The Student Room Group

New poll shows public opinion split on Trident

Scroll to see replies

Original post by Drewski
Using the Spain incident to back you up on that is hardly representative, especially when you get it wrong.
1, there were 4 weapons, not 5, only 3 of which landed on Spanish soil - the fifth landed at sea. None detonated.
2, they did not cause loss of life, massive or otherwise. The fatalities that occurred happened due to the mid air collision that caused the weapons to be dropped. Mid air collisions happen regardless of weapons carried or reasons for flying.
3, using Japan is poor and misleading as you can't compare the actions used in total warfare. We killed just as many in Dresden, we just didn't use nukes.



I'm not really trying to advance an argument other than nukes are a bad idea and the US or any other government can hardly claim the moral high ground and demand that others cant develop them whilst they keep theirs.

I suppose an important detail is that when a conventional bomb drops, its effects are immediate and limited in scope whereas if a nuke drops and it activates then there is widespread loss of life, destruction and the follow on effects of contamination of both people, land and the marine environment as happened in Japan x2 and Spain x 1.
Original post by TimmonaPortella
This is the most hilarious illustration of backwards thought from him.

We're going to get rid of the actually useful part of the operation, but keep the rest for no other purpose than to keep people on the public payroll. :laugh:

Anyway, it doesn't matter what the public thinks on this. Trident renewal is going to happen, so labour may as well move along and stop tearing itself apart over it.


There's starting to be a real groundswell this time about the waste that Trident represents. It isn't as easy for the right to press the usual patriotism hot buttons as it used to be - they need to actually make valid arguments.

Most of it is utterly absurd, as it isn't independent and never has been (that is one of the big myths we live under - it couldn't be fired without US permission and therefore is part of the US arsenal anyway), nobody now alive would care if we could and did retaliate as we would mostly be dead or dying, which kind of invalidates the idea that it 'defends' us in any meaningful way, the 'deterrent' is no different and adds nothing to the existing and overwhelmingly massive US deterrent, it is stonkingly expensive, it's the wrong solution for the age of freelance terror movements and states and it is hopelessly vulnerable to new technologies like super hacking and drones.

In short, it's yesterday's solution, but the cost falls on us today and stops the country from doing many much more useful things.
Original post by LeoAngliae
Doesn't the poll show that 51% support renewal, while only 10% support Corbyn's plan and only 20% support not renewing?

That is broadly consistent with other polls showing 2-to-1 majority in favour of renewal


I never realised that was the public consensus. I fully support the UK's nuclear deterrent and the renewal of trident, but on this issue I fell for the 'noisy minority' fallacy and assumed public opinion was against it. I'm quite relieved tbh.
Original post by Fullofsurprises

Most of it is utterly absurd, as it isn't independent and never has been (that is one of the big myths we live under - it couldn't be fired without US permission and therefore is part of the US arsenal anyway),


That's completely not true. The US has a huge rule in the manufacturing process but they have no control over our usage of them.
Original post by pol pot noodles
That's completely not true. The US has a huge rule in the manufacturing process but they have no control over our usage of them.


Previous foreign and defence secretaries have confirmed that it is not independent.

That's why President Obama (and some previous Presidents) have felt happy to thrown them into nuclear reductions bargaining with the Soviets and now Russia, without even asking the Brits.
http://www.theweek.co.uk/politics/45658/nonsense-heart-britains-independent-nuclear-defence

They could never be fired without US approval and it has been falsely assumed that this is so for many years, a myth successive PMs have been happy to permit, as it makes them sound butch. ('Finger on the nuclear button', etc, etc.)
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/dan-plesch-britains-independent-deterrent-is-purely-a-political-myth-323505.html
Original post by Fullofsurprises
Previous foreign and defence secretaries have confirmed that it is not independent.

That's why President Obama (and some previous Presidents) have felt happy to thrown them into nuclear reductions bargaining with the Soviets and now Russia, without even asking the Brits.
http://www.theweek.co.uk/politics/45658/nonsense-heart-britains-independent-nuclear-defence

They could never be fired without US approval and it has been falsely assumed that this is so for many years, a myth successive PMs have been happy to permit, as it makes them sound butch. ('Finger on the nuclear button', etc, etc.)
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/dan-plesch-britains-independent-deterrent-is-purely-a-political-myth-323505.html


You repeatedly trot out these accusations, but they're simply not true.

