They are, yet again, debating whether this country should update its nuclear deterrent. So the obvious question is, do we need such a deterrent. Now before anyone does a knee jerk response of an answer to that you clearly need to ask the question of who would we be deterring from doing what. The fact we have long had the ability to kill vast numbers of people by using nuclear weapons, and use that as a deterrent to stop them doing the same to us, begs the same question.
To that there used to be the traditional answer of, those on the other side of the cold war iron curtain. That has long gone though the weapons and prejudices remain. So who or what have we been deterring since the fall of the old enemies, if that is what they were. I would suggest no one and I do not think we ever did deter anyone who might have attacked us. Either those old "foes" or any other more recent foe. In the wars we have fought since the end of WW2 I am not aware that our possession of a nuclear deterrent had any impact on any of those we were fighting. So much for the theory of deterrence. Did that power ever get us any of the advantages in other parts of the world we had interests in, no. It seems like it was effectively useless for its supposed role, all it amounted to was a waved boast of alleged, and now only historically meaningless, prestige. Of those countries who, by their apparent policies and behavior, pose a threat to others would/does our nuclear weapons have any impact on them, seemingly only in them wanting to be the same as countries like us in having them. They want to join a club with some very unwelcome implications, a club we should never have got into, with some terrible responsibilities, and one that we should get out of right now and use the money saved to some better and constructive ends.
Why do we need what we have? Why do we need to replace what we don't need?
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