London Banter - View Single Post

Graeme Wall

On 19/03/2012 11:30, d wrote:
On Mon, 19 Mar 2012 09:48:04 +0000
Graeme wrote:
On 19/03/2012 09:40, d wrote:
On Fri, 16 Mar 2012 20:37:18 +0000
Arthur wrote:
The world is not short of loony leaders. Those who invent technologies
always run the risk of losing out to others who copy it.

That doesn't answer the question.

People don't figure out exactly who is going to nick their stuff before
taking out insurance.

Good analogy , I'm going to remember that one!

On the other hand insurance companiea work out how likely you are to get
your stuff nicked /before/ working out the premium.

If the west hadn't had nukes russia would have rolled across western europe
long ago.

Possibly, I've come across Russians in the Soviet era who argued that if
they didn't have nukes the west would have rolled across them long ago.

Also given its a de factor

Perhaps you mean de facto...

dictatorship that threat hasn't
completely disappeared and who knows who'll end up running it when Putin
finally falls off his perch.

Currently the Russian nuclear weaponry is a greater danger to the
Russians than to anybody else.

And then there are unpredictable states such as iran, north korea etc.

Neither of which is a direct threat to the UK, being far more obsessed
with Israel and South Korea respectively. Neither of which require the
capabilities of 4 Trident ballistic missile submarines to cope with.
After all even one missile has 12 MIRVs. Once you've targeted Tehran,
or Pyongyang, what are you going to do with the other 11 warheads?

Also you launch an SLBM against Tehran from the middle of the Atlantic
and the Russians are going to get very jumpy! By the time they've
confirmed the flight path they may well have already ordered a
retaliatory strike just in case.

A far better and more cost effective solution is to use submarine
launched cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.

Perhaps you have a crystal ball and can predict what
the world will be like in 20 years time but everyone else can't so its best
to err on the side of taking precautions.

But the precautions have to be proportionate to the threat. I note you
ignore what is likely to be the biggest threats in the nuclear world,
Pakistan and India, especially the former.

And if you're one of the people
who think that not having nukes means we'll never be nuked then perhaps
you should ask the japanese about the logic of that.

To put your mind at rest I am not one of those people.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read, substitute trains for rail.
Railway Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail