Trident.

[jeremyp]

So what was the issue with  my content that you were supporting first use? Why did you challenge that statement? In what way was I applying restrictions to the term use?

You were talking about "use" in the narrow sense of what happens after you press the button. I am talking in a more general sense. i.e. nuclear weapons are used to deter a war.

Once somebody presses the button and uses them in your sense, their usage in my sense has become a failure.

[jeremyp]

There has been no third world war because we have a nuclear deterrent?  More likely the devastation caused by the first and second world wars has been the deterrent.

How do you know?

There have been, and still are, plenty of other wars since then, on lesser scale, that have not been deterred by nuclear bombs.

Correct, but these are not the wars that the nuclear deterrent was designed to deter.

[jeremyp]

Correlation = Causation? Really?

I was merely criticising the unsupported assertion that nuclear weapons have not deterred the third world war. There hasn't been a third world war. If nuclear weapons had failed at their task there would have been one.

[Aruntraveller]

Perhaps you could have a go at saying why, whenan occasion occurs, we did not have one? How would you/governments explain to those still alive after the devastationthat we dismantled ours long ago?

Please note: this is not written with any sarcasm.

My point is that we hold nuclear weapons as a deterrent, supposedly.

For there to be a strike on us some madman or mad woman would have to have pressed the button. Deterrent failed. Are we then going to make a very bad situation worse by using our failed deterrent.

My main argument is not really about the rights and wrongs of nuclear weapons - it is about the nature of humanity. Either by aforementioned madman or by good old human error we will see these weapons used at some point. I'm sorry if that sounds pessimistic but the human race has proved itself very capable of initiating the 'cock up' process throughout history - that's without the added incentive of lunatic terrorists mixing it all up.

My basic question remains: When would our PM use the nuclear deterrent? How would it help the situation? In the face of lunatics it is not a deterrent. I still do not see how this stands up to any scrutiny.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Trent,

It all seems to me to be so, up in the air thinking, pie in the sky stuff, if someone strikes at us do we immediately reply, do we have a meeting, is it discussed.

Just reading about the letters of last resort, the top guy in the Sub makes the decision if we lose our government, or if he can't hear radio 4

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort

So this means that if the government of Westminster is taken out, the guy in the sub runs to Australia or the U.S.A, he doesn't contact our First Minister or Wales or Northern Ireland.

But then you don't strike at Westminster, do you if I was to attack it would be Faslane or where ever our subs are parked ( do you park a sub ) berth, anchor.

Very infuriating this Trident question, all very Old Testament

Gonnagle.