US presses UK on renewing its Trident nuclear submarine fleet

[Onkel Neal]

US presses UK on renewing its Trident nuclear submarine fleet
http://en.mercopress.com/2016/02/15/...bmarine-fleet#

Why would Britain shy away from its deterrent responsibility? With Russia insurgent and increasingly autocratic, should the US and France be the sole nuclear submarine deterrent powers?

A decision on replacing the ageing fleet of four submarines which carry nuclear warheads is due to be made this year and while Prime Minister David Cameron is committed to renewal, the issue has caused deep divisions in the opposition Labor Party.

Carter said the submarine fleet helped the “special relationship” Britain enjoyed with the United States, the BBC said on its website.

The deterrent allowed Britain to “continue to play that outsized role on the global stage that it does because of its moral standing and its historical standing,” he was quoted as saying.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a6872241.html

“The UK is one of the major powers in Nato – its deterrent is part and parcel of the Nato deterrent. The questioning that’s going on about renewing the submarines – there’s a great deal of nervousness around and it’s perfectly understandable.

The US Defence Secretary, Ash Carter, has urged Britain to renew its nuclear deterrent. The Government is expected to delay a vote on spending £40bn to replace the four submarines in the Trident programme until after the summer.

[Aktungbby]

Considering:

Bringing back the language of the 1950s and '60s, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev says the strained relationship between his country and the West could be described as "a new Cold War."
Speaking Saturday at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Medvedev said he sometimes found himself wondering whether this was 2016 or 1962.


"NATO's policy with regard to Russia has remained unfriendly and opaque. One could go as far as to say that we have slid back to a new Cold War," Medvedev said. "Almost on an everyday basis we are called one of the most terrible threats either to NATO as a whole or to Europe, or to the United States."...Russian President Vladimir Putin has been accused of trying to undermine the unity of NATO, particularly with the destabilization of Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea. Putin has announced that will add more nuclear missiles and build a new generation of non-nuclear ones that could strike U.S. soil.

This is no time for a principle member of NATO to be backing down...Britain certainly should not rattle the saber but the hand needs to rest on an imposing hilt. They certainly defended the Falklands-this is considerably more serious! Lack of preparedness or perceived lack thereof as much as outright aggression (Ukraine -to recreate the Stalinist buffer- or South China Sea island creation) can lead to outright hostilities similar to Hitler's retaking the Rhineland. Once again the 'have-nots' are on the march; We ruined the twentieth century; I'd really like to exit the 21st on a higher plane... http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/13/europe/russia-medvedev-new-cold-war/

[ikalugin]

If UK has lost it's nuclear deterent it would have been most embarasing.

[Cybermat47]

Some would say that the UK should leave nuclear deterrent to the US, and instead focus on being the main ASW force of NATO.

[nohouan]

What annoys me the most is that France & the UK discussed in the mid-2Ks the future financial problems that western europe would face today. A solution envisionned then (and before that) was to merge our submarine forces or at least our SLBM components. It would have been of course extremely complicated, and would have taken the first quarter of the century to complete at least, but I think the savings could have been immense in the end. But it didn't fly in the UK.
Nukes give me nightmares, but if they don't go away for everyone, they won't go for anyone who already has them...
I don't think the UK will scrap it's sea based deterrent, but the delays could hurt their know-how, hence cost more and affect the "balance" of public perception around the world. Plus, I'm not a big fan of the idea that my country be the only SLBM capable in the EU.

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

Some would say that the UK should leave nuclear deterrent to the US, and instead focus on being the main ASW force of NATO.

Outsourcing soverenity is bad.

[MGR1]

Another issue is an increasingly incessent, nasily, "We're no wantin' it here, pal!" emanating from quite a few areas of the Clyde Valley. Every single Scottish Labour branch office in the Clyde area voted in favour of scrapping the UK deterrent at their party conference last year. The major issue isn't the Faslane base itself, it's the nuclear weapon storage facility at Coulport.

Glasgow (and the 41 per cent of Scotland's population who live in the area) doesn't do being considered expendable, apparently.

Personally, the UK should keep them, but I'm all in favour of the base being shifted elsewhere. Glasgow's whinging get's a little grating after a while....

Mike.

[ikalugin]

Just move it to the Gibraltar. That would be closer to the patrol area and would piss the Spanish off.

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by MGR1

Another issue is an increasingly incessent, nasily, "We're no wantin' it here, pal!" emanating from quite a few areas of the Clyde Valley. Every single Scottish Labour branch office in the Clyde area voted in favour of scrapping the UK deterrent at their party conference last year. The major issue isn't the Faslane base itself, it's the nuclear weapon storage facility at Coulport.

Glasgow (and the 41 per cent of Scotland's population who live in the area) doesn't do being considered expendable, apparently.

Personally, the UK should keep them, but I'm all in favour of the base being shifted elsewhere. Glasgow's whinging get's a little grating after a while....

Mike.

What good would it be to have a Scotland without England to the south?

To help the burned and radiated peoples as they cross over the border?

Fear the enemy by being stronger than they are ... without FBM's no restrike would take place.

By the way what are those things on the two mast in Neal's photo of a UK submarine?
Both are the same leaving out an attack scope and a regular scope.
My best guess is some kind of hindsight underwater passive sonar.

[ikalugin]

The interesting question is - does a single sub on patrol guarantee second strike capability? Can that sub be tailed from the base by a modern SSN to it's patrol area? As such - does UK consider options in improving it's deterent survivability?

[nohouan]

Maybe at least two with an Abyss-style underwater mobile refuelling base. That'd be both creepy and cool.
Well, more seriously, four SLBMs is the minimum operationnal requirement for an almost permanent deterrent...

[MGR1]

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

What good would it be to have a Scotland without England to the south?

To help the burned and radiated peoples as they cross over the border?

Fear the enemy by being stronger than they are ... without FBM's no restrike would take place. .

Note, I said I was in favour of keeping the UK deterrent, nor do I care where it is based, as long as it is retained.

What Labour's Scottish Branch Office (Scottish Labour is not an independent political party) chooses to do is largely immaterial, as it can be overridden by the UK-wide Labour Party, as has already occured. The UK Labour Party rebelled against it's current leader, the pro-disarmament Jeremy Corbyn, by voting to retain Trident at the main party conference last year. To complicate matters further, Scottish Labour's current leader, Kezia Dugdale, is in favour of retaining the deterrent. So you have an almighty degree of confusion and lack of clear policy on the part of Her Majesty's Opposition, i.e, the Labour Party.

It can be summed up thus:

Scottish Labour (a branch of UK Labour) - Anti nuclear weapon, but has a pro nuclear weapon leader.

UK Labour (the main party) - Pro nuclear weapon, but has an anti nuclear weapon leader.

This is all a moot point, anyway, as the Conservative Party (which forms the current UK Government) has a majority in the House of Commons and many of the Labour Party's MP's are also in favour of keeping Trident. Therefore it's pretty certain that the Commons will vote in favour of retaining the deterrent and investing in Trident's successor.

The only thing that would scupper those plans is if you had a US President (can you say Trump? Considering the recent furor in the UK over recent comments from him, he'd be the most likely culprit.) who would block the UK's use of the actual missiles. The warheads are UK produced, but the missile bodies themselves are shared with the US in a common pool. This is why it's not uncommon to see a UK Vanguard SSBN visiting Bangor in the US. All that would be required would be a Presidential order blocking the sharing of US resources with the UK and the UK would have warheads, but no way to deploy them.

Mike.