Militaries aren't meant to be actively engaged with enemies on a regular basis. Peace keeping, patrol of naval shipping lanes, shows of force to prevent conflict escalation (EG recent exercises with South Korea). These all matter in the grand scheme of global security. We don't stop paying for a military when it's not shooting at stuff.
All can be done a lot cheaper than we do it.Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
Yeah, we can't point ICBMs are Somali pirates.
Well, health care spending is much more important than defense spending. The average Britain is much more likely to die of health problems than hostile acts by other states or terrorist groups. In actuality, NHS spending and international development were ring fenced, and in the end scientific research was spared *really* serious cuts, as was, in fact, defense.
I seriously doubt that defense would have gotten away with much less than it did, NHS ring fencing or no. 8% was much less than other government departments were hit with.In this case, I think that a number of very important budget items (including defense) were seriously hurt, rather than inconvenienced, by the drastic cuts, and NHS got a free pass through the process. That's bad government.
From whom?
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
Jerry!
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Whats the deal with those Brits and their tea time? Why can't they just have tea whenever they want? Its madness!
. . .
That's why we sell combat aircraft to the Saudis. Maybe we should start selling them some of these too...
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
But you don't need aircraft carriers for that, either. I'd say the new line of Dutch warships is much better suited for that kind of task.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
http://www.theworldforgotten.net/sho...ojection+power
Look, no one is saying that the UK needs serious projection power to protect its citizens from immediate harm. But many Western nations - UK included - have interests beyond simply protecting their civilians, or even the basic task of keeping sea lanes open (to quote one particularly snarky blogger, "Even the French are perfectly capable of keeping the sea lanes open.")
The UK is a fairly small country by most metrics - economically, population-wise, territory-wise, natural resources, etc. Yet the UK is interested in being able to 'punch above its weight' for a very simple reason: it wants a seat at the table. Whether it's guaranteeing global security, deterring potential aggressors (and making sure some countries don't even bother trying to build up a military capability), giving the UK clout in economic or environmental negotiations, or anything else, the UK gets accorded far more respect by dint of the fact that, if necessary, they can project force around the globe to explain their foreign policy opinions in person.
Most of the world doesn't follow our opinions about how things should be run. Large swaths of the developing world are run by scumbags who treat their people like shit and are happy to start a war or two. Hell, the up-and-coming power in the world is a bad world citizen on a lot of fronts, and its influence needs to be checked. For better or worse, that task has been taken up by a handful of Western powers. By and large, we don't go meddling in small fry issues, but we do use our wealth and our military power to intimidate, deter, and isolate potential adversaries to the general functioning of the world. (By 'we' I'm referring mostly to the US, UK, France, and to a lesser extent to NATO as a whole.) Furthermore, we intervene in moments of great human suffering - whether with humanitarian aid or peace enforcement missions. No one else has this capability.
Now, it's easy to argue that we're subsidizing world peace by ruining our own budgets, and that other countries should shoulder some of the burden. Perhaps that's true - I certainly believe it's true for the rest of NATO. Yet I think that the price for this (relative) stability is worth it. Furthermore, I think that the fundamental worldview of Western nations is a better one than most of the other major players in the world. I'd like that view to be promulgated and strengthened by us being involved in prominent positions in world institutions and international efforts.
The UK didn't just place NHS off-limits; they also included foreign aid in the exemptions. I would argue that the good that has come out of having a strong set of Western militaries is far greater than the dubious effect of foreign aid.
Now, I agree with Steely in principle that the cuts aren't too bad, and that the very worst outcomes were averted. Furthermore, I'm perfectly fine with spending more on NHS than the military - in fact it should almost certainly be so. But to argue that there are no savings to be found in the bloated NHS budget while making deep (albeit not fatal) cuts in other critical ministries (defense not least among them) seems disingenuous politicking. There should be cuts in the defense budget - I have no doubt there's plenty of waste there - but the magnitude of the cuts required would be a lot less if they had tried some cost-saving measures in NHS. Say, a 2% decrease in the healthcare budget would have only required a 2% decrease in the defense budget to save the same amount of money.
