[News] UK to increase nuclear warheads by 40%

WATFORD zero · Mar 17, 2021

I hadn't seen anything on the news about this, and certainly hope this isn't right, but

Russia condemns UK plan to increase nuclear weapons as threat to ‘international stability’

Russia has condemned the decision by the UK government to boost its arsenal of nuclear weapons, saying the move would harm international stability. The UK will increase the cap on its nuclear warhead stockpile by more than 40 per cent, prime minister Boris Johnson revealed as part of his foreign and defence policy review on Tuesday.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-nuclear-weapons-uk-boris-johnson-b1818339.html

After many, many years of all the major powers around the world working on reducing nuclear warheads, just the 2 questions

1. Why ?
2. How are we going to pay for it given our current debt situation ?

Hotchilidog · Mar 17, 2021

If anything demonstrated the disconnect between this government and the problems this country faces this is it.

More nukes for the UK, the answer to a question nobody is asking.

Psychobilly freakout · Mar 17, 2021

WATFORD zero said:
I hadn't seen anything on the news about this, and certainly hope this isn't right, but

Russia condemns UK plan to increase nuclear weapons as threat to ‘international stability’

Russia has condemned the decision by the UK government to boost its arsenal of nuclear weapons, saying the move would harm international stability. The UK will increase the cap on its nuclear warhead stockpile by more than 40 per cent, prime minister Boris Johnson revealed as part of his foreign and defence policy review on Tuesday.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-nuclear-weapons-uk-boris-johnson-b1818339.html

After many, many years of all the major powers around the world working on reducing nuclear warheads, just the 2 questions

1. Why ?
2. How are we going to pay for it given our current debt situation ?

Because our army is under funded and dwinderling ?
I guess big time mass army fights for want of a better word are a thing of the past, the bigger the missile and a smaller number of elite soldiers would be the way to go ??
Just guessing, I have no idea !

Soton Seagull · Mar 17, 2021

Does seem a complete waste of money and giving in to the sabre rattling types who believe in a return to 'Splendid Isolation'.

Putting the pro/anti nuke argument to one side; surely once you have enough weapons to effectively wipe out all enemies plus the bonus (?!) of all life on earth; then is it time to spend your money on something else?

With an ageing population the social care time bomb seems more urgent than adding to literal bombs that we already have plenty of.

Swansman · Mar 17, 2021

1. Military–industrial complex is strong.
2. Just take another loan and maybe make some cuts in public spending, perhaps some privatisation of state stuff. One day all the nations wont be able to pay their debts and the lenders will say "well, you are ours now". But until then... loan money.

Blue Valkyrie · Mar 17, 2021

WATFORD zero said:
I hadn't seen anything on the news about this, and certainly hope this isn't right, but

Russia condemns UK plan to increase nuclear weapons as threat to ‘international stability’

Russia has condemned the decision by the UK government to boost its arsenal of nuclear weapons, saying the move would harm international stability. The UK will increase the cap on its nuclear warhead stockpile by more than 40 per cent, prime minister Boris Johnson revealed as part of his foreign and defence policy review on Tuesday.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-nuclear-weapons-uk-boris-johnson-b1818339.html

After many, many years of all the major powers around the world working on reducing nuclear warheads, just the 2 questions

1. Why ?
2. How are we going to pay for it given our current debt situation ?

2. The change is just to the theoretical maximum number allowed. It is a sleight of hand and we are not actually getting any more.

Result : Headline.
Cost : £0.

Titanic · Mar 17, 2021

I don't begin to understand this. Is it a case of renewing/changing/upgrading technology that happens to change the configuration/number of warheads or are we really expanding our capacity??

Titanic · Mar 17, 2021

Blue Valkyrie said:
2. The change is just to the theoretical maximum number allowed. It is a sleight of hand and we are not actually getting any more. Cost : £0.

But why even do it?

blue-shifted · Mar 17, 2021

Soton Seagull said:
Does seem a complete waste of money and giving in to the sabre rattling types who believe in a return to 'Splendid Isolation'.

