Trident: an empty and expensive threat.

Abandoning Trident would be an effective way to move forward in support of non proliferation.

When we look back from a United Kingdom free of nuclear weapons in the future,  we will recognise that Trident in the second decade of the 21st century was no more of a deterrent against nuclear attack than hanging was against murder in the 20th.
Both are inhumane measures that the indecent fear of the loss of votes prevented us from abandoning, long after other countries with more civilised values had moved forward.

I would make several points:
 1. Trident's sole purpose is political not military.
 2. Trident has defied logic as a deterrent ever since the Iraq war and the internet gave conscience a voice.
 3. Trident is a waste of money.


1  Politics. The main issue about Trident is a political one that is rarely discussed even though the political pressures directly contradict the concept of non-proliferation.

We have signed up to non-proliferation and yet at the same time only those that have retained nuclear weapons are qualified to be on the security council.

There are two key questions to be resolved before we debate Trident:
-- How do we change the make-up of the security council so that membership is not a disincentive to divesting of nuclear weapons?
- what pressure is the US putting on UK to retain Trident?

2  Trident defies logic as a deterrent.
 - There is no evidence that the British (as opposed to NATO/ US)  nuclear deterrent has had any effect on lack of nuclear attack on UK.
 - Deterrent principle is ethically very questionable ("If you attack us we will kill your whole family" is the strategy of the Mafia)
 - as well as being impractical. Unless we change our commitment to "first strike"  we are powerless to use nuclear weapons in the context of conventional weapons.  For example, it is no deterrent against the most likely threat from Putin: conventional forces.

and simply not credible. Name any target on the planet for Trident, second strike or not, where the "collateral damage"  caused by its use would not achieve universal disgust. What sane PM would take that step? (Would Sam speak to Cam ever again if he did?)
So it is difficult to believe that any potential aggressor would be deterred by what the most basic understanding of British public opinion would suggest is an empty threat.

3. Budget. As Max Hastings said back in January 2009:
"If defence is to be strategic rather than politically expedient, dump Trident.… money is better spent on an army which is constantly called upon to fight, rather than on a deterrent almost impossible to imagine being used."

Lastly. We can  not afford Trident when, apart from other services that deserve funding far more, we are not even prepared to pay for the care of our retired soldiers and leave that to charity. (Cameron has the nerve to say we should give more to Help for Heroes, which relies on payment by the relatively few with a heart, instead of providing a proper military budget funded by all through fair taxation?)

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