With both Russia and America stating they need to increase their nuclear capability, will the UK and France need to do the same, especially in light of the US taking no a back foot in NATO.

It seems to me the EU nations might need to get the UK on board for protection.

Yeah good idea I dunno how many times over we need to be able to kill every living thing on the planet but lets have more I say,
a study once showed that the effects of just one medium sized nuke exploded anywhere in the UK would completely overwhelm the entire NHS and it's ability to cope with the casualties.

saying we need more nukes to make us safer is a bit like two guys standing in a room up their waists in petrol and one of them saying that we need more matches because he has only 4 and the other guy has six.

Only if all future nukes are based in Chipping Norton.

I may have misheard, but on the News when it was reported that Donald wanted to increase his nuclear arsenal, I think the figures given for missiles was 224 in Europe, 220 in the UK of which 160 in the UK were ready for instant use, so don't think we need to increase our nuclear deterrent

It's not really about deterrent it never is, if Donald want to build more nukes you can guarantee some of his backers and friends will be increasing their already vast wealth out of it. the killing business is a good business so long as you stay well clear of the pointy end.

yes it is.

I am sure your right, we could have an arsenal of 2000 missiles, but Russia would just match our numbers, so no point in increasing our nuclear arsenal.

But should we not be concerned that Donald will have his 'finger on trigger' when he becomes President?

Whatever Putin and Trump may be saying it will be problematic under the NPT for the US or Russia to increase their nuclear arsenals bearing in mind they both have more than enough to wipe each other out and just about everyone else.

The post war rebuilding program is also very profitable, as Hillary pointed out in her emails.

No because no matter what you think about the British or French leaders neither are despots looking to revive the Soviet Union or village idiots who vomit the contents of their brains onto Twitter every day.

Except of course after a nuclear war the only rebuilding getting done would be by the ants and the termites.

at least the planet would be free of it's temporary and brief human infestation, and could return to normal.

PS merry Christmas.

Its been estimated that there are about 16,000 nuclear warheads in existence today.

"Located across 14 countries at some 98 sites, roughly 10,000 are believed to be in military arsenals while the remaining are in storage and scheduled for dismantlement.

Of those 10,000, about 4,000 are described by the Bulletin as “operationally available”, while at any given time 1,800 nuclear weapons are held on high alert – meaning they can be deployed with just a few minutes’ notice."

Of the total global inventory, 93 per cent are held by the US and Russia.

The UK has about 215 warheads in total, though it relies heavily on the US to maintain them. Each of its four nuclear submarines carries 16 Trident missiles at any given time.

France has 300 warheads, some of which are deliverable by aircraft. Like the UK, it has one nuclear-armed submarine on patrol at all times.

China only has about 250 warheads, and none of them are thought to be fully deployed according to the FAS. China is believed to be in the process of increasing its arsenal.

The most recent update on Israel suggests it has 80 nuclear warheads, though the country officially neither confirms nor denies their existence. The FAS says Pakistan has around 100-120, India 90-110, and North Korea fewer than 10, none of which have been made operational."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-10164387.html

Nuclear weapons don't kill everything on the planet - they destroy the area for a few miles around where they hit , for a few decades., and, in big enough numbers, may massively disrupt whole societies. In small numbers , most of the country wouldn't immediately notice a limited nuclear strike - unless they were near the offending few targets.

If you don't replace your nuclear weapons , you don't have any, and thats what the US - outside Trump towers - is doing.

Deterrence requires enough capability to inflict enough damage on the attacker to make his attack, always, counterproductive. Damage on normal scales - like those from an earthquake- sn't going to deter in all circumstances. Israel can't deter an attack that would kill half its population, by killing 2 or 3% of Iran's .Iran lost 3 million fighting Iraq, won, and is still there. And China wouldn't be deterred by losing the same number of people, as a much smaller country.

If you depend on deterring attack, by threatening population and industry - which the UK hasn't since the sixties, the requirements tend to run high. China and Pakistan both aim to kill 100 million of their main opponents - in the US and India - because they have a lot of people and industry. So anyone facing such a capability, tends to have similar capability to fire back - because thats how the Pakistanis and Chinese view adequate deterrence - if they think it needs threatening 100, theatening 5, may not work reliably enough. .

If you aim at strategic military targets, your requirements can run much lower. Your aim is to destroy the opponent's military power, and make an attack on you suicidal for them - because they will be massively weakened against everyone else. That means a lot fewer dead, but you need enough weapons to hit key industries, and miliary targets.

If you extend that to target enemy strategic weapons, your totals begin to go up - Iran has about 20 missile bases. It takes a thousand plus warhads to target Russian or US missile forces. If they are pointing a thousand warheads at your deterrent , and have a first strike capability - you need to match it, offensivley, or defensively , rather than assume they wouldn't use it in a crisis. . No one fires on warning , so your force has to be big enough to survive an attack, and big enough to be able to still deter everyone else too, and deter attack on allies. . Russia and the US are driven by those calculations - to minimum force levels in the 1500-2500 warhead range.

