Why the UK have no use for a nuclear deterrent.
So on the Progressive Thread, Loud Whisper started defending the idea that the UK need Trident.
Well, first of all, other countries without NATO seems to do just as well without a deterrent. Germany is happy without nukes (And with spending only 1.4% of GDP on defense, compared to the UK's 2.5). Turkey, in an unstable neighborhood is just as happy without nukes of its own.
Why is it so? The classic argument for nukes, that they deter attacks, seems at best an half-truth, since nukeless NATO countries have done just as well as the UK.
In fact, the nukes don't deter much. They don't deter terrorists, and they didn't deter Argentina back in 1982. It's logical after all: the UK weren't going to nuke Dublin to piss off the IRA or to turn Buenos Aires into a pile of ash for a few rocks no one had heard of before. The bombers and Argentines knew it and weren't deterred.
So what do nuke deters, if they deter anything at all? Well, to find out, you have to ask yourself, under what circumstance would the UK use its nukes? The only event I could think of would be a full-scale Russian invasion. Now, a Russian invasion is already deterred by the fact that NATO totally outgun it in conventional weaponry. And if Russia dare use its nuke against European targets, we can be pretty sure the French will stop eating cheese long enough to blow up Moscow and St Petersburg.
The fact is that large-power wars aren't going to happen anytime soon, especially for as long as we totally outgun all our neighbor conventionally. That's why you see all the European army getting smaller, leaner with a focus on force projection and peace-keeping: there is not much need for old-school armies anymore. We need scalpel, not hammers. And the Trident sledgehammer is a thing of the past.