The fiscal threat to the UK is not the military budget. It is spiraling healthcare costs.
Not their road lanes though!
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
So Dread takes a shit on me for posting "emotionally loaded" arguments for gummint subsidizing well-being, but when the same rhetoric is used in favour of gummint-subsidized people-killing it's a different ball-game?
The UK was allowed to be a big puncher after WW2 because America trusted them (to an extent, but not with "atomic secrets"), and because Stalin liked Churchill but figured the UK's colonial empire was dying out. Which it did. Now you're making a guilt-based argument saying the UK should keep projecting force because it has in the past. Because certain Western powers have to guard our material interests. Steely's counter to this was, in part, that the UK's material interests also lie in keeping its people healthy with the means available. But but but the sea lanes! Please.
Europe (let alone any single player within) isn't a credible nuclear threat against Ivan or China. It's questionable how much material wealth the operation in Af-gay-nistan has brought to the UK. If Amerika is content playing world police and crusading around the world, let her have at it, right?. Although with the radical right rising its head again, we might see a rise in Europe's attempts at militarizing itself in the near future, but I'm not sure that'll have world-securing consequences.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
I think there are a number of differences, starting with the fact that no one wants to privatize global security (except Tony Stark in Iron Man 2). But Wiggin is making a statement based on some pretty easily-imaginable issues with global security.
If you leave a power vacuum in these areas, someone will fill it. Not to make an overly-loaded argument, but if you don't like to entertain the uncertainty of things like Russia deciding to treat Finland like a vassal state 50 years from now, a military is worth investing in for the common good.
Throughout the Cold War, Finland's army considered itself as a weeks-long hindrance to Russian forces while we wait for the US to decide whether you guys wanna throw some nuclear muscle this way or not. If Russia wanted us as a vassal state, they'd just have to threaten to lob a nuke on Malmi and that'd be that.
Europe's trying to unify again, this time without the swastika, and maybe that'll make us a semi-credible player on the global military field, but I doubt it. If shit really hits the fan and we're looking at genuine threats like China going nuts, it'll still mostly be on the US. Britain might want a seat at the table because not everyone there realizes the Empire is long-gone, but to argue that the well-being of their citizenry should be compromised just for that seat, where they will get walked over regardless, seems like a very inane and emotion-appealing argument.
If someone will fill the power vacuum, can't it just as well be the hawkish US? Pubbies are going to make a big come-back in the next election cycle and they're crazier than ever.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
My research has actually moved into a similar area.The basic premise is that countries that have a comparative advantage in military might will use the military (similarly, countries that are strong economically will rely on economic tools, and countries weak in both areas will resort to asymmetric tactics). If Britain (and the EU in general) underfund their military, they will find it much more difficult to use that military (not only in terms of military capacity, but also in terms of domestic support for military action), which is not to say that they wouldn't be able to use other tools (i.e. economic ones). Having a relatively weak military does not mean that one is more likely to be attacked; it does likely mean that the states in question will be at a bargaining disadvantage (this part is hard to test). The question is whether Britain (and the rest of the EU) will be able to make up economically for their military weakness. And the answer there probably will vary by issue type.
Hope is the denial of reality
Why should the US government invest 5% of its GDP in global defense spending, while Western and Northern Europe spend an equal chunk of money on health benefits, welfare and pensions? Seems like a bit of a one-sided relationship, don't you think?
We don't want the UK to spend more money on defense because we like watching them stroke their ego. The point is that -- most of the time, in the big picture -- we have shared security interests and it should be a shared burden. Otherwise you're just standing under someone else's shaky umbrella.
The EU is free riding on our military, but it's not like there's anything we can do about it. We can't credibly threaten to reduce the size of our military, and we can't exactly threaten to attack Western Europe, which leaves us little more than trying to make moral appeals (like the one you make), which frankly rarely work.
Hope is the denial of reality
Europe (or at least us smaller nations) will have to invest heavily into specialized technological know-how, or sink back into third-world status. I'm just afraid our voting populace will get in the way of that.My research has actually moved into a similar area.
