Crawley
Board Legend
Yeh, because we only got Trident when Dave came to power, didn't we?
What a stupid comment.
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North Korea..
- Thread starter Mumorn
- Start date
Yeh, because we only got Trident when Dave came to power, didn't we?
What a stupid comment.
DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
Only:
1) Rogue states don't care, meaning Trident is useless if they decided to nuke us anyway.
2)Rogue agents don't care, meaning infiltrators or state-sponsored terrorists (the modern way of conducting warfare) won't be stopped by a nuclear sub in the bloody Arctic.
3)We're not the number one targets for nuclear aggression anyway. Washington, New York, Beijing....there are the main global power centres, both established and emerging. And these are likelier targets for nuclear attacks, should it come down to it. London has the advantage of being both geographically difficult to reach and pointless to attack, given that it does not affect the hegemon (the US) or the emerging challenger (China) in any way.
We're not as important or as wealthy as we think we are, and it's ludicrous to justify billion-pound nuclear deterrents while selling off the NHS and closing down essential services. We need to have a society worth spending billions of pounds to defend, something that isn't the case at the moment.
parklane1
Tony Galvin
Never said that did i, cameron is the PM now but its always been the same. Not good jumping to conclusions before calling someones post stupid. :-"
braineclipse
Terry Dyson
Very good thread. Thanks especially to Dubai for some excellent posts.
Not sure if serious. If you actually think what is coming out of North Korea is controlled by the US government I imagine this is only one of many conspiracy theories you believe in.
You're assuming that Kim and/or others running North Korea are going to act rationally I think. If they care about self preservation and if they are able to accurately judge the situation then they will not move beyond threats.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. We have seen plenty of totalitarian leaders make rather ridiculous, completely irrational decisions in the past and we probably will in the future. Just what goes on behind the scenes in North Korea nobody knows, but to just flat out assume that they will act rationally is to me optimistic at best and probably a bit naive. We're talking about the leaders of a country with a dead man as their president.
Nothing will be done pre-emptively without agreements between Beijing and Washington. Unlike the North Koreans I feel rather confident that both the Chinese and Americans can be trusted to act relatively rationally at the very least and neither of them will risk an escalation between them.
The Chinese are actually a key player here though. The strongest of North Korea's traditional allies, and the only relevant one, but they are nowhere near as close as they once were. If China was still in a situation like they were during the '70s or '80s (or controlled by Mao) there would be real cause for concern. Everything indicates that China are putting real pressure on North Korea to chill the fudge out though.
China are on course to becoming one of if not the leading superpower financially and if they want to militarily over the next 2-3 decades I think, they do not need or want a war with the US/NATO forces.
There's only so much you can do when the border is less than an hour away from Soul by car (not sure how long that is in rocket or artillery shell travel time, but it's probably considerably less) and they've had decades to prepare a potential attack. No doubt if North Korea did chose to launch an all out attack looking to inflict as much damage to civilians as possible they would cause incredible damage and I think estimates of 100k+ casualties are conservative.
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The sad thing is just how locked the situation is. Hopefully some kind of revolution will take place, and hopefully there can be some kind of peaceful transition. To me that seems very difficult though. As it is one of the most dreadful dictatorships the human race has ever been able to produce is allowed to continue, with very little realistic immediate threat to it's existence.
Not sure if serious. If you actually think what is coming out of North Korea is controlled by the US government I imagine this is only one of many conspiracy theories you believe in.
You're assuming that Kim and/or others running North Korea are going to act rationally I think. If they care about self preservation and if they are able to accurately judge the situation then they will not move beyond threats.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. We have seen plenty of totalitarian leaders make rather ridiculous, completely irrational decisions in the past and we probably will in the future. Just what goes on behind the scenes in North Korea nobody knows, but to just flat out assume that they will act rationally is to me optimistic at best and probably a bit naive. We're talking about the leaders of a country with a dead man as their president.
Nothing will be done pre-emptively without agreements between Beijing and Washington. Unlike the North Koreans I feel rather confident that both the Chinese and Americans can be trusted to act relatively rationally at the very least and neither of them will risk an escalation between them.
The Chinese are actually a key player here though. The strongest of North Korea's traditional allies, and the only relevant one, but they are nowhere near as close as they once were. If China was still in a situation like they were during the '70s or '80s (or controlled by Mao) there would be real cause for concern. Everything indicates that China are putting real pressure on North Korea to chill the fudge out though.
China are on course to becoming one of if not the leading superpower financially and if they want to militarily over the next 2-3 decades I think, they do not need or want a war with the US/NATO forces.
There's only so much you can do when the border is less than an hour away from Soul by car (not sure how long that is in rocket or artillery shell travel time, but it's probably considerably less) and they've had decades to prepare a potential attack. No doubt if North Korea did chose to launch an all out attack looking to inflict as much damage to civilians as possible they would cause incredible damage and I think estimates of 100k+ casualties are conservative.
