Balanced Question Time panel tonight - of course not!
Discussion
AJS- said:
What I don't really understand about Trident (maybe someone can enlighten me?) is this:
We keep hearing that terrorists could develop a dirty bomb in a school science lab, it's a fairly well understood technology which has been around for a while. We have the rockets to deliver them. Do we actually need to maintain a full on nuclear deterrent all the time (which seems to be very expensive) in order to potentially defend against something which may never happen anyway?
It seems like something which made sense during the cold war when a dispute with the USSR could potentially escalate to a nuclear stand off in a few days a la the Cuban missile crisis, but not much sense now, when it's pretty inconceivable that we would be at war with any nuclear power.
At very worst it seems like relations with Russia might deteriorate to the point that armed conflict becomes a possibility, but this would still take a few years.
Is it possible technically to have a more flexible nuclear deterrent which is cheaper to maintain throughout the decades where it's not needed?
Do you think if Ukraine has not surrendered its nucs Russia would have started the war there?We keep hearing that terrorists could develop a dirty bomb in a school science lab, it's a fairly well understood technology which has been around for a while. We have the rockets to deliver them. Do we actually need to maintain a full on nuclear deterrent all the time (which seems to be very expensive) in order to potentially defend against something which may never happen anyway?
It seems like something which made sense during the cold war when a dispute with the USSR could potentially escalate to a nuclear stand off in a few days a la the Cuban missile crisis, but not much sense now, when it's pretty inconceivable that we would be at war with any nuclear power.
At very worst it seems like relations with Russia might deteriorate to the point that armed conflict becomes a possibility, but this would still take a few years.
Is it possible technically to have a more flexible nuclear deterrent which is cheaper to maintain throughout the decades where it's not needed?
hidetheelephants said:
s2art said:
Halb said:
Portillo speaking sense on. Trident and stuff tonight.
I am not so sure. He never mentions that if we give up on our nuclear capability then we probably have to give up our seat on the UN security council. Thats a lot of influence lost.ofcorsa said:
hidetheelephants said:
s2art said:
Halb said:
Portillo speaking sense on. Trident and stuff tonight.
I am not so sure. He never mentions that if we give up on our nuclear capability then we probably have to give up our seat on the UN security council. Thats a lot of influence lost.Far too much of a tall order to ever be possible IMHO.
Sadly if this is not the case, and nuclear arms are not taken out of the picture completely, it matter little how large or well trained / equipped a countries conventional forces might be, they are always going to be trumped by any country that still holds the nuclear threat over another it wishes to subdue.
Nuclear weapons technology cannot be uninvented, and whether agreed or not, few if any countries could be guaranteed not to resort to having or using them if they felt their very survival was at stake.
Welshbeef said:
You'd still smash her back foot in though 
.
. Welshbeef said:
Church cloud 9
She could talk b
ks all night long but it would be a hell of a good ride .
She could talk b
ks all night long but it would be a hell of a good ride . Welshbeef said:
Voice of an Angel
A couple of good points up front
Dynamite in bed
£16m in the bank
Literally gurl next door bound to be filthy
Did I say she's bound to be utterly filthy;)
A couple of good points up front
Dynamite in bed
£16m in the bank
Literally gurl next door bound to be filthy
Did I say she's bound to be utterly filthy;)
Welshbeef said:
Oh come on she's a little girl (26yo) it's sweet - you should put your sausage in her mouth to stop her talking
Welshbeef said:
Given its live why was Church sober after the game?
Doesn't she like playing hide the sausage with the Squad......
Are you about 12? Doesn't she like playing hide the sausage with the Squad......
lauda said:
I'm just watching it now on iPlayer. Charlotte Church's contributions are just excruciating. She makes Russell Brand look like an intellectual heavyweight.
Think she is trying to be a version of him. Split the title to regions I say, he can have the English village idiot award and she can have the Welsh village idiot award.All this chat about the nuclear (oh, how I wish they would stop calling it nucular a la Ford Angular) deterrent interests me. Everyone seems to think all nuclear bombs are essentially total mass destruction. So far as I am aware a smaller device, say 1/8 ton, might limit the damage to only 10,000 people and several known government buildings without melting an entire country. Seems reasonable. I wonder if the terrorists have thought of that.
Edited by Thorodin on Friday 2nd October 14:12
jmorgan said:
lauda said:
I'm just watching it now on iPlayer. Charlotte Church's contributions are just excruciating. She makes Russell Brand look like an intellectual heavyweight.
