Reported in the Telegraph is an excerpt from the Royal Marines magazine, the Globe and Laurel, in which the Commandant General of the Royal Marines (Major Gen Buster Howes) is quoted as saying;
Our current defence aspirations are unaffordable, so very hard choices will have to be made
Those familiar hard choices we have been discussing for so long.
He also suggested that major projects could be scrapped and came out with the classic quote;
Sacred cows make the best beefburgers
The black hole in the defence budget is widely accepted to be beyond a bit of ‘cutting back on expenses and travel’ and the Major General is the first currently serving officer to voice these concerns so openly, says the Telegraph. I am always wary of quoting third hand so as pithy as they sound, they come with a health warning.
All bad news of course, ahead of the second leaders debate in which Foreign Policy i.e. Afghanistan, body armour, compensation and helicopters will form battering rams that Gordon Brown is going to have to fend off in his usual statistic laden manner.
No doubt he will trot out the double helicopters claim, despite troop levels tripling or a 10% real term increase in defence budget, despite it falling as a percentage of GDP and that figure includes UOR spend because we were woefully ill prepared.
David Cameron will try and press home the underfunding of ‘our brave boys’ despite the previous Conservative government being responsible for some of the most drastic cuts to the MoD since the end of the war and Nick Clegg will waffle on about Trident and the fantasy la la land of the EU taking a more coordinated and concerted role.
The three main party leaders have also written a short essay on Foreign Policy for the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) that have been published prior to the debate.
Gordon Brown: Labour’s commitment is non-negotiable
We are looking again at whether we could reduce the fleet of missile-carrying submarines from four to three, but our decisions on our deterrent will be based on national security and multilateral discussions not on cost.
HA HA HA
David Cameron: Britain lacks an effective national security policy
By making these changes, we will be able to fix a lot of the problems we have seen in last few years: a failure to plan for the aftermath and a failure to equip our forces properly when we send them into harm’s way
Despite not ring fencing defence spending, unlike Health and International Development. I am sure the defence ministry in India and Pakistan will be pleased.
Nick Clegg: The EU has failed to lead on training Afghan police
The next defence review must look at how European member states can work together more effectively, to improve capabilities and reduce costs. Liberal Democrats have already ruled out Tranche 3B of Eurofighter. The future of all other major projects must be re-examined as part of a strategic security and defence review, and in light of a more rigorous assessment of the possibilities for increased equipment co-operation with our European allies.
So we will have a Defence review that is predicated on not funding Typhoon which is exactly the kind of European project he thinks will drive costs down, like the A400, Horizon, TRIGAT etc etc
Earth calling Nick Clegg, earth calling Nick Clegg
Mmmmm! Burgers, can I get 2 slices of cheese, some sliced tomato a dollop of mayonnaise and a bit of ketchup with that?
I can’t wait to see the next leaders debate if it’s about all that although I’ve no idea when it is so I’ll need to check that. I think Gordon Brown might also be in for a bit of a hammering and no doubt going to be talking more rubbish than the USA can produce in an entire year but he deserves it in my opinion. No as well the last lot of Tories really took the Axe to defence but *scratches head* we were not involved in a decade long major counter insurgency with around 10000 plus men committed to the fight somewhere really far away and inland. So yeah Labour especially Mr Brown have really won the chocolate gold medal in my mind although someone seems to have nicked and sold all the Chocolate.
Anyhow I agree with your assumptions David Cameron will be talking up how badly labour failed (not hard) and how they plan to do so much better by providing our boys with the best kit and better pay and conditions. Nick Clegg will be waffling on about how evil and unnecessary Trident is and generally how the Liberals don’t believe in violence and think we should just subsume defence policy to Europe. Gordon Brown well to be honest I don’t really give a damn what that man says the record of the last 13 years is there as his testimony as are the veterans and folk in Headley Court and the graves of those who have passed. All of the leaders will be talking up Europe and better European defence integration including the Tories to some degree which is what really worries me as it can do a great deal of damage. Furthermore they all have an easy out on defence as everything is of course to be decided after the budget driven Great Defence Review of 2010, oh how I wonder what it will say.
The debate will unfortunattly be about body armour and helicopters and compensation for wounded afterwards which while all important kind of miss the point.
The UK is a European country with a population and an ecconomy similar in size to France and Italy slightly bigger in both population and ecconomy then Spain and Poland and moderatly smaller than Germany.
The UK and France spend 2.5% of GDP on Defence and all the others less than that.
Why is it in the British national intrest if the other states are members of both NATO and the EU for us to be deploying in Afghanistan a force around the 10,000 level while the other 5 countries COMBINDED depoy approx 12,000.
We either can operate at a level of 2.5% of GDP and provide forces to multinational operations like this in the 2-3,000 range with no HQ overheads and accept we are just following American orders, or we can choose not to take part at all as France and Germany did with Iraq, or we agree nationally to spend A LOT more on Defence.
There is an argument that it is in the British national interest for a multinational force to prevent AQ to gain a foothold in Taliban controlled Afghanistan. It is not in the British national intrest for the UK to be providing more than other states to meet that objective.
