Nuclear Sub

On March 23rd, 2010, the BBC News contained an item which stated that Britain’s defence budget would be £36 billion in deficit within the next ten years. To replace Trident will cost at least £20 billion.
At present, Britain has four Vanguard class nuclear submarines armed with 16 Trident nuclear missiles, each missile with 10 independently targetable warheads.

I have just seen Sound and Fury’s
production of Bryony Lavery’s play Kursk. The Kursk
was, according to Wikipedia, “a Russian Oscar II class submarine which sank in the Barents Sea. The generally accepted theory is that a leak of hydrogen peroxide in the forward torpedo room led to the detonation of a torpedo warhead, which in turn triggered the explosion of up to seven other warheads about two minutes later. Despite a rescue attempt by British and Norwegian teams, all 118 sailors and officers aboard Kursk died.”

Lavery’s play is set in a British nuclear submarine whose orders were to shadow the Kursk, and even to dive underneath it, so as to photograph it in detail. In the course of the play, the British Captain says the Kursk has more destructive power than the total destructive power let loose in the entire Second World War.

The creators of the play – the two directors worked with the writer – spent a long time on research, including time in a nuclear submarine and discussion with two submarine commanders. The navy passed the play as factually accurate.

One thing emerged from the play which, on a moment’s thought, is obvious. Nuclear submarines patrol the oceans, and nobody – nobody in the Ministry of Defence, nobody in the Cabinet – knows exactly where a particular submarine is.

The previous post suggested the British Prime Minister as Commander in Chief will be able to strut the world stage for a while longer as possessor of a fairly posh nuclear deterrent. As long as Vanguard submarines and Trident nuclear missiles can be maintained, there is still enough destructive power on board one submarine to devastate over a hundred cities and create nuclear winter.

Surely rather than spending £20 billion on replacing Trdient, the sensible thing to do is to use the remaining lifetime of the existing nuclear missile system to negotiate for a world where every nuclear missile is destroyed.

Nuclear subs cost a lot to maintain. A pun comes to the surface: if we can’t afford nuclear subs, will we be able to afford the Sub for our membership of the Nuclear Club?

Even posh bankrupts can’t afford war.