Trident Defence Systems

Strategic Defence.

 I once played Rugby in front of a crowd of about 300,000 people. Not many can claim that. The Aldermaston to London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament march came through Kidwells Park Maidenhead where I was playing rugby for the Thames Valley Rugby Club.

 45 years or more later, the Lib Dems think that we should not replace our Trident defence system. If I was the person ultimately responsible for our defence and knowing that several powers in the world have a potential to negotiate against us with a nuclear capability, I would certainly want to be able to tell them that if a bomb lands anywhere near us or our allies, watch out. Retaliation capability is much more useful than first strike because enemies would know that we probably wouldn't first strike, but we would retaliate.

 Hence the need to keep some missiles under the sea, and hence a replacement for Trident in 2020. It’s the cheapest way of strategically protecting ourselves and the actual cost is deferred for some years. While a nuclear retaliation threat is a rather disagreeable way of defending ourselves, no major wars have occurred since 1945 (Maybe excluding Korea), and it’s worked. For the previous 2 centuries there were serious out breaks of hostilities every 30 or 40 years on a regular basis, until the nuclear deterrent came along.

 If the Lib Deems decide to pressurise a coalition government to drop Trident, and they keep some wishy washy, be nice to everyone, things like social security payments, they will be failing in one of their primary duties - Defence of the Realm- in favour of looking after layabouts who should be working. And I would not expect the coalition to last long.