Thread: "Unprecedented cuts being proposed at the Ministry of Defence"

Originally Posted by armadillo

In defence of yeoman_dai, remf questions you are a twat, stop diverting the thread.

HAHA Yeh...damn me diverting the thread to respond to other peoples allegations about University. Oh wait...it was you!

Yeoman you might want to take a quick shifty at the previous posts before you make yourself look like a cunt.

two bites and a nibble best weekends fishing so far...

Originally Posted by armadillo

two bites and a nibble best weekends fishing so far...

Does it class as a bite if I am laughing at the irony? Pretty sure it doesn't, but we can keep this game going all day and driving the thread into the ground.

Originally Posted by Yeoman_dai

Better, you didn't swear or throw a single insult in that so gold star for you, although you did fire off some spurious allegations... however, this thread has nothing to do with that, or universities.

On thread though,



PMC's and contractors in the front line made me remember this Paying Pirates | Marine Corps Gazette as a link not just to PMC's but also the use of civilian contractors. Although we have not fallen into the same over-reliance that the US Armed Forces have, it is an interesting point about the future of conflict - the use of the Mercenary.

The use of these companies rose to their height in post 2003 Iraq, and some commentators were saying that this could possibly be the future of armed conflict, buying soldiers when needed. Complete tosh in my opinion, however we in the western world do tend to use them a lot - my question is, when and where does it end? It hasn't stopped yet, even after the Blackwater incident(s) in Iraq (I forget what they call themselves nowadays i'm afraid)

I'll just drop this here again as a thread re-start beyond the crayoning

right my original point is that the MOD should not be fatalistic and leading by example by scrapping people, projects and resources. We as a nation have been caught out with our pants down before. Only the resourcefulness bravery and the lives of many have pulled us through. The MoD has been lucky we have got away with it. My personal gripe is that other large organisations in this country are not as self sacrificing as we are. They have unions to contend with and political ramifications, touch the NHS or education and hell hath no fury like a nation scorned. However the MoD will go ahead with its cuts no matter how damaging it is.

I was just saying that cutting useless Uni funding will go back into the treasury, Id rather a teenage soldier have ballistic plate than a spotty teenage student do a course on latin studies. Rather a dead language is cut than a dead soldier.

Yeoman you are more than correct in stating that PMCs are not the future of armed conflict, particularly conventional actions.

However we are fast approaching a point when a state military response to a threat or conflict type is unsustainable from a political direction. The use of PMCs sidesteps major aspects of the poltical capital dilemma (reducing it to just the cost and legitimacy dynamic, without the blood).

The non-military complaints (which are based around effectiveness) around PMC usage largely falls into the ethical dillemmas - Choamsky et al, present an ahistorical perspective on mercenaries which have always been a vital aspect of any form of international power projection.

The point is there is no way British troops are going to get involved in another Afghanistan in scope and scale in the next few Parliaments. NSS was remarkebly short sighted in that regard when public support for such operations was evaporating in the 2004-2006 consultancy period for the paper it was an obvious end result that it would collapse in the near term. PMCs with some form of empowered FCO/MOD hybrid calling the shots at various flash points backed up at a distance by the more potent conventional forces is not just a likely outcome, its the only one which a government could pursue with the empty reserves of political capital.


I think the arguments over the usage of PMCs as a tool of foreign policy is completly seperate to the usage of PMCs to replace convetional capacity and in theatre roles. Kaldor et al get side tracked with issues of legitimacy, I believe the neo-realist school of IR sticks with the risk analysis.

All you need to know about numbers - Army, Navy, RAF and other Civvies - is at this site:
Defence Analytical Services and Advice: UK Armed Forces Quarterly Manpower Statistics

And incidentally - having been involved in this sort of thing in the past, I can tell you two simple facts - firstly, even getting rid of every MOD Civilian and replacing them by Contractors would not go anywhere near the level of cuts needed. Secondly, likewise with eqpt - the costliest part of the MOD is the Servicemen, by far - and some of them will HAVE to go to balance the books. It's just a matter of from where.

