[roughbeast]

Are we not forgetting that one of Corbyn's motives for unilateral nuclear disarmament is to restart the global process of disarmament?

At the point of the break up of the USSR, initiated under Reagan and Gorbachev, we had a wonderful opportunity to pursue disarmament apace. Gorbachev was whole-heartedly for getting rid of nuclear weapons altogether. Unfortunately we blew it. Subsequent western leaders acted in a triumphalist way, accepted ex-USSR states into NATO and / or the EU thus rubbing Russian noses in it. Gorbachev's agenda was shuffled away with the likes of Putin, determined as he is to restore Russian pride. Any chance of ridding the 3 superpowers of nuclear weapons was gone. Thanks for that NATO! Thanks for protecting us!

Folk here have raised the issue of the nuclear threat of small rogue nations like Korea and Pakistan. These remain a non-existent threat to us whilst they do not have long range delivery system. With nuclear weapons gone from the hands of Russia, China and NATO we could have jointly exerted moral, economic and, if necessary, military pressure on those states, ie. taking out their missile systems and warhead production with overwhelming conventional power.

We have managed to persuade Iran not to pursue a nuclear weapons programme largely only with economic pressure and even without us being able to negotiate from the moral high ground. The military option was clearly there, but was, as far as we know, unspoken in negotiation. So, let us not worry about small nation nuclear threats.

How about Russia and China then? Clearly, they could wipe us off the face of the earth in minutes. What damage could we do them, without the USA? Given their anti-missile systems could easily take out our 160 operational nuclear warheads I don't actually think trident, on its own, would stop them attacking us with a first nuclear strike. (Each submarine is armed with up to 16 Trident II missiles, each carrying warheads in up to eight MIRV re-entry vehicles.) The real deterrent is the USA, with 1900 operational warheads and 4500 in total. So what is the point of having our own nuclear weapons? We could never go it alone, so why have them?

Just picture the situation. Russia threatens to attack us with conventional weapons as part of an invasion force. (Can't think of a more likely reason.) We threaten with a nuclear strike to stop that, because our conventional forces are so puny we have nothing else to willy wave with. They say, "So what?" We call Washington. If we are lucky, the USA waves their bigger willy. Russians back off!

Returning to Corbyn's notion of nuclear powered submarines with conventional weapons, this is not such a mad idea given that Corbyn is not a total pacifist and recognizes that we must defend our homeland and other assets in a dangerous world. ( He is only a pacifist in that he is determined to settle disputes using diplomacy and the UN to their absolute limit. He knows that violence begets violence. ) We already have nuclear-powered hunter killer subs in service, being built and under commission. Converting and maintaining our nuclear ballistic missile launchers to conventional warheads or cruise missiles would keep our workers in employment whilst beefing up our conventional power.

BTW. Sentiment against the use of nuclear weapons isn't a wholly 'lefty' notion. In a 2005 Mori poll people were asked "Would you approve or disapprove of the UK using nuclear weapons against a country we are at war with?". 9% approved if that country did not have nuclear weapons, and 84% disapproved. 16% approved if that country had nuclear weapons but never used them, and 72% disapproved. 53% approved if that country used nuclear weapons against the UK, and 37% disapproved. So it seems that the only time most people would want to fire nuclear weapons is if we have already been attacked by nuclear weapons. I guess that by then they figured that the human race would be doomed so we might as well do a good job of it!