Where are you on the political spectrum?

[renton]

1 minute ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

Oh, I would dearly love to see your working which led to that statement. Please.

My principle objection to Trident is that it is morally abhorrent, yet I can concede on an intellectual level that it's kind of the point of it.

On a costing basis, if you assume that Trident makes a direct, mass scale attack on the UK impossible then it fulfills the requirement of national defence. 

If you then compare that to the levels of conventional forces required to do the same you would find that such a force would be prohibitively expensive. The BAOR in the 80s was 9 forward deployed armoured brigades with 600 tanks, a couple of thousand other armoured vehicles and 60,000 men. At the time Defence as spending of GDP was about 4% (slightly more than double what it is today) In 2022 we might be able to deploy one armoured brigade given enough time to think about it.

Now, even allowing for that, the BAOR was expected to survive roughly two days. When the Gulf War happened in 91, the army was stripped bare of supplies and spares to support 2 of those 9 armoured brigades in the field - it broke the army. Now, we had a situation where spending 4% on the largest, most powerful "peacetime" force we'd ever had was woefully inadequate to meeting the threat it was designed to counter, and which could only deploy a fraction of its strength to meet unexpected challenges, and which broke it doing so.

It follows that if you wanted a conventional force big enough to deter, or to at least hold a near peer threat you would have to assemble something much bigger than even the BAOR at its peak. The rule of three in organisational planning that Defence often applies means that in order to keep a given sized force in the field permanently you need to be able to rotate it on the basis of having two reserves behind it. That means for every brigade you have deployed, you need another two to substitute in for it. The BAOR was entirely 'in the shop window' so to speak, so in actual fact it should either have had 3 brigades deployed with 6 behind it or kept its 9 deployed with another 18 brigades in reserve.... with sufficient ammunition reserves. 

It should also be noted that unlike previous wars, modern equipment is so complex that you couldn't turn pots and pans into tanks, and that you'd be going in with what you've got. That means any force has to be big enough at the start to win the war with tolerabe losses. No spending a couple of years building Kitchener's New Armies.

Thus, in order to provide a credible conventional national defence we would need to have a defence spend probably in the region of 8-12% of GDP.

However, Nuclear deterrence provides for the same or greater level of deterrence to a mass attack for a fraction of the 2% we currently spend on Defence while allowing the rest to build a minimum, barely credible force for other foreign policy objectives.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't like nuclear weapons any more than you do, I imagine. However, if the objective is to provide a credible defence against an attack or conflict that would direct threaten the integrity of the UK, they are the only credible means. The alternative is simply hoping it doesn't happen and accept it if it does. Which, BTW is what most nations bank on.

[AsimButtHitsASix]

Turns out I'm slightly further to the right than I thought...



38% Trot? Disgusting. I'd ice pick myself if it went above 40%

[coprolite]

21 minutes ago, renton said:

My principle objection to Trident is that it is morally abhorrent, yet I can concede on an intellectual level that it's kind of the point of it.

On a costing basis, if you assume that Trident makes a direct, mass scale attack on the UK impossible then it fulfills the requirement of national defence. 

If you then compare that to the levels of conventional forces required to do the same you would find that such a force would be prohibitively expensive. The BAOR in the 80s was 9 forward deployed armoured brigades with 600 tanks, a couple of thousand other armoured vehicles and 60,000 men. At the time Defence as spending of GDP was about 4% (slightly more than double what it is today) In 2022 we might be able to deploy one armoured brigade given enough time to think about it.

Now, even allowing for that, the BAOR was expected to survive roughly two days. When the Gulf War happened in 91, the army was stripped bare of supplies and spares to support 2 of those 9 armoured brigades in the field - it broke the army. Now, we had a situation where spending 4% on the largest, most powerful "peacetime" force we'd ever had was woefully inadequate to meeting the threat it was designed to counter, and which could only deploy a fraction of its strength to meet unexpected challenges, and which broke it doing so.

