Or maybe we could start to build a system of international security that isn't dependent on a continual arms race? Given the level of interdependence there is between the major economies does major war even make sense anymore? Even if China could, say, invade and conquer a major nation surely the absolute financial chaos and international embargoes that would follow would make it pointless?
I don't want to sound too naive, I realize that there are bad people out there and that we need to protect ourselves, but when it comes to the major nations isn't it about time we just accepted that war between us is no longer in anyone's interest and look to deal with conflicts in a much more efficient way?
Or maybe we could start to build a system of international security that isn't dependent on a continual arms race? Given the level of interdependence there is between the major economies does major war even make sense anymore? Even if China could, say, invade and conquer a major nation surely the absolute financial chaos and international embargoes that would follow would make it pointless?
I don't want to sound too naive, I realize that there are bad people out there and that we need to protect ourselves, but when it comes to the major nations isn't it about time we just accepted that war between us is no longer in anyone's interest and look to deal with conflicts in a much more efficient way?
I think you underestimate the technological level of American military kit.
BlacktailDefence You Tubes channel will show you that the current ground combat equipment is a load of expensive junk. Most aircraft types in the USAF are also on average 25 years old in design and capability, and the latest planes still have issues and are way over spent, and don't really do what it says on the tin.
Plus America hasn't fought a competent enemy for over 50 years.
Indeed, America hasn't replaced its fighter force since the 1980s, its bomber force is 30- 50 years old, apart from 20 B2 bombers built, out of the 132 planned. When it has built new fighters, its stopped production at low levels that are too few to match opposing numbers, or cover every area that would need defending. It now has too few carriers to maintain a deterrent presence in every area its committed to do so, and its submarine force has halved - while the numbers of submarines elsewhere, outside Russia, has increased. More importantly, its enemies have learnt from Saddam's experience to hide their weapons, buy lots of them, and put them in hardened shelters that require a massive protracted air campaign to remove them. They are also buying offensive weapons to attack US allies, bases and ships - forcing the uS to spend its limited money defending everywhere at once. And what forces still exist, have been hammered by recent defence cuts that have left half of uS forces not ready for combat.
Thats why we now have Iran pressing ahead with its nuclear weapons programme - because they believe they can deter the US so it will never use force to stop them, Taiwan giving up on its defence, China acting more assertively against Malaysia, the Philipines, India and Japan, and North Korea fast approaching the point at which it can target the US with nuclear tipped iCBM. These people know that the numbers of modern, or older offensive, weapons, are moving in their favour, and can count that the US only has one carrier with 40 fighters out there ,and only one more ready in the US to reinforce it, and that the half a dozen B52s pointing their way are 52 years old.
It is true, certainly truer than bank bailouts being the cause of the deficit.
What else can be the reason for the sudden increase in the deficit other than too many people and not enough income?
You must realise that the huge deficit is caused by all the money pumped into the financial system to prevent it going into total collapse after the bankers wrecked it. It was perfectly manageable before then and almost nothing to do with immigration which has a net financial benefit.
You must realise that the huge deficit is caused by all the money pumped into the financial system to prevent it going into total collapse after the bankers wrecked it. It was perfectly manageable before then and almost nothing to do with immigration which has a net financial benefit.
I think Broken Arrow would rather avoid the reality to focus on one of his favourite targets of scorn. Look at the logical fallacies in his posts on the issue.
You must realise that the huge deficit is caused by all the money pumped into the financial system to prevent it going into total collapse after the bankers wrecked it. It was perfectly manageable before then and almost nothing to do with immigration which has a net financial benefit.
You need to go and look at Government revenues and expenditure.
There is no money currently going into bank bailouts, that was a one off cost of £111bn made back into 2007/8.
The current deficit is entirely due to spending on the expanded population, immigration is a direct drain on finances. We have 6 million more people who are taking benefits but there are no additional tax payers.
New forecasts show China's defence spending will outstrip Britain, Germany and France combined by 2015
8:00PM GMT 03 Feb 2014
The figures were disclosed as the secretary general of Nato issued a stark warning that the West will cede influence on the world stage because of its falling spending.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he was concerned about falling funding in Washington and European capitals while there was a military spending spree in Russia and China.