It is a completely independent deterrent. Once the missiles are in our possession they're 100% under our control. We don't require guidance, permission or anything else that you think we do. In fact, the article you quote proves that they don't know what they're talking about. It says:
"that firing the missiles without US supplied data and satellites is almost impossible".

That's untrue. They're not guided by GPS, they don't use satellites. They're programmed by inertial navigation systems that look at the stars for a precise fix.

Are you really trying to imply that the US controls stars? I know you have severe anti-US and anti-military tendencies, but when you let those defy all semblance of logic you do your intellect a gross disservice.


Whether a PM would seek said guidance is another matter. The fact is they are not required to.
(edited 8 years ago)
Reply 26
The cost of renewing Trident will be about $40 billion over the next decade, according to the military itself.

This is a whopping amount of money from our coffers to American ones.

More than that, what a lot of people don't know (aren't told, really) is how nuclear 'obsolescence' works. Warheads don't have an expiry date. What obsolescence means to say is that some of the countries with the best defensive technology might be able to stop the nuke getting through.

In other words, unless we want to pay $40b to maintain the guaranteed capability to fire nukes on Russia, China, or, er... America (maybe that last one's not so bad JK), it's a big bill which I genuinely don't see the need for. Especially 'cause, sure, with Trident we could probably take out St. Petersburg, or Guangzhou or even Washington D.C. But then when their capability comes as a counter-attack, we're completely ****ed.

I'm not even suggesting that we necessarily stop the $40b going through to military purposes. But Trident's still perfectly effective for if we want to blow up Daesh, or Kim Jong-Un. Meanwhile, you could spend that money on much better armour and personnel vehicles (ours are abysmal!) and on getting some of the troops back on the pay-roll. You know, some of the ~35% that Hunger Chancellor Osborne, without warning or given reason, laid off (I wonder how many top admirals got laid off? None most likely).



Edit: to answer the above, although we do maintain the right as to this being our own independent weapon, it IS true (admittedly according to my Dad, who probably thinks there's fairies at the bottom of the garden after his customary bottle of wine) that we've not once fired any kind of major explosive at co-ordinates the Yanks haven't provided to us. Don't get me wrong, they were a good target to hit for both of us, but it remains a bit of a cringe system: buy weapons from the Americans, fire weapons at targets they appreciate us doing so, buy more weapons from the Americans.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Shotte
The cost of renewing Trident will be about $40 billion over the next decade, according to the military itself.

This is a whopping amount of money from our coffers to American ones.

More than that, what a lot of people don't know (aren't told, really) is how nuclear 'obsolescence' works. Warheads don't have an expiry date. What obsolescence means to say is that some of the countries with the best defensive technology might be able to stop the nuke getting through.

In other words, unless we want to pay $40b to maintain the guaranteed capability to fire nukes on Russia, China, or, er... America (maybe that last one's not so bad JK), it's a big bill which I genuinely don't see the need for. Especially 'cause, sure, with Trident we could probably take out St. Petersburg, or Guangzhou or even Washington D.C. But then when their capability comes as a counter-attack, we're completely ****ed.

I'm not even suggesting that we necessarily stop the $40b going through to military purposes. But Trident's still perfectly effective for if we want to blow up Daesh, or Kim Jong-Un. Meanwhile, you could spend that money on much better armour and personnel vehicles (ours are abysmal!) and on getting some of the troops back on the pay-roll. You know, some of the ~35% that Hunger Chancellor Osborne, without warning or given reason, laid off (I wonder how many top admirals got laid off? None most likely).


1, a large percentage of that money stays in the UK. It's the wages of the RN personnel, it's to the AWE, its to BAE for the subs.
2, the notion that any money not spent on Trident would then go into conventional arms is nice but entirely without basis in reality.
3, since Afghanistan our personnel vehicles have actually improved massively and are now among the very best in the world.
(edited 8 years ago)
Reply 28
Original post by Fullofsurprises
There's starting to be a real groundswell this time about the waste that Trident represents. It isn't as easy for the right to press the usual patriotism hot buttons as it used to be - they need to actually make valid arguments.