Putting the pro/anti nuke argument to one side; surely once you have enough weapons to effectively wipe out all enemies plus the bonus (?!) of all life on earth; then is it time to spend your money on something else?

With an ageing population the social care time bomb seems more urgent than adding to literal bombs that we already have plenty of.

Well quite

And this totally ignore the fact that we've signed the non proliferation treaty which legally binds us to be working to reduce our stockpiles.
It also ignores the fact that this just encourages our enemies to boost their supplies.
It also ignores the fact that the most pressing defence item we need to be spending money on is cyber security
It also ignores the fact that nurses are getting a 1% pay rise despite putting their lives on the lines to save us for the past year.

You do have to wonder whether this government is the most brain dead in our country's history

lawros left foot · Mar 17, 2021

I’ve always thought we should just pretend we have loads of nukes. If we were ever in a situation where we would have to use them, there is not going to be many of us left to criticise the Government for lying about the amount we have.

It’s not only the bomber submarines that have them either. I can neither confirm or deny that I served on at least one ship that carried tactical nukes.

WATFORD zero · Mar 17, 2021

Psychobilly freakout said:
Because our army is under funded and dwinderling ?
I guess big time mass army fights for want of a better word are a thing of the past, the bigger the missile and a smaller number of elite soldiers would be the way to go ??
Just guessing, I have no idea !

If now is the time to increase our funding on defence (and I really can't see it is), I would rather see it going on job opportunities for thousands of young kids that are going to have bugger all other opportunities, rather than into shareholder dividends for a few multi national arms companies :shrug:

Giraffe · Mar 17, 2021

As someone that generally supports the current Government I am also baffled by this. Other than job creation maybe? Really can't see the point. Are we missing something?

I'd rather they spent the money on increasing the size of our armed services, and extending their remit to include community projects. The military have been invaluable in helping with Covid projects and I think they could do more like this with more resources.

RossyG · Mar 17, 2021

Swansman said:
One day all the nations wont be able to pay their debts and the lenders will say "well, you are ours now". But until then... loan money.

Yep.

Blue Valkyrie · Mar 17, 2021

Titanic said:
But why even do it?

So they can make cuts in other areas and say they have boosted the nukes to compensate.

It is typical Johnson. All headline, little substance.

The number of nukes we actually have is a state secret. Boosting the published theoretical maximum number is just a headline.

The defence equivalent of "Building a bridge to Ireland".

Johnson does this time and time and time again.

Titanic · Mar 17, 2021

When Russia and the USA have 12000 between them... ours don't look significant.

Chicken Run · Mar 17, 2021

https://rusi.org/commentary/dependent-deterrent-us-support-uk-new-nuclear-warhead

RossyG · Mar 17, 2021

Giraffe said:
I am also baffled by this... Really can't see the point. Are we missing something?

That’s what I’m wondering. Because at face value it seems like an insane idea that few have asked for.

The Clamp · Mar 17, 2021

I was listening to a radio documentary about our nuclear arsenal. Apparently, all our nuclear weapons actually belong to the US. We rent them off them. I would imagine this will be the same for the new warhead stock, which leads me to believe this is probably the result of some under the table, toxic deal we have done with the States in order to secure some moody trade deal now that we are going around the globe begging anyone for deals.

But as pointed out earlier, this is, at present, a theoretical increase. But the Tory's have a way of laying the land for something bigger.

Titanic · Mar 17, 2021

The Clamp said:
I was listening to a radio documentary about our nuclear arsenal. Apparently, all our nuclear weapons actually belong to the US. We rent them off them. I would imagine this will be the same for the new warhead stock, which leads me to believe this is probably the result of some under the table, toxic deal we have done with the States in order to secure some moody trade deal now that we are going around the globe begging anyone for deals.

But as pointed out earlier, this is, at present, a theoretical increase. But the Tory's have a way of laying the land for something bigger.

They have 6000, we have 200... hardly seems like this would even matter to them. There must be something we are missing here!

Herr Tubthumper · Mar 17, 2021

Titanic said:
But why even do it?

Because it distracts from the mess the UK has created with Covid and Brexit ?

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[News] UK to increase nuclear warheads by 40%

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