this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2026
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Liberal Democrats leader Sir Ed Davey is calling on the government to start building a "fully independent British nuclear deterrent" to end the UK's reliance on the US.

The UK has operational control of its nuclear arsenal, including British-built warheads, but it depends on the US to supply and maintain the Trident missiles that would deliver them.

In a speech to his party's spring conference in York on Sunday, Sir Ed will argue the UK's continued reliance on US support is an unacceptable risk to national security.

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[–] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 0 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

So that means Russia is justified if they bomb the UK? Same reason we go after Iran.

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

To be clear, the UK already has a massive nuclear arsenal. This is just about building them domestically (and only the delivery system, they already build warheads) instead of importing. So, while you're not wrong per se, the argument you're trying to have kind of came and went a while ago.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 18 points 9 hours ago

If only there was a nearby group of nations we could share this financial burden with.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 16 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

Go for it UK! 👍
Meanwhile Denmark continues to buy F-35. I've been screaming and shouting about how bad that deal was from the start. And that was before USA threatened the Kingdom of Denmark. It is so stupid that the deal hasn't been cancelled yet. Now we need to get rid of the F-35 planes we already bought!

[–] pie_enjoyer@lemmy.world 1 points 53 minutes ago (1 children)

F35 are only such planes. If you want air domination, you need those.

It obviously would be better to have European 6th (I think) gen jets, but we don't have them

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 1 points 34 minutes ago* (last edited 27 minutes ago) (1 children)

Nah I don't believe you, Ukraine has been able to close the skies over Ukraine against Russia, so Russian planes can't enter Ukrainian airspace.
Although the Russian planes are not as good as the American, I think that whatever Ukraine is doing could be done against F-35 too.
Saab Vigen with AWAC support will probably do well enough, even against F-35. Especially if they were designed for it.
But that's irrelevant for now, because they are definitely good enough against Russian equipment, which is what the traditional enemy is using.

If we came at war against other F-35, who would we be fighting against? If it's USA, we wouldn't be able to use F-35 for anything leaving us utterly defenseless.
If it's against Russia, and Trump decides to help Russia, we wouldn't be able to use F-35 either.

F-35 is useless, because USA has become an unreliable ally even acting like an enemy. It doesn't matter if it's technologically superior if it's rendered useless by USA.

I also seriously doubt F-35 is very good in a prolonged war, because it requires insane amounts of maintenance, a plane standing on the ground because it requires fixing isn't worth anything. And that's a clear danger with F-35, because it requires about 5 times as much maintenance as Vigen AFAIK. F-35 is also extremely demanding in other way, like the quality of airbases. So a bombed airbase can easily ground F-35 too. Where with the Vigen you can take off and land on a decent road.

F-35 is only superior when you disregard all the downsides. Pressure the enemy to have their F-35 constantly in the air, and the F-35 air defense will quickly collapse.

[–] pie_enjoyer@lemmy.world 1 points 24 minutes ago

Please read anything about modern fighter jets.

Ukraine doesn't have air superiority over Russia, which is the thing modern military doctrines aim to achive.

US, despite being unreliable, needs to maintain some trust. If they turn off one F 35, which I'm doubtful they're able to do, the global trust in them will significantly decrease.

It's only 2 years to be back to business as usual anyway.

[–] redsand@infosec.pub 3 points 6 hours ago

UK's deal is better than Denmark. UK got full source code access and since they can grow jet turbines in the UK they can do whatever they want with the platform.

[–] teslekova@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 hours ago

At least you're not here in Australia, groaning as out defence minister still insists that we're definitely getting our US-made submarines that we've paid for under the AUKUS deal...

[–] vpol@feddit.uk 6 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

UK can cooperate with other EU countries. Pretty sure Poland gonna be very interested. Germany, Italy.

[–] ohulancutash@feddit.uk 5 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Lets not proliferate. Perhaps France.

[–] bearboiblake@pawb.social 4 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Nuclear proliferation would probably lead to a safer world. Look at North Korea, they are left alone by imperialists because they have the big red button. We could distribute nukes to everyone so there is universal MAD.

May also end the world, but we're already on the way there.

[–] gnutrino@programming.dev 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

North Korea is a terrible example of this, they were only able to get nuclear weapons because they never actually needed them. North Korea is left alone because they have hundreds of artillery pieces sat in range of Seoul and the backing of China to ride out the sanctions.

Without that their nuclear program would have gotten the crap bombed out of them (again) long before it resulted in a bomb.

[–] bearboiblake@pawb.social 2 points 9 hours ago

Sure, but times have changed a lot, these days, IMO, imperialists would happily sacrifice Seoul to distract from Epstein files, as we've seen recently by the US relocating missile interceptors from Korea to defend Israel.

[–] Lodespawn@aussie.zone 1 points 8 hours ago

North Korea is left alone because they have no oil

[–] vpol@feddit.uk 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)
[–] ohulancutash@feddit.uk 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Britain and Poland would have to withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The only state to do so to date is North Korea and it would be a highly troubling precedent.

[–] DandomRude@piefed.social 7 points 10 hours ago

I also believe that a nuclear arms race would have catastrophic consequences for the world, but unfortunately, Russia, Israel, and the US are making it all too clear that international treaties are, sadly, worthless.

Right now, it would be important to find diplomatic solutions and return to a peaceful, international dialogue, but I fear that this is simply not possible with the unscrupulous despots at the helm of these powerful countries. They believe that international law does not apply to them and want to establish the law of the jungle as the sole premise of world politics - they commit the most horrific war crimes and apparently believe they have the right to terrorize the world simply because they can. As long as their heinous crimes go unpunished and these monsters remain at the helm of their countries, I fear that the world must arm itself to avoid becoming their next victim.

[–] meme_historian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

While true, I weep for an environment that will have to endure another decade of nuclear bomb tests

[–] ohulancutash@feddit.uk 6 points 12 hours ago

This is about the missiles not the warheads. Britain already manufactures those and doesn’t conduct testing.

[–] Admetus@sopuli.xyz 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

They'll only be testing missiles with a dummy warhead. All countries (except NK) are no longer conducting these tests.

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 4 points 10 hours ago

I hope the dummy warhead is just a scroll that unfurls and says "Bang".

[–] IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world -1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

fuck no. no more nuclear escalation please

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

This belies a complete and total ignorance of the entire topic of strategic nuclear deterrence, and an extremely naive geopolitical worldview.

For case studies of why nuclear deterrence is important, and why a lack thereof can be catastrophic to the state in question, see:

  • Ukraine
  • Iran
  • North Korea (is effectively un-invadeable because of their nuclear weapons)

i do agree with the logic. it's just... hate that were inching closer to nuclear annihilation