Most of it is utterly absurd, as it isn't independent and never has been (that is one of the big myths we live under - it couldn't be fired without US permission and therefore is part of the US arsenal anyway), nobody now alive would care if we could and did retaliate as we would mostly be dead or dying, which kind of invalidates the idea that it 'defends' us in any meaningful way, the 'deterrent' is no different and adds nothing to the existing and overwhelmingly massive US deterrent, it is stonkingly expensive, it's the wrong solution for the age of freelance terror movements and states and it is hopelessly vulnerable to new technologies like super hacking and drones.

In short, it's yesterday's solution, but the cost falls on us today and stops the country from doing many much more useful things.


Will you stop repeating that ******** myth about permission? You have no evidence for it and it has been pointed out to you on at least 3 occasions by myself and other users that you are wrong.

I'm also skeptical about how you would know it was vulnerable to hacking or drones.

Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by Aj12
Will you stop repeating that ******** myth about permission? You have no evidence for it and it has been pointed out to you on at least 3 occasions by myself and other users that you are wrong.

I'm also skeptical about how you would know it was vulnerable to hacking or drones.

Posted from TSR Mobile


"Our independent nuclear deterrent is not independent and doesn't constitute a deterrent against anybody that we regard as an enemy. It is a waste of money and it is a diversion of funds that might otherwise be spent on perfectly useful and useable weapons and troops. But some people have not caught up with this reality."

Michael Portillo, former Conservative Defence Secretary.
http://www.cnduk.org/cnd-media/item/2140-former-conservative-defence-secretary-slams-trident-replacement
Reply 30
Original post by Drewski
1, a large percentage of that money stays in the UK. It's the wages of the RN personnel, it's to the AWE, its to BAE for the subs.
2, the notion that any money not spent on Trident would then go into conventional arms is nice but entirely without basis in reality.
3, since Afghanistan our personnel vehicles have actually improved massively and are now among the very best in the world.


Addressed in order:

To be fair I don't know either, but I'm not convinced on the percentage of that money. Yank arms aren't cheap. I was honestly surprised by how (relatively) reasonable the $40b seemed. I'd need more information before I can make a judgment there, though I would argue that I don't believe you have enough to make that call either.

However, I think it's nigh-objective that the Trident money could be better used practically anywhere besides Trident. Trident's only purpose in its renewal serves as our little way to maintain a delusion that we're a world-class military threat: we're not. We haven't been since the Second World War downed our coffers (it was a little touch-and-go even before then). If there's anything we are at the world-class for, though, it's our infantrymen which could do well to be better equipped and most of all, more numerous than under Osborne's new scheme.

It's true our personnel vehicles have improved (more so than I'd thought, actually, now I look into it), but we're still missing some key pieces such as landmine + IED resistant sloping-bottomed armoured vehicles. To re-iterate, Trident renewed is no more use than Trident current unless we want to start some ridiculous beef with Russia, China or America, who would undoubtedly crush us under their boots if it really did come to it.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Shotte
but we're still missing some key pieces such as landmine + IED resistant sloping-bottomed armoured vehicles.


No we're not. Look at the Cougar, the Mastiff and the Foxhound. All have some degree of slope built into them for IED and landmine resistance.
Reply 32
I'll very gladly tip my hat to your much-superior army knowledge (I didn't even know the latter two APCs existed), however, I don't see how this makes Trident suddenly a good idea.

I posited spending Trident money on alternative arms as what I'd hoped to be something approaching a consensus policy. Maybe, as you say, this is not as good or valuable an idea as I'd hoped. That's my bad, but in which case I'd simply shrug and say that the Trident money could be better used spent literally anywhere else, as Trident seems to me little more than an expensive political opportunity. If I have any criticism of Corbyn over the issue, it's that he's actually not trumpeting the effectiveness of Trident as is enough. You don't have to be some 'yo man, disarm nuclear weapons man' kind of guy to see that it ain't broke against I'd say 100% of our likely enemies (my friend said we might have trouble with Russia, but if we were, to the degree we're throwing nuclear weapons at each other, R.I.P Britannia), and we therefore shouldn't spent a wodge on fixing it.
Original post by Fullofsurprises
Previous foreign and defence secretaries have confirmed that it is not independent.

