. As Rosa Brooks points out in her book “How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything” – it was two Chinese generals back in 1991 who recognized that and wrote a paper on how future postmodern conflict would play out.

And also by the US and by extension the UK…perhaps it’s high time we stopped creating bogeymen?

You can do this, whilst still sticking by your allies. That’s a very bien pensant lefty isolationist view.