MOD is looking at 20 to 30% savings, which is less than other Depts, but still horrendous - we have to try to stop borrowing, as a Nation, and even this won't be enough. This year overall Govt borrowing will go UP, not down - we have only just started this belt tightening, caused solely and simply by Gordon Brown's economic illiteracy. He has personally ruined the Country, and caused the cuts we are seeing now - never forget.

Originally Posted by ASICarrot

Yeoman you are more than correct in stating that PMCs are not the future of armed conflict, particularly conventional actions.

However we are fast approaching a point when a state military response to a threat or conflict type is unsustainable from a political direction. The use of PMCs sidesteps major aspects of the poltical capital dilemma (reducing it to just the cost and legitimacy dynamic, without the blood).

The non-military complaints (which are based around effectiveness) around PMC usage largely falls into the ethical dillemmas - Choamsky et al, present an ahistorical perspective on mercenaries which have always been a vital aspect of any form of international power projection.

The point is there is no way British troops are going to get involved in another Afghanistan in scope and scale in the next few Parliaments. NSS was remarkebly short sighted in that regard when public support for such operations was evaporating in the 2004-2006 consultancy period for the paper it was an obvious end result that it would collapse in the near term. PMCs with some form of empowered FCO/MOD hybrid calling the shots at various flash points backed up at a distance by the more potent conventional forces is not just a likely outcome, its the only one which a government could pursue with the empty reserves of political capital.


I think the arguments over the usage of PMCs as a tool of foreign policy is completly seperate to the usage of PMCs to replace convetional capacity and in theatre roles. Kaldor et al get side tracked with issues of legitimacy, I believe the neo-realist school of IR sticks with the risk analysis.

I largely agree.

Violent reactions to inconvenient 'little' variables could well become the preserve of PMCs but they too have sharp limits to their political expediency. I do not however doubt that the military's main role (in the nearish future) shall be the provision of assurance for claims that are staked while dispositions are consolidated antebellum.

Once the age of the wolf is in it's throes the military may once again come into it's own as a political force.

Originally Posted by cupoftea

I largely agree.

Violent reactions to inconvenient 'little' variables could well become the preserve of PMCs but they too have sharp limits to their political expediency. I do not however doubt that the military's main role (in the nearish future) shall be the provision of assurance for claims staked as dispositions are consolidated antebellum.

Once the age of the wolf is in it's throes the military may once again come into it's own as a political force.

"Wyrd time, Wolf time
There shall come a year
When no man on earth
His brother shall spare."

An old Anglo-Saxon or Norse poem, IIRC.

Originally Posted by Werewolf

"Wyrd time, Wolf time
There shall come a year
When no man on earth
His brother shall spare."

An old Anglo-Saxon or Norse poem, IIRC.

Aye, it is from the verses concerning the ages of man, approaching Ragnarök (the end of days) in the Völuspá (the the prophecies told to Odin by the seeress Völva). The modern translation goes thusly :

Brothers will fight
and kill each other,
sisters' children
will defile kinship.
It is harsh in the world,
whoredom rife
—an axe age, a sword age (and the sun rises)
—shields are riven—
a wind age, a wolf age—
before the world goes headlong.
No man will have
mercy on another.

The axe age : harvesting, work, and construction - the hewing and shaping of that which concerns man.

The sword age : organisation, deliberated force and the marshalling of intellect (pun is optional).

We are in the age of the winds : wind being the axiomatic Norse vehicle of change - the unstoppable kind that just blows in.

Originally Posted by OldSnowy

All you need to know about numbers - Army, Navy, RAF and other Civvies - is at this site:
Defence Analytical Services and Advice: UK Armed Forces Quarterly Manpower Statistics

And incidentally - having been involved in this sort of thing in the past, I can tell you two simple facts - firstly, even getting rid of every MOD Civilian and replacing them by Contractors would not go anywhere near the level of cuts needed. Secondly, likewise with eqpt - the costliest part of the MOD is the Servicemen, by far - and some of them will HAVE to go to balance the books. It's just a matter of from where.

