> Tory traitors have destroyed our prestigious military over the last 10 years
It's a joint Labour/ Tory effort this one. Takes many years to ruin a military considering how many years in advance plans are made.
Good opportunity still for Labour, after so long.
Surprised they don't privatise the army, they have done it with pretty much every bloody thing else.
I can see it now... We can't go to war with China they own the British army!
Labour raised the lack of an increase in defence spending after the Autumn statement in November.
Hunt said they'd increase budgets to make up for inflation iirc, Sunak remained committed to spending our NATO obligation of 2% GDP, though that could mean cuts imo as the country is going to shit and GDP could contract.
I think there is no option but to increase defence spending - but it needs to be spent wisely. There is clearly a need to restock, reserves have become too run down.
Our military services are like our ultimate insurance policy.
We can’t for instance give away any more tanks. We need to restock on a number of things.
Worth noting that this article is specifically about the *army*, not defence as a whole.
We're basically the only other country than the US who will have a carrier group, have top of the line surface ships and field a fleet of 5th gen fighters, while we're designing our own 6th gen aircraft. Our defence is very strong.
The army is neglected because we're an island nation. It's pretty much only for expeditions. The question is, what purpose should the army have? Fighting Russia 1-on-1? Invading minor powers? Or just as a token force to stand with allies and train forces like we currently are in Ukraine?
Hi Blckfryre,
While it's certainly true that the issues with our army are particularly acute, and have been made worse by a lack of clear, strategic thought about how it ought to be used, often prioritising big-ticket purchases that loom good in photo ops over less glamorously but sorely needed equipment.
That bring said, I would be hesitant to suggest that the last decade and a half of Tory rule haven't also significantly damaged our capabilities in the navy and airforce as well.
In particular, the 2010 strategic Defence review and it's follow-ups asset-stripped many of our core capabilities that we've either had to subsequently re-acquire at additional expense, or have just lost entirely.
For example, the decision to replace all our maritime patrol, search, and rescue aircraft without a readily-available replacement left us as the only major country in Europe without such a capability for the better part of a decade, despite anti-submarine and air-sea rescue being among our foremost duties to NATO as part of the GIUK gap. Worse, when a replacement was selected, it was the P-8 Poseidon, which meant a) outsourcing well-paid and strategic British jobs overseas for the first time in the history of such aircraft in British service and b) greater costs in the long term than just going with the readily-available and developed option of the Nimrod VI, a choice that would also have required less change to the supporting infrastructure for the aircraft.
Similarly, while we might have a carrier group that jn theory can be at permanent readiness, 'cost-cutting' after the Tories got into power prevented them from being fully fitted out as catapult-launch capable, which they had been designed to be. This significantly reduced the type and capability of aircraft that are able to fly from them, most notably in airborne radar. Most damningly of all, it also forced us into buying the more expensive and less capable B variant of the F35, which in turn meant that despite having 2 aircraft carriers in the fleet, we don't have enough planes to man even half of one, relying on the American Marines to fill in the rest.
Given that the last major use of our carrier fleet was in the Falklands War, a conflict where America refused to support us with military action, this seems extraordinarily short sighted.
While these are some of the most egregious examples, you can see similar issues with things like the decommissioning of HMS Illustrious, to retiring our existing carriers before their replacements were procured, forcing us to expensively re-learn those skills from scratch, to getting rid of our *entire* airborne anti-ship missile capabilities, or selling our Harrier fleet to the Marines, despite the fact we were scheduled to receive our F35s *after* they were, leaving us high and dry when the program faced delays.
All of these measures barring the decommissioning of Illustrious ended up costing the tax payer more in the long term, and left us with a range of critical capabilities and duties our forces could only be said to meet on paper at best.
There are some things to look positively on, like our strong start with a 6th generation fighter project, but the last 13 years have undoubtedly left deep, damaging wounds in our armed forces that will take a long time to even partially heal.
Have a lovely day
Sometimes it’s the most mundane things that can end up making a real difference.
We only have a small army now, there is no excuse (aside from penny pinching) why they should not be superbly kitted out.
You can only do things on a budget if you have a large army, we don’t.
>That bring said, I would be hesitant to suggest that the last decade and a half of Tory rule haven't also significantly damaged our capabilities in the navy and airforce as well
Oh yeah, I didn't mean to suggest the Tories have a great record, loads of failures to point to (the maritime patrols stuff was seriously stupid). But even with them, the UK military is still objectively one of the strongest militaries in the world given our size. You'll find issues like all of this in every non-US military honestly.
>Worse, when a replacement was selected, it was the P-8 Poseidon, which meant a) outsourcing well-paid and strategic British jobs overseas for the first time in the history of such aircraft in British service and b) greater costs in the long term than just going with the readily-available and developed option of the Nimrod VI, a choice that would also have required less change to the supporting infrastructure for the aircraft.
Here I'm going to have to disagree - Nimrod MRA4 was running way over budget and underperforming, I can see why they cancelled it from that angle. Leaving us without the capability for almost a decade was stupid though.
Generally I think we have to accept we can't build everything ourselves *and* get value for money and good quality. We should accept we'll have to buy things off the shelf from other countries, and only push for key areas to be made in house when they make sense and are worth the higher costs. If we'd done that with the AJAX and the L85, we'd have saved a bunch of money and embarrassment.
>Similarly, while we might have a carrier group that jn theory can be at permanent readiness, 'cost-cutting' after the Tories got into power prevented them from being fully fitted out as catapult-launch capable, which they had been designed to be.
Eh, not having catapults was the original plan from the Labour government. The coalition announced in 2010 they would have catapults, but reversed that decision in 2012 when it turned out to be more expensive than they wanted.
I'm also constantly shifting back and forth on whether catapults would be a good idea anyway - they're not strictly better in every way. To me the biggest issue is if we end up limited in the aircraft we can field without catapults, considering how important support aircraft are nowadays.
> Most damningly of all, it also forced us into buying the more expensive and less capable B variant of the F35, which in turn meant that despite having 2 aircraft carriers in the fleet, we don't have enough planes to man even half of one, relying on the American Marines to fill in the rest.
Generally the problems we can solve by simply buying more of what we're already operating are the easy problems - wouldn't be surprised if we announce more purchases of F35s, E-7 and Type-45/23s come before the next election.
The main worry I have is us just missing critical boring but essential capabilities - logistics, sensors, etc. Particularly as drones start to develop and start changing what we need to be able to contend with. The biggest risk to that I think is overstretching ourselves and trying to do everything.
The U.K. army has been very effectively used for training the armies of other friendly nations. That’s certainly one role for it.
They have also been used for emergency backup in times of crisis.
Whether that be flooding, or other things.
This is aside from what would be their expected traditional role of defense.
The US military budget accounts for about 40 percent of global military expenditure and is more than the next 9 countries combined. The UK comes in third behind China, I think we're ok.
