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is it just me or does that make no sense or is it cos im just a child

Lame Duck PM (Blair) firing a white elephant (Trident).

Thanks, Barmy. (Wow, they make you work for your political cartoons there.)

Just to throw something into the mix.
What's Trident for? (The new update). Is it like Blair says, because ''it would not be wise to try to predict the unpredictable in the times to come'' ?
This article suggests that neclear weapons are 'needed' by a state like Britain, not so much for defence, but for the status they bring. To keep a place at the top table.
Sounds about right to me.

Well, at whom will the WMDs be fired at? US? Russia? China? South Korea? None of these are prime targets. Some cave in Afghanistan then?

Is this the ethical international policy we were told about in 1997? Well, Robin Cook must be spinning in his tomb.

Some fucking status symbols! And they're trying to tell British youth that they shouldn't carry knives in case they just happen to use them.

Trident is useless anyway as an independent deterrent since we rely on the US to maintain them (and I understand to regularly change the codes).

Blair/Brown won't ditch trident because most of the tabloid reading public are too stupid to realise that it is totally irrelevent and useless and it will give the Tories an easy opportunity to label New Labour as weak on Defence.

It's party political. Trident is of no strategic use to the UK whatsoever.

But even if we did independently get rid of our nuclear weapons I very much doubt that anyone would take notice becuase it is only us Brits that think we matter a jot to the outside world.

Billy at Faslane on 6/12/06


http://www.faslane365.org/en/blockade_phot...ragg_roy_bailey

Agreed; arguably if the money was going to be spent on defence, the more hawkish elements would have preferred it to be spent on "conventional" forces.
However, it might give us something to put on the table if an international disarmament effort can be revived.

I was in CND in the 1980's (I was in a lot of things to be honest) I would keep Trident on balance, Why? Yes largely status and its related cousins, power and prestige.

I'm proud that we have a government that has introducded the minimum wage and raised the help to Africa to record levels for example. But we all in GB have a problem and it is this. The reason we are a wealthy country partly coincides with our membership of the UN security council, G8, Nato etc and our ownership of Nuclear weapons and our expertise in our armed forces. If we gave any of this away (just like if Scotland became independant and our states territory shrunk) we would be on a slippery slope to permenent decline.

I'm not proud of any of this or much of a defender of it but I am realistic, if we had a non nuclear England for example we would be a glorified city state of Greater London and I fear for my standard of living.

I was against the Iraq war but I do realise that as an economy we need the oil or we are f**ked.

Our problem is that while we (our society) will wear the make poverty history wristband, we don't want to give up our city breaks to Amsterdam or our driving to Sainsburys.

I think that I'm centre left on many things and centrist on others and definately no right winger but unless you want to smash the system you have to work with it.

I would love to see the billions spent on our transport system and our sink estates but it won't happen. I don't like the stock brokers who get on my train each morning but I want them to be sucessful so we can tax them and pay for the NHS.

I agree with nearly all of this except the link between prosperity and membership of the nuclear club.
Not having a seat on the security council or nuclear weapons hasn't impeded the economic success of Japan, Germany, Ireland or the Scandinavian countries.
And the status that goes with those things hasn't helped the Russian economy much recently, has it?

I was going to say this.

Being a nuclear power has always been about prestige. Just ask the French.

I think that it's more about geopolitics and perceived threat: in the 80s, it was predicted that Pakistan and India, Brazil and Argentina would be amongst the next generation of nuclear powers. The fact that the first pair now have nuclear weapons whilst the second pair don't is more the result of the level of tension within their respective regions than anything else.
Similarly, France and the UK became nuclear powers partly because they continued to harbour imperialist ambitions after WWII, partly because of their perception of the "Soviet threat" and (ironically, in the UK's case) because of mistrust of the USA. The concept of deterrence was critical (another irony is that Atlee was a major architect of the British Atomic Bomb).
If we are to rid the world of the threat that nuclear weapons pose, we have to address the question of regional and global tensions in a new way; the tragedy, if the UK renews Trident, will be the missed opportunity that it would represent to instigate a new phase of disarmament and non-proliferation.

There is one big problem with nuclear disarmament. The 'bomb' has been invented so until something else comes along that's more powerful having a few is a necessity as they can't be un-invented. The only country who've ever gone bacwards in this respect was Japan who turned their back on the gun (& the world) in the past. Their isolation was ended rather suddenly when a ship with big guns turned up in the 19th century demanding to trade. But whilst we need 'some' protection (I for one don't trust the US) Trident is completely over the top.

Of course the British bomb could be got rid of if Europe got hold of a few Euro-missiles. This would spread the cost to all of us. It would also have the added advantage of winding up the Daily Express (etc) something rotten !!