Is cheap blackmail preferable to an enormous defence budget?

I’ll keep this brief. Tuesday’s Daily Telegraph revealed that

‘(Atomic) bomb makers who have been active in Afghanistan may already have the ability to produce a “dirty bomb” using knowledge acquired over the internet. It is feared that terrorists could transport an improvised nuclear device up the Thames and detonate it in the heart of London. Bristol, Liverpool Newcastle, Glasgow and Belfast are also thought to be vulnerable.’

Let me pose a question: does anyone in these islands think that the Afghan rebels’ military budget is £80 billion? Yet to keep their rubber-band-and-alarm clock nuclear devices away from our shores, the Government has once again upped GCHQ’s surveillance remit to include all ports, the Channel, and large parts of the North Sea. On this one occasion, I’m not complaining: ever since reading The Fourth Protocol I’ve felt that one ‘dirty’ bomb planted in a city could end the ‘failsafe’ theory of Mutually Assured Destruction forever.

Earlier this week a senior UK army officer asked what the devil Trident is for. There is no nuclear threat in the old cold-war meaning: but Islamists with a yen to meet 76 virgins will pose a real threat in the future.

Given that we could be a similar nuisance to any major power giving us a hard time, it makes one tend to agree with the officer’s pov on this. We need nothing more than a dozen MI5 agents positioned in key capitals (and in possession of A-bombs) to ensure that any potential aggressor would be put off.

The Defence budget and the military budget should be two very separate things. We can save billions overnight by dumping Trident, while allowing our existing weaponry to (safely) become obsolete, and thus save further sums on its upkeep. Star Wars systems can stop ICBMs from landing. Nothing can stop diplomats from walking unsearched into any sovereign territory that takes their fancy.