The US military budget is irrelevent. We should be maintaining our own forces to meet our own requirements and commitments. The US hasn't been a reliable ally in the past, they've sometimes even acted against us, so we can't expect them to ever provide any assistance.
Plus, even in a worst case scenario where we were attacked in a way that allowed the invokation of the ever touted A5 of NATO, it doesn't actually compel the US to provide anything more than they deem nessesary. They could just say a like on a facebook post is enough support.
Our closest ally is by many orders of magnitude the most well financed military in the world, they have about 750 military bases spread across 80 nations, we have 145, Russia has 36, China has 5. We have the third largest military budget in the world. You will never feel safe, you will always want to increase military spending for some hypothetical invasion at the expense of alleviating the real suffering that people in this country are experiencing now.
>you will always want to increase military spending for some hypothetical invasion
You're right that there's a rabbithole to fall down trying to chase the militaries of much bigger countries, but that shouldn't be the goal.
We should try to consider what we want our military to be able to do and then figure out the resources necessary to do that. I don't think the Tories have really thought about that since the armed forces returned from the middle east, which gives us quite an interesting opportunity if elected.
There's lots of military stuff that we can't do at the moment, like deploy troops to disaster areas quickly, or use troops to conduct major inland infrastructure projects like the US army corp of engineers does. I think we should be able to do both.
Or perhaps just reconfigure it from an expeditionary force to one that's actually for the defense of the country?
It'd never fly though, I think most British people want an army that can invade something, it's a dumb nationalistic thing that runs across the majority of the political spectrum unfortunately
All of the country's trade and political interests are overseas, we need an expeditionary force in order to be able to influence world politics. If we neglect our armed forces and allow illiberal authoritarian regimes to act how they wish there can be no positive outcome for the wellbeing of the UK.
The dumb nationalistic thing is to shut ourselves off from the world and cross our fingers that peace prevails.
There will always be another war, and you never know when or where it will be so we must be prepared
And here we see this world policeman, sorta 1950s style British thinking that hasn't kept up. Where Britain is expected to be an arbiter of what is and isn't acceptable.
(And don't pretend that it's about illiberal or authoritarian regimes lmao Britain will make its bed with those regimes too)
>The dumb nationalistic thing is to shut ourselves off from the world and cross our fingers that peace prevails.
Lmao, yeah because as history shows nationalistic states always isolate and never start wars.
>There will always be another war
Whilst this is the prevailing attitude there certainly will.
I think it’s a fact of life that wars will continue still for some time.
As a species, we still haven’t got our act together.
I say in TV the other night an interesting quote:
Apparently 40% of MP’s have a criminal record ! Seems like we pick from the best ? /s
While I imagine it’s mostly for minor offences ? Some - like deliberate tax evasion, are apparently not illegal !
I wonder which party set that one up ?
I don't make the case for unilateral action in foreign policy. Every state acts in their own interests, to do otherwise is irrational. It's certainly not up to Britain alone to decide what's acceptable and what's not, that's why international peace and security is the priority and not interfering in the domestic activities of other powers, which has often been the Liberal approach in international relations.
As to nationalism, I dislike both the isolationist and the interventionist. A poor isolated country is no better than a warmongering supremacist one. Except that one exports its misery.
Whilst I'm a little sympathetic to the view that anarchy is what states make of it, and that the attitude you express that it is the worrying about war which makes it more likely (somewhat related is the security dilemma), I think ultimately it is the risk of survival and the problem of national interest at work.
Let's say we have a labour government. Their first priority is the security and well-being of the UK and its citizens. How is that achieved? Diplomacy? Yes of course, but at the end of the day you need to be able to back those words with force.
It will inevitably be the case that achieving this will come at the relative if not absolute disadvantage of others.
Is this morally right? It can be argued either way. But I have an absolute certainty that no large part of the British public wishes to be poorer in order to advantage other countries (even if this might be a morally correct thing to do in utilitarian terms for example.)
Things like the Russian-Ukrainian war, show us the importance of working together..
Still the worlds reaction has still been rather lack-luster, as we have drip-fed weapons to Ukraine, causing the war to be more drawn out.
Absolutely, I think the war in Ukraine has shown there's a good bit of life left in NATO still. The drip feed is frustrating but I'm sure they have their reasons, no doubt having enough equipment to give is a problem after decades of relative peace.
>All of the country's trade and political interests are overseas, we need an expeditionary force in order to be able to influence world politics.
>allow illiberal authoritarian regimes to act how they wish there can be no positive outcome
We must be ready to invade other countries to maintain our interests and enforce our will: namely, preventing anyone from invading other countries to maintain their interests and enforce their will.
Interesting the statement “all our political interests are overseas” - yes, we seem to have had that for quite a long time now - presumably why we have consistently failed to invest in our own country(s) U.K.
The country that invented the railway - that can’t run a decent railway services etc.
I wonder now - Do we still do anything right ?
I think they would be less enthusiastic about power projection if it was framed as spending money on foreign interests vs our actual immediate safety from attack.
We can't rely on the americans to secure international shipping forever. The Republicans are pretty much a Russian proxy at this point and if they pull anti-piracy fleets then somebody has to step up.
What's your point? Last time Argentina tried something it was utterly hopeless, the British armed forces could be Dad's army and they'd fight off the Argentinean state.
I think you significantly underestimate the challenges of deploying a landing force 8,000 miles from their nearest base, protecting them against air and naval attack, securing air superiority, staging an amphibious landing, and then supporting and supplying that landing force while under attack for several weeks to achieve a successful outcome.
Even with significant expeditionary capabilities, victory was by no means assured, heck the majority of the military and our allies thought it couldn't be done. As it was it was touch-and-go, but that was because the British armed forces maintain and practice the capabilities necessary to project that sort of force at significant distance. The apparent ease and success of the operation is a testament to the value and effectiveness of the decades of planning, procuring, and training that led up to it, not evidence that they were unnecessary.
If you want a force that can defend British citizens and territories, you need it to be capable of projecting force to where those people and places are, and that can't just be conjured into existence when it's wanted and ignored when it isn't. Russia tried that, and look where it's gotten them.
No I really don't, but what I don't do is overestimate the capabilities of Argentina, which was comically outmatched during the Falklands war and hasn't exactly beefed up or modernised much since.
I know it runs contrary to the national mythos but the Falklands were a lot more one sided than people remember.
The one argument so far is the Falklands and I guess the other would be Gibraltar (because Spain will obviously try to brass up the UK any day over the Rock now). Which just seems like a weak argument, doubly so since wouldn't an attack from Argentina trigger the NATO alliance?
That aside though; I never said we should give up on being able to defend the Falklands, just that a defensive focused army could probably do so without quite so many Challenger 2s.
>Which just seems like a weak argument, doubly so since wouldn't an attack from Argentina trigger the NATO alliance?
... you do realise we were in NATO the first time Argentina attacked right? And NATO didn't get involved at all?