That's why President Obama (and some previous Presidents) have felt happy to thrown them into nuclear reductions bargaining with the Soviets and now Russia, without even asking the Brits.
http://www.theweek.co.uk/politics/45658/nonsense-heart-britains-independent-nuclear-defence

They could never be fired without US approval and it has been falsely assumed that this is so for many years, a myth successive PMs have been happy to permit, as it makes them sound butch. ('Finger on the nuclear button', etc, etc.)
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/dan-plesch-britains-independent-deterrent-is-purely-a-political-myth-323505.html


They've confirmed its not independently manufactured. There is absolutely no evidence in the slightest to prove your assertion they need American permission to fire. Obama's anti-British agenda doesn't prove it.
That's typical British left-wing self-deprecation.
Reply 34
Original post by Fullofsurprises
"Our independent nuclear deterrent is not independent and doesn't constitute a deterrent against anybody that we regard as an enemy. It is a waste of money and it is a diversion of funds that might otherwise be spent on perfectly useful and useable weapons and troops. But some people have not caught up with this reality."

Michael Portillo, former Conservative Defence Secretary.
http://www.cnduk.org/cnd-media/item/2140-former-conservative-defence-secretary-slams-trident-replacement


One quote that he puts little context behind and makes childish swipes at other experienced men who disagree with him. Overwhelming.

Posted from TSR Mobile
Polls can say all they want, ultimately though it's what the majority think, not the minor sample taken, especially if it;s from one of those self-selecting polls that infest the media, in which people have to go out their way to actively participate in it.

What we know: Trident is a sliver of the defence budget, which is pretty mediocre in itself.
Nuclear disarmament is a pipe-dream, just as nuclearphobia is irrational and pointless. It wasn't just good intentions that have kept the globe from WW3.
A country without nukes if not making itself noticeably more vulnerable loses influence and stature amongst the community of nations.
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
Stupid trot.


:rofl:

It's almost comedic how when a former Tory defence minister is quoted as saying it isn't independent, all the Trident-drooling nukemongers rush to denounce him, when originally he was the poster child for Thatcherite harshness.

Live and learn. :rolleyes:
Original post by Studentus-anonymous
Polls can say all they want, ultimately though it's what the majority think, not the minor sample taken, especially if it;s from one of those self-selecting polls that infest the media, in which people have to go out their way to actively participate in it.

What we know: Trident is a sliver of the defence budget, which is pretty mediocre in itself.
Nuclear disarmament is a pipe-dream, just as nuclearphobia is irrational and pointless. It wasn't just good intentions that have kept the globe from WW3.
A country without nukes if not making itself noticeably more vulnerable loses influence and stature amongst the community of nations.


Even if the deterrent theory is right (and in practise it is damn dangerous to maintain large nuclear fleets pointed at Russia and China and the other way around, run by drunken, trigger happy, paranoid people in at least some cases and informed by old IT with many mishaps along the way), it would be cheaper and less hassle to simply pay the US to do it for us. In effect, that's what's happening anyway, except that due to our poodle/master relationship with the US, we have to shell out far more.

The concept that it's a sliver of the budget contains a large element of hype and spin - it's a massive final cost to the government, it always goes way over budget and the total bill for our generation will be vast.
Original post by Fullofsurprises
The concept that it's a sliver of the budget contains a large element of hype and spin


Which is in no way different to the opposite (your) side. You know perfectly well that numbers can be put together in a massive variety of ways to support any number of arguments.

Both sides are equally guilty of hyperbole and bovine feacal matter.
Original post by Drewski
Which is in no way different to the opposite (your) side. You know perfectly well that numbers can be put together in a massive variety of ways to support any number of arguments.

Both sides are equally guilty of hyperbole and bovine feacal matter.


Well, it's going to be hard for the pro-Tridentees (is that a word?) to hide the fact that the budget, predictably, is already surging upwards. It went up £6bn to £31bn in November, with the MoD keeping a further £10bn in reserve for additional expected costs!
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/23/trident-nuclear-renewal-costs-rise-by-6bn-defence-review-reveals

I suspect as usual it will surge up yet more and the final, final cost will be £50bn+, about the same as the amount the Chancellor is currently so desperate to cut off the deficit that he is going to put 50,000 disabled and frail elderly people out on the street.

Quick Reply

Latest