British Politics Thread.

[Psychosplodge]

No it ensures we can get ours in after someone gets theirs in, thats the point of the submarines.

[Kirsten]

We're never, ever going to fire a Nuke in anger - and if we ever find ourselves in a situation where we would - we're screwed anyway, so what is the point?

exactly. and there is still no proof whatsoever that nukes are in any way a deterrent

[Mr Mystery]

But why? What's the point of such violent retribution? Is it really worth the billions we spend on it, just on the off chance we can do a bit of reciprocal genocide?

[Psychosplodge]

exactly. and there is still no proof whatsoever that nukes are in any way a deterrent

I think the current trend of no full blown ww3 learns towards it being some deterrent?

[Mr Mystery]

And how many countries without Nukes have been nuked, other than Japan back in 1945?

[Kirsten]

that isn't proof. there are any number of factors involved in the absence of large scale conflicts. nukes haven't stopped all the other wars that have happened since then either.

[Mr Mystery]

There's a reasonable argument they've caused a great many proxy wars - like Russia in Afghanistan (which worked out so very well for everyone involved, and certainly didn't destabilise a region, landing us in the current, extremely expensive mess we're already in.

If anything, having Nukes has enabled some countries to act like bigger phalluses, safe in the knowledge no major world power will do much about it for fear of Armageddon kicking off.

[YorkNecromancer]

What Hiroshima was like from the perspective of an eyewitness.



The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 1.4 kilotons - the equivalent of 1,400 tonnes of TNT going off at once. It had a 28 km radius.

The largest bomb produced is 200 megatons. That's 200 million tonnes of TNT going off at once. The US alone has 20,000 nuclear missiles.

The moment the first nuclear missile is launched, humanity becomes extinct. It's genuinely that simple. Those who don't die in the initial blasts will die of radiation poisoning. Those who don't die of radiation poisoning will die of starvation within the first few weeks. Those who've holed up somewhere in a fortress compound with food and the rest will die the slowest deaths of all.

This is, of course, assuming the nuclear firestorm doesn't immediately cause the oxygen in the atmosphere to catch fire, thus burning away the atmosphere completely.

And, of course, assuming the initial blast allows the planet to remain intact.

Because both of those things could happen; no-one knows for sure. But what is absolutely definite is that no-one will survive. No-one.

And anyone who says otherwise simply doesn't know enough about the nature of these weapons.

Those who wish to downplay the insane horror of the nuclear weapon would do well to watch this:

[Psychosplodge]

that isn't proof. there are any number of factors involved in the absence of large scale conflicts. nukes haven't stopped all the other wars that have happened since then either.

Its not proof no. But when you consider they're talking about spending £50bn to shave 15-30 mins off a two hour journey to London I don't see it as too much to spend on the possibility of it being a factor/insurance.

true mystery there is that with proxy wars, bt without them how many might have spilled over into bigger conflicts?

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This is, of course, assuming the nuclear firestorm doesn't immediately cause the oxygen in the atmosphere to catch fire, thus burning away the atmosphere completely.

And, of course, assuming the initial blast allows the planet to remain intact.

Because both of those things could happen; no-one knows for sure. But what is absolutely definite is that no-one will survive. No-one.

They thought both those might happen with the detonation of the first one didn't they? and still did it anyway...

[Mr Mystery]

War is War - shifting them down to proxy wars, which have been precious little more than Richard waving and measuring contests at the expense of people who, on the whole, would much rather have just been left alone than become puppets of world powers has shifted the cost onto civilians, and meant the money which would be spent on a single whopping great war is instead frugally distributed to lots of utterly pointless operations the world over.

£50Bn to reduce train times to London is bonkers, yes. But nowhere near as bonkers as the paranoia needed to spend hundreds of billions on something we don't really need, and won't make a blind bit of difference anyway.