Cable Forum - View Single Post

**Hugh** · 18-04-2010, 11:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

FYI

So, what about independence of operation? Could Britain fire Trident if the US objected? In 1962 the then US defence secretary, Robert McNamara, said that the British nuclear bomber force did not operate independently. Writing in 1980, Air Vice-Marshal Stewart Menaul said it definitely could not be used without US authorisation. Today former naval officers say it would be extremely difficult. The many computer software programs, the fuse, the trigger, the guidance system as well as the missiles are all made in America.

Confidence tricks work best on people who want to believe in them, and the British elite and much of the public are desperate to believe that Britain's bomb gives them great-power status. Instead Britain gets the worst of all worlds: weapons that can't be used when the chips are down and a US-led policy that rejects disarmament in favour of pre-emptive war. And now, with Trident becoming obsolete, the government wants to renew the deal - behind the old, dishonest mask of independent deterrence.

---------- Post added at 06:56 ---------- Previous post was at 06:54 ----------

This is moving the goalposts. For generations governments have tried to prevent the public knowing how much nuclear weapons kit the UK gets from the US, so that they could sustain the myth that our deterrent was home-made. Now, suddenly, it doesn't matter if the missiles aren't British.

But there is nothing in that (Spectator, not v. unbiased, imho) article that states the UK could not fire the MIRVs independently, except a bit of FUD and hyperbole

Quote:

Let us say that Britain wanted to fire Trident and the United States opposed this. What would happen? For one, the entire US navy would be deployed to hunt down Red-White-and-Blue October; it would know roughly where to look, starting from the last position notified to the US and Nato while on normal patrol. Meanwhile, the prime minister would be trying to find a radio that was not jammed, hoping that none of the software had a worm and that the US navy wouldn't shoot the missiles down with either its Aegis anti-missile system or the self-destruct radio signal that is used when missiles are test-fired.
From the moment of a breach with Washington, moreover, every Trident submarine sailing down the Clyde would find a waiting US escort. In months the software would be out of date, Lockheed Martin and Halliburton would fly home, taking much equipment with them, and no spare parts would be available. As Quinlan put it: "We would be in shtook."

The crux is about deployment and use, not manufacture - that is like stating we don't have an idependent Air Force or Army Air Corps, as none of their main technology (Fighters, Transports, Helicopters) are solely manufactured in the UK, or that we don't have an independent Army because they use Belgian LMGs and GPMGs, Italian LMVs, American MLRSs, French SAMs, and American Anti-Tank Missiles.