I should bloody well hope not!

 

Anti-Ballistic Missiles (ABM's) do exist, it is a technology that is in its early stages of development, I say that, but its actually been around for many years, just never fully utilised as it has drawbacks.

Israel has been successfully using a similar system that intercepts short range missiles, they call it the Iron Dome. India has a similar system, and so do we.

However its not perfect and has failed to destroy its targets in the past, so relying solely on this type of technology is never going to happen in this country.

There is a laser based interception system currently being developed, and of course, a beam of light is far more accurate than a rocket propelled missile. Many years away from actually being commissioned.

So for now, I am all for Trident until a superior technology takes its place. What sort of an idiot thinks we are in a position to give up our nuclear defence?

 

Hi,
Trident is based on the MAD concept - Mutually Assured Destruction.
You nuke us - we nuke you to oblivion.
Has worked well - so far!
Cheers
Steve

 

Well how about keeping your bombs in London where they are wanted ?

Or anywhere else south of the border



The cost of it alone should open your eyes !!

 

The decision had to be made, what would be the least missed part of the UK if the sub base were attacked by nuclear weapons? No dispute, had to be Scotland

 

You may get that wish if wee Jimmy Krankie goes for 2nd referendum for independence! Scottish ministers want to banish Trident from Scotland along with it thousands of jobs and investment.

 

With the cost of Trident you could give almost every Clyde employee a £100,000 redundancy and still create new jobs and schools etc. with the cash left over,

 

You could, except that most of the funding comes from Westminster! So no, there wouldn't be £100k redundancy pay packets. And what jobs would the state create since you also need tax revenue to fund these new jobs and schools? Oh wait, the EU!

 

Ah so your opening up the independence argument,

My point was not about that,

I'm sure the 30 odd billion that is saved could be spent in both England and Scotland.

Could give 100,000 people £100,000,

and still have £20 billion left over,

 

Well of course I'd bring in the independence since Trident won't be going anywhere as you suggested it should unless otherwise. Even if it did move, the £30bn will be taken up with the cost of decommissioning the Clyde base and building a new base which in any case would far exceed £30bn "saving". So again, no "£100k to 100,000 people".

 

The Cameron government said that irrespective of the outcome of the Scotland referendum the Faslane naval base wouldn't be going anywhere. The local economy will be pleased to hear that as it's the major contributor.

 

I don't think you realise how much £30 billion actually is,

For something which cannot be used,

oh and the £100,000 to 100,000 was just to show how much cash we are actually talking about, as i don't think there is actually that many folk there.

I suppose it will stop us speaking Russian tho

"New Base"

There aren't many countries left which have never had a UK base maybe that's why our country is hated along with the U.S.

Perhaps if we built more Bridges instead of Bases we would be a lot safer,

Trident and more Bases won't stop the Terrorists our Government helped create.

 

The local economy, there's nothing there

Have you ever been there ?


There are some fantastic roads which is about the only thing I thank the Base for,

 

Although army I trained there on and off so I know the place reasonably well. Very nice area and people, although the protesters were a bit persistent.

 

Persistant lol, It has to be the longest protest in History they camp out haha,

Genuinely some of the best roads and only an Hour from Glasgow.

However you can be sitting at side of road and out of nowhere soldiers appear,

Defo hollow hills around there

 

To say the UK and France have a "vanishingly small percentage" of NATO's nuclear capability hides the fact that with a combined count of over 500 warheads, it is still enough to do massive amount of damage and destruction globally. The problem is that a nuclear programme such as Trident has a life cycle covering many decades and to abandon it would leave the UK vulnerable over that period. At a time when there such instability in the world, particularly in the middle east, and a growing nuclear ambition from rogue states, to decommission our nuclear capability would be fool hardy. The UK is not like the 95% of other countries, not least due to UK's obligation to NATO and it's allies, the UK remains a high on the list of tactical targets and whilst we have adhered to the Nonproliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, other countries have not.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a6874096.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17823706

 

Question to all those in favour of spending £31 billion upgrading (don't forget that) our existing system.

Just what do you think would happen if the UK didn't have a nuclear weapons capability?