Dan, if it is in our national interest then by definition we should be providing as much resource as possible not limiting numbers. That is politics interfering with operations
Admin you and I will disagree, if it is in our interest for the operation to happen it is also in our interest to be successful spending as little blood and treasure as possible.
It is also in our interest for the operation to be over as quickly as possible.
The issue is no matter how many additional troops we send it will have no effect whatsoever on the timing of the overall operation as we are such a small part of the overall operation, there are 120,000 troops overall we could double the force and we would be increasing it by less than 10%.
Ummm… Well there is the the hub of the issue! Is being in Afghanistan in our national interest? Well I guess the answer is nobody really knows.
Does being there actually reduce the likelyhood of AQ attacks on the UK? There are some that say it does there are others that say AQ have simply moved elswhere (e.g. Somalia and Yemen)or deeper in to Pakistan.
My concern is not so much why are we there. We are where we are, what I am concerned about is that we are fighting this was (as we have with just about every war in recent history, on a shoestring). Due to that fact men and women have died and been injured due to lack of proper equipment, training and support. That is a FCUKING disgrace!!! Neither Labour or Tory can take the moral highground on that one. The depressing thing is. I cannot see it changing. For most of the people of this country they have little ot no interest in Defence..period.
Defence spending is not at 2.5% of GDP, it is supposed to be, but it is currently around 2.2% and possibly less since core funding was diverted to Afghanistan in November last year.
The one sacrifice we cannot afford to make is Trident. I am most strident in advocating this nuclear deterrent, because the only other viable alternative – the submarine launched cruise missile – is no longer invulnerable to interception. We must be able to hit enemy targets with total certainty.
What happens if there’s a revolution in Russia? Or internal war war that turns nuclear, with one side becoming an ally and the other an enemy? What happens if rapidly growing China decides to invade Russia or Taiwan to acquire more territory to fuel further expansion? This debate isn’t only about what happens if rogue states suddenly reveal a strategic missile capability we don’t know about? There are so many uncertainties, that I believe we must have the strong negotiating position that a top-notch nuclear deterrent gives us.
The point I made in a previous post is that whenever we have weakened our position, as we did in the 1930s, we have made ourselves more vulnerable. By the time Britain started to re-arm in the mid-1930s, we were 10 years behind Germany and Italy. The Battle of France and Battle of Britain were very close-run things.
Yes, sacred cows do need to be killed. I think the one cost that is unacceptable is fighting a war we do not need to / cannot win and that only makes us a higher priority terrorist target.
Hi, this is a pic of the 2010 t26 that I haven’t seen before anywhere. Search for type 26 at http://www.defenceimagedatabase.mod.uk or try the following link. http://www.defenceimagedatabase.mod.uk/fotoweb/Preview.fwx?position=21&archiveType=ImageFolder&sorting=ModifiedTimeAsc&search=&fileId=096F9B16531325BF2AA3431E60D7BC7EDBCC065CDE190622B020D12FD38A9F0881BD9CF98E18691A6E71D16C017CB326FEECFF00FD78EE23F27944E01B027203F27944E01B027203B1671B8E632302C8612B705DA0A729F89D4F9710431A2CC33101A265DBC48F238C5329930E7364D481B9E11C810E6188E23E7BC57F71CB4BAE9DE275D9FFE12A
“What happens if rapidly growing China decides to invade Russia or Taiwan to acquire more territory to fuel further expansion? ”
We sell them arms of we bomb them depending on which way they go.
“What happens if China decides to invade Taiwan?”
We carry on trading with China, and do not take part in hostilities in any way. It is not in our national intrest to care.
We are no longer the British EMPIRE with global intrests, we are the United Kingdom with more parochial intrests.
“What happens if China decides to invade Taiwan?”
Directly, we do nothing. Indirectly, we support the US (if it becomes involved) with intelligence, logistical support and the like as necessary. They are still one of our most important allies.
We can still be a useful ally without being sycophantic.
“What happens if China decides to invade Taiwan?”
Sit back and do nothing as I doubt the US would be able to do much without there being a costly conflict or the world essentially going tits up as the big boy’s trade blows and everyone has no consumer goods. I really doubt the US would actually take serious military action if Taiwan was invaded it would mostly be a political effort to somehow put pressure on China but it holds all the cards. If something did happen I would suggest honouring the FPDA and generally helping those nations defend themselves if china decided to go after regional US facilities or allies. As for helping the USA itself we could try and help but with a fully mobilised US military we might be more of a hindrance than a help.
I can see Taiwan being one hell of a catalyst if the conditions were right as Japan and South Korea I doubt would sit back and watch the US take on China or watch Taiwan being invaded all on their doorstep. Add to that the possibility of other US regional allies such as Australia and Singapore possibly joining in if threatened and it would be no small conflict it would be WW3 in some aspects. Then there is also the strong possibility of the NATO members such as us feeling obligate to join in to try and help the US and old personal allies such as Australia and Singapore defend themselves as well as win.
May seem like fantasy land but who knows it’s possible unless your crystal ball says otherwise if so what’s next week’s lottery numbers?