Do you support the UK increase in the military budget?

[ska invita]

yes of course you're correct, and I made my point badly, I wasn't thinking of an Iraq-type 'war' but something more like WW2, when the populace as a whole had roles to play in it.

i cant see it happening tbh. if theres a british-involved all out war against Russia it will not be trench warfare with cannon fodder like ukraine or ww2, it'll be full scale missile attacks leading to nuclear. one less thing to worry about

 

[Humberto]

Includes quotes in the article from top brass types and questions whether the UK will in effect have a nuclear deterrent should Trump win and cosy up to Putin. So, effectively, it's a giant waste of money. 'Conventional' capabilities fairly inadequate too. Monbiot not a writer you would think to look to for a take on this ordinarily, but it seems fairly self-evident and a non-hysterical/reasonable take.

I never thought I’d argue for rearmament. But a looming Trump presidency changes everything | George Monbiot

A Putin-friendly president would pose a grave danger to Europe. Like it or not, this calls for greater defence, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

www.theguardian.com

Currently, according to a former senior official at the MoD, the UK’s forces would be unable to “fight and win an armed conflict of any scale”. We would rapidly run out of ammunition, could not prevent missile strikes and could not stop an attack on our territory.


Conversely, this is also a good moment for the UK government to rethink its position on nuclear weapons. It’s time to recognise that our “independent nuclear deterrent” has never been independent. Because key components are supplied and controlled by the US, we cannot operate it without US consent. So, if Trump regains the White House, it would not be a deterrent, either: Putin knows we cannot use it. The UK’s nuclear programme is a £172bn heap of bricks. Why waste more money on it?

 

[bellaozzydog]

Pretty fucking please with sprinkles on. On the basis it’s spent supporting squaddies they’ve broken

how many more triple amputees climbing Kilimanjaro or rowing the Atlantic in wheelie bins do we have to fucking endure

 

[gosub]

New UK fighter jet could be axed in defence review

There are concerns that going ahead with a programme that is not expected to deliver new aircraft until the 2030s is not the best way to deter a threat of war from Russia.

news.sky.com

 

[A380]

The defence budget includes absolutely everything the government could almost plausibly include under the heading 'defence' - the key thing to remember is that for the government, the objective is to have the biggest possible number it can say 'this is what we're spending on Defence..', it's absolutely not about buying the greatest possible capability to defend.

When NATO agreed the 2% thing in 2014(?), the UK spend was under that, so they reclassed both the Intelligence and Security budget, and military pensions, as being part of the defence budget, and wahay, suddenly the 2% is met....

Literally this,

A few years ago I was part of the health budget one Friday (not a medic BTW...). The following Monday, without changing my non descript government land office I was part of the defence budget keeping the Queen's enemies at bay...

 

[likesfish]

with Putin threatining nuclear armaggeden every Tuesday the nuclear tsunami by nuclear torpedo was original although he needs to up his game maybe get a cat and threaten to drop London into an atomic sinkhole caused by his nuclear powered mole Bwhhahahahhaha.
.
possibly not the time to get rid of nukes

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

possibly not the time to get rid of nukes

It's always a good time to get rid of nukes.

 

[likesfish]

not when you have some weirdo invading his neighbours and talking about empire building it didn't end well in 39 it won't end well this time

 

[Pickman's model]

with Putin threatining nuclear armaggeden every Tuesday the nuclear tsunami by nuclear torpedo was original although he needs to up his game maybe get a cat and threaten to drop London into an atomic sinkhole caused by his nuclear powered mole Bwhhahahahhaha.
.
possibly not the time to get rid of nukes

possibly not, we wouldn't want to flood the market. maybe just get rid of them a few now and again

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

not when you have some weirdo invading his neighbours and talking about empire building it didn't end well in 39 it won't end well this time

The people at the top are always weirdos, some more than others. Putin with nukes is a bad idea. Agreed. So why is Liz Truss with nukes any better? Or Boris Johnson? Or Israel? Or Iran? Or anyone?

 

[A380]

It's always a good time to get rid of nukes.

Worked really well for Ukraine TBF…

 

[Spymaster]

The people at the top are always weirdos, some more than others. Putin with nukes is a bad idea. Agreed. So why is Liz Truss with nukes any better? Or Boris Johnson? Or Israel? Or Iran? Or anyone?

Because out of all of those, Putin is the only one to regularly threaten to use them.

 

[mojo pixy]

Fund the military from the National Lottery, give 2.5% of GDP to local councils so they can re-fund their services to a standard not seen since the 1960s

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Because out of all of those, Putin is the only one to regularly threaten to use them.

The threat to use them can be seen as 'deterrence'. Maybe the ones who don't threaten to use them are more dangerous.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Worked really well for Ukraine TBF…

Well Russia, a nuclear power, has just been invaded by a non-nuclear power, i.e. Ukraine.

 

[A380]

Well Russia, a nuclear power, has just been invaded by a non-nuclear power, i.e. Ukraine.

Fair point. Happened in 1982 as well.

 

[Spymaster]

The threat to use them can be seen as 'deterrence'. Maybe the ones who don't threaten to use them are more dangerous.

I think threats from a criminal narcissist who's currently paying a gang of rapists and murderers to go marauding through a neighbouring country should be taken with the utmost seriousness.

 

[emanymton]

Because out of all of those, Putin is the only one to regularly threaten to use them.

I think Truss is dumb enough to use them and not release though.

 

[ID47]

Low flying fighter jet overhead right now for the fucking airshow, horrendous noise and my poor cat scared shitless. I just hate everything military and the shit, death and misery it and its acolytes bring to this world.