 

Trident as killed less people than religion, long may it continue.

 

1) Vulnerable to what Jon?

2) Who's making those claims?

3) Why do you think the UK is a "tactical target"?

 

Glen Douglas. There's way more up (under?) there than meets the eye.

 

The US started developing "The Star Wars" system under Ronald Reagen in the 1980's when the first Cruise Missiles were deployed to the UK (remember Greenham Common - I do I stagged on for many nights there). It was a geo-stationary system that would hit ICBM as they headed into the stratosphere. Russia panicked as cruise could pinpoint hit any targets within the USSR without being detected.

This forced the Russians into the START/SALT talks which many believe saw the old USSR regimes crumble. The technology is there and don't for one minute think that it may not start again, ask China.

 

Sure its a staggering amount of money, for something which won't be needed.
Nobody will "press the button"

 

Fasalane and Coulport do provide a number of jobs for civilian contractors, and those based there will of course spend some of their cash in the Helensburgh and Garelochhead area. I grew up in that area, and believe me, having "the base" on your doorstep was more trouble than good.

So its a contributor for sure, but the major contributor? I'm not so sure.

Dunoon survived the extraction of the US navy base, despite widely publicised concerns that the area would die off as a result and is arguably now a much better place for it.

If Scotland had become independent Cameron's government would have had little say in whether or not the Clyde naval base remained.

 

The delightful irony being in practice it would never actually work like that, at the end of the day it's one hell of a bluff. The only way MAD would actually pan out as described would be in the event of full scale global nuclear war.

 

1) A military strike

2) Which claim are you refering too?

3) Because in the nightmare of where a hostile country(ies) would deploy a nuclear device, with the UK being one of the most powerful countries in terms of military capability, the hostile would gain advantage, both militarily, geographically and economically, with a tactical strike on the UK and against NATO given that the UK would no way to retaliate.

From what I understand of UK's nuclear capabilities, Whilst Trident includes warheads to wreak destruction on a global scale, it also has small or low yield warheads with "limited" destructive (comparitively) power that can be deployed to a battlefield. Obvioulsy this isn't as headline grabbing as the total annihalation of nuclear armageddon

 

This thread is somewhat missing the point!

We are not replacing Trident, we're replacing the Vanguard class submarines that carry Trident missiles with the Successor class.

Trident itself is not an nuclear weapon, it's a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) which is capable of carrying nuclear warheads with Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles (MIRV). In theory it could also carry other non-nuclear payloads, but I'm not aware of any that have been developed for the Trident platform so far, although it has been discussed.

Personally, I would love to for the whole world to abandon nuclear weapons but that's unlikely to happen in my lifetime. There are very good arguments to maintain the UK's nuclear capability as there are to decommission it - after all, do we really need it when we are allies with France and USA? I really don't know what the right answer is about the UK's nuclear capability - I accept both sides of the argument!

But ask the question of weather we should replace the Vanguard class of submarines and my answer is definitely yes! Not necessarily for launching nuclear weapons, but for the capability of launching long range, non-nuclear, SLBM's from anywhere is also a very powerful weapon to have in your arsenal. Not to mention, these submarines can carry out an extremely varied range of operations other than carrying Trident. Add to that all the jobs that are secured in Barrow where the ships will be built and it all becomes a no-brainer IMHO!

Go ahead and decommission the nuclear warheads if you want, but we should definitely keep the Trident SLBM's and build the Successor class submarines to carry them! We should also develop new non-nuclear payloads for the Trident platform to increase the usefulness of the submarine launch platform.

 

Spot on

We will need these Nukes and Subs to stand any chance against these 3rd world countries we constantly invade sorry bring democracy to

 

Of course the technology is there, its been there for over 60 years.

Just not, or seemingly not commissioned.

Who's to know for sure what systems are actually in orbit around our planet!

 

I am sure Portsmouth, Plymouth or even Milford Haven would welcome the relocation.

 

The major advantages of Faslane are its inland remoteness and deep water channels for non surface stealth access to the North Atlantic and Norwegian Sea, and from there anywhere.