My Once In A Generation Cut? The Armed Forces. All Of Them

[talksalot81]

I am sure there are many terrorist organisations around the globe that would 'nuke us' in a heartbeat if they had the ways and means to do so.

Maintaining a credible deterrent makes other non West friendly nations think twice about giving them the ways and means!!

Firstly, these terrorists would not care whether we had the deterrent or not. If they got hold of a nuke, they would use it. End of story. Secondly, if one proposes that the deterrent is to stop unfriendly nuclear nations enabling such an action then I think one is somewhat mistaken about the way these things work. It would not be done openly whether deterrent were there or not. It would be intentionally secretive because the rest of the world would destroy them were they seen to be enabling nuclear terrorism.

Right now Britain's nuclear weapons don't have much use. However, the nuclear club can only expand and the world is an unpredictable place. If the doom-mongers are right and the USA collapses Britain's' independent (ish) nuclear arsenal would become more important.

Britain's power is it's ability to quickly wage war abroad, few other nations are capable of this. This ability allows it to broker peace between nations or opposing sides in civil war and to intervene directly (Gulf War 1, Kosovo). Britain's influence in the common wealth has some positive implications for trade, as well as it's influence within the EU. These "quantities" are therefore useful to people outside of Britain.

I agree that right now there is little to gain by threatening us, but Britain's allies are quite frequently threatened (South Korea, Japan and previously Kuwait) and any attack on them would have a major impact on Britain.

Britain is no longer my home nation. I live in New Zealand but I'm happy to defend Britain in arguments like this because I have a sound knowledge of history.

Even if the USA were to cease existing, what is to be gained by threatening the UK, had it no nuclear deterrent? In fact I would propose that the deterrent itself is almost the only reason we would be threatened by another nuclear power!!

[Cogs]

http://www.guardian....fantasy-enemies

We are safer than at any time since the Norman conquest. Yet £45bn is spent defending Britain against fantasy enemies

Well, it wasn't always for defence anyway, more defence of the "national interest". The Adam Smith capitalists might like to ponder the essay question "Discuss the role of the Royal Navy in the spread of capitalism". No man is an island, but, er, an actual island is. The received wisdom is that same still applies today and in that regard military power pays for itself. I'm not sure its that clear cut. It hasn't escaped my notice that we take de facto responsibility for the armed defence of tax havens amongst other things.

[the shaping machine]

What is to be gained by threatening the UK, had it no nuclear deterrent? In fact I would propose that the deterrent itself is almost the only reason we would be threatened by another nuclear power!!

Well, there is an argument that having nuclear capability is a comparatively cheap way of providing trump card home nation defence. You could then scale back the conventional forces, perhaps to a part-time reserve on the Swiss model.

However given that a large part of the defence budget is spent within the UK, cuts in this area (so moving a large number of people on to the dole) may not save as much as you hope.

.

[talksalot81]

Well, there is an argument that having nuclear capability is a comparatively cheap way of providing trump card home nation defence. You could then scale back the conventional forces, perhaps to a part-time reserve on the Swiss model.

However given that a large part of the defence budget is spent within the UK, cuts in this area (so moving a large number of people on to the dole) may not save as much as you hope.

.

That is the traditional view. But modern warfare is different. Most of the war that is going on is with those who don't have nukes and are not even slightly worried by them because they know the nuke is a useless weapon against terrorist (I use that broadly) organisation. They are scattered, the major cities may contain some of them but they may not - a nuke would be unable to remove such a threat, not unless you cared to nuke half the country to be sure...

I just don't think that the nuke is a deterrent to those who would actually threaten us in the modern world. The armed forces are another matter - they are the ones who actually defend us from modern threats.

[oracle]

That is the traditional view. But modern warfare is different. Most of the war that is going on is with those who don't have nukes and are not even slightly worried by them because they know the nuke is a useless weapon against terrorist (I use that broadly) organisation. They are scattered, the major cities may contain some of them but they may not - a nuke would be unable to remove such a threat, not unless you cared to nuke half the country to be sure...

I fear that one is coming.

think about it.....with a few strategically positioned attacks,a rogue group of terrorists can invoke a very prolonged period of attrition.