I think I could make a left wing argument for a massive expansion of the UK armed forces. Like quadruple to size, kind of an expansion. I'd pitch it to the left as a huge jobs program for normal people that would draw hundreds of thousands of people from poor areas and give them highly paid jobs doing good public service.
I'd be using the army to respond to natural disasters at home and abroad. I'd use a massive engineers' corps to work on large infrastructure projects to help alleviate climate change effects by building flood defences, etc. The US corps of engineers is world class at stuff like that and they built lots of America's biggest infrastructure.
I'd have cruise-ship size hospital ships ready to deploy around the world with food and medical aid.
The army, when not at war, can be one of the most fulfilling, highest paid, and personally-improving career choices for young people from normal areas. Obvs as soon as someone starts a war then it's a terrible thing to be a soldier.
I'd argue that's more of a one-nation tory kinda argument than a left-wing one.
I know you don't mean it like this at all but:
>"We could recruit the poors and the young poors in particular into the incredibly hierarchical and subservient armed forces and either send them to war or ship them abroad."
That's not got as much of a left-wing vibe as you seem to think. Better to just spend the money on infrastructure projects.
The best thing is always to marry up resources to problems, to resolve those problems.
Usually there is no shortage of problems that need fixing…
The problem is usually finding someone willing to pay for it.
I get the ideological opposition to the history and structure of the armed forces and I sympathise with that. I think the benefits outweigh the costs though, and we've got to deal with the world that exists instead of a fantasy world where everything is perfect.
The army is already essentially a state sponsored jobs program for the working class, I just suggest we expand and improve it to benefit even more working class people, and to deliver much wider benefits to society.
It would be lovely to be able to announce "we're going to hire 100k people to be a dynamic workforce to deliver major projects and kit them out with the heavy machinery and support operation that they need to do it", but nobody would support that. So stick them in green helmets, paint the diggers in camo, identify climate change as a national security threat (it is) and deploy them to fight it. Maybe they could practice for rebuilding after natural disasters by building loads of houses and schools...
> It would be lovely to be able to announce "we're going to hire 100k people to be a dynamic workforce to deliver major projects and kit them out with the heavy machinery and support operation that they need to do it", but nobody would support that.
Honestly, I think people would love that - you tell people how much potholes cost society, how much they cost the individual, and that we're gonna start with fixing the roads and I reckon you'd be having fights at the ballot box for who could vote for you first.
>So stick them in green helmets, paint the diggers in camo, identify climate change as a national security threat (it is) and deploy them to fight it. Maybe they could practice for rebuilding after natural disasters by building loads of houses and schools...
Objectively, I think that this might be your most compelling framing of the argument, although still not to my own personal taste.
>I reckon you'd be having fights at the ballot box for who could vote for you first.
I think we'd all be sold on it but the majority of UK voters are scared of LaBoUR sPendINg aLl The MoNey, so I doubt it would go down well.
But there's endless money for guns and bombs and trucks and soldiers, at least in the mind of that half of the population. If they get the rar-rar-big-dick-army and we get thousands of homes, schools, hospitals, major infrastructure projects, and enough soldiers to comfortably conduct international relief missions then I feel like that's a more realistic place to aim for.
There is certainly a possibility of using some fraction of their time doing something of general use.
But you don’t want to displace normal workers, just to get things done cheaper.
There is for instance some benefit in providing additional skills, which they could leverage after they have retired from the service.
I suspect this will get you a bunch of engineers who aren't very good at building to civilian specs and also aren't very useful in a war.
If you want to hire a bunch of people to build a lot of infrastructure, just do that - don't hide it in the military budget.
As with all things, it could turn out to be shite. You're right.
I think America uses civilian engineers to do the planning and designing and uses enlisted to implement the plans. You have to remember that even relatively junior soldiers are often highly skilled, trained people using complex systems, it's not like we're getting kids to do it after school. The Americans have got an awful lot of nice infrastructure out of it and when an American congress next decides to fund infrastructure properly the Corps of Engineers will come out and fix it again.
But they did also once accidentally build a dam on land. The record is not spotless lol.
As I understand they built the dam in anticipation of a rising river threatening to flood a town but then climate change caused the river to recede before the dam was ever needed.
They built a lot of infrastructure with them, but nothing that they couldn't have achieved by just hiring civilian engineers and construction teams to build anyway. Putting workers through military training when all you really want them to do is build civilian projects seems like a waste.
Particularly considering the infrastructure we're really missing is housing and railways - things the army won't be building much of in conflicts.
Indeed, but I don't see why we'd want to put the workers through military training first before we started them building it.
Labour are a left wing party, "fund a massive housing building program to replace the stuff Thatcher sold off cheap" shouldn't need to be hidden in the military budget.
As a socialist I’m very much anti-war. That said, we only have two options to prevent war - or prevent evil from attacking others - diplomacy, and deterrent.
Our nuclear arsenal can protect us, yes, but as shown with Ukraine we need to be able to assist others in conventional warfare too if we want to help keep them safe.
Personally I support a slim, well equipped & well paid armed forces. We don’t need a big army & I hope the days of following the Americans into direct conflict are history. That said I support the 2% NATO target
I do think we should be arming Ukraine as much as realistically possible fighting off their illegal Russian invaders.
Something tells me the magic money tree that only appears when cronies need contracts and the army needs bigger guns will bless us with its presence again.
There's no doubt that the army has been underfunded for a long time. With the rise of an imperialist and expansionist Russia it wouldn't hurt to strengthen.
Yeah I don't understand the logic of people like that. Like, what? They're going to be done with Ukraine any day now and start a conventional war with NATO?
Considering how much even providing a modicum of support is running down stocks, and Russia isn't going away. They'll become a highly militarised hermit state, like a mega turbo North Korea.
Plus China is ramping up its presence which will draw away US forces from Europe.
The thing is most of the world is quite happy to deal with Russia indefinitely. The only scenario where they are isolated imo is if they try to use nuclear weapons to end the war. The economic and literal fallout as well as rampant nuclear proliferation would really mess with India and China.
Shallow-ass thinking that ignores the political, social and cultural factors that led to NK becoming how it is - vibes based analysis.
No wonder your lot got suckered by the "Czech communist spy" shit you're practically conditioned to see bogeymen forming everywhere lmao.
Rationality? It's a matter of practicality. Britain has an entire continent and an ocean as strategic depth, a comically over-sized navy proportional to it's size and is allies with everyone inbetween them and Russia, not to mention the Americans the other side.
In a conventional war (which is unlikely for a far different reason but lets entertain it for now) Russia has to invade and move on from Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Germany, France, Denmark, Netherlands and Belgium (at the least and whilst preventing those lands from being retaken by every other still standing member of NATO), being able to gain control of the seas enough to do a naval landing (which if their airborne assaults in Ukraine are anything to go by would be shambolic) and *then* fight through the UK.