Threatening to blow up cities, and lose yours back isn't a great, or credible, idea , nor is launching a full scale attack - when one Russian missile blows up one Polish division. You need to be able to match each option - with a countervailing option that makes it pointless - to ensure deterrence. That means matching capabilities - and not leaving options. uncovered.

If you go back to the OPs question, Fance has twice as many nuclear weapons as we do - they think it needs 300. They plan to be able to pose more damage to a strategic attacker ,and have pre-strategic, fighterborne, weapons than can be used individually- to signal intent, destroy attacking ground forces, or retaliate for a limited nuclear attack. France doesn't need more than 300 warheads.

The UK has a limited capability compared to France. We target key strategic targets - that would undermine an opponent's military capability fatally - with up to 40 warheads on the operational submarine. . We no longer have hundreds of tactical and substrategic nucelar weapons, or as many raedy weapons, as we used to have on the bomber, or, pre 98, Trident, force. We have little ability to respond to a single limited strike, and would need two submarines at sea to do that, while keeping one secure protecting our cities. .

So if we wanted to offer a more effective deterrent to Europe, to replace Trump, we would need to move closer to France in terms of capability and more credible options. That would mean basically restoring warhead numbers to the levels of 1998 , and probably going ahead, again, with the RAF's air launched missile that was intended for the Tornado force, but cancelled back in the early 2000s.

Its behind the curve on the Chinese. N Koreans and Israelis- and now inflated for the UK - which is reducing from 12 used to 8 filled missile tubes. its pretty unlikely that anyone operates nuclear missiles without warheads , and if they are in bunkers impossible to know they don't. China is deploying ICBM warheads faster as they have developed multiple l warhead missiles. N Korea reportedly recently has mastered getting the warheads onto its missiles - it just needs to get thelonger range missiles to fire reliably. And the people who think Israel has 80 bombs, haven't looked at Sidot Micha, on google earth.

The operationally available/high alert idea is also dubious - because no one knows what the truck mobile missiles operated by 6 nuclear powers are up to. if they are deployed in the field, or at a launch site, they are available,and the ones in shelters, ready to dash out, or fire through the roof, are ready in minutes, .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LkrU7h7WM8
The submarine based ones can be soon on line , if they are near their firing stations - and they would be, if they were planning an attack. .

The difference between French and British nuclear forces is they have 60 of these for limited nuclear strikes , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0EXC91b9jo and nearly twice as many strategic warheads on these. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1T_FuoSF_U

Surely Thierry Henry is too old.

It depends on what you're trying to deter. No amount of nukes is going to stop religious extremists and countries like North Korea don't really care about their own people.

We'd be better off spending the money on conventional military equipment, if we insist on spending it on military stuff at all, rather than things we're unlikely to ever use.

Do you believe we should go this route, or do you think that NATO is still a sufficient deterrent to Russia.

I personally think without increasing numbers dramatically, Russia can with impunity walk into any territory it feels the need to knowing only major NATO powers would be backed up by the US.

No. Even what we have will destroy the world

Plus Parliament has already approved the Trident replacement, haven't they?

Honestly im not to sure, however the subs which they are to be carried on have been.

I think only Corbyn had a policy of building them and not arming them.

What do you mean by that?

That we and the french have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the known world.

No, if Trump wants to play a childish and dangerous game of "my penis is bigger than yours!" we shouldn't dignify it by joining in

Firstly I think we need to point out to most people that don't know, each trident Sub launched missile has more than one war head in its nose cone, as well as decoys. All carried on the re-entry bus, enabling multiple targets to be struck with one missile.

I beleive we the uk should go back to this sort of thing,
Tornado interdictor.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panavia_Tornado
......able to carry the US tac nuclear weapon, B61.
...which the eurofighter typhoons can't do.
The new F-35 can carry it, so this should be an avenue that uk and the rest of Europe considers.

I would say that an outright full nuclear strike against the west is less likely than a smaller scale tactical strike. The thinking of the aggressor being, that you won't retaliate against our cities with a full nuclear strike (trident, minute men missiles etc) because u know if you do, we will destroy your cities. But uk doesn't currently have a tactical nuclear option, which means in this situation if a retaliatory like for like tactical strike were required the uk would have to rely on another NATO member with that capability.
That said, another option is the nuclear tipped version of the tomahawk cruise missile. We carry the conventional version on our subs, but I don't know if that variant can be equipped with the nuclear warhead. U.K. Has no way to fire an air launched tomahawk....because we don't have the heavy bombers required to carry them, eg the B52, B1b, and B2 of the US.