The switch means the “centre of gravity of defence expenditure is expected to continue to shift south and east”, according to defence consultancy IHS Jane’s.
Within that, China’s planned spending on its armed forces will for the first time eclipse the combined budgets of Britain, France and Germany.
Barry Pavel, a former senior defence official in the Obama White House, said that Russia’s increased spending was likely to be a “temporary phenomenon” based on oil prices while China’s was “a long-term, sustained increase” and was “the more important area to watch”.
I think IDS was also saying that we should channel benefits cuts to defence spending.
Its a false analogy in narrow defence terms as we are unlikely to fight China - although we do have commitments to Malaysia, S Korea and Australia. The importance is strategic, economic, and diplomatic in that we are becoming insignificant militarily, as others are building military capability, and thats showing in the ineffectiveness of our diplomacy. Its also a false analogy to look at budgets as the silly Cameron does - what matters in defence terms is the capability produced - not whether you spend more producing less. China produces far more per pound than we do. You can't continue to play a role as a member of the P5,or any sort of major actor, when your economic power is eroded, and you have cut your military capability below that of Israel, South Korea, or Saudi Arabia.
We also face a world where the spending reflects the fact that the traditional players who have played the policing role are no longer bothering - which is encouraging more instability, arms races and nuclear proliferation. It also means that we have much less capability to shape the world in our interests, while China, Iran and others are shaping it in theirs. We ultimately suffer from that economically, and when the instability comes back and bites us. The proliferation of nuclear weapons and missiles means that we risk becoming just targets in other people's disputes, rather than active players removing threats.
If anything, it hides the real extent of our decline and the ridiculous assumptions made to defend an underfunded defence budget. We now plan on always operating with a major ally, sending force levels that can only be 40% of what we needed to send to defend Kuwait, and waiting to gather our ships from wherever they are in the world before we can send a task force enywhere. Big holes in capability have been left unfilled for up to a decade - on the basis that we won't have to fight anyone before the early 2020s.We assume allies will have any interest in what we think is important, we assume they will turn up with what we didn't buy, and that they won't be too busy elsewhere. In the real world the US is withdrawing from Europe, decommitting from the Middle East and focusing on Asia, and France has different interests whether its the Falklands, or Syria. We assume we will decide when the next big war breaks out - when its going to be some state like Iran, or Hizbollah rocket firer. We assume the fight will be short - as we have no more war fighting forces to send, little ammunition, and nothing to replace any ships, aircraft or tanks lost. We even now assume that two thirds of the army will need reservists to fill the units to combat strength - and have a problem because no one can recruit the reservists. Its a disaster waiting to happen, and our allies are already pointing out we are increasingly irrelevant.
And its all purely a matter of choice. We used to spend more than twice as much of our GNP on defence 25 years ago, and the amount added to the aid budget since 2010, would have filled nearly all of the key capability gaps left unfilled, and maintained more realistic force levels.
Sorry, but that sounds incredibly simplistic. Could I ask what research has led you to this conclusion?
Look at the budget and where the money is going, there is certainly none going into banks that was all done and dusted years ago, we can only attribute an extra £2bn pa on interest charges.
The actual increased spending is in all areas, welfare, education, healthcare and pensions.
This is all down to having an increased population, but according to HMRC we have exactly the same number of taxpayers as we had 14 years ago.
What other conclusion can you come to?
If our population was 58m instead of 64m, we would not have a deficit, or at least it would be very small.
Look at the budget and where the money is going, there is certainly none going into banks that was all done and dusted years ago, we can only attribute an extra £2bn pa on interest charges.
The actual increased spending is in all areas, welfare, education, healthcare and pensions.
This is all down to having an increased population, but according to HMRC we have exactly the same number of taxpayers as we had 14 years ago.
What other conclusion can you come to?
If our population was 58m instead of 64m, we would not have a deficit, or at least it would be very small.