The relationship was dictated by the US, not Europe. You were happy to subsidize things up the geology department of my university during the Cold War because it provided "tangible benefits" against the Red Beast.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Technology is the great equalizer. It's also awfully unpredictable. I think that without a significant external threat (and Russia is not it), there is very little political will to jeopardize the welfare state for the sake of global military relevance. We can only hope that the domestic emphasis will lead to technological breakthroughs and won't be wasted on bloated pensions.
Hope is the denial of reality
I have lately been to a speech of the head of the embeded-IT community of Switzerland. He made some interesting points about how IT in Switzerland (the points can be applied to most of the EU) can compete to IT in countries like India. The main argument was, that you have to be able to concentrate a lot more in R&D field. Therefore the country you work in, doesn't only have to provide the infrastructure and education but also a certain social and economical stability/security. These is not a general security over the whole country but a very individual security. Once a country can provide this to its people, you can expect a larger output in fields where creativity, individual engagement and a certain love for the matter is needed.
This goes hand in hand with the Maslov pyramid of needs. If a country manages it to get as many people as possible to the highest layer (self-actualization) you will get enough people that search for perfection in their jobs. This desire is a much better drive that the lower layers. For example safety is often used as a motivation (job safety, higher salary to support your family). This might work for a miner, a road worker or the cashier at Wall Mart. It doesn't work to motivate scientists or engineers. Self actualization works. Therefore, a working welfare state is not luxury, it is a perfect tool to archive an environment where people can concentrate on their jobs, and don't have to worry about their future.
Social welfare provides more than food and a warm bed for lazy people.
"Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen." - Helmut Schmidt
And how much of that effect is taken away due to the disincentives created by the welfare state (mostly as it regards to giving up a large chunk of one's income, but also being faced with additional regulation, hiring/firing requirements, etc.)?
Hope is the denial of reality
In such fields as R&D almost nothing, the salaries are at such a level that you really can't motivate people with a higher net income, reasons to pay more are, because other companies will try to get your employees and because people expect a raise every now and then (As return for their experience).
About the additional regulations, well that's not directly an implication of a welfare state. Just compare the hiring/firing requirements of Switzerland and Germany.
"Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen." - Helmut Schmidt
See my first post in this thread. The UK is painting itself into a corner and that corner has got EU all over it.My research has actually moved into a similar area.
Congratulations America
.... meanwhile, in Scotland ...
Nuclear submarine HMS Astute runs aground off Skye
BBC, 22nd October 2010
The Royal Navy's newest and largest attack submarine HMS Astute has run aground off Skye, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed.
An eye-witness said the sub - described as the stealthiest ever built in the UK - appeared to have grounded.
A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said: "This is not a nuclear incident.
"We are responding to the incident and can confirm that there are no injuries to personnel and the submarine remains watertight."
The spokeswoman added: "There is no indication of any environmental impact."
The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) was alerted to the incident at about 0819 BST and confirmed it had run aground.
A spokesman said: "We have sent a coastguard tug to where the submarine ran aground on rocks at the Kyle of Lochalsh near the Skye bridge.
"It will stand by and monitor what will be going on. We think on the rising tide, at around 1800 BST, there should be some movement of the vessel."
A Royal Navy helicopter has also been at the scene.
Eye-witness Ross McKerlich said the submarine was about a mile from his home and appeared slightly tilted.
He said: "When I woke up this morning and looked out my bedroom window I could see the submarine.
"I am very surprised how far in it has come as there are good navigational buoyes there."
Mr McKerlich added: "There was a helicopter hovering over the top - it's now gone back and there are two Naval vessels from the local base, Kyle of Lochalsh, standing off to the north of her.
"Earlier in the day they did have ropes and they were trying to tow but now the tide has gone back and they're just standing off."
HMS Astute, built at by BAE Systems in Barrow in Furness, Cumbria, is believed to have been undergoing sea trials as it is not expected to enter service until next year.
