91Èȱ¬

Not very suprising but how disappointing. New Labour people are desperate to distance themselves from their far left past and so never criticise big business even when it would be appropriate and popular to do so eg Tesco's bullying of local shops or Philip Green's tax avoidance.
Now Gordon is so desperate to prove he is tough on defence that he wants to back a completely pointless and hugely expensive replacement for Trident. Even Michael Portillo has said we don't need it - and he's hardly left wing!!
Not only is it not independent - as it relies on US software which makes us politically dependant on the US, but who precisely is it aimed at???
What is the point of voting Labour?

Typical New Labour.... and I seem to remember Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes Prime Minister saying to Jim Hacker "Trident is the best and Britain must have the best".
These weapons are already powerful enough to obliterate 99% of mankind, so unless they are rotting in their silos, it's 10 billion wasted. Why spend 10 billion to be able to obliterate the remaining 1%
It's small change however when you consider, at this rate, in 5 yrs time New Labour will have doled out an equivalent in tax credit over-payments, and payments to those who do not qualify.
In any event, its got to be paid for and I have every confidence that Gordon Brown will find something new to tax to raise the revenue required. Perhaps he could put a tax on blog entries. he would raise zillions.!!!

The Government have announced in various official papers that Trident is no longer targeted at the Russians, we are hardly likely to face a significant threat to our territorial integrity from China, France, India, Pakistan or even France. That leaves the US who probably even consider us a long term ally despite their prediliction for short termist thinking. We know from 9/11 (and 7/7) that nuclear weapons do not deter terrorism. You can only test deterrence by aking those we thought we were deterring if our weapons actually made a difference and there is no evidence to support this. Consequently why dont we take the opportunity to use Trident as a bargaining chip - it has demonstrably no other use - don't scrap it but we have time to delay a decision as the US is seeking to extend the life of their Trident missiles in 2014. In the meantime lets see if we can be a force for good in the worl - it is, after all, a stated objective of the MoD!!

Of course, the nuclear deterrent will not be targeted at any countries that we are economically dependent on for cheap....clothes, food, loans to our government,electrical goods, gas, oil, labour, call centres, electrical goods etc..
Now that I come to think about it, is there any country out there that wouldn't economically destroy us if we bombed it. Unless Britain plans to nuke it's international creditors so as to wipe out our national debt?
Everyone stand for the National Anthem (theme tune to the Muppet Show)

The fact that it will cost between 10 and 25 billion pounds is the biggest sign yet that Brown's move to Number 10 is coming, and soon.

Brown the Chancellor would probably be highly sceptical about singing the praises of a project with questionable benefits that costed so much. Brown the Chancellor would be looking at how much of that money could be reassigned to plugging the budget deficit.

Brown the Prime Minister, however, might not be so concerned about balancing his books. That will be someone elses concern, after all.

I wonder whether it is Brown who will be finding the extra cash for this project in a few months time, or if he'll be the one telling someone else to do it?

I'd say that to say we don't need any nukes is just a tad insular; Iran is developing it's own nukes, North Korea will shortly be able to launch theirs to the Western United States, and Pakistan is developing civillian nuclear technologies, and they haven't even signed a non-proliferation treaty.

I don't think anyone is stupid enough to use nukes anymore, but if the West disarms its nukes whilst the relatively volatile East develops theirs, we could find ourselves caught between a rock and a hard place in a few years time.
£10-25 billion is a lot of money, but I'd rather that than be at the political and military mercy of societies that are insulted our very way of life.

Months is too short a time frame to make a descision, but we leave the descision for too long and at the very best that £10-25 billion may need to be found very quickly. I'd rather we decide sooner rather than later, at least then the cost can be spread over the next twenty years.

Trident needs to be replaced. Do you really want to be one of the only "western" countries that dont have nuclear capabilities? With the mounting tension in North Korea and Iran and Russia and China both hacking at each other for dominance of asia - a third world war is a very real concern.
Could you imagine if a part of the UK was hit with a nuclear weapon and we had nothing to fight back with on that magnitude - there would be public outcry. The public want trident; or atleast an alternative, the lefties are very much in the minority. The gov should put it to referendum. Atleast having a nuclear capability negates the need for invasion if indeed such a situation were to arise. Although i do believe that if trident is to be replaced - the reliance on the US for the technology should be looked at. There is only financial consideration to think about when it comes to the creation of a new system. The UK has the resources, the technology and the plutonium needed to build an independant nuclear deterrent.

Will there actually be a meaningful parliamentary debate on this, or has the decision already been made in effect? It sounds like it's a foregone conclusion that Trident will be replaced. That may or may not be the best decision for the nation, but what then is the point of the debate? Is it just to make people feel involved - like to give them the illusion of influence so as to gain their favour on other issues? Or is that too cynical?

