At the end of the day, he's the one responsible for the defence of our national interests, not Fox or Osborne. Obama and Hilary told him to stop @rsing about.
Truth is no one knows the extent of the spending review and where and how much will be trimmed, everyone seems to be prepared for Armageddon yet there is no basis for believing the worst of what has been suggested.
The carriers will go ahead I expect but Trident will be delayed.
At the end of the day, he's the one responsible for the defence of our national interests, not Fox or Osborne. Obama and Hilary told him to stop @rsing about.
Clinton was only worried that the US Army cannon fodder (UK troops) will be reduced meaning more exposure to ongoing death/casualties in a needless war they started.
So the USA still controls the UK defence policy .Nothing ever changes .They just say jump and now Cameron says how high .
True. The Americans need its major allies to spend a fair bit on defence to justify their own enormous expense to their own people and to buy its expensively produced weapons systems.
True. The Americans need its major allies to spend a fair bit on defence to justify their own enormous expense to their own people and to buy its expensively produced weapons systems.
Or put the other way, the US is already spending twice the percentage of its GNP on defence we are and the US Congress and voters are soon going to start wondering why they are paying to defend people who won't pay to defend themselves.
The UK is particularly important to that argument as much of Europe is already spending less than 2% of GNP on defence and more UK cuts destroy the argument that at least someone in Europe is trying. France is trying but its also trying to achieve its own ends. The Royal Navy, Marines and Airforce are also still highly rated by their US equivalents as people who can reliably fight alongside US forces. They are now increasingly important to the US's own naval and air forces as they are also getting smaller.
There's also the issue that Cameron seems blissfully unaware of which is that the US is aware what the cuts will do to both our relative military power and global influence. If you have less capability overall than France or Italy, an airforce far smaller than those of Greece, Italy, France, South Korea, Saudi Arabia or Israel, a navy that has empty carriers because a few new aircraft won't arrive for years and a small army that's too small to hold any territory it takes, people are just going to ignore you. The US doesn't want to be left that alone, and it doesn't want to have to deal with more problems as the Argentinas of the world look at the gaps in UK capability and work out that they can do what they like as the UK now has nothing to respond with.
Cutting the sheer number of generals and admirals would save a pretty penny, but that would involve attacking the establishment :rolleyes:
The cuts will always affect the lower ranks, not the public school top brass
The cost of Generals and Admirals is trivial in the big picture. Its a political spin point designed to make tabloid readers think cuts are rational. Even if you only get 6-8 admirals per million you wouldn't get enough to buy more than 1% of a destroyer if you sacked all of them. Sacking all the three star officers across all three services would buy you just 7% of one fighter aircraft . The destroyer and the aircraft are not relatively expensive either compared to their overseas equivalents.
The ways to save more money painlessly have been turned down on political and economic grounds. Cutting the A400 transport, aircraft, which replaces no existing capability, for example, would save 4 billion - but it seems sacrosanct as a European project. The reality though is that if you keep on spending less and less as a proportion of GNP, you end up with nothing that deters or impresses anyone. Israel for example gets 2-4 times the defence capability at less than a third of the cost with conscription - but thats not really an option here and Israel also spends 4 times as much on defence as a percentage of GNP. Our problem is that much of the rest of the world is spending 8-10% more a year on defence, buying what we are unwilling to and still has mass armies - and that includes some people who may want to challenge us.
Or put the other way, the US is already spending twice the percentage of its GNP on defence we are and the US Congress and voters are soon going to start wondering why they are paying to defend people who won't pay to defend themselves.
Yes, I recall Tony Blair's biggest fear was that the US would withdraw from its alliances and just look after its own interests.
Just listening to an American defence pundit on the radio saying that the defence cuts are irresponsible and weakens NATO. He reckons we should cut foreign aid instead.
Get the troops back from Afghanistan and cancel, or at the very least postpone, Trident, and we will save billions.
