Fine, but renewing trident still seems like an expensive vanity project. Surely time to get rid but keep facilities operating under 'care and maintainance' so the yanks can quickly base missiles and planes/bombs here should the need arise. We're not realistically looking at a soviet pre emptive strike nowadays surely, which was the whole reason the deterrent was there to start with.It was to do with that. There was a fascinating documentary about it a while ago. Macmillan was desperate to get access to US technology to ensure we retained a seat on the security council as we'd fucked up developing our own delivery mechanism and the Americans abandoned their own sky-launched stand-off. They negotiated the Nassau Agreement to take Polaris but the Americans extracted a high price. The main prize was the Holy Loch base, which scared the shit out of the UK government as it was so close to Glasgow and the Clyde but they had no choice.
The other major concession was that it was part of a multi-lateral force (i.e. effectively under the US umbrella) as there was no way Kennedy and McNamara would countenance a truly independent force outside of US control. But there was a vague form of words that we could operate independently only when our "supreme national interest" was threatened. But no one really defined that properly and to all intents and purposes it translates as "when the missiles have already landed and we're completely on our own because we can't get hold of the Yanks to say yes or no". The Nassau Agreement has not, as far as I'm aware, ever been superseded.
And that's largely what I've been saying. But while the US is in a position give political approval, it retains the right to do so under the Nassau Agreement. The chain of command is that the US Joint Chiefs of Staff make the decision, which is passed to the President (or acting C-in-C) for approval then to the UK PM and down the UK chain of command. If any link in that chain is broken, then the next can act independently. But let's hope we never find out.Not true, whatever anyone says the system is truly independent technically and operationally. Whether a British PM would act without US political approval is another matter, but it's not a requirement.
Exactly why we need our own deterrent.Struggling to square the fear/distrust/derision/uncertainty of Trump with a touching faith that the Yanks will always look after us.
That was before we fired one at Florida.Well thats not true is it. The Trident system is fully operationally independent of the US.