On 19/03/2012 12:27, Graeme Wall wrote:
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.
What do the Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians say on the subject of who was
doing the rolling? (Okay, there was Egypt, but the US put a stop to that!)
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.
The fun starts once Iran gets nukes, the West says "ha ha, that's one in
the eye to yanks and zionists.... Oh, what do you mean various Arab
states are now saying 'well in that case we have to be able to defend
ourselves against Persian attack' while Pakistan is saying "uh-uh, we're
surrounded...""
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?
Middlesbrough.
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.
Unless they are in on it.
A far better and more cost effective solution is to use submarine
launched cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.
I suspect that isn't the plan for most people objecting to current plans!
Personally I'd look at doing a deal with the French. AIUI they know they
only have to be able to nuke Berli^H^H^H whatever the target might be
once, rather than Moscow 137 times or whatever.
--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK