Why on earth would anyone suggest we should scrap trident?

Question

Trident is Britain's only form of launching nuclear weapons and there are numerous calls for it to be scrapped? Can't people see that this is ridiculously dangerous? I know people say that today the threat comes from terroists rather than actual states, but how can you predict where tomorrow's threat will come from? Surely you must agree that scrapping trident is leaving us open to unnessercery danger?

Answer 1

Our Navy is struggling to perform it's duties already, due to being stretched to breaking point by successive governments defence cuts.

To remove the only viable deterrent we have would just mean the rest of the Navy would become unable to perform it's duties around the world and would have to return to purely defending our shores.

Answer 2

Whilst it acts as a deterrent it also makes us a target. In a nuclear exchange it's the countries with their own weapons that are the targets. With Trident we are safer in some respects but without it we are safer in other respects.

Scrapping it wouldn't open us to unnecessary danger as we would no longer pose a threat and if somethings not a threat it's unlikely to be a target. In a conflict who do you attack first - the threat or the non-threat?

Look at the countries around the world that are the most likely targets of a nuclear strike - they're all the nuclear enabled countries. When a country joins the nuclear club they become a target just as North Korea has done recently.

Maybe the UK should make more political allies so we're not seen as a threat and then we wouldn't need a deterrent.

Answer 3

I bet the Iranians would love this.