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Roughly 80-90% of the "cost" of Trident is the bill of building, maintaining and running the subs over their lifetime (40 years).
The bill for the Trident missiles themselves and the warheads are a small component of the total lifetime cost.
That's why the unofficial bill for Trident just keeps going up, because opponents keep finding ways to justify "kitchen sinking" - throwing in every piece of expenditure that they say is related to Trident, however tenuous the link - even though most of that expenditure would occur anyway.
So yes, the idea that we would build and maintain these subs, but not arm them is bonkers - even worse than the fiasco around the aircraft carriers, which was effectively another bribe to the unions.
It's meant to be a deterrent against a surprise attack by the CCCP so as long as the CCCP think the submarines are armed there's no need for them to actually be armed. And for that matter there's no need for them to ever leave their bases. In fact there no need for any submarines at all.
Do you think Russia would have invaded the Ukraine if they still had theirs?
Yes, for sure.
It's a lot easier to nuke somebody on another continent.
In Russian invasion they had infiltrated the highest command of Ukrainian army - the President, Defense Minister, Security Service - all people who would have known launch codes were bought, the rest would have been killed.
And in any case Ukraine would not have been able to maintain nukes over first peaceful 23 years of independence - Russia was actively buying stuff out of them - for example they bought Tu-160 from Ukraine years before invasion.
So, no - nukes would not have stopped Russian invasion of Ukraine, in fact it would have probably made it worse by compelling Russia to go in deeper in order "to secure nukes from terrorists" or some lies like that.
By the way - apparently plutonium in warheads needs to be replaced every 15-20 years, otherwise it heats up and a lot of bad things can happen, other than big badaboom, and Russia has not produced plutonium for around that time. It's entirely possible nearly whole Russian nuclear arsenal is not operational, but of course, who'd want to find that out???
Strangely quiet the usual bevy of Socialist supporters tonight ... I wonder why ...
So run it down,
1. Lets talk to ISIS and see if they will just stop chopping peoples heads off and hating everyone in the West and Middle East.
2. The terrorists attacks are our fault for daring to be involved in the middle east + supporting Israel.
3. We should negotiate with the Argentinians to give away the Falklands of which they have no claim to.
4. We should unilaterally disarm our Trident submarine fleet, but let them pointlessly continue to wander the seas doing 3 month patrols and continue to charge the UK taxpayer out of a deficit budget to support the Unions.
5. The UK should withdraw from NATO - This has been suggested but not confirmed as of yet.
6. Oh yes, and we should place restrictions on UK companies paying UK dividends based on whether we think they are paying too little or too much.
7. Bring back "sympathy" strikes.
I'm sure I've missed a few. Completely F'ing mad.
Answer your points:
1. They can go and negotiate with ISIS personally themselves. We can all contribute to the fund to send them there.
2. You forgot to mention Somalia, Kenya, and anywhere else there are Muslims fighting each other and the native population using weapons brought from the West.
3. The Falklanders have a right to self determination under the UN treaties. Last I heard they wanted to remain under British protection and they democratically voted for it.
4. The union leaders who helped elect Korbyn are against it as they know they won't have jobs.
5. Korbyn himself is against it because Livingston made it up.
6. Tories are making it illegal not to at living wage in UK regardless of who dividends are paid out to.
7. Complete bollux as the union bill being passed now has nothing to do with that. It's to do with things like voter turnout for strikes. If the Tories had their way doctors wouldn't be able to strike.....
"You’re just a bad memory who doesn’t know when to go away" JR
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