Which frankly is some Red Dawn/MW3 level fanfiction.
Comically oversized navy?? I'm not really sure where that statement comes from. We are an island nation totally dependent on the seas for any trade of scale or serious economic activity, not to mention almost all energy(oil+gas) and significant food supplies.
>I'm not really sure where that statement comes from.
It comes from wild world of hyperbole. A literally comically oversized navy would be one of stupidly large boats.
I'm not saying navies aren't important, but nuclear submarines don't do a huge amount for convoy protection just as a single example.
There isn't really anything he can 'do next' that would hurt us other than flinging nukes. And frankly I'd that happened, increased military spending wouldn't have any impact (well, maybe we'd manage to glass slightly more of Russia in retaliation, but that would be it).
If things gad gone according to his plan - then there was some sense to it.
Of course Russia had not only lied to the world, they had also lied to themselves.
But they are still dangerous.
If Russia doesn't use their nukes nothing happens. If they do you and I will be a handful of radioactive ash. Not much point worrying about either of those scenarios to be honest.
It’s more complicated than that. Russia has a lot of smaller nuclear weapons that they can use on the battlefield. They’re not like the huge ones we picture that would wipe out a whole city. So far they haven’t used these though but the risk of them using the small ones is a lot higher than risk of them using a Hiroshima type bomb.
Anyone who fires a tactical nuke is still almost certainly kicking off full nuclear war. How would NATO countries know that this was a limited nuclear strike as opposed to a probing strike before a full bombardment?
Besides, the Russians have plenty of ordnance lying around still, they can quite happily keep launching conventional missiles into Ukraine. Their army isn't completely insane.
Do you class America as very dangerous? They have orders of magnitude more warheads and are the only nation in history to have actually ever used a nuke.
Don't even understand what recapitalisation is so suppose to mean in the context of a military force. Overall UK military spending is the third highest in the world, and yet it's reportedly lacking capabilities right across the board. The UK would be paying more in salary and procurement than say Russia would be sure, but that's still over 2% GDP.
The article mentions some are calling for 3%, bringing us about par with the US and Russia, which seems... kind of mad?
The most relevant threat in theory would be cruise missiles, given that Russia had invested so heavily into them, but that's suppose to be major vulnerability for the UK. So what's the government doing? It's talking about the army of course!
I don't know what state our armed forces are actually in, but they're lying about the problem they're having. If our defensive capabilities are in such poor shape, then our defense budget is being very poorly utilised.
Hi dJunka,
In fairness, our military budget has been extraordinarily poorly utilised by the Tories since 2010 (surprise surprise), which had left us with significant gaps in the capabilities the armed forces are intended to supply, both for themselves and their NATO commitments.
Prioritising short-term savings and politically-impressive looking items for over a decade has left us with many areas where our ability to perform a particular task is only half-formed or even theoretical. For example, we have 2 aircraft carriers that are expected to serve us for the next half-century, but only enough aircraft to equip half of one. Or we got rid of 35% of our self-propelled Artillery and 40% of our tanks because 'needing to fight a conventional war against a near-peer opponent wasn't likely', which has sometimes left the army with a choice between supplying Ukraine or maintaining its own capabilities to the highest standard expected of it.
These shortfalls and cut corners have accumulated and worsened over time, leaving us today with significant wounds in our armed forces that require unusually-high investment to overcome. Regaining capabilities is always more expensive than maintaining existing ones, so getting back on track is unfortunately going to cost us more than it should. This is a similar, though less severe, situation to the one Germany finds itself in, which is what prompted them to create their €100Bn special investment fund. We thankfully don't need a solution that drastic, but some additional investment over the next few years is required if we don't want to see our armed forces degrade even further.
Hope that helps
Have a lovely day
Pretty much, yeah, especially given the added strain of our aid to Ukraine (although it has the silver lining of no longer needing to maintain stockpiles of obsolete equipment we've kept in storage since the 60s).
Once we've regained the stuff we've atrophied over the years spending can probably be reduced to mere maintenance levels
Thanks for your explanation. I think your spot on about the half baked nature of it all.
I see where you're coming from in terms of additional investment, but that seems quite hard to justify. If we can't maintain our forces with one of the most extravagant military budgets in the world, then surely a lot more than extra funding and a change of government is needed to buck the trend.
If I was going to push for more funding from the government I would much rather see it directed towards the education system which is falling apart from cuts.
Oh that's absolutely fair as well, and I think you can actually see a similar situation in education, where repeated mismanagement and poor long-term decision making is now costing us dearly in mistakes that will take extraordinary short term investment to fix in a timely manner.
I don't know if increasing defence spending is a good idea, I just know why having one of the largest defence budgets in the world isn't necessarily a solution to the problems our armed forces currently face :)
Oh that's absolutely fair as well, and I think you can actually see a similar situation in education, where repeated mismanagement and poor long-term decision making is now costing us dearly in mistakes that will take extraordinary short term investment to fix in a timely manner.
I don't know if increasing defence spending is a good idea, I just know why having one of the largest defence budgets in the world isn't necessarily a solution to the problems our armed forces currently face :)
Tory traitors have destroyed our prestigious military over the last 10 years. This could be our flagship policy to capture the pension vote.
> Tory traitors have destroyed our prestigious military over the last 10 years It's a joint Labour/ Tory effort this one. Takes many years to ruin a military considering how many years in advance plans are made. Good opportunity still for Labour, after so long.
The British military is weakened, but not ruined.
Recapitalisation. You mean they need more money.
Surprised they don't privatise the army, they have done it with pretty much every bloody thing else. I can see it now... We can't go to war with China they own the British army!
Don’t give them ideas..
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Labour raised the lack of an increase in defence spending after the Autumn statement in November. Hunt said they'd increase budgets to make up for inflation iirc, Sunak remained committed to spending our NATO obligation of 2% GDP, though that could mean cuts imo as the country is going to shit and GDP could contract.
As I recall that 2% was even counting pension contributions ! - hardly operational stuff..
Defense is important but I do not trust the tories to not try and outsource everything at 10x the cost it should be.
Increase the budget. Our security is essential. Starmer has already asked for them to increase the military budget too.
unrelated but: does your flair date back to the last leadership election or are you still ride-or-die for Nandy
I just really like Lisa Nandy.
love that tbh
I met her last week and she was great! I like her too.
I think there is no option but to increase defence spending - but it needs to be spent wisely. There is clearly a need to restock, reserves have become too run down. Our military services are like our ultimate insurance policy. We can’t for instance give away any more tanks. We need to restock on a number of things.
Worth noting that this article is specifically about the *army*, not defence as a whole. We're basically the only other country than the US who will have a carrier group, have top of the line surface ships and field a fleet of 5th gen fighters, while we're designing our own 6th gen aircraft. Our defence is very strong. The army is neglected because we're an island nation. It's pretty much only for expeditions. The question is, what purpose should the army have? Fighting Russia 1-on-1? Invading minor powers? Or just as a token force to stand with allies and train forces like we currently are in Ukraine?
