Trident failure

but while you have it it is always a background threat making other leaders more wary.

I have never been able to find any logic in the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine. Not even when we had lectures on it at Uni and I had to write a seminar paper about it! It's utterly bonkers. It assumes that everyone is going to play by the rules.

What happens when someone doesn't? What about ISIS who think that all infidels have to die and when they (ISIS members)die in the service of jihad there'll be 70 virgins waiting for them in heaven... Really they'd be doing everyone a good turn to obliterate most of the human race, wouldn't they? Half jolly well deserve to die anyway and the other half get their reward in heaven...

Surely UK would de die if warheads were involved. I also think it very unlikely that the UK would be the first to press the button and I would hope it never came to anyone doing it - but while you have it it is always a background threat making other leaders more wary.

Tested every four years.
The point is that the last test was in June, just before the vote. May knew about it; otherwise she would have said on the Marr show.
The Trident vote was on a false premise, that Trident was safe.

If I lived in Florida, I would be very worried.
What's the point of having a deterrent that does not do what it says?
US forces don't seem to mind collateral damage if it happens on other country's soil. On their own soil, it might be different.
No warheads involved this time. The next time? Trump in charge?

I do think it is important that we have a deterrent especially when you have people like Putin but it was one part which failed not the whole thing from what I have seen. They have never been tested frequently - only every few years. These things have worked before.

I've been waiting for someone to tell me how important it is we have a deterrent and nobody has. Are they just burying their heads, or having second thoughts?

The reason that they hide what had happened was nothing what so ever to do with national security, but everything to do with a vote on trident renewal. They should be ashamed.

possible possibly

I've heard various sums mentioned as the cost of our Trident programme, possible the most reliable being £205 billion. What could the NHS and Social Care system do with this kind of cash?
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/17/trident-renewal-205bn-arguments-for-against

Successive governments seem to be still tied into the Great Britain 'the great power' idea. We're not the ruler of a large empire anymore, we don't have the largest navy in the world, we don't rule the skies and we don't have the largest army. The time has come to see ourselves for what we are i.e. a little, prosperous island country off the coast of mainland Europe. We don't need our own nuclear deterrent. The USA, Russia and China have more than enough to destroy the world many times over. We're supposed to come under the USA nuclear umbrella which no doubt means we'll be killed by friendly fire before anyone else even hits their buttons anyway.

It's time we thought of the people who are living here now and stop preparing for some hypothetical future in which we help to kill millions of people and destroy our planet.

"Time to rethink and abandon Trident. We have lots of more pressing things to spend our money on. Things that our people need now not in a hypothetical future."

Needing extreme austerity it seems the Trident would be abandoned.

twitter.com/LabourEoin/status/823091141054791680/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Taking back control?

i2.wp.com/voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/160718-trident-did-you-know.jpg?w=720

Just 520 civilian jobs rely on Trident at Faslane. Expensive jobs.

M0nica this was the only firing for four years-and it went wrong. Statistically then over 5years 100% failure rate. Even if you say it was fired every 4 years since 1994 and it is the only failure (and how would we know) that is still a 1 in 5 failure rate. The expense jut can't be justified.

Apparently they only tested it once in four years I read. So not often M0nica*

"The Trident ballistic missile was set to be tested for the first time in four years by the HMS Vengeance last June off the Florida coast, according to the Sunday Times"

Hang on, how many Trident test firings have there been over the course of the use of this weapon, 100's?, 1,000s? And one went wrong, that we know of.

Looking at this statistically, and only statistically, to me it seems it is a reliable weapon.

If she's got any political acumen now's the chance to put a hold on Trident until a full report is out on this incident. That should see out her government and put the onus on the next/her successor to decide.

I think she knew. Andrew Neil made me laugh- "Please can we have our missile back?" If it wasn't so scary it would be hilarious. Somebody on another thread posted about the Navy Lark this is real life imitating it!

Well how dare the plebs want to know the truth!!! We should be happy to accept as Gospel anything the government tells us.

I thought she looked and sounded on the defensive for the entire interview.

She looked very rattled.

Mays silence on Marr shows that she knew. First instinct is to keep quiet. Not always a good strategy as it makes you look weak when you are forced to speak.

Corbyn wants another debate in parliament about it. Much more important for May to have a special relationship with Trump than discuss Trident.

Andrew Neil asked if anyone knew where it was, and if so could they let us know, please.

All governments since Thatcher have talked about the 'special relationship'. I can't help feeling that all that means is that we'll end up the patsy when the time comes. Better for the USA if the bombs to fall on us rather than them. We're Airstrip One but instead being used to fight a war for Big Brother we'll be doing it for the USA.

I think they'll just spend more money trying to rectify the fault.