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The sad thing is just how locked the situation is. Hopefully some kind of revolution will take place, and hopefully there can be some kind of peaceful transition. To me that seems very difficult though. As it is one of the most dreadful dictatorships the human race has ever been able to produce is allowed to continue, with very little realistic immediate threat to it's existence.
DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
No worries, mate. Domestic politics belong elsewhere.
Quite seriously though, I'm not too bothered about defence spending as it's one of the few roles I believe a government has to perform.
spursman17
Stephen Kelly
Trident is essential for the safety of UK citizens. The World is becoming an increasing violent place. Past 'third World' countries are now seeking to possess nuclear weapons (if they haven't already) and our close relations to the USA making us a vulnerable target.
We cannot and should not rely on a defense system from a supposed 'ally' because when brick hits the fan it will be their self interests ahead of ours.
Same goes for the supposed 'joint venture' between France and the UK. What happens in cases where the UK intends to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands while the French oppose it? We need and should maintain total control of our defense systems.
Trident may be expensive but it also provides us with a strong voice amongst the World players. While we maintain a nuclear deterrent (which happens to be undetectable and mobile) other countries know we have a weapon system that can flatten any country that would otherwise push their weight in their self interests.
Trident is vital and sorry to say, anyone who believes we should be a nuclear free country while countries like NK, China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan are exploring, investing and seeking such technologies with intentions to increase stockpiles (with the exception of Russia, with agreement with the USA) is in my opinion living on planet cuckoo.
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Crawley
Board Legend
parklane1
Tony Galvin
And in the meantime, our health service is collapsing, there are more food kitchens opening every day, there are more children living in poverty, and there are more cuts happening all the time. But our leaders can wave their dingdongs about and pretend we are a major power because we spend millions on a deterent that we do not need, its not those who think its money down the drain who are living in " cloud cuckoo" land imo.
DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
Exactly. Of the cases spursman17 mentioned (Pakistan, North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran), Pakistan has two nuclear-armed rising superpowers on its borders, Russia has had a stock of weapons left over from the Cold War, North Korea is a paranoid rogue state in fear of its very existence being terminated by the US, and Iran is desperately trying to avoid becoming another victim of U.S and Israeli geopolitics. Save for Russia, each one has threats directly across its borders.
What on Earth do we have to be afraid of? Which of our neighbors poses a threat to us? Our close relations to the USA will make us a target? Considering that you, spursman, also (rightly) pointed out that the U.S will pursue its own self-interests in the event of brick hitting the fan, why would anyone attack us, knowing full well that it will not affect the U.S in any way?
We have a conventional deterrent, and an aerial deterrent. Unless France, the EU or Iceland start threatening us with nuclear warfare, I fail to see who exactly we are endangered by. So why waste billions of pounds?
Hootnow
Jermaine Jenas
And I can appreciate that. But my point was, even as a soldier and especially as a civilian, when your very own homeland is affected, you might start seeing war slightly differently, rather than as an abstract concept. Laos for example, a war most people still don't have any idea about, effectively had a planeload of bombs dropped on it every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day for 8-9 years. In the West, there is almost no-one alive anymore who has even the slightest idea what that feels like, which makes it easier for politicians to engage in far away wars without the population caring too much, except when one of their own servicemen dies.
Anyway, there's not much point continuing this, I think we've both said all there is to say.
Hootnow
Jermaine Jenas
Is it though? Since the collapse of the USSR, who exactly threatens our country with even conventional weaponry, let alone nuclear?
And actually, the world is not becoming an increasingly violent place. It now seems more violent because a) there is far more journalism covering it, including journalists willing to go out to the front line and citizen journalists, who provide us with each and every morsel of what's going on and be) because while inter-state war has decreased (almost recently to the point of extinction), intra-state violence has increased. This type of war is particularly brutal, the dehumanisation of the other side, who just yesterday was perhaps your brother, friend or grocer particularly savage and the cost to civilians rather than to soldiers especially large (in fact, most of the casualties of war these days are civilians.)
We are not a target because of our close relations to the US (Japan, South Korea etc). We are a target (to certain groups) because our foreign policy so often follows the USA's. It is not in the USA's best interests to allow a close ally to get nuked without any kind of response. It shows them as being weak in the face of whichever enemy has just dared to attack their ally and means that their other allies start to reconsider their options, their militaries and whether it is actually beneficial to them to be allied to the US. The US is interested in stopping nuclear proliferation, not because it wants to eliminate nuclear weapons but because it helps keep the technology to a small few, of which they are the most powerful. If in this ridiculous scenario, the UK gets nuked without any response from the US, suddenly Japan, South Korea, Australia, Germany and so many other countries start considering whether they should be building nukes as well.
And this is what it comes down to, for the politicians and others. It 'gives us a voice'. In essence, we want to be heard. It has nothing to do with self defence anymore or a deterrent.
As for those countries
North Korea has absolutely no designs on the UK whatsoever, which is what Cameron's recent comments both alarming and hilarious for me. NK don't give a fudge about the UK and their missiles, even the ones in development, can barely even reach Iran, let alone Europe. I think he should be made to explain why he's trying to pull a Blair on the country.
