Originally Posted by MTVN (Post 7696210)

Instead of thinking we're bigger than we are I actually think people spend too long wallowing about how supposedly unimportant we now are. The UK is at the forefront of pretty much every major global organisation there is; the UN, G8, NATO etc. We are still a global superpower I'm afraid even if that now manifests in a different form to the more obvious strength of an empire or a large navy. We probably could still remain one without Trident in a lot of ways though not really in terms of international security. Our role as a permanent member of the UN security council becomes largely pointless and we leave the nuclear security of western Europe in the sole hands of France.

The fact remains that we do not how global relations could change in the future. It's basically constantly changing. I mean, ISIS barely existed a couple of years ago, now they're often considered the main global threat. We thought the days of overt conflict with Russia were largely over but we seem to increasingly be creeping back to them. Iran were considered the main threat not too long ago and now we are on the verge of a major breakthrough in relations with them, probably Obama's greatest achievement. Iraq was thought to be becoming increasingly stable not too long ago and is now engulfed in conflict. We could go back further - it was thought during WWI that it would be "the war to end all wars" yet twenty years later the world collapsed into a conflict even longer and deadlier. It's also the case with technology. Did people envisage, say, drone warfare becoming so prominent say 50 years ago? Was anything like the nuclear weapon envisaged twenty years before its invention? Yet apparently we can now say with complete certainty the exact possibilities wherein the UK could be involved in a war and the way in which technology could be utilised? For all we know there could come a point where nuclear technology gets implemented into warfare without it necessarily destroying the whole world. This time in a hundred years the global and technological landscape will be completely different to how it is now.

Originally Posted by lostalex (Post 7697412)

it's similar to the gun rights debate though. does having a big gun really make you more safe? do you own any guns waterhog?

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier (Post 7697445)

I can see the logic in that, it's a proven statistic that carrying a gun makes you much more likely to be shot.

If the worst were to happen, and if someone were to push that button, our possession of nukes would simply make us one of the very first targets. Again, though, not that it really matters who is the first target, if it happens we're all dead anyway.