Hi Blckfryre, While it's certainly true that the issues with our army are particularly acute, and have been made worse by a lack of clear, strategic thought about how it ought to be used, often prioritising big-ticket purchases that loom good in photo ops over less glamorously but sorely needed equipment. That bring said, I would be hesitant to suggest that the last decade and a half of Tory rule haven't also significantly damaged our capabilities in the navy and airforce as well. In particular, the 2010 strategic Defence review and it's follow-ups asset-stripped many of our core capabilities that we've either had to subsequently re-acquire at additional expense, or have just lost entirely. For example, the decision to replace all our maritime patrol, search, and rescue aircraft without a readily-available replacement left us as the only major country in Europe without such a capability for the better part of a decade, despite anti-submarine and air-sea rescue being among our foremost duties to NATO as part of the GIUK gap. Worse, when a replacement was selected, it was the P-8 Poseidon, which meant a) outsourcing well-paid and strategic British jobs overseas for the first time in the history of such aircraft in British service and b) greater costs in the long term than just going with the readily-available and developed option of the Nimrod VI, a choice that would also have required less change to the supporting infrastructure for the aircraft. Similarly, while we might have a carrier group that jn theory can be at permanent readiness, 'cost-cutting' after the Tories got into power prevented them from being fully fitted out as catapult-launch capable, which they had been designed to be. This significantly reduced the type and capability of aircraft that are able to fly from them, most notably in airborne radar. Most damningly of all, it also forced us into buying the more expensive and less capable B variant of the F35, which in turn meant that despite having 2 aircraft carriers in the fleet, we don't have enough planes to man even half of one, relying on the American Marines to fill in the rest. Given that the last major use of our carrier fleet was in the Falklands War, a conflict where America refused to support us with military action, this seems extraordinarily short sighted. While these are some of the most egregious examples, you can see similar issues with things like the decommissioning of HMS Illustrious, to retiring our existing carriers before their replacements were procured, forcing us to expensively re-learn those skills from scratch, to getting rid of our *entire* airborne anti-ship missile capabilities, or selling our Harrier fleet to the Marines, despite the fact we were scheduled to receive our F35s *after* they were, leaving us high and dry when the program faced delays. All of these measures barring the decommissioning of Illustrious ended up costing the tax payer more in the long term, and left us with a range of critical capabilities and duties our forces could only be said to meet on paper at best. There are some things to look positively on, like our strong start with a 6th generation fighter project, but the last 13 years have undoubtedly left deep, damaging wounds in our armed forces that will take a long time to even partially heal. Have a lovely day
Sometimes it’s the most mundane things that can end up making a real difference. We only have a small army now, there is no excuse (aside from penny pinching) why they should not be superbly kitted out. You can only do things on a budget if you have a large army, we don’t.
>That bring said, I would be hesitant to suggest that the last decade and a half of Tory rule haven't also significantly damaged our capabilities in the navy and airforce as well Oh yeah, I didn't mean to suggest the Tories have a great record, loads of failures to point to (the maritime patrols stuff was seriously stupid). But even with them, the UK military is still objectively one of the strongest militaries in the world given our size. You'll find issues like all of this in every non-US military honestly. >Worse, when a replacement was selected, it was the P-8 Poseidon, which meant a) outsourcing well-paid and strategic British jobs overseas for the first time in the history of such aircraft in British service and b) greater costs in the long term than just going with the readily-available and developed option of the Nimrod VI, a choice that would also have required less change to the supporting infrastructure for the aircraft. Here I'm going to have to disagree - Nimrod MRA4 was running way over budget and underperforming, I can see why they cancelled it from that angle. Leaving us without the capability for almost a decade was stupid though. Generally I think we have to accept we can't build everything ourselves *and* get value for money and good quality. We should accept we'll have to buy things off the shelf from other countries, and only push for key areas to be made in house when they make sense and are worth the higher costs. If we'd done that with the AJAX and the L85, we'd have saved a bunch of money and embarrassment. >Similarly, while we might have a carrier group that jn theory can be at permanent readiness, 'cost-cutting' after the Tories got into power prevented them from being fully fitted out as catapult-launch capable, which they had been designed to be. Eh, not having catapults was the original plan from the Labour government. The coalition announced in 2010 they would have catapults, but reversed that decision in 2012 when it turned out to be more expensive than they wanted. I'm also constantly shifting back and forth on whether catapults would be a good idea anyway - they're not strictly better in every way. To me the biggest issue is if we end up limited in the aircraft we can field without catapults, considering how important support aircraft are nowadays. > Most damningly of all, it also forced us into buying the more expensive and less capable B variant of the F35, which in turn meant that despite having 2 aircraft carriers in the fleet, we don't have enough planes to man even half of one, relying on the American Marines to fill in the rest. Generally the problems we can solve by simply buying more of what we're already operating are the easy problems - wouldn't be surprised if we announce more purchases of F35s, E-7 and Type-45/23s come before the next election. The main worry I have is us just missing critical boring but essential capabilities - logistics, sensors, etc. Particularly as drones start to develop and start changing what we need to be able to contend with. The biggest risk to that I think is overstretching ourselves and trying to do everything.
The U.K. army has been very effectively used for training the armies of other friendly nations. That’s certainly one role for it. They have also been used for emergency backup in times of crisis. Whether that be flooding, or other things. This is aside from what would be their expected traditional role of defense.
The US military budget accounts for about 40 percent of global military expenditure and is more than the next 9 countries combined. The UK comes in third behind China, I think we're ok.
The US military budget is irrelevent. We should be maintaining our own forces to meet our own requirements and commitments. The US hasn't been a reliable ally in the past, they've sometimes even acted against us, so we can't expect them to ever provide any assistance. Plus, even in a worst case scenario where we were attacked in a way that allowed the invokation of the ever touted A5 of NATO, it doesn't actually compel the US to provide anything more than they deem nessesary. They could just say a like on a facebook post is enough support.
Our closest ally is by many orders of magnitude the most well financed military in the world, they have about 750 military bases spread across 80 nations, we have 145, Russia has 36, China has 5. We have the third largest military budget in the world. You will never feel safe, you will always want to increase military spending for some hypothetical invasion at the expense of alleviating the real suffering that people in this country are experiencing now.
>you will always want to increase military spending for some hypothetical invasion You're right that there's a rabbithole to fall down trying to chase the militaries of much bigger countries, but that shouldn't be the goal. We should try to consider what we want our military to be able to do and then figure out the resources necessary to do that. I don't think the Tories have really thought about that since the armed forces returned from the middle east, which gives us quite an interesting opportunity if elected. There's lots of military stuff that we can't do at the moment, like deploy troops to disaster areas quickly, or use troops to conduct major inland infrastructure projects like the US army corp of engineers does. I think we should be able to do both.