People are living longer so you will have a increase of welfare, healthcare and pensions, and social care costs
Must say I've been following this for years. it looks a decent bit of kit. Pity we don't put money into this and have something cutting edge to go forward with.
Its a false analogy in narrow defence terms as we are unlikely to fight China - although we do have commitments to Malaysia, S Korea and Australia. The importance is strategic, economic, and diplomatic in that we are becoming insignificant militarily, as others are building military capability, and thats showing in the ineffectiveness of our diplomacy. Its also a false analogy to look at budgets as the silly Cameron does - what matters in defence terms is the capability produced - not whether you spend more producing less. China produces far more per pound than we do. You can't continue to play a role as a member of the P5,or any sort of major actor, when your economic power is eroded, and you have cut your military capability below that of Israel, South Korea, or Saudi Arabia.
We also face a world where the spending reflects the fact that the traditional players who have played the policing role are no longer bothering - which is encouraging more instability, arms races and nuclear proliferation. It also means that we have much less capability to shape the world in our interests, while China, Iran and others are shaping it in theirs. We ultimately suffer from that economically, and when the instability comes back and bites us. The proliferation of nuclear weapons and missiles means that we risk becoming just targets in other people's disputes, rather than active players removing threats.
If anything, it hides the real extent of our decline and the ridiculous assumptions made to defend an underfunded defence budget. We now plan on always operating with a major ally, sending force levels that can only be 40% of what we needed to send to defend Kuwait, and waiting to gather our ships from wherever they are in the world before we can send a task force enywhere. Big holes in capability have been left unfilled for up to a decade - on the basis that we won't have to fight anyone before the early 2020s.We assume allies will have any interest in what we think is important, we assume they will turn up with what we didn't buy, and that they won't be too busy elsewhere. In the real world the US is withdrawing from Europe, decommitting from the Middle East and focusing on Asia, and France has different interests whether its the Falklands, or Syria. We assume we will decide when the next big war breaks out - when its going to be some state like Iran, or Hizbollah rocket firer. We assume the fight will be short - as we have no more war fighting forces to send, little ammunition, and nothing to replace any ships, aircraft or tanks lost. We even now assume that two thirds of the army will need reservists to fill the units to combat strength - and have a problem because no one can recruit the reservists. Its a disaster waiting to happen, and our allies are already pointing out we are increasingly irrelevant.
And its all purely a matter of choice. We used to spend more than twice as much of our GNP on defence 25 years ago, and the amount added to the aid budget since 2010, would have filled nearly all of the key capability gaps left unfilled, and maintained more realistic force levels.
But what I want to know is: what is the nightmare scenario? What are we scared about? That China will combine with some other nations to take over all our strategic interests? Surely all China has to do to devastate us now is to stop trading with us and start selling US debt? That Argentina will somehow develop a powerful enough armed forces to retake the Falkland Island? We'll i'm pretty sure that the UK's long term ownership of them is dependent on ensuring diplomatic support rather than military supremacy.
Maybe I don't have a vivid enough imagination but I just don't see where the long term real threat to the UK is coming from now that it no longer makes financial sense for a democracy to launch a full scale war and there are no major ideological crusades around. Obviously major security issues will arise from time to time but I don't think that a justification for maintaining an independent, internationally capable armed forces. Not being able to invade any country we like might not be the worst thing in the world . . . .
But what I want to know is: what is the nightmare scenario? What are we scared about? That China will combine with some other nations to take over all our strategic interests? Surely all China has to do to devastate us now is to stop trading with us and start selling US debt? That Argentina will somehow develop a powerful enough armed forces to retake the Falkland Island? We'll i'm pretty sure that the UK's long term ownership of them is dependent on ensuring diplomatic support rather than military supremacy.
Maybe I don't have a vivid enough imagination but I just don't see where the long term real threat to the UK is coming from now that it no longer makes financial sense for a democracy to launch a full scale war and there are no major ideological crusades around. Obviously major security issues will arise from time to time but I don't think that a justification for maintaining an independent, internationally capable armed forces. Not being able to invade any country we like might not be the worst thing in the world . . . .
