Sigh......

Trident Replacement Concept Contract Signed

If we accept, as I do, that the MAD concept isn’t flawed, why should we or Europe in general expect the US to provide our ultimate insurance policy? Well, I don’t know; perhaps some representative Americans would shed some welcome light on that. The simplistic answer to that basic question is NATO as the Treaty obliges the Member States to defend against any attack on one or more of the Signatories. That said, does it oblige a Member State to commit suicide in the process? Again, I don’t know.

Who is our Nuclear Deterrent intended to deter? Assuming the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty works, USA, Russia, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and N. Korea (sorry; nearly included S. Africa!) who, at the moment are all our friends? Apart from the obvious ones, which of those States can be guaranteed to remain our friends in times of increasing population and dwindling available resources? Let’s, for the sake of argument, pick our new friend Russia. Capitalism is alive and well there and they are not going to readily upset their new means of wealth creation on points of political dogma. Bearing in mind all the political/ethnic time bombs that Stalin inserted into the former USSR, what constitutes “dogma”? Russia needs resources, as do the rest of us, from foreign sources and, importantly, regions that it believes are Russian by right (Arctic Circle ring any bells?) and will likely assert claims over them. Russia has resources that we may increasingly need (gas?) and, although currently happy to meet by fair trade, may choose to do otherwise in the future. Failed trade agreements can become political and, as good old Von Clausewitz observed, war is "continuation of politics by other means". The salient point is, we don’t know who, where or why will be the source of future conflict. We also don’t know if Russia would make life in Europe difficult without concurrently antagonising the USA. I reiterate the point that I use Russia as a hypothetical example here.

The other recurrent argument is the credibility of the British IND (this is not directed at those who believe that isn’t independent as that would be truly futile) and the significance of our relatively small “throw weight”. Would we use it on the big day? Who knows; Dennis Healey wouldn’t but Jim Callaghan would have. Certainty would be an obvious advantage but even uncertainty can seriously bugger up an opponent’s decision making. Our throw weight is limited by SALT 2 but it would be sufficient to cause any opponent so much pain and grief to be probably not worth his (or her) while. What weight would we throw on the big day? The full provisioned Outfit or a fraction of it? Again, who knows? And that uncertainty diminishes any opponent’s planning options. For now at least, it doesn’t take the brains of an Archbishop to work out what financial saving there would be in sending Boats on patrol with part warloads: oh, did I miss out the phrase “if any”?


Getting rid of something that we could, probably, never legally get back is a big gamble on ones future political, commercial and, dare I say, ethnic survival.

Hansard: Nuclear Submarines

Nick Harvey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the implications are for the number of deployed warheads of the announcement in the White Paper CM6994 that the stockpile of operationally available warheads will be reduced from 200 to 160; and if he will make a statement. [108791]

Des Browne: As set out in Box 2-1 of the White Paper “The Future of the United Kingdom's Nuclear Deterrent” (Cm 6994), published on 4 December 2006, normally only one Trident submarine is on deterrent patrol at any one time, with up to 48 warheads on board..........

How long could the UK maintain Trident if the US withdrew its support?

(1) Why can't UK build its own functional equivalent of Trident? Keep British jobs at home for the lads, and so on.

(2) Why not build submarines similar to the Virginia class, which have vertical launch tubes for either Tomahawk cruise missiles, antiship missiles, or larger torpedos?

(2.a) I'd suggest building a ballistic missile small enough to fit in those tubes. This missile might carry either nuclear or non-noo-klur warheads.

The basic idea is to have multi-role submarines, instead of specialized, use-only-on-Doomsday ballistic missile boats.

A Quick Question..
 

From the 2006 Defence White paper on the subject...

So if Trident is not designed for use, how does it deter?

I believe it's a way of saying that it's not intended for 1st strike within a conflict. There will be variations of that within a true nuclear stand-off.