UK Trident vote today

[C0ckney]

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***snipping nonsense, insults and BAMing***

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(whoops, nothing left).

unfortunately, you've not improved as a poster since you arrived here. but at least you're not a fascist any more, so that's something.

[C0ckney]

No.

yes. you said

Nuclear weapons go a long way to ensure that those who have nuclear weapons don't have to worry about significant war on their own soil.

so by that logic if every country had nuclear weapons, then every country could go a long way to ensuring that it wouldn't have to worry about significant war on its own soil. world peace! unfortunately, you then run into the rather knotty problem of having to explain how every country having potentially world destroying weapons makes us all safer.

(there now will follow ten pages of nonsense where aeson bores us to tears by trying to make the debate about what the definition of 'is' is in an attempt to run away from the obvious meaning of his words).

[C0ckney]

Stop being a raging twot! I spelled it out for you! Conventional leads to nuclear in Europe! That is and was the fvcking thinking for half a century you blinding idiot! And it kept the fvcking peace!



The cold war may very well be over, but in case you haven't noticed there's an heir to the Soviet nuclear arsenal and he's been displaying a worrying habit of acting like the next Russian Czar. Why is it you rabid lefties from old conveniently forget everything that the Soviets and now the Russians did and are doing? It's going on in this bloody minute, you simpering apologist for any empire other than Britain's.

As for why we had large conventional forces, that would be another discussion entirely, and a nice attempt to obfuscate. The fact remains that nuclear weapons have been the guarantor of peace in Europe for over half a century. Why is that you don't like peace so much? I'm fvcking delirious with joy they didn't shove a rifle in my hands and send me over there to fix yet more of your fvckups!



Don't know, you raging moron! Why did he invade the last couple of countries he has? Fvck man, he's invaded as many European countries as Khrushchev, but you're very relaxed about it. Why is that? Do you welcome the master who is not a Yank or a capitalist?

you see, nye, this is what happens when, instead of responding to what i actually say, you just make up what you'd like me to have said and respond to that. it's easy to burn strawmen, but it makes the debate very boring for the other participant.

for example, making the point that putin has no interest in invading the west doesn't make one an apologist for him. i have never supported putin; indeed, i think that he is what happens when the cancer of patriotism becomes terminal. all too many people are afflicted with that cancer, and as a result we see nationalist leaders on the rise in many countries.

but anyway, this is my argument:

1) the cold war is over.
2) russia today is not the soviet union; it is not trying to export the revolution.
3) putin is not going to invade europe.
3a) proof of this comes from his actions; apart from syria, he has intervened only in places where ethnic russian interests are at stake, in constrast with the west, which has poked its nose into diverse places with disastrous consequences.
4) in addition, in the very unlikely event that putin intervenes in the baltic states, he will be met with a conventional response.
5) therefore, the thinking and policies that obtained during the cold war are no longer relevant.
6) as such, any argument based on the same must explain why they are still relevant; simply referencing the cold war is not enough.

[Elok]

C0ckney, if I follow you right, you're saying that nukes have not, in fact, acted as a significant deterrent to war between large, industrialized countries? Is that correct? Then why was WWII the last direct war between such countries? You had WWI (meatgrinder), WWII (meatgrinder), and then sixty years of proxy fights in developing countries. What caused that?

(I don't believe nuclear proliferation will be some kind of endless good; at some point the sheer number of potential conflicts will outweigh the deterrence factor and somebody will push the button.)

[C0ckney]

no, that's not what i mean. i'm saying that they have acted as a significant deterrent to war between large, industrialised countries in the past but that the world has changed significantly since then and, therefore, we should re-examine whether this is still true and not take it as read. essentially, no country, even the most warlike one, the US, is going to try to conquer the world outright; nor will any major war happen between industrialised countries because there is simply no reason for it to. and given that, we should get rid of our potentially world destroying weapons.

[Elok]

Re: Putin, I do see him as a significant danger . . . to political dissidents in his own country, his neighbors if they don't toe the line, and anybody who offends a client like Assad. He has, over the course of fifteen or so years in power, annexed a small hunk of Georgia and parts of the Ukraine. At that rate, he will clearly rule the world eventually. He just has to live five more centuries, and not have his country collapse under the weight of its own misery in the meantime.

[Elok]

Okay. So why would direct warfare no longer happen without nukes?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Cockney is arguing that the cold war is over, not that nukes have not served as a significant deterrent during the cold war.

Thus in today's world, nukes are basically obsolete (especially in that Trident £200bn formation), thinking that Russia will nuke anyone is just as likely as thinking that UK will use those weapons of cold war at any time.

This is (at least for me), not an argument that UK should not keep a nuke stockpile somewhere "just in case", or as a theoretical deterrent, however it does mean that it could use 90%+ of the funds for Trident on some other, more meaningful defence mechanism.

I am sure that nukes could be kept at 10% of the expense or less, if you did not have to have this type of deployment in x minutes, and similar, which the whole Trident program is based around.