MOD is looking at 20 to 30% savings, which is less than other Depts, but still horrendous - we have to try to stop borrowing, as a Nation, and even this won't be enough. This year overall Govt borrowing will go UP, not down - we have only just started this belt tightening, caused solely and simply by Gordon Brown's economic illiteracy. He has personally ruined the Country, and caused the cuts we are seeing now - never forget.

That'll be all the "prudence", then. With a side order of "moral compass".

The total number of 85,370 civilians actually includes:
2,300 RFA staff who crew ships refuelling and reprovisioning the navy(in most other countries this role would be more likely to be performed by the military);
9,800 locally-employed civilians who play vital roles as interpreters, guides etc, often in active theatres of war;
11,000 industrial grades including warehouse staff, drivers and some messengerial staff. Not "pen pushers".
9,700 employed by trading funds - the Army Base Repair Organisation (ABRO) and DARA are vital to the maintenance of the armed forces' equipment and again in some countries would be staffed by the military.

If the journalists had done their sums (let's hope Dr Fox has), this leaves us with about 52,900 individuals that most people would identify as civil servants. 52,900 now makes the ratio of civilian to military 1 civil servant to every 3.6 servicemen/women. The Torygraph compared us unfavourably to our NATO colleagues, but France has a ratio of 1 to 3 and the United States (who you could argue have tasks not dissimilar to the UK) have a 1 to 1.8 ration. All of a sudden, and by close attention to the facts, the proportion of MOD civil servants to military actually is very good.

Let us hope Dr Liam Fox is able to do the basic arithmetic. Having promised to cut 44,000 "procurement jobs" when in opposition (even though there are less than 9,000 ex-DPA jobs in the DE&S) I don't hold out much hope. Still, it all means more money for his private sector friends, so good times.

From the numbers above, the 52,900 civvies left, I'd be tempted to also take off the 1,060 teachers and others involved in Service Childrens Education, and (most of) the 7,450 who make up the MDP, MGS, and MPGS. Of course it may be cheaper to contract out Teaching to a commercial supplier, and guarding to another plc - but I don't somehow think you'd get the same service!

Stilll, they won't want to make any Civvies redundant yet - the law that was rushed through to unilaterally destroy the Civil Service Redundancy Scheme has to face a large number of challenges in the Courts before it can be used.

I'd also be tempted to remove the various Defence Intelligence and Rocket scientist types (roughly another 4,000)

If you then do the sums of whats left you discover that of those 41,000 'admin' type civil servants, nearly 30,000 of them are in clerical grades, doing admin jobs that would otherwise be done by forces personnel for a lot more money and overheads.

That leaves roughly 11,000 to account for so far.

Comparing our ratio of uniformed personnel:civilians with those of other nations doesn't take into account that many countries employ uniformed personnel into their dotage as training support staff, procurement staff, caretakers security staff, authors of publications and manuals, MT drivers & mechanics, mess staff, clerical staff, storekeepers, cleaners, range supervisors, etc. We employ civilians to perform most of these non-core tasks.

Originally Posted by jim30

If you then do the sums of whats left you discover that of those 41,000 'admin' type civil servants, nearly 30,000 of them are in clerical grades, doing admin jobs that would otherwise be done by forces personnel for a lot more money and overheads.

Once upon a cobweb, I ran an office with 5 senior officers. If we had been allowed a clerical assistant, 2 of those posts could have been shed. We spent ridiculous amounts of time in the Registry, getting files and photocopying, and even printing out and putting our letters in envelopes. The waste of time was immense, but we weren't entitled to clerical support.

Clerical grades are actually a valuable asset, if used appropriately.

just a thought.