Aside from attack capabilities, it is able to sit in waters off the coast undetected, listening to mobile phone conversations or delivering the UK's special forces where needed.
The 39,000 acoustic panels which cover its surface mask its sonar signature, meaning it can sneak up on enemy warships and submarines alike, or lurk unseen and unheard at depth.
The submarine can carry a mix of up to 38 Spearfish heavyweight torpedoes and Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise missiles, able to target enemy submarines, surface ships and land targets, while its sonar system has a range of 3,000 nautical miles.
Speaking to the BBC last month, HMS Astute's commanding officer, Commander Andy Coles, said: "We have a brand new method of controlling the submarine, which is by platform management system, rather than the old conventional way of doing everything of using your hands.
"This is all fly-by-wire technology including only an auto pilot rather than a steering column."
Submarine HMS Trafalgar sustained millions of pounds worth of damage when it ran aground off Skye in 2002.
Two senior commanders were reprimanded after admitting that their negligence caused the incident.
The sea around Skye and the island of Raasay is a training ground for the Royal Navy.
Ouch. Tricky territory around there.
Last edited by Timbuk2; 10-22-2010 at 01:36 PM.
Still offline so missed all the fun last week, but got a brief moment to post from work:
There is a false dichotomy here. The choice was not realistically between cutting Defence or cutting the NHS. The previous UK government did the same as all other Labour governments and eventually ran out of other people's money. Government here was spending £4 for every £3 of income it got, overall spending across government (or equivalent tax rises) would have to reach a staggering 25% of expenditure. It is worth noting that this cut of 8% was thought to be a major victory for the MoD and Liam Fox personally, the expectations beforehand was for a much deeper cut.
All departments are generally agreed to be very inefficient and the MoD and the NHS are no exceptions. The problem is with the NHS that we have an ageing population and drugs and treatment are becoming constantly more expensive. The NHS has been given a 0.1% per annum real spending increase over 5 years, essentially a real spending freeze. With the twin facts of an ageing population (more sick people) and more expensive drugs/treatment (more expensive/sick person) the NHS needs more money. A freeze in spending for the NHS is essentially a cut. The NHS have to find efficiency savings just the same as any other department in order to cope.
The MoD is something Conservatives would instinctively want to protect. But the spending in the past is - as widely acknowledged - over-expensive, over-budget and behind schedule. Tough choices have had to be made. The oddity of getting two aircraft carriers with no manned fixed-wing planes to fly off them is caused by the contracts left behind.
The main cause of casualties in Afghanistan, are only major extant conflict, is not a lack of fixed-wing planes flying off aircraft carriers or anything else being cut/mothballed. It's a lack of armoured helicopters that are desperately needed in Afghanistan's mountainous terrain with the insurgents fighting as they do. For this, spending is being increased. One Gordon Brown cut the budget for the helicopters in the past.
In an ideal world these decisions may not have had to be made. But this isn't an ideal world and I think the right choices are being made. We need support for our troops in Afghanistan now and to plan for conflicts in the future. Even after the spending cut we'll still have the fourth-largest military in the world, still be able (and willing) to project power and come 2019 the gaps should be being filled. It is risky to say that in the next 8 years (we're virtually 2011 already) we're not expecting any major conflicts, but we're not. Better to plan for the long-term now and fund accordingly than this pathetic dragging out of the tough decisions by the prior lot that left us in this mess.
RB, that's fine if the UK wants to set priorities that way, and I fully understand the Conservative rationale. Yet UK defense spending as a percentage of GDP fell dramatically in the 90s and has been roughly constant for the last decade. Even though there are over-budget, late weapons programs, the budget has been kept fairly restrained. In the same time, healthcare went from roughly constant in the 80s and 90s (~5% of GDP, though there was some fluctuation) to steady increases in the last decade, reaching about 8% of GDP now.
From this perspective, it seems like the MoD has been doing a reasonable job of reining in expenses (though an execrable job at procurement, which has already led to the aforementioned shortages and capability gaps), while NHS is out of control. I can guarantee that demographics alone don't account for a 60% increase in healthcare expenses as a percentage of GDP in the last decade, while most other spending increased modestly (e.g. education) or not at all (defence).
