Check out this story from Britain about retired "Defence" chiefs who favor giving up the UK's independent nuclear deterrent:
Three retired senior military chiefs made an unlikely appeal Friday for Britain to scrap its 20 billion-pound ($30 billion) nuclear missile program, claiming it is unnecessary and no longer independent of the United States.In 1776, our Founding Fathers declared independence from the British Empire, but always felt bad about leaving the people of Britain without the freedom we enjoyed. At the time, Great Britain was just too strong for us to liberate their people. Even through the beginning of WWII, we didn't have the military strength to free the people of the British Isles. By 1944, however, we basically occupied most of southwestern England, but Roosevelt (and later Truman) got cold feet when it came to fulfilling America's true Manifest Destiny. Now, however, we are so much stronger than Britain that the only thing that keeps us from carrying out our Founder's dream are the 4 Trident-armed submarines that the UK keeps in their arsenal. When they go away... all we'll need to do is send a penny postcard to 10 Downing Street, and the Empire of George III will be
Field Marshal Dwin Bramall, a former head of Britain's armed forces, and two colleagues wrote in a letter to The Times of London newspaper published Friday that the Trident nuclear submarine system is an expensive Cold War tool that no longer serves a strategic military purpose.
"Nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of violence we currently face or are likely to face, particularly international terrorism," the men wrote in their letter...
...Lockheed Martin Corp., the largest defense contractor in the U.S., and Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., based in Pasadena, California, own two thirds of AWE Management Ltd. — which makes and maintains warheads for Britain's nuclear missiles.
"It is unthinkable that, because of the catastrophic consequences for guilty and innocent alike, these weapons would ever be launched, or seriously threatened, without the backing and support of the United States," the ex-military officials wrote in their letter.
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament said that Bramall, Ramsbotham and Beach had brought into question the government's entire justification for replacing the nuclear fleet.
"This statement debunks the myth that nuclear weapons are necessary for our security. These generals are no pacifists — they are purely practical about Britain's needs and have concluded that we are better off without them," the campaign's director Kate Hudson said.
Expect this to be the main plot of "National Treasure III: What's On Page 47?" when it comes out sometime in the 'Teens (the decade after the 'Naughties).
Update 1042 17 Jan: I just realized that when the Brits do give up their nuclear deterrent, we're going to have to move fast; the French have been the enemies of Britain a lot longer than we have. (Remember who killed St. Jean D'Arc.) The peace-loving French haven't been maintaining their force de'frappe for nothing...