Delaying programmes actually increases costs. Labour did this the whole time, they would drag their feet releasing funding and signing contracts to avoid paying the money NOW. Unfortunately that means that costs increase at a later date. It is total misconception that delaying a project decreases costs because it still has to be paid for at some point. The Defence contractors (and Governments) have clauses in contracts that say if funding is delayed, compensation has to be paid.
Also don't forget that it is not just the British that develop equipment. We do it in collaboration with the French, German and Italians, so if we delay our funding, they charge us for compensation. Funding for Defence budgets is a very murky political world
Yes, I recall Tony Blair's biggest fear was that the US would withdraw from its alliances and just look after its own interests.
Just listening to an American defence pundit on the radio saying that the defence cuts are irresponsible and weakens NATO. He reckons we should cut foreign aid instead.
Yes, great, I don't think. Do it the US way? Get into conflict, spend billions fighting and destroying A.N.Other country's infrastructure and economy then spend billions re-building that country.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to spend money on education, health and business in said country to allow those with talent within it to win hearts and minds and help the country to develop?
In respect of the previous government, I've heard that Labour did not spend enough on defence & then yesterday, I heard that they'd over spent by £3 billion!
Yes, great, I don't think. Do it the US way? Get into conflict, spend billions fighting and destroying A.N.Other country's infrastructure and economy then spend billions re-building that country.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to spend money on education, health and business in said country to allow those with talent within it to win hearts and minds and help the country to develop?
How would you have achieved that! Cant imagine the taliban or Saddam allowing this.
In respect of the previous government, I've heard that Labour did not spend enough on defence & then yesterday, I heard that they'd over spent by £3 billion!
Which one is true?
probably neither.. people believe what they want to believe..
The cost of Generals and Admirals is trivial in the big picture. Its a political spin point designed to make tabloid readers think cuts are rational. Even if you only get 6-8 admirals per million you wouldn't get enough to buy more than 1% of a destroyer if you sacked all of them. Sacking all the three star officers across all three services would buy you just 7% of one fighter aircraft . The destroyer and the aircraft are not relatively expensive either compared to their overseas equivalents.
The ways to save more money painlessly have been turned down on political and economic grounds. Cutting the A400 transport, aircraft, which replaces no existing capability, for example, would save 4 billion - but it seems sacrosanct as a European project. The reality though is that if you keep on spending less and less as a proportion of GNP, you end up with nothing that deters or impresses anyone. Israel for example gets 2-4 times the defence capability at less than a third of the cost with conscription - but thats not really an option here and Israel also spends 4 times as much on defence as a percentage of GNP. Our problem is that much of the rest of the world is spending 8-10% more a year on defence, buying what we are unwilling to and still has mass armies - and that includes some people who may want to challenge us.
But in the long term you would be saving money year on year on year which would amount to a more considerable sum over time.
Or put the other way, the US is already spending twice the percentage of its GNP on defence we are and the US Congress and voters are soon going to start wondering why they are paying to defend people who won't pay to defend themselves.
The UK is particularly important to that argument as much of Europe is already spending less than 2% of GNP on defence and more UK cuts destroy the argument that at least someone in Europe is trying. France is trying but its also trying to achieve its own ends. The Royal Navy, Marines and Airforce are also still highly rated by their US equivalents as people who can reliably fight alongside US forces. They are now increasingly important to the US's own naval and air forces as they are also getting smaller.
There's also the issue that Cameron seems blissfully unaware of which is that the US is aware what the cuts will do to both our relative military power and global influence. If you have less capability overall than France or Italy, an airforce far smaller than those of Greece, Italy, France, South Korea, Saudi Arabia or Israel, a navy that has empty carriers because a few new aircraft won't arrive for years and a small army that's too small to hold any territory it takes, people are just going to ignore you. The US doesn't want to be left that alone, and it doesn't want to have to deal with more problems as the Argentinas of the world look at the gaps in UK capability and work out that they can do what they like as the UK now has nothing to respond with.
No one asked them to invade Iraq twice and then make a mess of Afghanistan.How many millions have died so they could test their expensive weapons and police the world looking for oil .Maybe they should spend more on space exploration and stop creating tension .I do agre with your point about the Falklands - we could easily affore to patrol and base an aircraft carrier permanetnly down there if we scrapped the Trident update .