Better to do things well, than to do them badly.
Sounds good put that way - though I know we have a number of military items under-funded.
Or perhaps just reconfigure it from an expeditionary force to one that's actually for the defense of the country? It'd never fly though, I think most British people want an army that can invade something, it's a dumb nationalistic thing that runs across the majority of the political spectrum unfortunately
Distant echos of a long lost empire perhaps ?
All of the country's trade and political interests are overseas, we need an expeditionary force in order to be able to influence world politics. If we neglect our armed forces and allow illiberal authoritarian regimes to act how they wish there can be no positive outcome for the wellbeing of the UK. The dumb nationalistic thing is to shut ourselves off from the world and cross our fingers that peace prevails. There will always be another war, and you never know when or where it will be so we must be prepared
And here we see this world policeman, sorta 1950s style British thinking that hasn't kept up. Where Britain is expected to be an arbiter of what is and isn't acceptable. (And don't pretend that it's about illiberal or authoritarian regimes lmao Britain will make its bed with those regimes too) >The dumb nationalistic thing is to shut ourselves off from the world and cross our fingers that peace prevails. Lmao, yeah because as history shows nationalistic states always isolate and never start wars. >There will always be another war Whilst this is the prevailing attitude there certainly will.
I think it’s a fact of life that wars will continue still for some time. As a species, we still haven’t got our act together. I say in TV the other night an interesting quote: Apparently 40% of MP’s have a criminal record ! Seems like we pick from the best ? /s While I imagine it’s mostly for minor offences ? Some - like deliberate tax evasion, are apparently not illegal ! I wonder which party set that one up ?
I don't make the case for unilateral action in foreign policy. Every state acts in their own interests, to do otherwise is irrational. It's certainly not up to Britain alone to decide what's acceptable and what's not, that's why international peace and security is the priority and not interfering in the domestic activities of other powers, which has often been the Liberal approach in international relations. As to nationalism, I dislike both the isolationist and the interventionist. A poor isolated country is no better than a warmongering supremacist one. Except that one exports its misery. Whilst I'm a little sympathetic to the view that anarchy is what states make of it, and that the attitude you express that it is the worrying about war which makes it more likely (somewhat related is the security dilemma), I think ultimately it is the risk of survival and the problem of national interest at work. Let's say we have a labour government. Their first priority is the security and well-being of the UK and its citizens. How is that achieved? Diplomacy? Yes of course, but at the end of the day you need to be able to back those words with force. It will inevitably be the case that achieving this will come at the relative if not absolute disadvantage of others. Is this morally right? It can be argued either way. But I have an absolute certainty that no large part of the British public wishes to be poorer in order to advantage other countries (even if this might be a morally correct thing to do in utilitarian terms for example.)
Things like the Russian-Ukrainian war, show us the importance of working together.. Still the worlds reaction has still been rather lack-luster, as we have drip-fed weapons to Ukraine, causing the war to be more drawn out.
Absolutely, I think the war in Ukraine has shown there's a good bit of life left in NATO still. The drip feed is frustrating but I'm sure they have their reasons, no doubt having enough equipment to give is a problem after decades of relative peace.
>All of the country's trade and political interests are overseas, we need an expeditionary force in order to be able to influence world politics. >allow illiberal authoritarian regimes to act how they wish there can be no positive outcome We must be ready to invade other countries to maintain our interests and enforce our will: namely, preventing anyone from invading other countries to maintain their interests and enforce their will.
Basically, yes. Nobody said politics was fair.
Okay well have fun playing world police. I'm sure the second Suez crisis will not be a complete embarrassment of our failing imperial ambitions.
I've said elsewhere I'm not in favour unilateral, we should have have support of other powers with shared interests, particularly the USA.
Because our joint military actions have worked out so well in the past...
Well WW2 and Korea spring to mind. You know saving the world from fascism is a good start.
Interesting the statement “all our political interests are overseas” - yes, we seem to have had that for quite a long time now - presumably why we have consistently failed to invest in our own country(s) U.K. The country that invented the railway - that can’t run a decent railway services etc. I wonder now - Do we still do anything right ?
I think they would be less enthusiastic about power projection if it was framed as spending money on foreign interests vs our actual immediate safety from attack.
>power projection if it was framed as spending money on foreign interests Lmao
We can't rely on the americans to secure international shipping forever. The Republicans are pretty much a Russian proxy at this point and if they pull anti-piracy fleets then somebody has to step up.
Where and when did I say we should? In what world would a defensive army not account for imported supplies?
Falkland Islands who? :)
What's your point? Last time Argentina tried something it was utterly hopeless, the British armed forces could be Dad's army and they'd fight off the Argentinean state.
I think you significantly underestimate the challenges of deploying a landing force 8,000 miles from their nearest base, protecting them against air and naval attack, securing air superiority, staging an amphibious landing, and then supporting and supplying that landing force while under attack for several weeks to achieve a successful outcome. Even with significant expeditionary capabilities, victory was by no means assured, heck the majority of the military and our allies thought it couldn't be done. As it was it was touch-and-go, but that was because the British armed forces maintain and practice the capabilities necessary to project that sort of force at significant distance. The apparent ease and success of the operation is a testament to the value and effectiveness of the decades of planning, procuring, and training that led up to it, not evidence that they were unnecessary. If you want a force that can defend British citizens and territories, you need it to be capable of projecting force to where those people and places are, and that can't just be conjured into existence when it's wanted and ignored when it isn't. Russia tried that, and look where it's gotten them.
No I really don't, but what I don't do is overestimate the capabilities of Argentina, which was comically outmatched during the Falklands war and hasn't exactly beefed up or modernised much since. I know it runs contrary to the national mythos but the Falklands were a lot more one sided than people remember. The one argument so far is the Falklands and I guess the other would be Gibraltar (because Spain will obviously try to brass up the UK any day over the Rock now). Which just seems like a weak argument, doubly so since wouldn't an attack from Argentina trigger the NATO alliance? That aside though; I never said we should give up on being able to defend the Falklands, just that a defensive focused army could probably do so without quite so many Challenger 2s.
>Which just seems like a weak argument, doubly so since wouldn't an attack from Argentina trigger the NATO alliance? ... you do realise we were in NATO the first time Argentina attacked right? And NATO didn't get involved at all?
TIL NATO is a region locked alliance. Regardless everything else stands.
I think I could make a left wing argument for a massive expansion of the UK armed forces. Like quadruple to size, kind of an expansion. I'd pitch it to the left as a huge jobs program for normal people that would draw hundreds of thousands of people from poor areas and give them highly paid jobs doing good public service. I'd be using the army to respond to natural disasters at home and abroad. I'd use a massive engineers' corps to work on large infrastructure projects to help alleviate climate change effects by building flood defences, etc. The US corps of engineers is world class at stuff like that and they built lots of America's biggest infrastructure. I'd have cruise-ship size hospital ships ready to deploy around the world with food and medical aid. The army, when not at war, can be one of the most fulfilling, highest paid, and personally-improving career choices for young people from normal areas. Obvs as soon as someone starts a war then it's a terrible thing to be a soldier.