This is a classic case of preparing to fight the last war and not the next one. I have no doubt that certain acquisitions are necessary (let's be honest, were necessary years ago) to properly fight in Afghanistan. Yet ignoring other critical strategic systems just because they're not as necessary right now and we can rely on the Americans for logistical and carrier support is hardly a good choice. I'm also skeptical about this argument - Chinook orders were slashed in half, and those would be quite useful for a war like Afghanistan's (they are heavy lift helicopters for resupply, troop movement, etc.). The US military has faced similar problems - they have had multiple crash programs to procure weapons systems needed to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan - MRAPs, various counter-IED systems, vastly expanded drone fleets, surveillance systems, etc. That hasn't come at the expense of continued carrier procurement (one every 5 years or so) or other strategic systems (the only reason the refueling tanker bid has been so slow is politics, and the USAF has been buying C-17s all decade, is re-engining C-5s, and has dozens of C-130Js on order).
I'm perfectly fine with the UK no longer wishing to be a world power. Their spending still fits the 2% of GDP suggestion for NATO, and they're a capable force that can be adjuncts to countries that have real projection capability. But it's my understanding that this is not the path the UK wishes to take. Given continuing cuts in important programs needed to have a minimum of projection power, it sure looks like that from over here. What do you want to bet the 'deferred' decision on the Trident is just another way of putting off the tough decision to drastically cut or eliminate the nuclear deterrent? That's perfectly fine if they want to do that, again, but it just means they're becoming less and less of a relevant player.
As I've said before, the carrier thing is really just the tip of the iceberg. The UK's armored force is being reduced by something like 40%, and Army personnel is dropping by about 7%! That's a lot of lost punch for relatively cheap systems. Also, I find the reduction in RN size quite worrying - the US can agonize over whether we should have a 250 ship Navy or a 300 ship Navy, but 19 frigates/destroyers is hardly enough to get decent coverage or punch.
I guess what I'm seeing is the UK military spending enough to be a drag on the budget without actually providing the government with any tangible political gains. Either they should spend enough to do the job properly (with some serious efficiency savings, of course) or they should downsize to what they will really be - a regional power.
I think the point is to retain capabilities so they can be regenerated later without much difficulty. If you have a carrier with only 12 planes flying off it, you can expand your carrier power just by being more planes. If you have no carrier, you have to relearn how to build aircraft carriers and relearn how to conduct carrier operations. Where as with the current set up all it takes is another buy off JSF and suddenly we've got an extremely formidable carrier strike capability. Thus, the the SDSR turned out to actually be rather strategic after all - it not only cut costs but also has a foundation for the future regeneration of British military power.
You seem to be saying we should cut the NHS and increase military funding in order to have the capability now, now, now. Well, even if we did that it's still going to take plenty of time to rebuild the armed forces. They really are in a terrible state. Ark Royal, the carrier to be scrapped, is a floating wreck because of a lack of proper maintenance. It was supposed to serve until 2014 but it's doubtful it would have made it to then. Keeping it on would have been a strain on the maintenance budget, and for what? To maintain the fiction that the UK that we could attack people with carrier aircraft? The story is similar for HMS Ocean, for similar reasons. Most British escorts are designed for a hull-life of 20-25 years, and most have been in service for 25-30 years. Ditto for the Invincible class, hull life 25 years, actual service going on for 35. As ships remain beyond their intended service life, the costs of maintenance increases exponentially. Now, the scheduled replacement for the frigate fleet is the Type 26, the eventual outcome of the intensely protracted Future Surface Combatant program, which was actually first started during the age of sail. After at least 300 years and much kicking and screaming it was finally decided that the Future Surface Combatant will be a frigate with a gun, some missiles and space for a helicopter. It might look like this (note the gun, missiles and helicopter elements). However, there is no finalized design for the T26, and one is at least four years away. And even if we had an actual design, the ship yards are taken up building the Queen Elizabeth class. So there is NO replacement for any of our frigates on the cards until 2020 even with all the money in the world. Meanwhile, most of the frigate fleet (except maybe the newer Type 23s) are somewhere between 5 and 10 years over their intended service life. The 6 ancient and obsolete Type 42 destroyers are being replaced by 6 Type 45 destroyers. The production line for these ships has stopped at 6. They ship yards aren't making any more. So there is absolutely no way at all that the escort fleet can be increased until well into the 2020s.