So Cameron has intervened to settle what has been a long running battle between the Treasury and the MoD who were looking for 10% and 7% cuts respectively. The actual figure it seems is now going to be closer what the MoD's was after, 7 or 8%.
In respect of the previous government, I've heard that Labour did not spend enough on defence & then yesterday, I heard that they'd over spent by £3 billion!
Which one is true?
Both are true - one is an effect of the other.
Labour severely neglected defence, resulting in many cuts in capability and avoidable deaths. Meanwhile the MOD was committed to an equipment programme that was not adequately funded. For example, on the carrier programme (as much a political requirement as a defence one) the MOD found itself committed to a schedule it could not afford (just six months after signing the contract under political pressure). Rather than ensure the MOD received extra funding to make up the difference, the Government's solution was to reprofile projects - basically move costs out of the present year into the future. But you can't employ shipyard workers for 5 years instead of 4 year without an increase in cost. Thus because of that single act alone the cost of the carrier project increased by nearly £800 million. This wastes even more of the Defence budget.
Hence as the National Audit Office stated this week, the overspend for 2009-2010 alone was £3.3 billion on the 30 largest projects. Last year they estimated that the gap (based on Labour projections) between what the MOD was funded for and what the MOD was committed to was £36 billion over the next ten years. In other words, on top of all the cuts experienced over the past 13 years and before any new cuts required by the comprehensive spending review are taken into account, the MOD needs to make substantial cuts just to balance the books left by Labour.
This is just political spin. Treasury threaten 10% cuts, MoD want to limit cuts to 7%. Dave rides in on his white charger to save the day and insists on the MoD figure.
Dave is the PM, and also First Lord of the Treasury, so far from intervening to save the day, he's driven the whole process.
Cutting defence is really stupid and The Falklands conflict was a prime example of how we need to have the capability to respond to threats. Short term savings on the defence could end up being costly mistake. Thankfully the Government has seen some sense.
Cutting defence is really stupid and The Falklands conflict was a prime example of how we need to have the capability to respond to threats. Short term savings on the defence could end up being costly mistake. Thankfully the Government has seen some sense.
Or an example of how sending a taskforce 8000 miles to a group of rocks 250 miles off Argentina is living in the past 'glories' of a British Empire and unsustainable in the modern world.
If we're basing a defence review on the Falkands conflict then the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
Comments
Truth is no one knows the extent of the spending review and where and how much will be trimmed, everyone seems to be prepared for Armageddon yet there is no basis for believing the worst of what has been suggested.
The carriers will go ahead I expect but Trident will be delayed.
Clinton was only worried that the US Army cannon fodder (UK troops) will be reduced meaning more exposure to ongoing death/casualties in a needless war they started.
The cuts will always affect the lower ranks, not the public school top brass
Or put the other way, the US is already spending twice the percentage of its GNP on defence we are and the US Congress and voters are soon going to start wondering why they are paying to defend people who won't pay to defend themselves.
The UK is particularly important to that argument as much of Europe is already spending less than 2% of GNP on defence and more UK cuts destroy the argument that at least someone in Europe is trying. France is trying but its also trying to achieve its own ends. The Royal Navy, Marines and Airforce are also still highly rated by their US equivalents as people who can reliably fight alongside US forces. They are now increasingly important to the US's own naval and air forces as they are also getting smaller.
There's also the issue that Cameron seems blissfully unaware of which is that the US is aware what the cuts will do to both our relative military power and global influence. If you have less capability overall than France or Italy, an airforce far smaller than those of Greece, Italy, France, South Korea, Saudi Arabia or Israel, a navy that has empty carriers because a few new aircraft won't arrive for years and a small army that's too small to hold any territory it takes, people are just going to ignore you. The US doesn't want to be left that alone, and it doesn't want to have to deal with more problems as the Argentinas of the world look at the gaps in UK capability and work out that they can do what they like as the UK now has nothing to respond with.
