Wikipedia excerpt
The first fission ("atomic") bomb test released the same amount of energy as approximately 20,000 tons of TNT. The first thermonuclear ("hydrogen") bomb test released the same amount of energy as approximately 10,000,000 tons of TNT.[1]
A modern thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than 2,400 pounds (1,100 kg) can produce an explosive force comparable to the detonation of more than 1.2 million tons (1.1 million tonnes) of TNT.[2] Thus, even a small nuclear device no larger than traditional bombs can devastate an entire city by blast, fire and radiation. Nuclear weapons are considered weapons of mass destruction, and their use and control have been a major focus of international relations policy since their debut.
What is the destructive capacity of Trident missiles?
The Trident I warheads are 100 kilotons each, about six times the power of the Hiroshima atomic bomb dropped 67 years ago today. (RIP the 200,000 victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs)
Each Trident submarine with Trident I warheads therefore carried over 1,000 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb.
Trident II replaces the 100 kiloton weapons with 475 kiloton weapons mounted on missiles with greater accuracy and longer range.
Each Trident submarine will therefore carry 4,750 time the destructive capacity of the Hiroshima bomb.
Four Trident submarines, each carrying 16 missiles - a total of 64 missiles - operate out of Faslane, Scotland, and represent the total UK nuclear deterrent.
After the launch order, the typical flight time of a missile is 25 minutes, depending on how close the submarine is to the target.
25 minutes after the US President, the UK Prime Minister and the French President activate the launch codes, unimaginable destructive power will be unleashed on millions of human beings, with consequences for the planet for centuries, perhaps millennia in terms of radiation pollution.
These decisions were in the hands of politicians of the calibre of Ronald Reagan, a George W. Bush, Tony Blair and in a very short time, could be in the hands of a Mitt Romney, a David Cameron …
NATO
The Trident submarines operate under the auspices of NATO, a military alliance committed to their use in a first strike authorised by USA, France and Britain. The other 25 member countries of NATO have no say in this decision, and zero influence over NATO.
THE SNP leadership and Alex Salmond, Angus Robertson and Angus MacNeil want Scotland to remain/become a member of the NATO alliance after independence.
They intend to try to persuade the SNP delegates to the October Party Conference in Perth to vote in favour of a defence policy that includes NATO membership.
They will try to square the manifest inconsistency of seeking membership of a first strike nuclear alliance, one that they will have zero influence and control over, with the Party’s anti-nuclear policy by telling the members that they will ‘negotiate’ the removal of Trident from Scotland by offering the UK, as a quid pro quo, Scotland’s willingness to join the NATO nuclear alliance.
In other words, an independent Scotland will graciously deign to join NATO if the UK promptly removes Trident, and, since the UK has nowhere else to put it, UK ceases to be a nuclear power, it removes from NATO a substantial part of its European-based nuclear capacity, and almost certainly loses the UK's Security Council seat in the United Nations. Aye, right …
The UK, NATO, former Secretary General of NATO Lord Robertson and a legion of unionist politicians and commentators have treated this proposal with derision and contempt.
As a bargaining chip, the only possible validity it could have would be to give the UK government (controlled on this matter by NATO and the USA) an opportunity to offer a quick disarming of the Trident warheads (two days to do, reversible about as quickly) while retaining Faslane under UK (i.e. NATO) control (maintenance of the base is being outsourced to private contractors!) retaining the full infrastructure, allowing ‘safe haven’ to nuclear-armed submarines for other NATO countries, while going through a token – and endlessly delayed – decommissioning process that would take a minimum of ten years, almost certainly extended to 20 years, with the high likelihood of never – or until NATO and the world abandoned the lunacy of the nuclear deterrent.
The other negotiating option is that the Faslane base and related sites would be leased to rUK as rUK sovereign territory, thus allowing the SNP to claim that they had achieved a non-nuclear Scotland, since “Faslane has nothing to do with us, it’s rUK territory”.
All of these option have been explored by the Scottish Affairs Committee on the Referendum for the Separation of Scotland, acting as thinly-disguised proxies for their UK masters, but, frustratingly, unable to question representatives of the Scottish Government directly, since the SNP is boycotting the committee.
Pronouncements are issued daily by former senior military men who, however brave, capable and distinguished in action, have political views of the level of a Boy’s Own Paper reader of the 1930s. The apologists among SNP party activists supporting the NATO initiative have even more simplistic arguments to offer, with cries of “What about Norway?” and “If they don’t remove Trident, we won’t join!” etcetera, with much use of the phrases END OF, and “It’s simple!”
Meanwhile, our bishops and religious leaders are obsessed by same sex marriage, and our elected MSPs and MPs spend their summer vacation eagerly tweeting about the Olympics, and congratulating the latest sporting hero …
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