 

[likesfish]

The people at the top are always weirdos, some more than others. Putin with nukes is a bad idea. Agreed. So why is Liz Truss with nukes any better? Or Boris Johnson? Or Israel? Or Iran? Or anyone?

MAD while being the most insane of ideology's is the only one that appears to have worked their was 21 years between the first two world wars ones.
While the cold war was bloody most of the proxy wars were contained the blood Shep was nowhere near a level of WW3 even without nukes in play.

while the UK and Frances nukes arsernal might be small, it's big enough to deny any ideas of fighting a limited nuke fight to Europe alone
Putin may not give a Damm about Russia's children he doesn't want his own neck vapourised !

 

[weltweit]

Yes, invest in the military, we need to be ready for what might be coming.

That said men of less than 27 and more than 60 shouldn't be called up.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

MAD while being the most insane of ideology's is the only one that appears to have worked their was 21 years between the first two world wars ones.
While the cold war was bloody most of the proxy wars were contained the blood Shep was nowhere near a level of WW3 even without nukes in play.

while the UK and Frances nukes arsernal might be small, it's big enough to deny any ideas of fighting a limited nuke fight to Europe alone
Putin may not give a Damm about Russia's children he doesn't want his own neck vapourised !

But if nukes are so good at preserving the peace, why not give them to everyone? Oh yes, the current possessors of nukes are all such stable, rational geezers. The ones who don't have them can't be trusted with them, naturally. Doesn't make sense does it?

If MAD really worked, the major nuclear powers wouldn't bother with large conventional armies to defend themselves against other major nuclear powers' large conventional armies. Why bother? The fear of MAD would deter any aggressors.

 

[Spymaster]

But if nukes are so good at preserving the peace, why not give them to everyone? Oh yes, the current possessors of nukes are all such stable, rational geezers. The ones who don't have them can't be trusted with them, naturally. Doesn't make sense does it?

It does though. Completely.

Nobody has chucked a nuke in anger for 80 odd years.

No need to give any more arseholes the opportunity to fuck that up.

 

[nogojones]

Worked really well for Ukraine TBF…

I'm not sure how well it would have worked out for Ukraine if they had kept them. The country was economically fucked post USSR. Lot's of neglected, rotting warheads, just hanging around, doesn't really seem like a great idea for the health and wellbeing of the country they're based in.

 

[emanymton]

I'm not sure how well it would have worked out for Ukraine if they had kept them. The country was economically fucked post USSR. Lot's of neglected, rotting warheads, just hanging around, doesn't really seem like a great idea for the health and wellbeing of the country they're based in.

They also didn't have to codes to fire them. They would have needed reach some kind of deal with Russia to get them, which seems unlikely. Not helped by the fact that the US was actively working to keep all the Nukes under Russian control.

 

[Spymaster]

They also didn't have to codes to fire them. They would have needed reach some kind of deal with Russia to get them, which seems unlikely.

Zelensky: "Can I have the codes please, Vladimir?"

Vlad the Rape Sponsor: .........

 

[mojo pixy]

I'm wondering now (unlikely ever to know but as the matter of nuclear weapons comes up...) whether there are any Russian nuclear arms installations in or near the current Ukrainian incursion. And how things might go if Ukraine regained even one armed facility.

/intrusive thought

 

[The39thStep]

I'm not sure how well it would have worked out for Ukraine if they had kept them. The country was economically fucked post USSR. Lot's of neglected, rotting warheads, just hanging around, doesn't really seem like a great idea for the health and wellbeing of the country they're based in.

The Ukraine economy has been economically fucked / drastically underperformed pretty much continuously since independence . Even if we disregard the post 2014 period ie the Ukraine / Soviet conflict despite its size and abundance of natural resources it’s still been one of the worst performing economies , not just compared to other ex soviet ones ,but in Europe itself .

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

It does though. Completely.

Nobody has chucked a nuke in anger for 80 odd years.

No need to give any more arseholes the opportunity to fuck that up.

A) let's reduce the number of arseholes who have the opportunity to zero.
B) we've had several near misses in those 80 years. In some potential parallel universe we might already have been blown to kingdom come.

 

[kebabking]

I'm not sure how well it would have worked out for Ukraine if they had kept them. The country was economically fucked post USSR. Lot's of neglected, rotting warheads, just hanging around, doesn't really seem like a great idea for the health and wellbeing of the country they're based in.

They also didn't have to codes to fire them. They would have needed reach some kind of deal with Russia to get them, which seems unlikely. Not helped by the fact that the US was actively working to keep all the Nukes under Russian control.

It's a nuanced thing - Ukraine absolutely did not have the cash to maintain the warheads, not keep them safe from other actors, it also didn't have a way of delivering them a long way, as well as not having the codes to detonate them.

But, it wouldn't have taken that long (a year, two?) for Ukraine to get firing detonation control over the warheads, and given that we're talking about decades, Ukraine would have been able by 2022 to get them deployable, whether in a simple air dropped bomb, or simply by putting it in a truck and driving it to where you want it to go bang.

However, the Ukrainians really wanted rid of them all - they couldn't afford them - the US and everyone else wanted them all, and no one wanted an effectively failing state in Europe to have a dozen-fifty nukes with crude/limited firing control systems and the ability to be delivered by plane or truck. So the nukes were handed over, Ukraine didn't have a nuke problem, and a fat wedge of cash went to Kyiv - and everyone was happy.

Now, there's very obviously a hypothetical question as to whether Russia would have acted as it did in 2022 if the Ukrainians had a dozen nukes that were deliverable in some way. I have my views, but I wouldn't risk a dozen cities on being right...