Britain unable to patrol territorial waters without help from NATO

[IanXC]

Your evidence of this is? You can really not see any scenario which could result in using Trident?

There's always a Yes Prime Minister scene for these things...

[Youtube]IX_d_vMKswE[/youtube]

 

[ainsworth74]

There's always a Yes Prime Minister scene for these things...

Indeed there is and that was in the back of my mind Personally I think Watford Gap Services would be the line for me. Can't have the flamin Ruskies threatening the North but they can have the South

Also the very end of that scene with the phone call is perhaps one of my favourite parts of the whole series.

 

[IanXC]

I agree with this. perhaps having a combine defence force, as other countries have, would save money in the chains of command as well as streamline operations. We must be getting close to the levels where separate structures are unsustianable in terms of what we have on the front line, if we haven't got there already.

I believe we are at that point. I think there's 2 options, a single combined structure, or it may be easier to split the RAF. Strike forces would go to the Royal Navy and transport and close support to the Army - rather how the structure looked before the creation of the RAF.

 

[GearJammer]

Let's face it, with little in the way of mineral resources left (and most of that being shale gas), why would anyone bother making much of an effort to invade Britain anyway?

Now ive been reading this thread and been thinking the same thing..... what/who is threatening the UK exactly, if a Russian sub was off the coast of Scotland then so what? I really do fail to see who would benefit if the whole of the UK was wiped off the face of the earth?

 

[Johnuk123]

Now ive been reading this thread and been thinking the same thing..... what/who is threatening the UK exactly, if a Russian sub was off the coast of Scotland then so what? I really do fail to see who would benefit if the whole of the UK was wiped off the face of the earth?

With this country being in the terrible state it is in, nobody would miss or care if it was gone.

 

[Flamingo]

If the Republic of Ireland can afford to defend itself, and manage not to be attacked by Russia despite not being in NATO, I can't see why we would be any different.

You obviously know diddly-squat about the Irish Defense Forces. While the army is extremely well trained, and individually equipped to a high level, they have two brigades of light infantry (approx 10.000 total), enough armored vehicles to shift a battalion or two, no SP artillery, and the only tracked armor is a few Scorpions at the end of their life (Whittams have more, and in better condition).

The Irish Air Corps has about a dozen fixed-wing prop-driven trainers with minimal air to ground capability and no air-to-air, two transport/maritime surveillance aircraft and about a dozen helicopters. The only thing they could do if anybody wanted to overfly Dublin is send Aer Lingus up to meet them - nothing else could get high enough.

The Navy is geared up to fishery protection and smuggling, and has no vessels capable of operating a helicopter, or undertaking anti-submarine duties. Again, they do a great job with what they have, and are well though of in terms of training and individual ability, but a few 76mm guns does not exactly frighten the Russian fleet.

The spend on Defense in Ireland is considerably less than 1% of GDP. The country is bankrupt and this is never going to increase.

The reason Ireland is not attacked or menaced by the Bear is that it is too close to the UK for the UK to sit by and allow that to happen, and too close to the strategic airlift paths from the US for the US to allow it to happen.

 

[GearJammer]

With this country being in the terrible state it is in, nobody would miss or care if it was gone.

Sadly im rather inclined to agree.

 

[NotATrainspott]

You obviously know diddly-squat about the Irish Defense Forces. While the army is extremely well trained, and individually equipped to a high level, they have two brigades of light infantry (approx 10.000 total), enough armored vehicles to shift a battalion or two, no SP artillery, and the only tracked armor is a few Scorpions at the end of their life (Whittams have more, and in better condition).

The Irish Air Corps has about a dozen fixed-wing prop-driven trainers with minimal air to ground capability and no air-to-air, two transport/maritime surveillance aircraft and about a dozen helicopters. The only thing they could do if anybody wanted to overfly Dublin is send Aer Lingus up to meet them - nothing else could get high enough.

The Navy is geared up to fishery protection and smuggling, and has no vessels capable of operating a helicopter, or undertaking anti-submarine duties. Again, they do a great job with what they have, and are well though of in terms of training and individual ability, but a few 76mm guns does not exactly frighten the Russian fleet.

The spend on Defense in Ireland is considerably less than 1% of GDP. The country is bankrupt and this is never going to increase.

The reason Ireland is not attacked or menaced by the Bear is that it is too close to the UK for the UK to sit by and allow that to happen, and too close to the strategic airlift paths from the US for the US to allow it to happen.

I'm just remarking that the Republic of Ireland has not been invaded by any country just yet, despite being fully neutral and ostensibly away from the NATO nuclear umbrella. That they have not been attacked is because realistically, they are under the same NATO protection as the UK is and would exist regardless of the individual political circumstances of the home nations.