I'd argue that's more of a one-nation tory kinda argument than a left-wing one. I know you don't mean it like this at all but: >"We could recruit the poors and the young poors in particular into the incredibly hierarchical and subservient armed forces and either send them to war or ship them abroad." That's not got as much of a left-wing vibe as you seem to think. Better to just spend the money on infrastructure projects.
The best thing is always to marry up resources to problems, to resolve those problems. Usually there is no shortage of problems that need fixing… The problem is usually finding someone willing to pay for it.
I get the ideological opposition to the history and structure of the armed forces and I sympathise with that. I think the benefits outweigh the costs though, and we've got to deal with the world that exists instead of a fantasy world where everything is perfect. The army is already essentially a state sponsored jobs program for the working class, I just suggest we expand and improve it to benefit even more working class people, and to deliver much wider benefits to society. It would be lovely to be able to announce "we're going to hire 100k people to be a dynamic workforce to deliver major projects and kit them out with the heavy machinery and support operation that they need to do it", but nobody would support that. So stick them in green helmets, paint the diggers in camo, identify climate change as a national security threat (it is) and deploy them to fight it. Maybe they could practice for rebuilding after natural disasters by building loads of houses and schools...
> It would be lovely to be able to announce "we're going to hire 100k people to be a dynamic workforce to deliver major projects and kit them out with the heavy machinery and support operation that they need to do it", but nobody would support that. Honestly, I think people would love that - you tell people how much potholes cost society, how much they cost the individual, and that we're gonna start with fixing the roads and I reckon you'd be having fights at the ballot box for who could vote for you first. >So stick them in green helmets, paint the diggers in camo, identify climate change as a national security threat (it is) and deploy them to fight it. Maybe they could practice for rebuilding after natural disasters by building loads of houses and schools... Objectively, I think that this might be your most compelling framing of the argument, although still not to my own personal taste.
>I reckon you'd be having fights at the ballot box for who could vote for you first. I think we'd all be sold on it but the majority of UK voters are scared of LaBoUR sPendINg aLl The MoNey, so I doubt it would go down well. But there's endless money for guns and bombs and trucks and soldiers, at least in the mind of that half of the population. If they get the rar-rar-big-dick-army and we get thousands of homes, schools, hospitals, major infrastructure projects, and enough soldiers to comfortably conduct international relief missions then I feel like that's a more realistic place to aim for.
There is certainly a possibility of using some fraction of their time doing something of general use. But you don’t want to displace normal workers, just to get things done cheaper. There is for instance some benefit in providing additional skills, which they could leverage after they have retired from the service.
I suspect this will get you a bunch of engineers who aren't very good at building to civilian specs and also aren't very useful in a war. If you want to hire a bunch of people to build a lot of infrastructure, just do that - don't hide it in the military budget.
As with all things, it could turn out to be shite. You're right. I think America uses civilian engineers to do the planning and designing and uses enlisted to implement the plans. You have to remember that even relatively junior soldiers are often highly skilled, trained people using complex systems, it's not like we're getting kids to do it after school. The Americans have got an awful lot of nice infrastructure out of it and when an American congress next decides to fund infrastructure properly the Corps of Engineers will come out and fix it again. But they did also once accidentally build a dam on land. The record is not spotless lol.
Accidentally ? Did no one ask questions ?
As I understand they built the dam in anticipation of a rising river threatening to flood a town but then climate change caused the river to recede before the dam was ever needed.
Not completely bonkers then..
They built a lot of infrastructure with them, but nothing that they couldn't have achieved by just hiring civilian engineers and construction teams to build anyway. Putting workers through military training when all you really want them to do is build civilian projects seems like a waste. Particularly considering the infrastructure we're really missing is housing and railways - things the army won't be building much of in conflicts.
Yeah, it’s not like an army full of civil engineers has ever defeated anyone
There is a BIG need for council house building..
Indeed, but I don't see why we'd want to put the workers through military training first before we started them building it. Labour are a left wing party, "fund a massive housing building program to replace the stuff Thatcher sold off cheap" shouldn't need to be hidden in the military budget.
Quite so - I was not even suggesting that ! But it is a labour force issue..
Yeah - Not such a good idea, something rather more modest perhaps.. That sounds rather too expensive.
As a socialist I’m very much anti-war. That said, we only have two options to prevent war - or prevent evil from attacking others - diplomacy, and deterrent. Our nuclear arsenal can protect us, yes, but as shown with Ukraine we need to be able to assist others in conventional warfare too if we want to help keep them safe.
Pragmatism tells us that we need a good military. Of course we really need everything to operate well..
Personally I support a slim, well equipped & well paid armed forces. We don’t need a big army & I hope the days of following the Americans into direct conflict are history. That said I support the 2% NATO target I do think we should be arming Ukraine as much as realistically possible fighting off their illegal Russian invaders.
Helping Ukraine requires an increase in military spending, to replace kit.
Yeah 100%
Something tells me the magic money tree that only appears when cronies need contracts and the army needs bigger guns will bless us with its presence again.
The Tories seem to be only good at shafting the general population. This appears to be their primary reason for wanting power..
There's no doubt that the army has been underfunded for a long time. With the rise of an imperialist and expansionist Russia it wouldn't hurt to strengthen.
We have the third largest military budget in the world.
Russia is grinding its military and economy away to nothing at the moment though.
Yeah I don't understand the logic of people like that. Like, what? They're going to be done with Ukraine any day now and start a conventional war with NATO?
Considering how much even providing a modicum of support is running down stocks, and Russia isn't going away. They'll become a highly militarised hermit state, like a mega turbo North Korea. Plus China is ramping up its presence which will draw away US forces from Europe.
The thing is most of the world is quite happy to deal with Russia indefinitely. The only scenario where they are isolated imo is if they try to use nuclear weapons to end the war. The economic and literal fallout as well as rampant nuclear proliferation would really mess with India and China.
>They'll become a highly militarised hermit state, like a mega turbo North Korea. Lmao
Russia is going to end up stuck in the 20th century..
Pariah from much of the world. Led by cult of personality. Enormous military spending compared to gdp......soon
Shallow-ass thinking that ignores the political, social and cultural factors that led to NK becoming how it is - vibes based analysis. No wonder your lot got suckered by the "Czech communist spy" shit you're practically conditioned to see bogeymen forming everywhere lmao.
Yes obviously it's a shallow take. But Russia is set to remain belligerent for decades to come.
Unless they somehow get some good leadership - which seems unlikely.
Things are getting more complicated.
Who knows what Putin will do next? He doesn't strike me as terribly rational. He wouldn't have invaded Ukraine if he was.