Given the above, do you really think there is much benefit in continuing the to run the older frigates for a few more years until they literally fall to bits? I'm going to assume the for ships to go will be the four Type 22 frigates, because they are the oldest. That will leave us with the Type 23 frigates, undoubtedly the best anti-submarine platform in the world, and the Type 45 destroyers, possibly the best anti-aircraft destroyers in the world. Despite the loss of Arc Royal we will still actually have quite considerable power projection capabilities by non-US standards- one of the things that wasn't a headline in the wake of the SDSR was that almost the entirety of the amphibious fleet was saved. The RN can still put together a task force centred around, say, two amphibious ships and a helicopter carrier protected by Type 45s and Type 23s and an SSN. This can still go and fuck shit up most places in the world and isn't a significantly downgrade from what we could do before the review, except for providing naval air cover with fixed wing jets (but, again, the harrier isn't up to going up against modern air defenses).
Now, as for the other services I admit my primary obsession is the navy so I don't know much about the other services. I know the army has been stretched to breaking point by Iraq and Afghanistan, and since they're stuck in Afghanistan until at least 2015, there's just no way any other operation could be undertaken until then, and probably not for some time afterwards either. So there's also very little point spending money to retain capabilities for, say, 2013-15 because we wouldn't able to undertaken any significant operations then anyway, because the army is fully committed and fighting its guts out in Afghanistan.
The RAF I don't know much about in detail, 'cause I hates em (*hawk spit*), but they seem to be doing ok - they have their Typhoons, and have kept their Tornados. The most unwelcome part of the SDSR was the loss of Nimrod.
In short, wiggin, I don't think you quite understand how fucked the UK forces are at the moment, and how long it is going to take to get them back into decent shape - which can only really start till after Afghanistan anyway. There is little point spending money to try and keep bar bones pseudo-capabilities and run on old equipment even further. It makes much more sense to cut now and start planning to rebuild in the future.
Now, the problem in the future, as it has been in the past, is not having a good plan but sticking to it. The Labour SDR when the first came into office was, in fact, very good. However, it was never funded properly and ultimately never fulfilled. Therein lies the problem. Politicians will make short term decisions which make sense at the time but make a mockery of a long term plan some other politician came up with 10 years ago. Case in point, the Type 23 frigate. Designed for a hull life of 18 years, which is half of what US ships are commonly designed for. The rationale? The MOD decided that mid-life refits were wasteful, and they would instead build new ships rather than rebuilding old ones. This decision was taken in the 80s. Guess what? No money for replacements for the Type 23 until 2020, so the old ships have to plod on, which then causes the maintenance costs to rise etc etc. Also, the Queen Elizabeth class. 65,000t ships designed in the late 90s to carry 40 F35s, each. Constantly delayed, prevaricated about and attacked by the RAF, people with legtimate - if wrong - moral issues with offensive weapons, idiots who like to say things are "cold war" and people with an allergic reaction to the word 'carrier'. Eventually to be built, in 2020, with 12 F35 to between them except in emergencies. In actual fact the current airwing envisaged for the Queen Elizabeth class, which is a mix of F35, apache and chinooks is actually better suited to a ship like the America class LHAs you are building over there ATM. But they didn't exist in 1997. Plus, the government would just threaten to cancel the carriers every now and again, and the RN would have to decommission another escort. I think we lost, like, half the fleet that way. It's pretty much the reason we have 6 Type 45 instead of 12, I think.