It follows that if you wanted a conventional force big enough to deter, or to at least hold a near peer threat you would have to assemble something much bigger than even the BAOR at its peak. The rule of three in organisational planning that Defence often applies means that in order to keep a given sized force in the field permanently you need to be able to rotate it on the basis of having two reserves behind it. That means for every brigade you have deployed, you need another two to substitute in for it. The BAOR was entirely 'in the shop window' so to speak, so in actual fact it should either have had 3 brigades deployed with 6 behind it or kept its 9 deployed with another 18 brigades in reserve.... with sufficient ammunition reserves. 

It should also be noted that unlike previous wars, modern equipment is so complex that you couldn't turn pots and pans into tanks, and that you'd be going in with what you've got. That means any force has to be big enough at the start to win the war with tolerabe losses. No spending a couple of years building Kitchener's New Armies.

Thus, in order to provide a credible conventional national defence we would need to have a defence spend probably in the region of 8-12% of GDP.

However, Nuclear deterrence provides for the same or greater level of deterrence to a mass attack for a fraction of the 2% we currently spend on Defence while allowing the rest to build a minimum, barely credible force for other foreign policy objectives.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't like nuclear weapons any more than you do, I imagine. However, if the objective is to provide a credible defence against an attack or conflict that would direct threaten the integrity of the UK, they are the only credible means. The alternative is simply hoping it doesn't happen and accept it if it does. Which, BTW is what most nations bank on.

So it's cost effective only in comparison to something else that's hopelessly inefficient and only as a protection against something that's not really a meaningful threat (invasion by another state). 

In other news, Trident is more cost effective than the ballista when beseiging castles. 

[renton]

30 minutes ago, coprolite said:

So it's cost effective only in comparison to something else that's hopelessly inefficient and only as a protection against something that's not really a meaningful threat (invasion by another state). 

In other news, Trident is more cost effective than the ballista when beseiging castles. 

Yeah, as I said choosing not to have that level of, I dunno, protection? Is entirely legitimate and pretty much what most nations practice. 

I would only note that near peer warfare in Europe has only ceased to be a meaningful threat in the last 30 years or so. Even today, a resurgent Russia has no where near the resources or abilities of the old Soviet Union. In that respect, with Trident already committed to by the time the Cold War was over, the successor program is really the first time the UK has renewed a nuclear program without an obvious threat to scale it against.

As an aside, during the Cold War, part of Soviet planning involved dropping nukes on Denmark on day one. Apparently to gauge reaction from the NATO nuclear powers, and since Denmark couldnt shoot back. There was a constant thread in Soviet planning that tried to decouple the US from the European powers - I.e. would a US President really risk US serviceman and ultimately US civilians to save Copenhagen? It was a fear that had some root in Whitehall, hence UK insistence on a minimal credible nuclear deterrence independent of US control.

If you still wanted to keep a pilot light on, still wanted to be able to have that deterrent effect, you could maintain places like Aldermaston, make sure you had a stockpile of materials and the expertise to rebuild capability while scrapping and mothballing the rest. However, that would require a degree of foresight in rebuilding the mechanisms of nuclear deterrence in good time if you thought you needed it.

Personally, I would scrap them entirely. The moral argument against their employment is the chief one for me - but I don't think an argument based on their cost, particularly in the face of other discretionary spending in the UK, of as outlined above their effectiveness with respect to conventional defence really stacks up.

Edited January 5, 2022 by renton

[Suspect Device]

1 hour ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

Turns out I'm slightly further to the right than I thought...



38% Trot? Disgusting. I'd ice pick myself if it went above 40%

Where do you get that?

Not that I'm any type of communist but it would be intersting to do the test.

 

Edit: I found it with a google search. I'm Rosa Luxemburg apparently. 

Which is a coincidence because I'll be studying her for my OU course next week.

Edited January 5, 2022 by Suspect Device

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Took the quiz myself.

[Granny Danger]

1 hour ago, Suspect Device said:

Where do you get that?

Not that I'm any type of communist but it would be intersting to do the test.

 

Edit: I found it with a google search. I'm Rosa Luxemburg apparently. 

Which is a coincidence because I'll be studying her for my OU course next week.

