Before you read this remember the Guardian said they could not find a slot for this in Comment is Free!
Battle Ships were once the most complex weapons platforms ever built. The last Battle ships were American they were the Iowa class which towards the end of their life were put in storage or as it called in the navy ‘mothballed’. The problem however with these battleships was that unlike aircraft carriers they were 100% useless! By the second world war it was found that both submarines and aircrafts which cost a fraction of the price could sink a battle ship. Despite this problem the Iowa class were used during the Korea war and as recently as 1990 to provide the land forces for cover fire. The crafts were used for 50 years between 1940 and 1990. The fact they were useless in modem war was not the reason they in the end taken out of service.
The reason few people know how to work or service a work a battleship was that all four battle ship were all that remained of a by gone era. Everyone known by then the aircraft career and the submarine were the weapons any blue water navy needed. By 1990 with mounting costs the Battle Ships were retired that is not to say that the Iowa class battleships were not seen to be of no use they did however cost too much to use. The US navy looked around for a replacement but as they did the world changed. By 1991 the USSR was history the Berlin Wall was becoming tens of thousands if not millions of souvenirs. The world's major wars in the 1990s will best called mopping up exercises the first Gulf wars really had only local effect. The conflict in Yugoslavia was the country imploding after a self-made economic crisis with opportunistic nationalistic leaders. In these wars overwhelming force was used that had been reserved for the Cold War. As time has gone by the weapons have carried on being used even through the States they would being used again have got no way of countering them and for most part would not use any weapons like them. In fact if this all sounds a bit familiar it is we have the same problems with Trident and fast jet fighters.
Today fast jets are not the most important aircrafts in the wars states fight today radio controlled aircrafts like the Predators. These aircrafts can be used for days on end to hunt Islamic extremists unlike jet aircrafts that can only be used for hours and which have the advantage of not having a pilot which would need a loo break at some point. What makes these aircrafts interesting is not that their radio controlled so are unmanned or that some will soon be able to make up their minds which targets to attacks but that they are not fast jets. Further today there is a dwindling list of countries which the West is going to use Trident or its fast jets in war.
The list includes North Korea, Iran, Russia and China the problem is that ever name on this list is at this point in time heading for a fall. North Korea is a mad, bad dirty poor state right next to South Korea one of the world’s richest states. As a result whatever Kim Yong-il or anyone after him does North Korea one day I am sure will just fall apart. Then there is Iran who’s present president currently has no legitimacy Mahmound Ahmadinejad is kind of a bad joke along with the so called Supreme Leader grey-haired Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who looks like a 70-year-old pensioner was no idea of how the world works who could have dementia. The Republican guard is a danger as they support Hezbollah and Hamas however both these organisations practice a form of warfare which means our conventional weapons have a habit of backfiring. Iran for all the dangers she could have in the short term is unlikely to use technology which our Aircraft careers or nuclear powered submarines would be any use in war. Iran if it ever uses nuclear weapons they will be a truck or a cargo ship which they will deliver to some cargo port.
Today Russia and China look unlikely to have an all out war we already have seen Cyber attacks like the Russia one on Estonia in 2007. The new weapons platforms are not ships or rockets but building full of computers and hankers. Today our government wants to shell out on two £5 billion aircraft carriers as well as the replacement for as well £20 billion a submarine which would need to be spent to replace Trident. The question we need to ask is ‘are we going to fight a war with China or Russia?’ I think that this is unlikely. Which leaves me with the question of what should be done with Trident?
I know the government has spending cuts but I do think the government is wasting money however I do not see why we should be using weapons that at this point we do not need. Trident is a great In fact the problem of weapons being too high-tech is not new. During the Falklands War it was found that diesel electric submarines used by the Royal Navy were they were faster and more cost effective than nuclear submarines. weapon for fighting a cold war just not now maybe if the Trident submarines why not put them storage and wait for this new super power to turn up. There no reason to stop us updating the system as time goes by till it is need there just seems to me to be little point taking them to sea 24 hours a day 7 days a week 52 weeks a year. In the meantime as the Tridents are ‘sleeping waiting for their time’ we could fit the Astute and the remaining Trafalgar class submarines with Tomahawk cruise missiles with nuclear warheads and order 12 new Victoria class submarine.
Then there is the growing use of Submarines by non state groups...
What I find funny now is the fact that drug gangs use ‘Narco submarines’ and that these crafts are very hard to find and non-nuclear submarines would both be less noisy and be faster so could catch them. The reason the navy needs to have built a fleet of Victoria class submarines or even if they do not mind maybe buy Type 214 U-boats from the Germans after all most European navies do. I would think drug gangs using homemade submarines to smuggle drugs to the west is more important than the government spending money on a program that may never be used. Today 32% of Colombian heroin much of which will end up being sold on the streets of London is now transported by submersibles. Recently before they were defeated the Tamil Tigers were also discovered to have started a submarine programme. It must be obvious that if the proliferation of these submarines built by non-state groups continue then there is going to be a need for the world's navies to increase their number of submarines. It seems obvious that if they are going to patrol the world's oceans they will not need to just patrol the surface and the air but also underneath. Nuclear powered submarines are excellent weapons of war unfortunately it is now obvious that in order to navies to be successful they also need non-nuclear submarines.
The Victoria submarines which were renamed the Upholder class today they sit in a dock yard in Canada. The crafts have had a number of problems however it is agreed that these are not due to their design. Stephen Saunders who is editor of Jane's Fighting Ships argues that "there is not something inherently wrong with the class of submarines." To me there seems to be something very wrong with our armed forces spending. Today Trident is like the Iowa class battle ships we almost sure we never need them and we certainly hope they never needed. To me Trident should not be replaced but put in storage if they are needed someday then they should be reactivated. It seems to be a cheap way of saving 20 billion per a submarine.
Today British solders are being killed in Afghanistan as they are not being given the right Jeeps and body armour?
Is it just me or do we need to ask is the British government buying the right weapons or like the Americans in the 1980s are we just keeping battleships?