..not particularly good for a countries economy,let alone it's confidence.

so how would you deal with such a strategy?,do you let the attacks continue?

each time sending more and more troops and hardware on a wild-goose-chase,expending lots of time,money and effort chasing by-and-large bogeymen.?

or do you take the international political hit that comes with the "no-nonsense" approach?

your kind of damned if you do,and damned if you don't.....it's just a question of timescale.

[Cogs]

Accepting responsibility for Klendathu, Sky Marshall Deines resigns. His successor, Sky Marshall Tahat Maru outlines her new strategy "To fight the bug we must understand the bug, we can ill afford another Klendathu".

Would you like to know more?

[talksalot81]

I fear that one is coming.

think about it.....with a few strategically positioned attacks,a rogue group of terrorists can invoke a very prolonged period of attrition.

..not particularly good for a countries economy,let alone it's confidence.

so how would you deal with such a strategy?,do you let the attacks continue?

each time sending more and more troops and hardware on a wild-goose-chase,expending lots of time,money and effort chasing by-and-large bogeymen.?

or do you take the international political hit that comes with the "no-nonsense" approach?

your kind of damned if you do,and damned if you don't.....it's just a question of timescale.

But what or where do you nuke? Take Afganistan as example. One nuke isn't going to help - you will just pi$$ off the 95% of the terrorists who you failed to kill. Even destroying every city in the country wouldn't cut it because these guys often live isolated in the mountains. I don't see how you could use nukes to good effect and any effect I do see would probably only go to breed more of these fundamentalist types because the west has just proven the crap that the fundamental line is based around!

Where you would be right would be Iran (or similar). Enough screwing around with them, nuke the buggers and that is the end of it (clearly they don't believe anyone would do it though, else they wouldn't play the hard game they do). But we don't have any enemies of that kind. So again I don't see who the nuke is deterring for us. Of course what it does do is allows us to have a big say in what goes on in the world... which means that the nuclear deterrent is not a deterrent for our enemies at all. What it really serves to do is to threaten our friends to have a bigger say than we probably deserve.

[Krackersdave]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/08/cuts-armed-services-fantasy-enemies

We are safer than at any time since the Norman conquest. Yet £45bn is spent defending Britain against fantasy enemies

We are only safe BECAUSE we have a strong military and an alliance with the planets only superpower....

The first to put down his arms will the first to die.

[talksalot81]

We are only safe BECAUSE we have a strong military and an alliance with the planets only superpower....

The first to put down his arms will the first to die.

But who is going to kill us?! There is a lot of supposition yet no one has made an real suggestion as to who our deterrent is actually deterring!!

[Krackersdave]

But who is going to kill us?! There is a lot of supposition yet no one has made an real suggestion as to who our deterrent is actually deterring!!

Ok - and you don't see that the fact that no-one is threatening us is BECAUSE we have a deterrent?

[talksalot81]

Ok - and you don't see that the fact that no-one is threatening us is BECAUSE we have a deterrent?

I am fully aware of that. However, I am asking you to tell me who it is deterring. Who would become a threat were the deterrent not present? No one is answering inspite of my repeated questioning.

[Guest anorthosite]

Accepting responsibility for Klendathu, Sky Marshall Deines resigns. His successor, Sky Marshall Tahat Maru outlines her new strategy "To fight the bug we must understand the bug, we can ill afford another Klendathu".

Would you like to know more?

[RichB]

I am fully aware of that. However, I am asking you to tell me who it is deterring. Who would become a threat were the deterrent not present? No one is answering inspite of my repeated questioning.

Traditionally one of Spain, France, Germany or Russia. Though I reckon we can safely throw the US into that mix these days, and bin Spain. Probably. They can't afford it any more.

[rxe]

I am fully aware of that. However, I am asking you to tell me who it is deterring. Who would become a threat were the deterrent not present? No one is answering inspite of my repeated questioning.

The laundry list:

Iran - pretty obvious

Pretty much any country in the Middle East after a radical change of government

North Korea - all they need is a big rocket, though they'd probably go for the US first.

Any of Southern Africa once SA descends into anarchy.

Eastern European nuclear powers (old Russian nukes).

Over a 20 year timeline, any of these could get nasty, and that is the problem. You shouldn't be looking at today, you should be considering what might happen in a decade or so. Such weapons are extremely effective against an aggressive nation state - a launch is easy to detect, and anyone doing so knows that they will be turned into glass pebbles once a couple of hidden submarines unload.

No protection against terrorists, granted, but in the grand scheme of things, they don't bother me overly.