China is more interested in soft power and becoming a trading superpower. If/when the time comes to rise, it will be as a threat to the US, not us. Not to mention that they're bordered by 4 nuclear states.
Russia has a stockpile of weapons left over from the cold war. Putin is more interested in selling oil and gas than threatening Britain.
Intelligence chiefs have consistently said that Iran is not building a nuke. EU, American (including the head of the intelligence) and Israeli. And if they do try to build one, it won't be because they want to threaten the UK. It will be because they want to have a deterrent to them becoming the latest American Middle Eastern project.
Pakistan is surrounded by India (a nuclear armed country they've fought multiple wars with), China (a nuclear armed state), Afghanistan (an essentially lawless country) and Russia even further to the north. I have never seen any indication that Pakistan want to bomb the UK.
Some of us seem to still be living in the cold war era or want to convince ourselves that we're still big shots on the international stage. We're not under threat from nation states, nuclear armed or otherwise. Trident is not 'vital' at all, there are many countries above and around us, in both GDP and GDP/ capita, who have no nuclear deterrent and they get along just fine.
Baleforce
Les Bennett
its not just about people physically in the UK, we have forces all over the globe, we have commitments to help defend other nations who don't have a ND, and what happens when these other nuclear powers put their weapons on subs
the NHS is failing under the weight of the bureaucracy behind it not lack of funding, the estimates for a replacement for trident to cover us for the next 40 years or so are around the same cost as what the NHS burns through in 12 months
the NHS is failing under the weight of the bureaucracy behind it not lack of funding, the estimates for a replacement for trident to cover us for the next 40 years or so are around the same cost as what the NHS burns through in 12 months
The Moonlit Knight
Banned
Hey how would you fix the Euro crisis? There is no money to spend I don't think and your NHS has always been brick. Can't believe you guys have stuck with it as long as you have. It's a broken model man, you guys need to move on!
parklane1
Tony Galvin
Is that opinion based on your knowledge of living here and having used the NHS, or are you just blowing off hot air.
braineclipse
Terry Dyson
Would you agree that the real threat posed by nuclear deterrents have been an important factor in the peaceful progress that has been made in all of Western Europe and North America along with most of post-cold war eastern Europe? Perhaps even the most important factor?
The situation right now looks good, but things change and things can change somewhat quickly and unexpectedly. It seems to me a good thing that at least some western European nations keep up and even stay ahead of the curve. 1 billion pounds is a fairly solid chunk of change, you could probably build a half decent Premier League side with that money. If it can decrease the likelyhood of even a medium sized war by a fairly small percentage it seems like a solid investment from a risk/reward standpoint to me.
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I listened to an episode of a podcast today, a show called Common Sense by Dan Carlin. It's a very good podcasts for some politics, he generally brings up a lot of points not brought up by the mainstream media all that often, but he's not in any way some wide left or right nutter either.
The latest episode that was essentially exclusively on North Korea can be found here: http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/cs (don't be put off by the website design, I have no idea what's going on there. The podcast can obviously be found in all the other places people find podcasts)
He brings up a good and balanced viewpoint, not a lot of points that haven't been raised in this thread as it were, but for anyone wanting a 40ish minutes run down of the situation with some of the history behind the conflict in the mix I would recommend it.
braineclipse
Terry Dyson
You bring up some good points, I agree fully on the world not becoming a more violent place. Another point to that is that violence must surely be seen compared to population size, not just in overall deaths or wars. I haven't seen any numbers on it that were solid that I can remember, but I wouldn't be surprised if we were living in some of the most peaceful times in a very long time.
I think your analysis of the current status quo is a solid one too, but like in my previous post I want to bring up just how difficult it is to predict the future and just how quickly changes can happen. No one expected the Spanish inquisition I suppose is the cliche. No one expected the cold war to suddenly end would probably be a better and much more relevant saying at this point in time. The very same Dan Carlin as I mention in my post above also has a history podcast, some fantastic stuff presented in it. He uses a saying in there - "historical wildcard" or something to that effect. Point being that those things that to us now seem almost inevitable in the cold light of our hindsight bias were very difficult to predict before they happened. The only safe assumption as I see it would be to assume that we can't accurately predict what will happen next and we should plan for most eventualities we can think of.
I think nuclear weapons have done a lot of good for the world in deterring major conflict and preventing the kind of suffering from war that you describe so well. The continued presence of such a deterring effect seems to me to be something that we (Europe, as I'm Norwegian) cannot afford to lose even if it right now seems a bit unnecessary.
Robbo
Paul Walsh
A lot of tension in the region today - surely, even if North Korea don't attack in any way, something must be done about that regime now? The threats of attacks, starvation of their own people, etc. Obviously the NK leadership will be fudged if they try anything fishy, like attacking South Korea, but will China/US/UN intervene anyway?
In other news, this is Kim Jong Un on Swedish television:
In other news, this is Kim Jong Un on Swedish television: