I know Mhairi Black’s a hero to many, but in the speech she’s sharing from the Trident debate, she shows that she doesn’t understand:
- the basic notion of a deterrent through MAD… “If I’m dying, I’m don’t care if we’re sending one back or not.” No, but the point is the other side probably does care*, so it prevents it from making a first strike. That’s how deterrents work. See Defence 101.
- that just because there are more immediate threats from terrorism, cyber crime, and climate change, national security is not a game of either/or. All those threats need to be treated seriously, but the threat of nuclear attack remains in a world where proliferation is a reality or aspiration to many unstable and undemocratic regimes. “What terrorist attacks have nuclear weapons protected us from?” is as meaningless as asking how a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions can protect us from credit card fraud.
- the existence and purpose of non-proliferation treaties against the backdrop of the aspirations of many states to acquire nuclear weapons. How come so many countries don’t feel the need to have nuclear weapons? Because, in large part, they’ve been prevented from obtaining them, wherever and whenever possible – sometimes forcibly, but more often by incentives (e.g. Iran). The core nations with nukes acquired them during the Cold War. They have them, and in the absence of full multilateral disarmament and in an uncertain world, are probably wise to keep them.
- that the specific purpose of Trident is to keep an independent, at-sea, as opposed to land-based deterrent, so that potential aggressors know that even in the event of a strike on the UK, the UK will be in a position to retaliate.
- that she has a simplistic view of national defence. Why don’t we spend the money we spend on Trident to invest in our energy and engineering sectors? Erm… possibly because doing so wouldn’t maintain an at-sea nuclear deterrent. We don’t spend our whole GDP on the NHS, schools, and diversity re-education programmes for Conservative Party members for the same reasons, much as Mhairi may prefer that we did so.
Much of the rest of her speech is straw-man, national socialist, and anti-British (but not anti-Scottish, of course) ranting. She claims we’re isolating ourselves from the world more and more at a time when new government ministers are sounding out new agreements in a wider, global context and outside the bounds of the little EUer mindset, in preparation for Brexit, and these same ministers are advocating a continuing role of cooperation with fellow European countries. Leaving the EU does not remove us from Europe. The widespread inability to differentiate between the EU and Europe has become a hallmark of whining Bremainers.
Her final few words about the possibility of an accident involving trains transporting nuclear waste through Paisley Gilmore Street have nothing to do with Trident. Just standard techophobic conflation of nuclear energy with nuclear weapons, which is actually always quite helpful in identifying someone driven by dogma rather than facts on nuclear issues.
Like it or not, nuclear weapons prevented another world war between the super powers over decades and continue to do so. If you dispute that and the military expansionism of the Soviet Union, you’re simply being ahistorical. Read up on post WW2 history and pay special attention to flash-points: the Cuban missile crisis; Berlin during the 1948/1949 Airlift and during the building of the Wall in 1961, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968. That’s not to say that the western allies are blameless in this period. From the earliest days following Nazi Germany’s defeat, from the seriously considered Operation Unthinkable and support for dodgy regimes on the basis of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”, to the numerous other proxy wars, the West can’t pretend to play the innocent. Nevertheless, the potential doomsday scenario of an all-out nuclear exchange was an insurance policy against reckless conventional acts of aggression across Europe.
So, I love nukes, right? Wrong. I hate them. I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, which is a time that millennials probably won’t fully grasp; a time when our cinemas and music were dominated by themes of imminent nuclear war. Many of my age will be familiar with “Protect and Survive”. For those of us at the time, it wasn’t a question of if, but when nuclear war broke out. This formed the backdrop of my teens and was frankly thoroughly depressing. Mhairi Black wasn’t even conceived when the Berlin Wall fell. This isn’t an appeal to authority of age on my part, but a simple observation that I at least spent my formative years in constant fear of impending nuclear war and yet, despite that, and my own preferences, I must reluctantly concede that they did keep peace in Europe.
I write as a multilateralist. Yes, I believe that the world would be better off without nuclear weapons, but I’m also a pragmatist. The mindset of those who’ve enjoyed decades of peace means they grow complacent of what precisely has enabled them to enjoy that peace. It’s a sad indictment of how history is taught in schools, often by teachers with leftist agendas, that many people believe that the European Union has kept the peace in Europe since the end of World War 2 when the unpalatable truth is that this very peace has been maintained by NATO with overwhelming U.S. support (something that sticks in the throat of so many) against the backdrop of Mutually Assured Destruction.
Fortunately, those in charge of our national defence aren’t of the “but everyone just wants to be our friends” school and don’t believe that the defence budget would be better spent on safe-space bongo-playing diversity workshops. They are not historically illiterate and they appreciate that there remain state equivalents of the school bully, of whom someone of a nice and kind disposition doesn’t approve, but who nevertheless exist, irrespective of and indifferent to such sensitivities.
The greatest failing in the collective mindset is the view that reality has to fit around our own personal moral preferences. It would be impressive if a few more people at least considered that even though they may loathe the notion of nuclear weapons, the idea of unilateral disarmament at a time when the likes of North Korea is actively working on a long-range delivery system is not just foolish, but downright dangerous.
The real worry now is not so much that pacifists and self-loathers share the odd meme and parliamentary ramblings of a fellow anti-establishment spokesperson, but that such people are once again so close to power and risking our civilisation in the interests of easing their consciences.
*The caveat here of course is an enemy which has a sincere belief in an afterlife and doesn’t especially mind committing state martyrdom. Faced with a nuclear threat from a theocracy, all bets are off, which is why theocracies must be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons.