Thread: Liam Fox interview on Defence Cuts - Telegraph

Originally Posted by benjaminw1

Well, it will be the 10 year rule again chums.

Famous last words but it shouldn't be beyond the wit of our diplomatic people to keep the Red Terror etc busy terrorising somewhere else for a couple of years. It was 'fighting' not 'arming for' - sounds like a plan to me. Lose the capacity to fight world war three, but keep the ability to get that capacity back quickly if needed to. And more famous last words, but if it's really worth doing then it shouldn't be too hard to convince someone else to pitch in as well (bear in mind the last time the UK had a fight with another great power on its own, it was a red-coats-and-bayonets affair)

Demanding more money?? For what exactly??

What would you spend this money-that-does-not-exist on? The MOD has enough money from the Government already but it spunks it.

Originally Posted by REMFQuestions

Demanding more money?? For what exactly??

A properly funded strategic defence and security review, one that matched foreign policy strategy and objectives to actual, as opposed to paper, capabilities

I do have sympathy for your second point, there is self evidently huge waste and you could argue that the coming austerity will force real efficiencies but somehow I kind of doubt it

Originally Posted by meridian

Not sure I agree with you there cpunk. They were in opposition for a long time and whilst they did not have absolute access to the figures all the treasury estimates are available and open source and these would have been backed up with their own treasury team. I think it is a politically convenient smokescreen to say things were worse than they expected as a means of deflecting the blame onto Labour.

I think you would be surprised at what was being concealed by the last government, the incompetent, corrupt, mo'fos.

I am sure I read somewhere that the OECD, various banks and rating agencies, financial think tanks and even people like the taxpayers alliance had estimated a range of figures that were broadly correct, whats a few billion between friends. No doubt there were some shockers hidden from view but the high level figures have been estimated by uncle tom cobbley and all for some time

The 'its worse than we thought' line is true to some extent but not across the broad picture

Agree with you on your last point though

Originally Posted by cpunk

The key task for this SDSR is to ensure that defence isn't irreparably damaged by the forthcoming cuts so that it doesn't affect current operational capability and can be regenerated when times are better: tough job!

That is a fair and reasonable approach, its one that I wish the Government simply come out and say instead of acting as if it is something else

Originally Posted by cpunk

I think you would be surprised at what was being concealed by the last government, the incompetent, corrupt, mo'fos.

Careful cpunk, you are starting to sound like the Tory eqivalent of Whet!!

Originally Posted by msr

Q: How many have you asked for?

I'm glad you asked. The answer is....lots. In round terms, it could be as high as 20% of a single deployment.

The reason is not that there is a lack of people, or cowardice or any other unpleasant name-calling. It's because the CS RA TA (in this case) is utterly incapable of maintaining sufficient numbers of trained personnel capable of deploying. What CS RA TA are good at is delivering gun bunnies to ops - and politically, the outgoing unit is pressured into accepting them, which means it has to remove perfectly capable and far better trained regular soldiers from their PIDs. This 'lack of relevance' to ops means that the knives are out.

The problem with this simple (and oft-repeated logic) is that it is bollocks. If more training, and money, and ammunition, were made available to the TA, it follows that they would be capable of delivering TA FST personnel. Why not create a TA FST Regiment? Why do we have so many TA gun bunnies? What do they all do? 20 TA blokes (max) per year to HERRICK vs the entire CS RA TA cohort? That's a lot of money disappearing somewhere; money that could be far better spent through a simple bit of re-structuring.

So, we're going to see the end of a sizeable chunk of the TA because the supposed owners of the entire capability have allowed the TA to simply drift on with no thought to its actual utility and relevance in an era of HW - and that's before we even look at FCOC. The same rationale is being applied all across the TA, coupled to the simple question 'Does it provide capability to ops?' The problem with simple questions is, of course, that they get simple answers.

It's a shame that the simple answer is going to take decades to recover from.

Originally Posted by LAIT

Why not create a TA FST Regiment? .

Like the OP Btys they disbanded at the last defence review?

Originally Posted by meridian

A properly funded strategic defence and security review, one that matched foreign policy strategy and objectives to actual, as opposed to paper, capabilities

But are we going to get it? I see a rushed, cost-saving job being done.

Originally Posted by ashie

But are we going to get it? I see a rushed, cost-saving job being done.

And I see dead people... oh no wait, wrong genre.

It would be ludicrous to pretend that this review is not underpinned by the need to cut costs but who was it who put us in this position by spending money we didn't have on the assumption that the economy would continue to grow indefinitely? And who was it who failed to fully fund the last SDR, even though they set out the parameters for it? And who committed us to two major overseas operations without significantly increasing the defence budget? Oh yes, the last Labour government...

Originally Posted by ashie

But are we going to get it? I see a rushed, cost-saving job being done.

Remind us again who did the SDR in 1998 and never carried through with it's recommendations and then got us into two long term hot wars while merrily cutting budgets?

Oh yes, your former employers.





Edited for fat fingers - sorry MSR.

Originally Posted by Semper_Flexibilis

Remind us again who did the SDR in 1998 and never carried through with it's recommendations and then got us into two long term hot wars while merrily cutting budgets?

Oh yes, your former employers.

Mine? How so?

Originally Posted by msr

Mine? How so?

Sorry mate, pressed the wrong quote. Post now amended.

In a pissing competition between which party treated the forces the best I think you would fine all the main parties pishing all over their shoes than seeing how far up the wall they could go but Ashie, yes, it is going to be a rushed cost cutting exercise not any high minded strategic outlook that will be the order of the day but as the others have said, who's fault is that