Think she is trying to be a version of him. Split the title to regions I say, he can have the English village idiot award and she can have the Welsh village idiot award.She admires Corbyn over his 'not-pushing-the-nuclear-button' stance, so Dimbleby asks her about Trident and she cuts him off with "...that's a whole separate issue...". Later she sides with the 'anybody but the Tories' standpoint as advertised by Plaid (and SNP) regardless of the general voting pattern indicating the great unwashed don't follow this idea.
As has been debated before, these television and radio public fora are becoming the natural gathering place of emotional types keen to spout whatever populist guff gets some response. It's our fault for taking it seriously.
Thorodin said:
All this chat about the nuclear (oh, how I wish they would stop calling it nucular a la Ford Angular) deterrent interests me. Everyone seems to think all nuclear bombs are essentially total mass destruction. So far as I am aware a smaller device, say 1/8 ton, might limit the damage to only 10,000 people and several known government buildings without melting an entire country. Seems reasonable. I wonder if the terrorists have thought of that.
ie. Tactical Nuc's...Scuffers said:
Thorodin said:
All this chat about the nuclear (oh, how I wish they would stop calling it nucular a la Ford Angular) deterrent interests me. Everyone seems to think all nuclear bombs are essentially total mass destruction. So far as I am aware a smaller device, say 1/8 ton, might limit the damage to only 10,000 people and several known government buildings without melting an entire country. Seems reasonable. I wonder if the terrorists have thought of that.
ie. Tactical Nuc's...Esseesse said:
IIRC some of the Russian ones make ours look like tiny, correct? Personally I think it would be better to dump the US weapons and develop our own (and build our own power stations with our own tech too)...
not sure, Trident is very much a multiple small warhead device, as opposed to a single big one.it can carry either 14 x W76 (that have a yield of 100 kilotons) or 14 x W88 (that have an estimated yield of 475 kiloton), although under START I it's reduced to 8 (not sure the UK ones are included in this?)
The one question not asked, is why do we have to spend £ billions on a ballistic missile / submarine etc. ?
A cruise missile tipped with a nuclear warhead is a much cheaper option and available today in tomahawk. A whole new cruise missile system will be much cheaper than a ballistic system in any case, as a lot of the tech will be off the shelf. It still provides the deterrent and then can also be launched off an SSN, SSG or even SSK, not just the large SSBN boats. The range is shorter for the current tomahawk system, but then the smaller subs can get closer to shore in any case.
A new cruise missile system can then can also be used for conventional bombardment, rather than a ballistic system which only has the one use.
A cruise missile tipped with a nuclear warhead is a much cheaper option and available today in tomahawk. A whole new cruise missile system will be much cheaper than a ballistic system in any case, as a lot of the tech will be off the shelf. It still provides the deterrent and then can also be launched off an SSN, SSG or even SSK, not just the large SSBN boats. The range is shorter for the current tomahawk system, but then the smaller subs can get closer to shore in any case.
A new cruise missile system can then can also be used for conventional bombardment, rather than a ballistic system which only has the one use.
QuantumTokoloshi said:
The one question not asked, is why do we have to spend £ billions on a ballistic missile / submarine etc. ?
A cruise missile tipped with a nuclear warhead is a much cheaper option and available today in tomahawk. A whole new cruise missile system will be much cheaper than a ballistic system in any case, as a lot of the tech will be off the shelf. It still provides the deterrent and then can also be launched off an SSN, SSG or even SSK, not just the large SSBN boats. The range is shorter for the current tomahawk system, but then the smaller subs can get closer to shore in any case.
A new cruise missile system can then can also be used for conventional bombardment, rather than a ballistic system which only has the one use.
Cruise are too slow and limited in range, intercontinental ballistic missiles are fast, really fast can hit pretty much anywhere on the planet from anywhere and hard to intercept.A cruise missile tipped with a nuclear warhead is a much cheaper option and available today in tomahawk. A whole new cruise missile system will be much cheaper than a ballistic system in any case, as a lot of the tech will be off the shelf. It still provides the deterrent and then can also be launched off an SSN, SSG or even SSK, not just the large SSBN boats. The range is shorter for the current tomahawk system, but then the smaller subs can get closer to shore in any case.
A new cruise missile system can then can also be used for conventional bombardment, rather than a ballistic system which only has the one use.
ukwill said:
Brilliant. Just about sums it up.And just why does he always say 'you can tweet us' when the broadcast programme is actually recorded two hours earlier.
Seems a bit pointless.
Esseesse said:
Scuffers said:
Thorodin said:
All this chat about the nuclear (oh, how I wish they would stop calling it nucular a la Ford Angular) deterrent interests me. Everyone seems to think all nuclear bombs are essentially total mass destruction. So far as I am aware a smaller device, say 1/8 ton, might limit the damage to only 10,000 people and several known government buildings without melting an entire country. Seems reasonable. I wonder if the terrorists have thought of that.
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