Furthermore, if anyone was going for a nuclear way, they would have to think about taking US out first, and when they do so, Trident is out anyhow, so becomes as useless as if you had a stockpile of nukes on four different locations - no reliable way to deliver them without US.

All in all, it's a cold war relic, which is basically just a subsidy for US nuclear war machine, in the current configuration >>>> 51st state vassalage tribute to the master.

[Dauphin]

yes. you said



so by that logic if every country had nuclear weapons, then every country could go a long way to ensuring that it wouldn't have to worry about significant war on its own soil. world peace! unfortunately, you then run into the rather knotty problem of having to explain how every country having potentially world destroying weapons makes us all safer.

(there now will follow ten pages of nonsense where aeson bores us to tears by trying to make the debate about what the definition of 'is' is in an attempt to run away from the obvious meaning of his words).

It's not knotty. Premise: every country that gets nukes is safer than a country without nukes. every additional country that has nukes reduces the effectiveness of nukes for those that have them and places those without them at a greater disadvantage . Consequence: Every country will want nukes and as they acquire them any benefits of having them are greatly diminished and the negatives can be very bad. The idea that if no one has nukes you have increased risk of war but decreased risk of very bad things for everyone still holds.

It's a classic example of individual choice being at odds with global best choice, just like withdrawing money in a bank run or wealth destroying advertising.

[C0ckney]

Re: Putin, I do see him as a significant danger . . . to political dissidents in his own country, his neighbors if they don't toe the line, and anybody who offends a client like Assad. He has, over the course of fifteen or so years in power, annexed a small hunk of Georgia and parts of the Ukraine. At that rate, he will clearly rule the world eventually. He just has to live five more centuries, and not have his country collapse under the weight of its own misery in the meantime.

well yes, exactly.

Okay. So why would direct warfare no longer happen without nukes?

why would it?

there's too much to lose, the major economies are intertwined, there are no serious territorial claims being advanced (notwithstanding some man made islands in the south china sea) by any major power, etc.

[C0ckney]

well, this has been the most active thread on poly for a while, but i must do some work! more later.

[BeBMan]

re the whole debate around Putin's/Russia's intentions: any reasonable security/defense policy cannot be based exclusively on the intentions (which are mostly *perceived intentions*) of country/side X. Because even if the perceptions would be always 100% correct (which they most probably are not) intentions, policies whatever are not static, and can change in a relatively short time. That is why the actual capabilities of country/side X need to be taken into account.

[Elok]

why would it?

Because direct war has been the norm for basically all of human history?

there's too much to lose, the major economies are intertwined, there are no serious territorial claims being advanced (notwithstanding some man made islands in the south china sea) by any major power, etc.

This would make sense if human beings were consistently rational actors. The very existence of war proves that we are not. WWI happened because of a network of secret agreements pulling completely uninvolved powers into fights where they had nothing at stake. WWII happened because several large and powerful countries were taken over by borderline lunatics. My country got bogged down in Vietnam for about twenty years, with increasing escalation, basically because we inherited a colonial struggle against the French which had nothing to do with us. We invaded Iraq for a whole set of incoherent, false, and/or contradictory reasons. War is seldom a rational response to our problems. It happens anyway.

[Aeson]

yes.

No.

so by that logic if every country had nuclear weapons, then every country could go a long way to ensuring that it wouldn't have to worry about significant war on its own soil.

No.

world peace!

No. Even if the above wasn't a false claim, there would still likely be war. Less risk != no risk

unfortunately, you then run into the rather knotty problem of having to explain how every country having potentially world destroying weapons makes us all safer.

You didn't ask, "how every country having potentially world destroying weapons makes us all safer?" ... you asked "why should we spend billions of pounds to counter a threat that may have existed 30 years ago but no longer does?"

To put this as simply as possible in hopes that your feeble mind can grasp why conflating the two questions is so ridiculous ... Have nukes: +safety to owner, -safety to everyone else ...

(there now will follow ten pages of nonsense where aeson bores us to tears by trying to make the debate about what the definition of 'is' is in an attempt to run away from the obvious meaning of his words).

You are lying about what you asked, and too stupid to understand even simple concepts.

[Bereta_Eder]

from my POV, nye, although confined in his cold war way of seeing things is not necessairily right or wrong but the problemis that noone can say that the problem is russia except a bunch of small countries.

he is using NATO as an all unifying ideal but is it?

I will leave aside the fact that it's probably the most failed *defense* alliance ever (never seen a defense, attack - don't quote the known phrase) and just go to what I think is the gist of the matter.

When you fight for something you have to know what you're fighting for.
If the pillars that have made the european project viable have been compromised and not only that, but there is no guarantee that they won't be further eroded... then what?

solidary
social state
human rights

these are taken apart by things like extra-parliamentary committies, TTIP ultrasecret negotiations etc
Why so much secrecy? why such a lack of democracy? why such an invasion of the social state.

if the EU's ideals are to be replaced by others then everything will be replaced by them.

if selfishness prevails then it will prevail all over I'm afraid