There's often talk of European dissatisfaction with American hegemony and some argue that we need to balance out the power of the States, at least within NATO ... stop it being a unipolar world and all that. Would reallocating money from our nuclear deterrent lead to any significant movement on this front? What proportion of our defence budget does it represent? And without a Trident replacement how would the armed forces change in shape, given the outlook of recent Strategic Defence Reviews?

Sorry, that's a lot of questions.

How can we tell the Iranian people to stop manufacturing Uranium to produce Nuclear weapons when we are about to upgrade our Nuclear arsenal.This will only lead to an arms race.
RPJ

What's going on? Every time I watch an episode of "Yes, Minister" I see it repeated on Newsnight. Yesterday before eating I watched "The Grand Design" - all about how utterly useless Trident is but how much the government machine wants it. I used to think this synchronisty was funny (and partly planned by the 91Èȱ¬!) but now it happens when I watch my own DVDs it's getting a bit scary.

I can maybe see the reason as to why Trident should be scrapped. However its important for the UK to have a Nuclear Deterrent for it to remain on the world stage, especially when China, North Korea and Devloping countries such as India, Pakistan are testing their missiles.
The other issue is that keeping Trident also keeps a few thousand sailors, maintenace crews, etc in jobs as well. I was part of the families whose fathers had served on Polaris, which was replaced by Trident about 15 years ago.
Believe me it takes years for the majority of ex-service men to get on their feet.
Whilst CND are a noble cause, its a little short-sighted in the longterm issues.

Of course we need a nuclear deterrent!!
Who is going to take any notice of this country in the UN defence council if do not have one??

This country spends comparatively little on defence when compared to other countries around the world also.

People also seem to sidestep the issue that Russia is also renewing its own nuclear missile forces too(SS-27 Topol M).

What about China and its new DF31 and DF41 based on Russian technology?

I wonder who they are pointing their missiles at?

So, in one breath we express horror and outrage that Iran and North Korea are developing nuclear weapons, and in the next we announce that we are re-commisioning our own... Am I the only one who thinks this is wholly wrong?

Well, dear old Gordon has certainly upset the 91Èȱ¬. It's near-hysterical coverage of Brown's Trident intentions is clearly not in line with the Corporation's beliefs. It's at times like these when you can see the Beeb for what it is - the Guardian's TV channel.

To be a major player in world politics at present, one must have some form of detterence. That unfortunately is restricted to that of nuclear weapons. The countries that have these weapons have the ability to anihalate any country in the world, which is an abhorrent prospect! those countries that admit to having these weapons include: The UK, the USA, Russia, China & France. Others, such as South Africa, Israel, North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, India; purport to have these weapons, but without the detterence they may well use them to achieve their aims, as would any other country. We now have a 24 hour media, and numerous attrocities have been recorded, should this carry on, NO! The Government is right to look for a replasement for Trident. I spent 7 years protecting the WE177 at RAF Marham, never saw one, but that was my job! Without such weapons, as abhorrent as they are, would the world be the as it is?

Trident (and Polaris) were conceived in the cold war, so that the Soviet Union would not be able to take out all our weapons with a first strike.

This threat no longer applies. If we need nuclear weapons, (for example, so we can't be blackmailed by a nuclear powered dictatoraship), these could be based on air launched cruise missiles.

This solution would cost a fraction of a full Trident replacement.

I would be more reassured by this if I believed that the government would put the money in to do this, rather than requiring it be paid for out of the defence budget. I can see so many vital projects being shifted to the right to wedge in this mandated enhancement.

Throughout its tenure, this Labour government has asked more and more of the Armed Forces... yet every budget day a certain Mr. Brown has lowered the Defence budget: as easy a target as pensions where raiding for cash is concerned.

No, I suspect that while this project is probably a good thing it will lead to our boys on the ground being under-equiped for just that much longer.

It's the whole "eye for an eye" issue with Trident that I think many people have a problem with - rather than deterring countries by threatening to annihilate them with nuclear arms, couldn't we put a bit more cash into research into shooting them down before they do any damage? After all, we've got 20 years until Trident is decommisionedas an active deterrent, you'd think we could come up with something in the mean time.

Well, it makes perfect sense to me; £25Bn on something we don't need, don't want and would never want to use anyway even if we had to pointed at (presumably) all those we like to tell should never have such things, should not want them and woe betide if they even think of making them. Makes perfect sense to me - new Labour at it's best.

Here is a quote from what I think is labour manifesto 1983.
Labours policy appears to have changed somewhat from then.

"
The Labour Party: 1983

What we do propose to do is to get rid of the nuclear boomerangs which offer no genuine protection to our people but, first and foremost, to help stop the nuclear arms race which is the most dangerous threat to us all.

One of the most wretched features of the present government's record has been the low interest they have devoted to the work of securing international disarmament. No British initiative of any significance in this field has been taken.

