Zombie Pirate Ninja Monkey

Healey kinda gets it and Ahmadinnerjacket is a loony

I just watched Labour Party old-timer Dennis Healey being interviewed on Sky News's Straight Talk, by my fellow Scot, the moderately repugnant Murdoch sock-puppet, Andrew Marr.  When asked about his willingness to give up Britain's nuclear deterrent in the face of North Korean and Iranian proliferation, he said:

"These countries are a lot more organised and cohesive than in my day.  There really is no military point in keeping our own nuclear weapons.  They're really just a political gesture."

Ummm, this man was one of Britain's most senior politicians for five years of the Cold War, from 1974 to 1979, and he only just now realises that almost the whole point of nuclear weapons is political?  The fact that they are called "special weapons" wasn't a clue?  The whole thing about us focussing on having a "strategic nuclear deterrent" wasn't niggling at the back of his head the whole time saying "I really should look up that 'strategic' thingy"?

I mean, yes, intermediate and tactical weapons would have been useful in dispersing the Soviet 3rd Shock Tank Army as it swept through the Fulda Gap.  But dear old Mr H. doesn't seem to have spotted that we don't have any of them any more.  Strategic weapons, which have never been used, are not intended to have military roles on the battlefield.  If we ever used them then we have lost.  But they are very good at stopping anyone else using their own weapons.  So waiting until a lunatic like Ahmadinejad is on the verge of building his own nukes and then throwing them away is startling logic at best.   Remember, Mr Ahmadinnerjacket is a man who has, since his election, happily and openly stated that he desires nothing more than to imminentize the eschaton/reveal the Hidden Imam by provoking armageddon (ie nuke Israel 'til it glows).  He already has the ability to kill every man and woman on earth (I'm not going to do something as dumb as go into explanations of that statement here, but every physicist knows there are far more globally dangerous ways to use a moderate quantity of plutonium than to pack it into a critical mass).

And NATO's openness about its first strike doctrine - if the Warsaw Pact advanced successfully towards the Rhine then we would use medium-yield weapons to destroy their spearhead formations - should have pointed out that even this was political gesture.  Militarily, it would have been better to have remained quiet and gain surprise.  Here's a rule of thumb: if you publicise in advance exactly how you will use a weapon, then it is a political weapon.

The North Koreans are slightly less dangerous potential nuke-wielders.  They have, at least, a thread of sanity and rationality running through their provocations, which all aim at forcing concessions, defending their corrupt positions and warning off external interventions (this assumes that incometence and a tiny budget don't lead to some horrendous accident).  Ahmadinnerjacket is not just an ex-torturer with a personal history of murders and executions.  He is also fruit loops.  If you think I exaggerate, look at some of these articles.  When the Guardian and the Telegraph agree on the Middle East, it's got to be big.  George Bush got pelted when he used the evangelical euphemism that he felt God "spoke to him".  Ahmadinnerjacket actually believes that he was - quite literally - surrounded by a glowing green light while addressing the United Nations.  He says that every politician and diplomat there also saw this light, which served to protect him.  Uh-oh.

And the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament actually supports the Iranians in their nuclear research and enrichment program.  I'm not kidding.  But when trying to make sense of this it's worth bearing in mind that the Socialist Workers' Party, through a campaign of entryism, have dominated CND for several years now.

I don't ask Mr Healey, at his age, to go and read Clausewitz or Machiavelli.  But that one of the three most senior cabinet members should have, in a period dominated by a certain weapon, wholly misunderstood its nature, hardly bears thinking about.  Did he honestly think that Trident, and Polaris before it, were there for fighting battles with?  The Soviets understood as well as we did that they are there for stopping others fighting wars.  The problem comes when some loony eschatologist thinks that annihilation isn't really a deterrent.  But so long as he has people around him that might object to a thousand atmospheres of overpressure in a retaliatory strike, we need to have our own "political" nuclear weapons.