The cost of replacing trident is estimated at between £20bn and £30bn or 3% of the annual defence budget.  Is the cost really worth it? Even in the best of times for the treasury there were still cuts requiring local hospitals to be closed, people not given medication as it was too expensive and British troops not having the right equipment for their safety in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Can we still afford a deterrent that many of us would never want to see used?   

Would we not be better off spending the money on a conventional military and British made conventional military technology, which would provide jobs and feed back into the British economy? 

It is often hinted that the UK is only a world power because of nuclear weapons and we must keep them to remain a world power.  Would it not be far cheaper to fully engage with the European Union, seeking democratic reforms of its institutions and to be a world power as a member of the EU?    

I am not advocating that we unilaterally disarm tomorrow, rather that we work, as President Obama recently suggested, towards a zero point, where there are no nuclear weapons, if we were to do that we really would be wasting an awful lot of money on a replacement for trident, that we would then have to spend an awful lot of money to decommission safely.  Greenpeace suggests that it may even be illegal to replace our nuclear deterrent http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/peace/trident-replacement-may-be-illegal 

Even if the biggest threat from abroad ceases to be terrorism, it is not likely that another world power will launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against another.  Conventional warfare surrounding territory is still likely to dominate future conflicts.  If we do not invest in our conventional military, countries such as China will have far more power when they use their conventional military than we can begin to compensate for with a weapon we wouldn’t even use, even if they didn’t have their own nuclear weapons. If the EU is to play a leading role in the effort to dissuade other nations from developing nuclear weapons, it would be better to be seen following our own advice and seeking to disarm rather than to be spending money on newer systems. We should join President Obama in efforts to work towards a world in which there are no nuclear weapons and a UK where our tax is spent prudently and efficiently on our defence.