Media are coy about the cost of the 12 F35A tactical nuclear bombers Starmer is buying off Trump, but from a current Swiss deal I make it to be £1.82 Billion at very least.
Now if this £1.82 Billion were for hospitals or welfare, Starmer would face aggressive questions from hacks about where the money is going to come from.
There is an established convention that military costs are not to be questioned by hacks, neither the financial costs nor the external costs, so there will be no such questions.
The biggest external cost of the 13 F-35As is that if they actually dropped their tactical nuclear weapons, they could initiate, or contribute to, a global nuclear holocaust.
The cost of global nuclear war is infinite. Endless. Incalculable.
Nuclear war means millions of human (and animal) immediate deaths from vaporisation, crush, blast, and burns. Millions more delayed deaths from radiation sickness, infection (untreated), dehydration and criminality. Then billions more deaths from starvation, cold and suicide from hopelessness through the subsequent years of nuclear winter. Some humans might survive in New Zealand, or they might not.
Nobody likes thinking about this, so the mind go into denial, and comes up with counter arguments. The commonest counter argument being a supremely confident “You don’t understand. The whole point of nuclear weapons is that they are so terrible that a rational man would never, ever use them. NEVER, EVER. not at all. No chance.
The weakness in their argument lies in the “rational man” words.
Yes, human have a capability of rational thought, but it is perfectly clear that we do not apply our rationality to all our actions, especially to big, global matters. Nuclear deterrence is not infallible. Nuclear war is possible.
I recommend anyone who has read this far down to send this letter to their MP. Please. https://www.medact.org/2024/actions/nuclear-war-questions-write-to-your-mp/
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