Britain ponders maintenance of nuclear weapons

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=5aee3fed6267b999

On its submarines Britain has 48 nuclear warheads, each one eight times as powerful as the nuclear bomb that obliterated Hiroshima.

In other words, Prime Minister Tony Blair theoretically could order the almost instant incineration of 384 large cities around the world.

Barely anyone in Parliament has mentioned it, much less debated it in the eight and a half years Blair has been in office. But recently, all of a relative sudden, Blair has promised a discussion sometime “in the life of the present Parliament” because the US, the supplier of the Trident missiles, has made it clear that it will soon be taking a decision on replacing its own Tridents and the UK must decide in tandem what to do with its.

As Blair slides gently, but not particularly gracefully, to the end of his term in office it looks as if the prime minister has decided to kick this ball down the field for his successor to deal with. If it is, as is generally believed, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, it will be interesting to see how this high principled son of a Church of Scotland minister deals with this moral conundrum, particularly since powerful voices within the opposition Conservative Party seem to be increasingly both anti-the Iraq war and doubtful about the value of an independent nuclear deterrent. The other principal opposition party, the Liberal Democrats, has never been particularly supportive of nuclear weapons
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Decisions Decisions!!!

British pride and belief that they are still a major power dies hard and one of the yardsticks for being a major power is nuclear weapons. For that reason alone they will quietly go about their business and maintain and upgrade their arsenal.

> On its submarines Britain has 48 nuclear warheads, each one eight
> times as powerful as the nuclear bomb that obliterated Hiroshima.
>
> In other words, Prime Minister Tony Blair theoretically could order
> the almost instant incineration of 384 large cities around the world.

Does anyone else see the obvious logical fallacy?

When a story gets it *SO* wrong in the first two sentences, maybe the
reader should re-load their salt shaker before continuing onwards.

Tesha

384 (large cities) = 48 (warheads) * 8 (times as powerful as Hiroshima) ?

FWIW, the Royal Navy has 4 SSBNs (ballistic missile submarines) along
with 11 SSNs (hunter killer submarines). Each of the SSBNs can have
up to 48 missiles but only one sub will patrol at a time (typically).
In the 1998 Strategic Defence Review, the British government committed
to maintain fewer than 200 operationally available warheads.

So don't worry, only the first 48 cities on the list would have a bad day!
:hi:

http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/static/pages/3165.html

http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=nd01norris

as I understand it are on loan to U.K. by the U.S. I expect when the Trident is phased out the replacement will also be 'loaned' to the U.K. Further I believe the nuclear warheads are also U.S.

A curious arrangement isn't it?

It is no matter what the U.S. has U.K. will have.

180

without a permission slip from the US, they would be as useful as a feather duster.

1. The Warheads are 100% UK developed, produced, owned, operated, maintained.

2. The US has no direct control. They are assigned to NATO command, as part of the UK's membership of NATO. The final firing authority rests with the PM. Nobody else.

3. The missiles are US produced and maintained, once every 5 years. This is the only direct US involvment, excepting onsite technical support.

To put it mildly. Once a country has them, the lure of power is simply too great to give up, even if they can't be used without disastrous consequences. Their deterrent value is considerable, as we have seen when comparing Iraq with North Korea.