There's an ideological war going on, though it's being obscured by Western greed and typical short-sightedness. China has adopted capitalism as a way of more rapidly making the transition from a poor country to one in which socialism and then communism can be achieved. This is a very long term goal for that country, and once they start down that route how will the US and EU stop them?
Consider the main difference between the West and China. In China the government controls business. In the West business controls government. In the West capitalism (or rather the variant that rewards selfishness and greed) is the goal, in China it is merely a convenient tool that will be cast aside once it is no longer needed.
Look at the budget and where the money is going, there is certainly none going into banks that was all done and dusted years ago, we can only attribute an extra £2bn pa on interest charges.
The actual increased spending is in all areas, welfare, education, healthcare and pensions.
This is all down to having an increased population, but according to HMRC we have exactly the same number of taxpayers as we had 14 years ago.
What other conclusion can you come to?
If our population was 58m instead of 64m, we would not have a deficit, or at least it would be very small.
There's now more elderly people , and at the moment an age bulge at the bottom of the age scale with more children. Thats been triply destructive as even a frozen education or health budget needed more money just to keep up with increasing demand. Health needs to grow at a greater rate anyway to pay for technological advances.
The biggest problem is lack of tax take coming in. The amount being spent was not the problem - the collapse in tax take was together with the lack of growth , and the diversion of Government resources to political purposes like increased tax allowances and overseas aid budget rises. The tax take suffers because real wages have fallen (both as a percentage of national income and in real terms) pensions have fallen, savings income has fallen, and benefits have fallen. Meanwhile well paid jobs have been destroyed by cuts, demand and spending has fallen, fewer houses have been bought, corporations that used to produce big corporation tax returns failed to make a profit, and more and more money in the economy has gone to the top very few - who spend little in the UK and often avoid paying any tax.
More immigration may play a role in pushing down real wages, and increasing demand for services, but its also allowed government to spend less on education and training, and increased the tax take over what it would have been. The big problem isn't the legal immigrants coming in, or the illegal ones in hiding - its the big banks , and multiple other companies, being incompetently run, the earnings and profits being hidden from the tax man, and the money being taken out of the economy and country untaxed.
But what I want to know is: what is the nightmare scenario? What are we scared about? That China will combine with some other nations to take over all our strategic interests? Surely all China has to do to devastate us now is to stop trading with us and start selling US debt? That Argentina will somehow develop a powerful enough armed forces to retake the Falkland Island? We'll i'm pretty sure that the UK's long term ownership of them is dependent on ensuring diplomatic support rather than military supremacy.
Maybe I don't have a vivid enough imagination but I just don't see where the long term real threat to the UK is coming from now that it no longer makes financial sense for a democracy to launch a full scale war and there are no major ideological crusades around. Obviously major security issues will arise from time to time but I don't think that a justification for maintaining an independent, internationally capable armed forces. Not being able to invade any country we like might not be the worst thing in the world . . . .
The big danger is that we have no strategic vision at the top. If you go back to the 1990s under Clinton, the official vision was that the world was changing , but the west had to work to maintain a peaceful transition we could live with. Clinton wanted the US to remain militarily dominant throughout the transition period - because if it didn't, there would be a whole series of regional arms races and conflicts - as former allies didn't trust the US to provide for their security, and former enemies tried to get what they wanted by arming, threats and force. The transition to a new world order would otherwise be bloody, and you needed someone to keep the peace, while the issues behind the new order were settled. The aim was to avoid the mayhem seen when the system had changed fundamentally before.
The bad news is mayhem is what we have. We have major change going on economically and demographically, but conflict is not being restrained, and we are not producing stable outcomes. The west has lost much of its its military capability, and much of its credibility. We have been fixated on terrorism, Afghanistan and Iraq , our diplomacy has been woefully ineffective, and we are now too war weary to either act, or maintain adequate defence forces to act. We now have massive state v state arms races, around the Gulf, and in Asia. Issues are breaking out those regions as they adjust to changing economic needs and military realities, relight old teritorial issues, and continue 1400 year old religious wars.
The best case is that a lot of people die in wars not involving us. Syrias continue, and some wars are much larger. The less you intervene, the more problems you have establishing your credibility, for when you feel a bigger need to intervene - and the more tolerant your population becomes of letting anyone do what they want - as long as we are not directly involved. The intermediate case, is that world economies are disrupted by conflicts, and some spill over into direct attacks on our interests and people overseas. A Gulf War savages world stock markets, fuel prices, Brits in Dubai, and trade, even if we decide to ignore our past commitments, and no one wins. A N Korean incident potentially causes even more economic damage, and might escalate to involve major powers.
THe worst case though is that some of these disputes globally involve weapons that could fly to Europe, or America, and nuclear proliferation is going on. Thats going to be terribly unstable compared to even the cold war - because the new forces will be small and vulnerable, inviting to a first attack, and with warning times which will be short and inadequate warning systems. Meanwhile, some of the leaders in charge are going to be religious dictators or psychotic ones - and all of them will be starting learning about nuclear strategy from scratch. Small, unintended, crises could then lead to nuclear use, and nuclear use would be on anyone some leaders involved had taken a dislike to. Basically its a nuclear threat which may be more difficult to deter, nothing to do with anything we decide, less predictable, and which we will have to live with on a day to day basis.
Major issues. Arms Races. Emerging powers. Changing military balances. No effective international organisation able to agree on most issues. And the former dominant world power in decline. It has a certain similarity with pre World War One - but with nuclear weapons that could reach the UK from the Gulf, or the US from N Korea, before 2025, extra. its not a great legacy to leave the next couple of generations.
Comments
I don't want to sound too naive, I realize that there are bad people out there and that we need to protect ourselves, but when it comes to the major nations isn't it about time we just accepted that war between us is no longer in anyone's interest and look to deal with conflicts in a much more efficient way?
Team America: World Police?
Indeed, America hasn't replaced its fighter force since the 1980s, its bomber force is 30- 50 years old, apart from 20 B2 bombers built, out of the 132 planned. When it has built new fighters, its stopped production at low levels that are too few to match opposing numbers, or cover every area that would need defending. It now has too few carriers to maintain a deterrent presence in every area its committed to do so, and its submarine force has halved - while the numbers of submarines elsewhere, outside Russia, has increased. More importantly, its enemies have learnt from Saddam's experience to hide their weapons, buy lots of them, and put them in hardened shelters that require a massive protracted air campaign to remove them. They are also buying offensive weapons to attack US allies, bases and ships - forcing the uS to spend its limited money defending everywhere at once. And what forces still exist, have been hammered by recent defence cuts that have left half of uS forces not ready for combat.
Thats why we now have Iran pressing ahead with its nuclear weapons programme - because they believe they can deter the US so it will never use force to stop them, Taiwan giving up on its defence, China acting more assertively against Malaysia, the Philipines, India and Japan, and North Korea fast approaching the point at which it can target the US with nuclear tipped iCBM. These people know that the numbers of modern, or older offensive, weapons, are moving in their favour, and can count that the US only has one carrier with 40 fighters out there ,and only one more ready in the US to reinforce it, and that the half a dozen B52s pointing their way are 52 years old.
You must realise that the huge deficit is caused by all the money pumped into the financial system to prevent it going into total collapse after the bankers wrecked it. It was perfectly manageable before then and almost nothing to do with immigration which has a net financial benefit.
I think Broken Arrow would rather avoid the reality to focus on one of his favourite targets of scorn. Look at the logical fallacies in his posts on the issue.
You need to go and look at Government revenues and expenditure.
There is no money currently going into bank bailouts, that was a one off cost of £111bn made back into 2007/8.
The current deficit is entirely due to spending on the expanded population, immigration is a direct drain on finances. We have 6 million more people who are taking benefits but there are no additional tax payers.
Its a false analogy in narrow defence terms as we are unlikely to fight China - although we do have commitments to Malaysia, S Korea and Australia. The importance is strategic, economic, and diplomatic in that we are becoming insignificant militarily, as others are building military capability, and thats showing in the ineffectiveness of our diplomacy. Its also a false analogy to look at budgets as the silly Cameron does - what matters in defence terms is the capability produced - not whether you spend more producing less. China produces far more per pound than we do. You can't continue to play a role as a member of the P5,or any sort of major actor, when your economic power is eroded, and you have cut your military capability below that of Israel, South Korea, or Saudi Arabia.
We also face a world where the spending reflects the fact that the traditional players who have played the policing role are no longer bothering - which is encouraging more instability, arms races and nuclear proliferation. It also means that we have much less capability to shape the world in our interests, while China, Iran and others are shaping it in theirs. We ultimately suffer from that economically, and when the instability comes back and bites us. The proliferation of nuclear weapons and missiles means that we risk becoming just targets in other people's disputes, rather than active players removing threats.
If anything, it hides the real extent of our decline and the ridiculous assumptions made to defend an underfunded defence budget. We now plan on always operating with a major ally, sending force levels that can only be 40% of what we needed to send to defend Kuwait, and waiting to gather our ships from wherever they are in the world before we can send a task force enywhere. Big holes in capability have been left unfilled for up to a decade - on the basis that we won't have to fight anyone before the early 2020s.We assume allies will have any interest in what we think is important, we assume they will turn up with what we didn't buy, and that they won't be too busy elsewhere. In the real world the US is withdrawing from Europe, decommitting from the Middle East and focusing on Asia, and France has different interests whether its the Falklands, or Syria. We assume we will decide when the next big war breaks out - when its going to be some state like Iran, or Hizbollah rocket firer. We assume the fight will be short - as we have no more war fighting forces to send, little ammunition, and nothing to replace any ships, aircraft or tanks lost. We even now assume that two thirds of the army will need reservists to fill the units to combat strength - and have a problem because no one can recruit the reservists. Its a disaster waiting to happen, and our allies are already pointing out we are increasingly irrelevant.
And its all purely a matter of choice. We used to spend more than twice as much of our GNP on defence 25 years ago, and the amount added to the aid budget since 2010, would have filled nearly all of the key capability gaps left unfilled, and maintained more realistic force levels.
Sorry, but that sounds incredibly simplistic. Could I ask what research has led you to this conclusion?
Look at the budget and where the money is going, there is certainly none going into banks that was all done and dusted years ago, we can only attribute an extra £2bn pa on interest charges.
The actual increased spending is in all areas, welfare, education, healthcare and pensions.
This is all down to having an increased population, but according to HMRC we have exactly the same number of taxpayers as we had 14 years ago.
What other conclusion can you come to?
If our population was 58m instead of 64m, we would not have a deficit, or at least it would be very small.
People are living longer so you will have a increase of welfare, healthcare and pensions, and social care costs
Exactly. It's daft to put the blame on immigrants.
So you think 6 million more people with no extra taxpayers to support them presents zero costs?
This is head in the sand stuff.
Immigrants are net contributors overall.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26046696
But what I want to know is: what is the nightmare scenario? What are we scared about? That China will combine with some other nations to take over all our strategic interests? Surely all China has to do to devastate us now is to stop trading with us and start selling US debt? That Argentina will somehow develop a powerful enough armed forces to retake the Falkland Island? We'll i'm pretty sure that the UK's long term ownership of them is dependent on ensuring diplomatic support rather than military supremacy.
Maybe I don't have a vivid enough imagination but I just don't see where the long term real threat to the UK is coming from now that it no longer makes financial sense for a democracy to launch a full scale war and there are no major ideological crusades around. Obviously major security issues will arise from time to time but I don't think that a justification for maintaining an independent, internationally capable armed forces. Not being able to invade any country we like might not be the worst thing in the world . . . .
There's an ideological war going on, though it's being obscured by Western greed and typical short-sightedness. China has adopted capitalism as a way of more rapidly making the transition from a poor country to one in which socialism and then communism can be achieved. This is a very long term goal for that country, and once they start down that route how will the US and EU stop them?
Consider the main difference between the West and China. In China the government controls business. In the West business controls government. In the West capitalism (or rather the variant that rewards selfishness and greed) is the goal, in China it is merely a convenient tool that will be cast aside once it is no longer needed.
