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jimmy_james
I think this debate sums up some of the conflicting issues with the nukes.
- A nuclear deterrent is really expensive cause you can't half arse it or it's useless.
- It's cheaper if you share or lease some of the difficult tech from an ally, but then you have to rely on that ally long-term.
- You can decide to do it all yourself, but then it's even more expensive.
- You can ditch the whole thing and rely on diplomacy, but then you're back to relying on allies if it comes to a nuclear showdown, which essentially leaves you cosying up to either the Americans or the Russians.
And that's before you get to the tricky ethical issue of potentially unleashing fiery death on millions of innocent people. Tricky stuff this. I think we might need a few more pages to nail it.

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The_Seldom_Killer in reply to @jimmy_james

if it comes to a nuclear showdown

A) this if is a bit tenuous. We've noved a ling way from the cold war era of peace through superior fire power or MAD. Principle nuclear threat from a nation is from North Korea and we don't even make their top 10 list. Regardless, whoever might launch a nuke at us isn't going to "show down". They'll just do it full in the knowledge that we'll retaliate shortly before we die from their strike.
The other threat is a guerilla deployed dirty bomb from an extremist organisation. The problem there is we can't retaliate properly because they don't have a handily identifiable land mass and you can't bomb an ideology.
The reality is there is no "nuclear deterrent" any more which leads us to:
B) what are the vast majority of countries without nukes doing? Because that really is what we should do. Careful analysis shows its working for them well so far.

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jimmy_james in reply to @The_Seldom_Killer

I agree with the majority of your points, but...

I think the very fact that we see terrorism and rogue states as the highest threats has a lot to do with the US being tooled up to the eyebrows. If Trump suddenly announced he was disbanding the armed forces I think Putin would take an extended European holiday of the old USSR variety.

Also, what everyone else has been doing (at least in Europe) is rely on NATO protection, which basically means America bails us out. I think the Americans have been pissed off with this for ages but have now elected a president who acts on his impulses, so the balance may suddenly shift.

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