We were talking about this in the pub last night, we were discussing whether or not a nuclear attack on the UK would automatically result in us firing all our nukes back at the other country.

We decided that we probably wouldn't fire back as we are now smart enough to know that firing loads of missiles around will just result in a nuclear winter and everyone will die.

We did think though that certain other countries would just launch everything and worry about the consequences later.

Any thoughts on this ?

It's difficult to see where a full-blown nuclear attack could actually come from at the moment.

The threat used to be from the USSR, so until there is a complete shift in political ideals, I think we are safe for now at least.

However, a limited nuclear attack, initiated by a terrorist organisation could actually happen. As for firing back, the enemy would be invisible. However, some country such as Iran would probably cop for one, through anger if nothing else.

I think you'll find the person who makes the decision goes by the name of Bush.

Originally posted by Sam Miguel
However, some country such as Iran would probably cop for one, through anger if nothing else.

How did you come to that conclusion? The only reason I can see for Iran ever attacking first would be revenge for the British military support of Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war.

And I do believe Irans leader even accepted a pitiful apology when Jack Straw visited Iran to whip up support for bombing Iraq (again).

Originally posted by nick2
We were talking about this in the pub last night, we were discussing whether or not a nuclear attack on the UK would automatically result in us firing all our nukes back at the other country.

We decided that we probably wouldn't fire back as we are now smart enough to know that firing loads of missiles around will just result in a nuclear winter and everyone will die.

We did think though that certain other countries would just launch everything and worry about the consequences later.

Any thoughts on this ?
Had a bit more of a think abuot this.

Back in the cold war days then I would say its likely that any soviet nuclear attack would have meant global nuclear war.

Mutually assured destruction only works if you actually mean it.
because of the number of double agents about if it was official policy that in the event of an attack we would not try to wipe out the enemy then it is a fair bet that the enemy would have a good chance of finding out that that was the official policy.

Hope that makes some kind of sense....

I guess the world is a bit more of a complicated place now though, since the collapse of the soviet empire.

Originally posted by Abdul
How did you come to that conclusion?


Abdul, If you read my post, I am not saying that Iran might attack, I am saying that Iran might BE attacked.

It depends....

When a Prime Minister comes in they write a letter to each of the commanders of the Strategic Trident submaries, which outlines a series of options that the boat commander might take in the event of Britain being devastated in a nuclear attack.

(One of the signs of total devastation, btw, is the absence from the air of Radio 4's 'Today' program...very British! :))

The options are believed to be along the lines of :

Put yourself under the command and at teh disposal of of any friendly forces.
Proceed to somewhere like Australia, and see what happens there.
Get your target list out and shoot your missiles

The actual letter gets destroyed when a new PM comes in.

So, in the event of utter destruction it might be that the skippers of the boat decide to just go to the US or Australia.

The politicians don't order the release of nuclear weapons, as far as I remember, they simply authorise their use.

The only nuclear weapons we have in use now are the warheads on the Trident boats, and these are what they call 'dial a yield' weapons that can be set to provide three levels of explosion - 0.5kT or thereabouts, 10kT or 100kT (Hiroshima was about 20kt). We have 192 of these and so a maximum yield of 19.2 Megatons if they were all fired off.

The submarines are also on a longer timescale than they used to be - hours / days of notice being given to fire under normal circumstances rather than the quick response during the Cold War.

This gives the UK a very flexible response - I'd say that we're likely to use 'equivalent force' to that expended against us. Because we don't have an offensive CBW capability, there's every chance that small yield weapons could be used against battlefield targets where CBW has been used against UK forces.

I think we're MORE likely to go nuclear than before, but with less risk of armageddon.

Joe