Instead, the programme for establishing American-controlled Cruise missiles on our soil has been accepted without question, and the Trident programme for the expansion of the British-controlled nuclear forces has been accepted without reference to the possibilities of disarmament.

Indeed, the logic of the case for the nuclear deterrent, presented by British Conservative Ministers, is that all peace-loving countries should equip themselves with the same protection. It is a logic which would intensify the race and destroy the universe.

The first task of a new Labour government will be to restore a sense of sanity in dealing with these supreme questions. We offer a combined programme of action by this country and of action in association with other countries.

We are the only party that offers such a programme to meet the scale of the challenge. We are the only party that offers a non-nuclear defence policy. "

Extremely dissapointing, the only words for this.

Apart from this being against interntational law, the same law that we are basing are attacks of Irans nuclear program,

its a dangerous and over expensive move that will severly ruin our international standing, and reveal the government for the hypocrite ths that they truly are

We need a new defence philosopy, eg if all the money spent on arms were to be used to set up a peaceful world, would this be a way forward?

Just because fighting with weapons has been popular for about 5000 years does not mean we should do the same for the next 5000 years.

Who will start a new ball rolling on this?

So many armchair defence experts!

A proper, effective defence strategy takes account not only of potential threats that we know exist now, but also those that may exist in the future that we can't even guess at now. Who saw the Falklands war coming 10 years beforehand? I am very relieved that Brown has committed himself to funding a replacement for Trident; I really thought he would abandon all our defence resources given the way he has repeatedly cut the defence budget at at time of major military overstretch. It is fanciful to believe that other countries will not continue to develop nuclear capability, much as we may all hate it. The first thing Brown has ever said that I agree with since he gave the Bank of England independence.

Ray Jones said "How can we tell the Iranian people to stop manufacturing Uranium to produce Nuclear weapons when we are about to upgrade our Nuclear arsenal.This will only lead to an arms race." Kate suggested something similar about North Korea.

Am I the only one who thinks there is a clear difference between the UK, a permanent member of the Security Council (a nuclear weapons holder like the other 4 permanent members) and these two countries?

Of course there is a difference. They have far more power in world affairs as a result of being members of that (wholly undemocratic) club.

The question is whether this difference is one that justifies their apparently hypocritical position, or not. It certainly could be argued that these countries' refusal to give up their nuclear arms is one of the main reasons states such as North Korea are so keen to develop them.

How ridiculous to think we DON'T need our own nuclear deterrent! With the currently ongoing proliferaiton of nuclear weapons to countries like North Korea and Iran, it makes more sense than ever to have the means to wipe several countries off the map.

As for modernising, I am very much in favour of a more flexible, more accurate and more efficient nuclear strikeforce.

Smaller bombs, better accuracy and bigger bangs.

we need trident or some nuclear deterrant i think its a low cost to pay to ensure that we ourselves have a low chance of being hit by a nuclear strike from such unstable countries as iran anc china

The argument that we might need nuclear weapons because of future threats, I think, needs to be explained in greater detail. Which countries are likely to develop them? Can be effectively track/detect who is trying to develop them? Would the money be better spent on intelligence gathering? There seems too many unanswered questions and lots of generalizations that need to be cleared up.

The fact this decision will also determine BAE getting billions of pounds worth of work should also raise questions about peoples motivations for pushing for it.

How much nuclear capacity do you need to consider it a deterrent?
probably a handful of bombs are already enough. Why the need of having a large stash of them, we only have one planet to blow up eventually.

Even Robert McNamara has expressed concern about the current trend as one that is likely to produce some hostile nuclear detonation in the future and that's scary because his opinion is one that I take seriously.
His opinion is that we are leading an arms race and countries like Pakistan and Iran are reacting and looking for a deterrent to us.

A different approach is badly needed and the solution is not a simple one but I think that if only half of the investment in Trident would be spent on international cooperation that would be the best guarantee that a nuclear confrontation doesn't materialize.

Why are so many people complaining about the £10/25bn projected cost? Wouldn't the new submarines be built in England? So that isn't £20bn thrown away, or given to another country, it's £20bn recycled back into our own economy. Joe the Welder pays his taxes, Joe gets a contract to work on a submarine by the MOD. Joe earns a salary, Joe pays taxes... etc.

And of course there would be some money going abroad, I'm not saying that everything would be sourced from within the UK, but still.

Dear Nick, I think we have to accept that we cannot uninvent the nuclear weapons and as a small island we need to maintain our guard. Nuclear submarines are an off-shore and largely hidden global deterrent and they can have many non-nuclear uses.
As others have pointed out the submarines will be built in this country and that means that the cost will be recycled into the U.K. economy and provide many construction and maintenance jobs in places like Barrow-in-Furness and Faslane. Better to be safe than sorry in this uncertain world in which we live today - and we cannot quickly reverse a wrong decision and rely on China or France to build our subs for us!