cassie

The Liberal Party is a unilateralist party: This is a major obstacle to my supporting it.

Neither does it provide for England to be regarded and treated as a nation in its own right.

Tom Wilde

Thanks for a very useful link! I'll definitely take a look there from time to time.

Tom Wilde

Correctamento.

During the eighties I argued hard with CND-supporting friends that we should keep our nuclear weapons. However, after the end of the Cold War I'm not sure how much sense it makes any more. Who are we meant to be deterring? The vast sums needed to upgrade Trident drains all the cash away from other branches of the military, leaving them short of decent kit for the jobs we actually ask them to do.

I was amused that the Labour Party, having been unilateralist for much of the period it actually made sense to have nuclear weapons, changed to supporting nuclear weapons as soon as the rationale for them disappeared.


Anyway, the Liberal Party's unilateralist stance is therefore something I now agree with.

cassie

QED

Thank you.

Britannist

The enemy. An enemy which may or may not now be identified. An enemy which may be presently keeping a low profile but who might emerge suddenly without warning.

Our country must have the best defences so that the people are not in danger. It takes years to develop new nuclear weapon systems (for countries that do not have nuclear weapons) but just minutes for an incoming intercontinental nuclear missile to reach its target.

The UK must have nuclear weapons: this is the 21st century - with new powers building up around the globe - and no one knows what future military threats there could be. How many knew at the start of the 20th century that two world wars were only a few decades away?

Another point to consider: the EU military wing is now under construction meaning that a nuclear-armed EU Superstate is about to emerge just 21 miles across the Channel from England.

The UK must keep nuclear weapons permanently to deter any potential aggressors.

The Labour Government is right to renew our nuclear deterrent. Their decision serves the national interest.

rjt

I totally offer full support for what you have said there, it is vital Britian retains the deterant and the ability as a nation state to decide whether it keeps such a deterant.

The decison was as you say in the national intrest.

__________________
Mr Delors said that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the community, The Commission to be The Executive and The Council Of Ministers The Senate. NO! NO! NO!
(Margaret Thatcher 30 Oct 1990)

Ignore List: The Prophets of ST Al the Unelectable.

cassie

I concur with your opinion as expressed above Britannist.

May I also point out that the Liberals have not defined what they mean by "all weapons of mass destruction"! This is to ask whether this includes chemical and bacteriological weapons, and any other types?

It is worth noting that both Kinnock and Blair (and others) were members of CND at one time and relinquished membership after their political careers had taken off! Lack of judgement or cynical expediency?


____________________________

Tom Wilde

Well, in defence spending as in so much else, yer pays yer money and takes yer choice.

You can either upgrade our nuclear missile capacity in the hope that it will deter currently-unknown enemies from launching a first strike against us, or have a properly funded conventional army, navy and airforce to do the kind of jobs we already are asking them to do, but you can't do both on the current budget. For that, you'd have to just about double defence spending!

Incidentally, building an atom bomb from scratch is still quite a big proposition - it requires some serious industrial processes, not just a chemistry set and a heap of uranium ore. It can be done, though, and Iran may well be doing it. However, building intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of delivering that atom bomb to (say) Birmingham is an even bigger project, if anything. That kind of capability doesn't appear overnight - it takes decades!

More worrying is the possibility of a small 'dirty' bomb constructed from parts purchased on the black market, transported into Britain in (say) the back of a container lorry and then exploded in a city centre, terrorist-fashion. However, if somebody did that to us I truly don't see how us having a bunch of Trident subs sitting under the Arctic Ocean or wherever is really going to help.

Us having Trident might deter somebody from firing intercontinental ballistic missiles at us because radar tracking would mean we knew where the missiles had come from and might retaliate for the deaths of millions of innocent Britons by incinerating millions of innocent citizens of (fill in country here) in return. However, as I've tried to explain, that isn't a threat we face right now and is one that would appear gradually, over years, allowing us time to re-think our strategies if necessary.

So let's spend the dosh where it might actually do some good instead.

cassie

Point one: As I've indicated above, you have yet to define what is meant by "all weapons of mass destruction"

Point two: Your apparent inability to discern the fundamental difference in psychology between peoples in Western Society and those who have spawned suicide bombings and killings, is no reason for weakening our position, especially when the latter seem increasingly able to acquire weapons of mass destruction with which to wreak havoc.

Tom Wilde

I expect it means nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. I think that would be the normal understanding of that phrase.

Britain has in any case steered clear of using chemical weapons ever since World War 1, apart from possibly a couple of operations in Iraq (ironically) in the 1920s. From what I've read, chemical weapons aren't that good for winning wars anyway - they are more effective against civilians, as Saddam realized. Britain so far as I know has never used biological weapons. It experimented with anthrax on a Scottish island in WW2, as everyone knows, but didn't use them. Not even Nazi Germany used them. The main reason, I suspect, is that they are so difficult to control. In other words, nobody except a terrorist would be daft enough to use them for fear of their own population being contaminated.

Cassie, are you seriously implying that we should rest the defence of our country on chemical or biological weapons? And if you aren't suggesting that, why did you bring it up?

Cassie, I'd love to answer that point if only I could make sense of it. Do you mean:
1) That nuclear deterrence wouldn't work when we are confronted with Middle Eastern rogue states because their psychology is too different from ours? If so, wouldn't that support my position that us having nuclear weapons is a bit of a waste of money?
2) That any would-be terrorists driving dirty bombs to Birmingham must be so twisted that I shouldn't have mentioned them in my argument - that I should stick to consideration of clean, sane, responsible governments threatening each other with nuclear arsenals? Well, I'm afraid that just isn't the world we actually live in. We have to think of all the threats, not just the ones we have past experience of dealing with.
or
3) Something else altogether? Do please explain and I'll then do my best to reply.