Basic summery of the problem:
Politican A says "We will cancel X, or scrap Y, in order that we can afford Z in the future"
Politican B, in the future, doesn't authorize the money for Z. Instead, Z is canceled in order that Advanced Provisional Stage Concept Drawings for Project A are brought forward into that years budget... and so it goes.
The the everpresent delays and budget overruns on any given military project don't help either. I'd almost support nationizing or breaking up firms like BAE and Lockheed. They view national defense budgets the same way a farmer looks at a piece of arable land. Projects overun, get delayed or don't deliver, and we have to keep paying them when they do. In short, they get extra money for screwing up, And there's no almost no competition, especially in the UK where it's BAE or nothing, basically.
The solution I'd like to see is this: the government sets the budget for each service, and each service then procures whatever it sees fit to procure. This way, long term procurement plans can actually be enacted without being subject to the graces of whoever happens to be in office at the time.
No, it's to avoid a fight with the Lib-Dems.What do you want to bet the 'deferred' decision on the Trident is just another way of putting off the tough decision to drastically cut or eliminate the nuclear deterrent?
Last edited by Steely Glint; 10-25-2010 at 09:58 PM.
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
Fair enough, but you know my main beef isn't the carrier thing. I'll agree most of that particular mess is the fault of a truly awful MoD acquisitions process and goes back at least a decade. I won't comment on whether or not the SDSR is really strategic, though, from this perspective - in my eyes, it sure looks like the UK is resigning itself to longer and longer capability gaps. Given the rising cost of the JSF, I have no doubt that a good budgetary case will be made for decreasing, rather than increasing, the JSF order. Combined with the inevitable jousting between the RAF and RN over who gets the limited JSF orders, I'm skeptical they're really going to have a 'robust' carrier force any time in the near future. *shrugs* I've known that RN carrier operations were in deep trouble before this, so it's not really my main concern here.
Nope! I just think that the military funding cuts needn't have been as drastic if NHS just took a modest cut and incorporated some badly-needed efficiencies. Say the UK only slashed the defence budget by 5%; NHS would need a 1% cut to make up the difference in the budget. Is that so hard? I'm betting the permanent pain to the military would be much less in such a budget, while NHS could use with some shaking up.You seem to be saying we should cut the NHS and increase military funding in order to have the capability now, now, now.
I'll bow to your expertise on the escorts issue, I haven't looked into it too much.Well, even if we did that it's still going plenty to rebuild the armed forces. They really are in a terrible state. Ark Royal, the carrier to be scrapped, is a floating wreck because of a lack of proper maintenance. It was supposed to serve until 2014 but it's doubtful it would have made it to then. Keeping it on would have been a strain on the maintenance budget, and for what? To maintain the fiction that the UK that we could attack people with carrier aircraft? The story is similar for HMS Ocean, for similar reasons. Most British escorts are designed for a hull-life of 20-25 years, and most have been in service for 25-30 years. Ditto for the Invincible class, hull life 25 years, actual service going on for 35. As ships remain beyond their intended service life, the costs of maintenance increases exponentially. Now, the scheduled replacement for the frigate fleet is the Type 26, the eventual outcome of the intensely protracted Future Surface Combatant program, which was actually first started during the age of sail. After at least 300 years and much kicking and screaming it was finally decided that the Future Surface Combatant will be a frigate with a gun, some missiles and space for a helicopter. It might look like this (note the gun, missiles and helicopter elements). However, there is no finalized design for the T26, and one is at least four years away. And even if we had an actual design, the ship yards are taken up building the Queen Elizabeth class. So there is NO replacement for any of our frigates on the cards until 2020 even with all the money in the world. Meanwhile, most of the frigate fleet (except maybe the newer Type 23s) are somewhere between 5 and 10 years over their intended service life. The 6 ancient and obsolete Type 42 destroyers are being replaced by 6 Type 45 destroyers. The production line for these ships has stopped at 6. They ship yards aren't making any more. So there is absolutely no way at all that the escort fleet can be increased until well into the 2020s.