Back in the day we used to sing a great song about her.  Sadly can only find the lyrics rather than a decent YouTube version.

https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/The-Laggan-2/Rosa-Luxembourg

[Highlandmagar]

Apparently on a test I done I am 53% communist!! Always knew Sir Tony was a red under the bed!

[Fullerene]

5 hours ago, coprolite said:

In other news, Trident is more cost effective than the ballista when beseiging castles. 

Of course I wouldn't believe this until it has been tested. 

[coprolite]

29 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

Of course I wouldn't believe this until it has been tested. 

Unit cost per castle assuming that minimum seige instances are 1,500 per annum with a 100 day campaign season. Fully loading the cost base for the manpower required for transporting to deployment location. 

I would post my spreadsheet but the macros trigger AV software. 

[Fullerene]

1 hour ago, coprolite said:

Unit cost per castle assuming that minimum seige instances are 1,500 per annum with a 100 day campaign season. Fully loading the cost base for the manpower required for transporting to deployment location. 

I would post my spreadsheet but the macros trigger AV software. 

Fair enough but I don't see how you could deploy Trident against a castle without causing significant damage to the structure itself.

Admittedly I am not a military expert so I am happy to defer if you know more about these things than me.

[welshbairn]

15 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

Fair enough but I don't see how you could deploy Trident against a castle without causing significant damage to the structure itself.

Admittedly I am not a military expert so I am happy to defer if you know more about these things than me.

Simply swap the war heads over for neutron ones, like Russia would do if they ever bombed Mayfair.

[Fullerene]

7 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Simply swap the war heads over for neutron ones, like Russia would do if they ever bombed Mayfair.

Neutron bombs?  I recall a treaty against such naughtiness.  Not going to happen.

[NotThePars]

On 04/01/2022 at 09:43, Bob Mahelp said:

To get back to the original question, I would describe myself as left of centre socially and right of centre economically. 

In that I believe in equality for all, and I believe that society is only as strong as the weakest in that society, but I also like my salary, and my house, and my car, and my holidays and I want a bit more money. 

I'd hazard a fair guess that sums up pretty much everyone who posts on this board, outside those few who detest the weakest in society. 

 

 

Can't believe someone did the "socially liberal/ fiscally conservative" meme in 2022

On 04/01/2022 at 11:15, welshbairn said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/04/arts/television/taylor-greene-twitter-late-night-tv-shows.html

Twitter sucks more since Trump left.

6 hours ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

Took the quiz myself.

I would delete your account there's no coming back from this DTED.

[BFTD]

Alright, where are you all getting your Communist ratings from. I feel the need to be judged by the party hierarchy.

It would be really interesting to see what kind of Communist the right wingers come out as, like Lex, Dawson Park Boy, Granny Danger, and the The Rangers fans.

[Granny Danger]

4 hours ago, BFTD said:

Alright, where are you all getting your Communist ratings from. I feel the need to be judged by the party hierarchy.

It would be really interesting to see what kind of Communist the right wingers come out as, like Lex, Dawson Park Boy, Granny Danger, and the The Rangers fans.

You’re going to get a hard kick in the c**t with a comment like that.  Or maybe an ice pick in the head.

 

 

[AsimButtHitsASix]

4 hours ago, BFTD said:

Alright, where are you all getting your Communist ratings from. I feel the need to be judged by the party hierarchy.

It would be really interesting to see what kind of Communist the right wingers come out as, like Lex, Dawson Park Boy, Granny Danger, and the The Rangers fans.

Here is a communist quiz

Here is the full Godzilla v Barkley comic book spin off from the Nike advert where Charles Barkley beats Godzilla at basketball



No matter which one you pick you'll come to the conclusion that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.

[Suspect Device]

I am an anarchist, I am an anti-Christ. 

Don't know what I want but I know how to get it.

[BFTD]

Pretty much as expected. Marx is the boi.

That Godzilla comic is getting read later. Plot by Alan Smithee, as with all the best things.

[AsimButtHitsASix]

22 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Pretty much as expected. Marx is the boi.

That Godzilla comic is getting read later. Plot by Alan Smithee, as with all the best things.