The cost of Generals and Admirals is trivial in the big picture. Its a political spin point designed to make tabloid readers think cuts are rational. Even if you only get 6-8 admirals per million you wouldn't get enough to buy more than 1% of a destroyer if you sacked all of them. Sacking all the three star officers across all three services would buy you just 7% of one fighter aircraft . The destroyer and the aircraft are not relatively expensive either compared to their overseas equivalents.
The ways to save more money painlessly have been turned down on political and economic grounds. Cutting the A400 transport, aircraft, which replaces no existing capability, for example, would save 4 billion - but it seems sacrosanct as a European project. The reality though is that if you keep on spending less and less as a proportion of GNP, you end up with nothing that deters or impresses anyone. Israel for example gets 2-4 times the defence capability at less than a third of the cost with conscription - but thats not really an option here and Israel also spends 4 times as much on defence as a percentage of GNP. Our problem is that much of the rest of the world is spending 8-10% more a year on defence, buying what we are unwilling to and still has mass armies - and that includes some people who may want to challenge us.
Just listening to an American defence pundit on the radio saying that the defence cuts are irresponsible and weakens NATO. He reckons we should cut foreign aid instead.
That would be too sensible and too humanitarian.
Delaying programmes actually increases costs. Labour did this the whole time, they would drag their feet releasing funding and signing contracts to avoid paying the money NOW. Unfortunately that means that costs increase at a later date. It is total misconception that delaying a project decreases costs because it still has to be paid for at some point. The Defence contractors (and Governments) have clauses in contracts that say if funding is delayed, compensation has to be paid.
Also don't forget that it is not just the British that develop equipment. We do it in collaboration with the French, German and Italians, so if we delay our funding, they charge us for compensation. Funding for Defence budgets is a very murky political world
Yes, great, I don't think. Do it the US way? Get into conflict, spend billions fighting and destroying A.N.Other country's infrastructure and economy then spend billions re-building that country.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to spend money on education, health and business in said country to allow those with talent within it to win hearts and minds and help the country to develop?
In respect of the previous government, I've heard that Labour did not spend enough on defence & then yesterday, I heard that they'd over spent by £3 billion!
Which one is true?
How would you have achieved that! Cant imagine the taliban or Saddam allowing this.
probably neither.. people believe what they want to believe..
But in the long term you would be saving money year on year on year which would amount to a more considerable sum over time.
No one asked them to invade Iraq twice and then make a mess of Afghanistan.How many millions have died so they could test their expensive weapons and police the world looking for oil .Maybe they should spend more on space exploration and stop creating tension .I do agre with your point about the Falklands - we could easily affore to patrol and base an aircraft carrier permanetnly down there if we scrapped the Trident update .
Labour severely neglected defence, resulting in many cuts in capability and avoidable deaths. Meanwhile the MOD was committed to an equipment programme that was not adequately funded. For example, on the carrier programme (as much a political requirement as a defence one) the MOD found itself committed to a schedule it could not afford (just six months after signing the contract under political pressure). Rather than ensure the MOD received extra funding to make up the difference, the Government's solution was to reprofile projects - basically move costs out of the present year into the future. But you can't employ shipyard workers for 5 years instead of 4 year without an increase in cost. Thus because of that single act alone the cost of the carrier project increased by nearly £800 million. This wastes even more of the Defence budget.
Hence as the National Audit Office stated this week, the overspend for 2009-2010 alone was £3.3 billion on the 30 largest projects. Last year they estimated that the gap (based on Labour projections) between what the MOD was funded for and what the MOD was committed to was £36 billion over the next ten years. In other words, on top of all the cuts experienced over the past 13 years and before any new cuts required by the comprehensive spending review are taken into account, the MOD needs to make substantial cuts just to balance the books left by Labour.
Dave is the PM, and also First Lord of the Treasury, so far from intervening to save the day, he's driven the whole process.
Or an example of how sending a taskforce 8000 miles to a group of rocks 250 miles off Argentina is living in the past 'glories' of a British Empire and unsustainable in the modern world.
If we're basing a defence review on the Falkands conflict then the lunatics have taken over the asylum.