That's a big 'except', and an even bigger exception is that now the Army can only spare a brigade for such an operation. Also: the UK doesn't have the luxury of airbases around the world, or a fantastically large logistical support system for continuous long-haul air support. Covering even a brigade of troops with a handful of combat helicopters and some amphibious ships is absurd. I will admit that a large portion of this capability gap has been long in coming, but the cuts just exacerbate the situation. Let's be honest, against most likely enemies the UK would be fighting in the near future, the Harriers would have done the trick for basic CAS missions.Given the above, do you really think there is much benefit in continuing the to run the older frigates for a few more years until they literally fall to bits? I'm going to assume the for ships to go will be the four Type 22 frigates, because they are the oldest. That will leave us with the Type 23 frigates, undoubtedly the best anti-submarine platform in the world, and the Type 45 destroyers, possibly the best anti-aircraft destroyers in the world. Despite the loss of Arc Royal we will still actually have quite considerable power projection capabilities by non-US standards- one of the things that wasn't a headline in the wake of the SDSR was that almost the entirety of the amphibious fleet was saved. The RN can still put together a task force centred around, say, two amphibious ships and a helicopter carrier protected by Type 45s and Type 23s and an SSN. This can still go and fuck shit up most places in the world and isn't a significantly downgrade from what we could do before the review, except for providing naval air cover with fixed wing jets (but, again, the harrier isn't up to going up against modern air defenses).
This is a permanent cut to the size of the standing army and the size of the armored and artillery corps. Seems like an odd move in a world full of ground-heavy combat. I'm not asking for new equipment here (though more helicopters than authorized would be nice), but just maintenance of current strength, particularly with the Challenger 2 fleet. There's a difference between recognizing that armored warfare is - for now - not the UK's main concern and cutting their striking power nearly in half.Now, as for the other services I admit my primary obsession is the navy so I don't know much about the other services. I know the army has been stretched to breaking point by Iraq and Afghanistan, and since they're stuck in Afghanistan until at least 2015, there's just no way any other operation could be undertaken until then, and probably not for some time afterwards either. So there's also very little point spending money to retain capabilities for, say, 2013-15 because we wouldn't able to undertaken any significant operations then anyway, because the army is fully committed and fighting its guts out in Afghanistan.
Nimrod was a loss, but I didn't want to get into that since it was a truly awful procurement program that has been fucked up for years. As above, though, I'm very skeptical about the size of the upcoming JSF order (and its delivery date). For now, though, the Typhoons are sufficient.The RAF I don't know much about in detail, 'cause I hates em (*hawk spit*), but they seem to be doing ok - they have their Typhoons, and have kept their Tornados. The most unwelcome part of the SDSR was the loss of Nimrod.
Honestly my concern is the 'rebuilding' part of this plan. I'll freely admit that there aren't any near term threats to the UK that the US won't also want to deal with, and much more effectively (Argentina isn't being feisty, are they?). It just looks to my eyes - admittedly untutored in MoD or UK politics - like a long-term reduction in the fighting and projection power of the UK military disguised as a short term capability gap. The US Congress does this all the time - for example, budget projections routinely assume that annual 'fixes' passed by Congress (that lower tax revenue) won't get passed, health care reform assumed Congress would at some later date change reimbursement rates, etc, etc.In short, wiggin, I don't think you quite understand how fucked the UK forces are at the moment, and how long it is going to take to get them back into decent shape - which can only really start till after Afghanistan anyway. There is little point spending money to try and keep bar bones pseudo-capabilities and run on old equipment even further. It makes much more sense to cut now and start planning to rebuild in the future.
I'd heard that, too, but the Trident program is pretty expensive. Where's the money going to come from in an environment of continued austerity? We know the military budget is barely growing as a percentage of GDP (now, it's shrinking), while other government programs gobble up a larger and larger share of the pie. Who's going to pay for a system that is politically unpopular (oh noes, nukes!), never used, and incredibly expensive (not to mention requiring significant help from the Americans)? That's an easy 2 billion pounds that can be saved, eh?No, it's to avoid a fight with the Lib-Dems.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
