Sunday 25 April 2010
Does Britain Still Need a Nuclear Deterrent?
There probably is no better time to debate this than now, with a General Election imminent and swingeing cuts in public spending sure to follow. Following Chas King's welcome posting, in which he expressed his support for the retention of nuclear weapons, I think it is a matter that should be discussed. On the one hand, there is no longer a Cold War, and the money spent on nuclear weapons could be better spent elsewhere. On the other hand, is it wise to scrap nuclear weapons when "rogue states" such as Iran and North Korea are acquiring them? What views do we hold on the subject?
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It would be great to scrap Nuclear Weapons and save money but the problem is India, Pakistan, North Korea, Russia and Israel have Nuclear Weapons and Iran soon. The earth will be ruled by who has the energy supply, currently Russia is building a Gas Pipeline through the Baltics to skirt Ukraine. This gas will be supplied to Europe, apart from Norway and expensive imports from Qatar they could hold us to ransom. I favour Nuclear Weapons as a deterent.
ReplyDeleteOur government has not ruled out first use of nuclear weapons, which would make us the aggressors. I don’t want my country to be the aggressor, and judging by the hostility of most British people to the non-nuclear wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I would judge that they’d feel the same way about first use of nuclear weapons. If we use our weapons in retaliation, then the reality of nuclear weapons is that we’d have already lost: by the time we deploy our weapons, millions of us British citizens would already be dead. The phrase used to be Mutually Assured Destruction, abbreviated to MAD – suitable phrase, suitable acronym. This phrase was used by nuclear-armed governments; CND merely adopted it.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to a death toll that could dwarf that of the Second World War (for which estimates range from 50 to 80 million), a nuclear conflagration would result in a nuclear winter as a result of all the smoke thrown into the atmosphere from burning cities across the globe. Some of the smoke would get into upper atmosphere above the rain clouds (so it wouldn’t be washed out of the skies) and would block out the sun, potentially for years to come. This is not disputed by scientists; the only point of debate is the severity. A significant drop in temperatures would affect agriculture all over the world, thus causing mass starvation on an unimaginable scale. Massive use of nuclear weapons could plunge temperatures in many parts of the globe, including the tropics, to below zero.
In an age when we have a President of the USA who is committed to working for multilateral nuclear disarmament, our government’s proposals to replace Trident at a cost (they say) of £76,000 million are perverse. This being government procurement, the real costs will be much higher. With the current recession and the massive levels of debt Britain is already saddled with, where will all this money come from?
Mass murder and climate change on a scale that would make our present worries on that issue paltry by comparison don’t make me feel safer, and impoverishing this country to such a degree won’t leave much for our children and grandchildren to look forward to.
I would not expect a full scale Nuclear War but a limited nuclear war (sometimes attack or exchange), refers to a small scale use of nuclear weapons by one or more parties. A "limited nuclear war" would consist of a limited exchange between two nuclear powers targeting each others military facilities, either as an attempt to pre-emptively cripple the enemy's ability to attack as a defensive measure or as a prelude to an invasion by conventional forces as an offensive measure. This term would apply to any limited use of nuclear weapons, which may involve either military or civilian targets.
ReplyDeleteThe third most worrying type of nuclear attack will come in the form of a dirty bomb whereby terrorists will obtain/steal radioactive isotopes from industry and incorporate them into a conventional bomb. The Alpha and Beta contamination from this will be spread over a large area and the gamma rays produced will be extremely harmfull for the length of their half life. MI5 are trying to control the security of the movement, operation and transportation of such devices which are stored in Depleted Uranium containers.
ReplyDeleteI had a disgruntled employee who threw one of my isotopes into the River Tyne. Had the source been exposed it could have been fatal for a human being within three minutes. Luckily it stayed in its DU container.
It is only a matter of time before one falls into the wrong hands.
So, nuclear bombs make us safer even though you envisage a limited war between nuclear powers? And precisely how do you limit a nuclear war? Once they start flying, there's no final whistle you can blow to keep it tactical and limited. It's like Churchill saying he'd fight a limited war against Hitler. Our country might limit what we use, but how do you ensure your opponent reciprocates? You can't; escalation would be the most likely outcome.
ReplyDeleteThe outcomes I described in my first comment are not dependent on every bomb being used ~ climate change would definitely follow a nuclear war, the degree of which would depend on how many weapons are used, which once a war began we couldn't control. To hold the views you do, you must be content with the possibiity that you and everyone you know and love may well be incinerated or injured, both physically and genetically. I couldn't be that callous.
We're told the biggest threat to us is the so-called War on Terror. Having nuclear weapons did not prevent the September 11th bombings in the USA or the 7th July bombings in London. They also couldn't stop a dirty bomb.
I've had people say to me, "they'll never use the bomb", forgetting we already have. The people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima are not as blasé about the possibility of nuclear war as you are; they've experienced it, unlike you and me.
The recruitment processes and security where you worked must have been dire.
I think you misundestand me, I do not for any reason want a Nuclear War, the point I am making and I apologise if it is not coming across is that by having a Nuclear Weapons facility we are less likely to encounter a nuclear atack. AS it was the USA, Britain and Europe who invented the dam things in the first place we are now stuck with them. It is our own fault but we can not be withoutthem now.
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