The Trident Affair

Tony Blair has backed the replacement of the Trident Missiles at a cost of billions spent with the Americans, a completely unrealistic idea of what we as a nation can afford or the effectiveness of such a weapon. It did not stop 9/11 for the USA, and as the July 2005 bombings showed it has no bearing on the type of threats facing the UK in the future.

One cannot see how any nuclear weapon will have any effect on mobile terrorists, or cells of dissidents living within the UK unless Blair is intending to nuke British cities.

Trident gives a few politicians a very expensive membership to a rather elite club, but who would seriously consider nuking any nation? Only the USA has used the Atom bomb and it is not a credit that the UK should want associations with. So, if it is no longer an effective deterrent and we would not use it, why even think about buying such a technology?

There seems an indecent haste to do this deal – why? Apparently, we urgently need a replacement although we only ever have one submarine at sea at a time and the USA have extended their own nuclear deterrent program by many years. Surely, if the much lauded “special friendship” between the UK and US exists, then the US would retaliate with a nuclear strike on our behalf should we find ourselves under nuclear attack.

If, at the furthest extremes of possibility and probability, we were ever to nuke someone, it would most likely be because America wanted us to. Why, then, should we pay them vast sums of money and further widen our record-level national debt just for the privilege of doing their dirty work for them?

We don’t even get to own the weapons – we actually only lease them. They are maintained by the US, who also make the hardware, control the software, make and supply the spares, and aim them at American enemies. So much for our own independent Nuclear Deterrent. Our only involvement is to pay for it.

Would we not be better spending the money equipping our own security forces or even build another 100 hospitals and schools? Or is Tony Blair so intent on keeping his place at the Big Boys' table at the UN that he’s prepared to squander billions of our money on pointless posturing and sabre-rattling?