Trident - to replace or not!!
Here in the UK, the last few weeks the press have been busy debating the government proposals for the replacement to Britain’s nuclear deterrent - Trident.
Most of the stories have been the headline grabbing sort where the facts and figures are molded to produce a reaction or in some quarters a rise! Government clearly want to go ahead with this regardless of public opinion, judging by the columns printed in the populist newspapers it has been decided that the great British public rather have the money spent on new hospitals.
Looking beyond the headlines people forget £20bn needed to build this replacement is not a one off lump-sum to be paid now. Money will slowly trickle out during the design and development stage with the trickle turning in to a torrent as the submarines are nearing completion. It will take at least 17 years to complete this program that equates to around £1.2bn per year which is a drop in the ocean.
For me there are bigger issues than the money. Staying with money briefly I cannot remember in my life time any government project which was on budget and on time. Bigger worry this time round is this project will probably involve more private companies and contractors than previous military programmes of this size (for the UK anyway!). What implication will this have for costs and quality.
The biggest issue by miles however has got to be do we still need a nuclear deterrent. I’ve read and heard all the government arguments on this. The labour party’s main line seems to be that we cannot predict what kind of world we will be living in 25 years time which I agree with. However if it is an unpredictable world we live in why is this whole programme reliant on technology and assistance by another country namely the USA. We cannot predict our relationship with the USA for the next 25 years nor can we predict the likely relationship of the USA with the rest of the world.
Several hypothetical situations can arise, if at some point in the future Britain wanted to break of ties with the United States how will that effect ‘our’ nuclear deterrent? what happens if we disagree with a policy shift and we refuse to back them will they then hold up ‘our’ nuclear deterrent as the carrot stick? Let’s look at this from another country’s point of view what happens if someone declares war on the states they would by virtue declare war on the British isles as that country cannot be sure if the ‘British’ nuclear deterrent will be used against them or not. In times of war a smiley happy British prime minister trying to convince a foreign power that ‘our’ nuclear deterrent is controlled by us is not going to cut it.
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