Trident

One of the very big decisions that Cameron will have to take when he becomes Prime Minister is whether to build a replacement for Trident in about 10 years time. I am not certain whether he should, even though this might mean the end of the British "independent" nuclear deterrent.

Firstly the sheer cost of £21billion (at present - it will rise it always does) is just too much for the services to carry. I know that Trident is considered to be a national asset and comes out of the MoD budget rather than the Navy's but it still a huge amount, especially given the cost of the two new aircraft carriers.

Secondly, and this refers to the carriers. It is my view that expeditionary warfare will be the norm for the foreseeable future - given the changing patterns of warfare to what Rupert Smith in his book "Utility of Force" called "wars amongst people" and hence the ability to power project is much more important than having the ultimate deterrent. We will not be able to guarantee having use of friendly airfields close by the theatre of operations and having a carrier or two would be of far far more use to operations than a Trident sub. (BTW the same argument also applies to the "heavy army" - the armoured regiments of Charley 2 tanks - resources should be swung to the infantry) . I don't believe that we can afford both the carriers and the subs so given the current nature of warfare the carriers MUST come first.

As for for Trident being the ultimate deterrent, there would be only a few states now that would even contemplate using nukes and these would be rogue states such as Iran or N. Korea. The issue I have - and its a selfish one I agree - is whether they would attack us with nuclear weapons - and frankly I don't believe they would. Trident would be of no use whatsoever against terrorists armed with nuclear weapons (the basic designs of which are openly available) since they wouldn't care about retailaton. Would we take out, say, Teheran, if an Iranian based terrorist group attacked the UK?

On balance I am coming to the conclusion that Trident must go ....