The Student Room Group

What are your views on the trident nuclear deterrent?

I'm in favour of nuclear weapons but I'd hope the government comes up with a cheaper alternative to trident as the new submarines will cost about 30 billion.

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Waste of money but unfortunately nuclear weapons are like the wheel once invented you 'uninvent' them!

So it's money we need to waste, unfortunately
Reply 2
I am in favour of denuclearisation but if we denuclearise there would still be threats from russia or china. If we wanted to save money we could be in a treaty with another country like the usa or france that would save us a lot of money we could use on our more vital sectors.
We need the nuclear deterrent more than ever now, it's been far more influential than the eu in keeping peace in Europe and around the world.
we need these horrible weapons to protect our country from various evil regimes.
Reply 5
hear hear
Original post by the bear
we need these horrible weapons to protect our country from various evil regimes.
Well, first of all, I think we need somebody absolutely that we can trust, who is totally responsible; who really knows what he or she is doing. That is so powerful and so important. And one of the things that I’m frankly most proud of is that in 2003, 2004, I was totally against going into Iraq because you’re going to destabilize the Middle East. I called it. I called it very strongly. And it was very important.

But we have to be extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear. Nuclear changes the whole ball game. Frankly, I would have said get out of Syria; get out if we didn’t have the power of weaponry today. The power is so massive that we can’t just leave areas that 50 years ago or 75 years ago we wouldn’t care. It was hand-to-hand combat.
even after Brexit some countries will envy us and try to take us over.
Bit of a vanity project. Would make more sense to invest it on new ships or aircraft -- which are being actively used day-to-day. But what can you do.
Reply 9
Original post by Ollie_16
I'm in favour of nuclear weapons but I'd hope the government comes up with a cheaper alternative to trident as the new submarines will cost about 30 billion.


We must retain the ability to deter nuclear attack through retaliatory nuclear strikes. The world is uncertain and Russia has proved aggressive to the west over the last decade.

The cost is actually over thirty years so at 3bn per year, I consider it a bargain.
Original post by Ollie_16
I'm in favour of nuclear weapons but I'd hope the government comes up with a cheaper alternative to trident as the new submarines will cost about 30 billion.

It's often quite hard to detect any sane or intellectual processing in major government spending decisions and Trident is one of them.

The reality behind Trident is that it's a little offshore addition to US defence sales, designed by the UK to keep the US sweet and to lengthen their production lines to make each weapon just slightly more affordable. Beyond that, it isn't an independent deterrent (because the US has to be consulted first before use) and it is regarded by the US as owned by them - as demonstrated clearly in arms negotiation talks with Russia in the past, where the US put the UK Trident on the table as part of the deal without even consulting with the UK, because they know they don't need to bother.

Essentially we should see Trident as part of the loss of income all of us have to suffer in order to toady to our Lords and Masters across the pond.
Reply 11
Look at France they use Nuclear Weapons from their air force the cost would work out cheaper if we have a deterrent like them instead of using trident. If we do this we can use the excess money on health, education and policing.
Original post by Rakas21
We must retain the ability to deter nuclear attack through retaliatory nuclear strikes. The world is uncertain and Russia has proved aggressive to the west over the last decade.

The cost is actually over thirty years so at 3bn per year, I consider it a bargain.
100% for it.

...and admittedly 100% biased because I was raised by a submariner.
Original post by the bear
we need these horrible weapons to protect our country from various evil regimes.

Original post by Ollie_16
hear hear


It's not a sovereign nuclear deterrent, it's a weapon of mass destruction just like all the other weapons of mass destruction. Let's not euphemise!

What if, after a decade or two, the ''evil regime'' turns out to be us? There is exactly one nation on Earth that we can denuclearise quickly and easily - shouldn't we take advantage of that?
Original post by anosmianAcrimony
What if, after a decade or two, the ''evil regime'' turns out to be us? There is exactly one nation on Earth that we can denuclearise quickly and easily - shouldn't we take advantage of that?

Then these mofos are going for a tumble.
no. the world has become massively more unstable in the last 5 years. we need to keep the big stick.
Reply 16
If we denuclearise that would leave us vulnerable to invasion. I am in favour of getting rid of nuclear weapons as I perceive it to be a waste of our economies money however we feel compelled as nation to protect ourselves. There should be an organisation set up between nuclear weapon states working towards denuclearisation together and not just us individually.
Original post by anosmianAcrimony
It's not a sovereign nuclear deterrent, it's a weapon of mass destruction just like all the other weapons of mass destruction. Let's not euphemise!

What if, after a decade or two, the ''evil regime'' turns out to be us? There is exactly one nation on Earth that we can denuclearise quickly and easily - shouldn't we take advantage of that?
Original post by Notoriety
Bit of a vanity project. Would make more sense to invest it on new ships or aircraft -- which are being actively used day-to-day. But what can you do.


Trident is actively used every day, there's always a Royal Navy submarine carrying the weapons at sea somewhere.
Original post by jameswhughes
Trident is actively used every day, there's always a Royal Navy submarine carrying the weapons at sea somewhere.

The nuclear weapons are not used. Submarines are, aye. We have a bunch of them which don't carry nuclear warheads which could do the job of patrolling the oceans and seas just as effectively as the Trident carriers.
Original post by the bear
no. the world has become massively more unstable in the last 5 years. we need to keep the big stick.

A big stick that can never be used is not much of a stick.

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