The Brits have finally decided.
Social programs win out over the defense of their nation. Pity. The Brits have always held themselves apart from mainland Europe. I would call it being European without being European. Those days are apparently over.
via Defense Management....
In a memo, the head of the army revealed that an extra 5,000 redundancies are to come by 2015 on top of the 7,000 redundancies announced in last year's Strategic Defence and Security Review.
The cuts are said to form part of plans to reduce the size of the regular armed forces and increase the number of reserves.
Chief of the General Staff General Sir Peter Wall revealed the cuts in a memo to officers, the Daily Telegraph has reported.
"Regular Army manpower will be cut more steeply, with an additional reduction of 5,000 over and above the 7,000 already in progress as a result of the SDSR," wrote General Wall.
"This takes the Army to around 90,000 by 2015. The additional manpower cuts are now being scoped but will inevitably require a further redundancy programme.
well i do understand their choices, but honestly what enemies does britain face? other than terrorism, it has no real enemies like in the cold war days, the most fighting europe is going to do is fighting boredom of their own elected leaders speeches! russia is no longer a real threat, it would do more harm by cutting off gas and oil supplies than an actual invasion, and even then russian military would have to cross many nations to get there. it may not have the expeditionary power it once had but the RN and RAF can still protect the home islands, which is all it has left, so from their world view, why pay for a military that other than afghanistan, isnt going to fight anywhere.
ReplyDeletefair enough Joe.
ReplyDeletebut if you're going to give the UK and Europe a break from policing the world then the US should get the same break. fuck it all .... i don't know any Haitians...any Japanese....any one outside of our borders should just pound sand.
i like it. i don't know if it'll fly but i can get with it.
no argument from me Sol, i agree we should "bring the legions home" so to speak. i do like the idea of keeping small bases with skeleton forces in strategic places so if we need to surge we can, and asia will be a major player, but no threats in europe, lets bring them home. the only places i can see is Ramstein because they keep our forces supplied in Afghanistan, as do some naval bases, but as we wind down our presence in C. Asia we should scale all of that back too.
ReplyDeleteThe trouble is Solomon, is that the MoD has proven to be completely incompetent when it comes to managing its budget. This gives the HM Tresuary an excuse not to give them more money on the grounds they can't keep to a budget. There's also the fact that for some reason the UK Government has lost the ability to purchase anything (from military equipment to infrastructure to social care) in a cost effective way. Plus like the US, we have an economy that's almost bust. The latest Government is proving just as inept as the previous ones so I think the UK is doomed. It's the RN I feel most sorry for, not the army or RAF.
ReplyDeletei agree Tom but the idea that the UK is about to pull away from the world stage worries me more than the EU doing the same.
ReplyDeletethe UK is different from both Germany and France...maybe its a historical bias on my part but the UK is a brother and to see these cuts hitting is beyond worrisome. its aggravating!