Abandoning the fantasy that the UK actually has an independent nuclear deterrent would free up resources for other, more useful military hardware that would be better able to defend the British Isles. If Finland can afford the military it has, the UK (or whatever set of states would exist instead, all of which would be members of NATO and would strongly co-operate on all home defence matters) could afford a conventional force capable of keeping the Russians at bay at sea as well as in the air. By trying to be a great power, the UK is failing at home and is still irrelevant abroad. The only NATO state capable of being a superpower is the United States, especially when it has the necessary native military-industrial complex that there is some amount of Keynesian growth coming from military overspend. Here, most of the money the UK spends on pretending to be a superpower ends up in the hands of American companies and is thus lost to the Exchequer.

 

[St Rollox]

Makes you wonder if any NATO subs are ever sneaking around in Russian waters.

 

[RichmondCommu]

Makes you wonder if any NATO subs are ever sneaking around in Russian waters.

I'm assuming here that you are being facetious? NATO subs are patrolling the Barents sea as we speak.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

With this country being in the terrible state it is in, nobody would miss or care if it was gone.

.....and the only things left in Britain after the nuclear Armageddon would be cockroaches and the Class 142 Pacer fleet....

 

[Flamingo]

.....and the only things left in Britain after the nuclear Armageddon would be cockroaches and the Class 142 Pacer fleet....

Very good!

 

[455driver]

Defence is a topic close to my heart and is a bit of sore subject when it comes to the cuts it's currently bearing the brunt of. But what are we to do? The current government is currently trying to reduce the national debt and with an election coming up defence spending is hardly a vote winner. It's all very well saying that scrapping trident would solve all these problems but it just won't. For one the budget is seperate from the existing defence spending pot and if it was canned the money would only be siphoned off elsewhere never to be seen again. The Nimrod MR4 was unfortunately always going to be an early target as the project was so over due, over budget and dispite the first aircraft had made their first flights was years off from entering service. The real crime was scrapping it without a replacement, however it does look increasingly likely we will aquire the P-8 Poseidon in the near future. It of course doesn't help when the three services constantly bicker amoung each other fighting for funding.

I agree with you on most things (MR4 got into trouble because they kept changing their mind what they wanted it to do) but the fact that the Government manage to find several million pounds extra each year to add to the Foreign Aid budget!
Maybe cutting that would put a bit more money into other budgets!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

.....and the only things left in Britain after the nuclear Armageddon would be cockroaches and the Class 142 Pacer fleet....

But what about the 143s I will soon be driving?

 

[Yew]

Defence is a topic close to my heart and is a bit of sore subject when it comes to the cuts it's currently bearing the brunt of. But what are we to do? The current government is currently trying to reduce the national debt and with an election coming up defence spending is hardly a vote winner. It's all very well saying that scrapping trident would solve all these problems but it just won't. For one the budget is seperate from the existing defence spending pot and if it was canned the money would only be siphoned off elsewhere never to be seen again. The Nimrod MR4 was unfortunately always going to be an early target as the project was so over due, over budget and dispite the first aircraft had made their first flights was years off from entering service. The real crime was scrapping it without a replacement, however it does look increasingly likely we will aquire the P-8 Poseidon in the near future. It of course doesn't help when the three services constantly bicker amoung each other fighting for funding.

Abandon the neoliberal pseudoeconomic ideology that cutting is the only way to 'balance the books'. And invest in infrastructure projects that boost the economy, in turn increasing the tax take (and reducing the budget deflict) and longer term allowing us to run surpluses to pay off our low national debt. Which incidentally, as a percentage of GDP, is lower than the average throughout the entire 20th century?

 

[455driver]

With this country being in the terrible state it is in, nobody would miss or care if it was gone.

Where would the asylum seekers go if the UK wasnt around?

 

[ac6000cw]

Abandon the neoliberal pseudoeconomic ideology that cutting is the only way to 'balance the books'. And invest in infrastructure projects that boost the economy, in turn increasing the tax take (and reducing the budget deflict) and longer term allowing us to run surpluses to pay off our low national debt.

I thought that that was one of the reasons for a lot of the railway infrastructure spending e.g. Crossrail, electrification, major station and junction projects like Reading (and of course road projects like the completion of the A11 dualing in my part of the world).

One of the problems these days (compared to say the 1930s post-Depression era) is that it takes forever to get a major project from the early planning stage to building start, so infrastructure spending isn't a 'quick fix' in employment creation terms any more.

I agree it's a good idea (provided it doesn't build white elephants), but it's probably an economic tool that isn't as easy to apply as it once was.

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

Where would the asylum seekers go if the UK wasnt around?

I know that you're only joking, but Germany, US, Sweden, France and Turkey all take more than the UK, so they won't be spoilt for choice!