It's not about starting a direct conflict, it's that blockading it can be done at a distance rather easily.

If ships can't get to the UK, or the foreign shipyards reduced to rubble - or outbid - then it's more effective and cost efficient then any direct kinetic action.

Submarine fleets will torpedo your blockade. No need to fire nukes.

My understanding is that the UK currently has 5 attack submarines. Is that enough to break a blockade?

More are planned (the SSN-AUKUS), but it is probably still some time away.

That's around 100 torpedoes loaded in the water. Is that enough to break a blockade?

No, it's not nearly enough. The exact number of weapons onboard is largely irrelevant. At any given time only about one third of a nation's attack submarines can be out on active patrol while the others are in transit, undergoing maintenance, or working up. During a crisis they can maybe surge two thirds of the force for a few months but that isn't sustainable. Each submarine can only be in one place at a time and they're likely to take some losses against a competent adversary.

That's why my money(figuratively) is on Kraken Roboticss and Anduril's autonomous robot submarines. This will be the future of naval warfare.

That's so naive. Those robot submarines will be useful for local defense but they lack the range, speed, and staying power to project power and protect sea lines of communication over thousands of miles on a sustained basis. The notion of doing that with robots remains firmly in the realm of science fiction today. Maybe in 30 years.

And my point is it's not about a physical blockade.

If you buy your ships from half way around the world, then the shipyards can be destroyed before you get anywhere near them. And certainly now preventing that is politically commiting to a war on the other side of the planet which may not immediately effect you, but is likely to eventually.

But the other part is: you don't have to physically do anything. You could deny shipping to your opponent by someone just outbidding you for the output. Why not? You're already outsourcing so you're cost sensitive, and guaranteed volume is cat nip to manufacturers - no amount of strategic alliance wording is going to save you if an adversary reliably buys 10x as much.

A blockade need not be enforced in situ.

Say, with satellite coverage to find out where any blockade runners are and a lot of cruise missiles you could enforce a blockade from a thousand miles away.

That would be extremely difficult to defend against unless you have enough ships to defend every single convoy. WWII showed how helpless big surface ships were against u-boats in defending shipping.

Nukes are useless as anything other than a self destruct mechanism. A gunman pointing at your head with himself in the line of fire.

Tell that to Ukraine!

Russia aren’t going to use nukes on their own doorstep. That’s a a NATO problem. It’s like openly knifing somebody in public repeatedly while holding the would be hero’s at bay with a gun. Yes this is an actual thing that happened in the UK about 10 years ago.

Um... Russia's doctrine during the Cold War was to turn Poland into a nuclear wasteland to stop Nato advancing through it. At the time, Poland was a part of the USSR.

What Russia considers "a buffer zone" is really "inferior peoples we can atomise without having to open a new conflict with a foreign power." To be clear, I use the term "inferior peoples" as seen from the Russian point of view.

Poland was part of the Warsaw Pact but it was never in the USSR.

You've got it reversed...

Soviet doctrine (not Russian) was to use tactical nuclear weapons immediately during their attempt to invade West Germany and march to the Atlantic.

I’ve been looking and you are correct, though I do recall seeing something different, so perhaps what I read was misinterpreting the Seven Days to the Rhine plan.

> Edit: it's not about throwing nukes at each other... It's about having nukes that you can use if someone invades you.

Russia has nukes and got invaded (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kursk_campaign), did it use them?

having nukes doesn't mean when you invade a nuke-free country and it will just fall over for you. but not having nukes means a country with nukes can feel comfy invading you....

Nuclear submarines as in nuclear propulsion submarines. And nukes are useful because you never need to fire them.

That’s the point, and you’re in big trouble if that’s what you’re actually dependent upon is something you can’t use. Nukes are only for the other nukes. The bit of butter, so they say, Betty bought to make the bitter butter better.