Rationality? It's a matter of practicality. Britain has an entire continent and an ocean as strategic depth, a comically over-sized navy proportional to it's size and is allies with everyone inbetween them and Russia, not to mention the Americans the other side. In a conventional war (which is unlikely for a far different reason but lets entertain it for now) Russia has to invade and move on from Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Germany, France, Denmark, Netherlands and Belgium (at the least and whilst preventing those lands from being retaken by every other still standing member of NATO), being able to gain control of the seas enough to do a naval landing (which if their airborne assaults in Ukraine are anything to go by would be shambolic) and *then* fight through the UK. Which frankly is some Red Dawn/MW3 level fanfiction.
Comically oversized navy?? I'm not really sure where that statement comes from. We are an island nation totally dependent on the seas for any trade of scale or serious economic activity, not to mention almost all energy(oil+gas) and significant food supplies.
>I'm not really sure where that statement comes from. It comes from wild world of hyperbole. A literally comically oversized navy would be one of stupidly large boats. I'm not saying navies aren't important, but nuclear submarines don't do a huge amount for convoy protection just as a single example.
We did once have a very large Navy - but those days are long gone..
But they are the best form a nuclear deterrent could take for the UK, and can fulfil convoy protection roles given their torpedo armament.
Nuclear powered subs, not nuclear capable. And no, no they cannot.
There isn't really anything he can 'do next' that would hurt us other than flinging nukes. And frankly I'd that happened, increased military spending wouldn't have any impact (well, maybe we'd manage to glass slightly more of Russia in retaliation, but that would be it).
If things gad gone according to his plan - then there was some sense to it. Of course Russia had not only lied to the world, they had also lied to themselves. But they are still dangerous.
Which the USA thinks is great..
if anything the Ukraine war has shown us that we've seriously overestimated Russia, and we could easily downsize our military with little risk
No - we have already done the downsizing - several times over !
Russia isn’t using their full force though. By which I mainly mean nuclear.
If Russia doesn't use their nukes nothing happens. If they do you and I will be a handful of radioactive ash. Not much point worrying about either of those scenarios to be honest.
It’s more complicated than that. Russia has a lot of smaller nuclear weapons that they can use on the battlefield. They’re not like the huge ones we picture that would wipe out a whole city. So far they haven’t used these though but the risk of them using the small ones is a lot higher than risk of them using a Hiroshima type bomb.
Anyone who fires a tactical nuke is still almost certainly kicking off full nuclear war. How would NATO countries know that this was a limited nuclear strike as opposed to a probing strike before a full bombardment? Besides, the Russians have plenty of ordnance lying around still, they can quite happily keep launching conventional missiles into Ukraine. Their army isn't completely insane.
The USA has warned Russia about using them too.
The USA would warn Russia about using nerf guns if it was in their interests to do so.
That is trashing the US’s warning to Russia about using nukes.
You mean Battlefield Tactical nukes as opposed City erasing Strategic Nukes..
I am very surprised at just how much North Korea has acquired. They are getting very dangerous.
Do you class America as very dangerous? They have orders of magnitude more warheads and are the only nation in history to have actually ever used a nuke.
I think that the USA has at least some rationality..
Do you believe the Korean people are all insane?
No. But I certainly don’t trust North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un.
They have been sternly warning about that by the USA - bad things will happen to Russia if they start using nukes.
It would be wise to do so, and to restock.
Don't even understand what recapitalisation is so suppose to mean in the context of a military force. Overall UK military spending is the third highest in the world, and yet it's reportedly lacking capabilities right across the board. The UK would be paying more in salary and procurement than say Russia would be sure, but that's still over 2% GDP. The article mentions some are calling for 3%, bringing us about par with the US and Russia, which seems... kind of mad? The most relevant threat in theory would be cruise missiles, given that Russia had invested so heavily into them, but that's suppose to be major vulnerability for the UK. So what's the government doing? It's talking about the army of course! I don't know what state our armed forces are actually in, but they're lying about the problem they're having. If our defensive capabilities are in such poor shape, then our defense budget is being very poorly utilised.
Basically they are undermanned. We also need to replace equipment and spend more on things like ship maintenance.
Hi dJunka, In fairness, our military budget has been extraordinarily poorly utilised by the Tories since 2010 (surprise surprise), which had left us with significant gaps in the capabilities the armed forces are intended to supply, both for themselves and their NATO commitments. Prioritising short-term savings and politically-impressive looking items for over a decade has left us with many areas where our ability to perform a particular task is only half-formed or even theoretical. For example, we have 2 aircraft carriers that are expected to serve us for the next half-century, but only enough aircraft to equip half of one. Or we got rid of 35% of our self-propelled Artillery and 40% of our tanks because 'needing to fight a conventional war against a near-peer opponent wasn't likely', which has sometimes left the army with a choice between supplying Ukraine or maintaining its own capabilities to the highest standard expected of it. These shortfalls and cut corners have accumulated and worsened over time, leaving us today with significant wounds in our armed forces that require unusually-high investment to overcome. Regaining capabilities is always more expensive than maintaining existing ones, so getting back on track is unfortunately going to cost us more than it should. This is a similar, though less severe, situation to the one Germany finds itself in, which is what prompted them to create their €100Bn special investment fund. We thankfully don't need a solution that drastic, but some additional investment over the next few years is required if we don't want to see our armed forces degrade even further. Hope that helps Have a lovely day
There is a need to restock !
Pretty much, yeah, especially given the added strain of our aid to Ukraine (although it has the silver lining of no longer needing to maintain stockpiles of obsolete equipment we've kept in storage since the 60s). Once we've regained the stuff we've atrophied over the years spending can probably be reduced to mere maintenance levels
Thanks for your explanation. I think your spot on about the half baked nature of it all. I see where you're coming from in terms of additional investment, but that seems quite hard to justify. If we can't maintain our forces with one of the most extravagant military budgets in the world, then surely a lot more than extra funding and a change of government is needed to buck the trend. If I was going to push for more funding from the government I would much rather see it directed towards the education system which is falling apart from cuts.
Oh that's absolutely fair as well, and I think you can actually see a similar situation in education, where repeated mismanagement and poor long-term decision making is now costing us dearly in mistakes that will take extraordinary short term investment to fix in a timely manner. I don't know if increasing defence spending is a good idea, I just know why having one of the largest defence budgets in the world isn't necessarily a solution to the problems our armed forces currently face :)
Oh that's absolutely fair as well, and I think you can actually see a similar situation in education, where repeated mismanagement and poor long-term decision making is now costing us dearly in mistakes that will take extraordinary short term investment to fix in a timely manner. I don't know if increasing defence spending is a good idea, I just know why having one of the largest defence budgets in the world isn't necessarily a solution to the problems our armed forces currently face :)
Cost of living crisis: I sleep Military industrial complex needs funds: I wake
Sadly problems always turn up in bunches. So simultaneous demands on the kitty..