Nukes
There's a few blog posts about nuclear weapons around at the moment. Oliver criticises this publication, and in particular this argument:IF HITLER HAD HAD THE BOMB, HE WOULD HAVE USED IT ON US - Yes, he would have. This proves that nuclear deterrence does not work.
The argument doen't really work. I'm not sure the premise is right for a start - Hitler had large stocks of chemical weapons and didn't use those. Maybe he was deterred by Allied reaction. On the other hand the US did use nuclear weapons, so maybe Hitler would have. On the second part of the argument, even if we accept the first part, it still isn't right - what they mean is 'it proves it does not work in ALL cases'. There may be a debate to be had over whether those cases are growing in number and the cases where it does work are falling - more Saddams and less Soviets.
In any case I think they might be better off making the more simple argument that the only use for nuclear weapons is the mass murder of civilians - innocent civilians - and Christians cannot justify that.
My own view has changed of late. I used to think that replacing Trident with a few free-fall bombs would be the best solution (or even land-launched missiles). Any offensive capability against us was going to be small (ie not the Soviet Union) and unable to destroy all of our weapons, even if they were land-based. This would be much cheaper as well.
I've changed my mind. First, I am now of the view that the defence budget is more or less the same whether we have Trident or not, and spending more on subs that glide unnoticed and unused around the world means spending less on weapons that might actually be used in disastrous projects such as Iraq. Indeed I wonder whether given the nature of these things a Trident replacement would mean at least one of the two carriers was never built (I think these two agree with me implicitly as they are arguing for £11bn more funding, which I don't think they'll get - polls show the British want nukes unless they cost money).
Furthermore, there is the other interesting article about nuclear weapons which is over at Jamie's site. Here he links to an article that suggests there is a possibility of Pakistan's government being Al Qaedaised. This might in turn explain Iran's position, and that we really might need Trident II. So Gordon, place that order!
posted by Matthew @ 9/15/2006 07:39:00 AM
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