There's now more elderly people , and at the moment an age bulge at the bottom of the age scale with more children. Thats been triply destructive as even a frozen education or health budget needed more money just to keep up with increasing demand. Health needs to grow at a greater rate anyway to pay for technological advances.
The biggest problem is lack of tax take coming in. The amount being spent was not the problem - the collapse in tax take was together with the lack of growth , and the diversion of Government resources to political purposes like increased tax allowances and overseas aid budget rises. The tax take suffers because real wages have fallen (both as a percentage of national income and in real terms) pensions have fallen, savings income has fallen, and benefits have fallen. Meanwhile well paid jobs have been destroyed by cuts, demand and spending has fallen, fewer houses have been bought, corporations that used to produce big corporation tax returns failed to make a profit, and more and more money in the economy has gone to the top very few - who spend little in the UK and often avoid paying any tax.
More immigration may play a role in pushing down real wages, and increasing demand for services, but its also allowed government to spend less on education and training, and increased the tax take over what it would have been. The big problem isn't the legal immigrants coming in, or the illegal ones in hiding - its the big banks , and multiple other companies, being incompetently run, the earnings and profits being hidden from the tax man, and the money being taken out of the economy and country untaxed.
The big danger is that we have no strategic vision at the top. If you go back to the 1990s under Clinton, the official vision was that the world was changing , but the west had to work to maintain a peaceful transition we could live with. Clinton wanted the US to remain militarily dominant throughout the transition period - because if it didn't, there would be a whole series of regional arms races and conflicts - as former allies didn't trust the US to provide for their security, and former enemies tried to get what they wanted by arming, threats and force. The transition to a new world order would otherwise be bloody, and you needed someone to keep the peace, while the issues behind the new order were settled. The aim was to avoid the mayhem seen when the system had changed fundamentally before.
The bad news is mayhem is what we have. We have major change going on economically and demographically, but conflict is not being restrained, and we are not producing stable outcomes. The west has lost much of its its military capability, and much of its credibility. We have been fixated on terrorism, Afghanistan and Iraq , our diplomacy has been woefully ineffective, and we are now too war weary to either act, or maintain adequate defence forces to act. We now have massive state v state arms races, around the Gulf, and in Asia. Issues are breaking out those regions as they adjust to changing economic needs and military realities, relight old teritorial issues, and continue 1400 year old religious wars.
The best case is that a lot of people die in wars not involving us. Syrias continue, and some wars are much larger. The less you intervene, the more problems you have establishing your credibility, for when you feel a bigger need to intervene - and the more tolerant your population becomes of letting anyone do what they want - as long as we are not directly involved. The intermediate case, is that world economies are disrupted by conflicts, and some spill over into direct attacks on our interests and people overseas. A Gulf War savages world stock markets, fuel prices, Brits in Dubai, and trade, even if we decide to ignore our past commitments, and no one wins. A N Korean incident potentially causes even more economic damage, and might escalate to involve major powers.
THe worst case though is that some of these disputes globally involve weapons that could fly to Europe, or America, and nuclear proliferation is going on. Thats going to be terribly unstable compared to even the cold war - because the new forces will be small and vulnerable, inviting to a first attack, and with warning times which will be short and inadequate warning systems. Meanwhile, some of the leaders in charge are going to be religious dictators or psychotic ones - and all of them will be starting learning about nuclear strategy from scratch. Small, unintended, crises could then lead to nuclear use, and nuclear use would be on anyone some leaders involved had taken a dislike to. Basically its a nuclear threat which may be more difficult to deter, nothing to do with anything we decide, less predictable, and which we will have to live with on a day to day basis.
Major issues. Arms Races. Emerging powers. Changing military balances. No effective international organisation able to agree on most issues. And the former dominant world power in decline. It has a certain similarity with pre World War One - but with nuclear weapons that could reach the UK from the Gulf, or the US from N Korea, before 2025, extra. its not a great legacy to leave the next couple of generations.
Not according to HMRC, they're not.