Defence Spending

I've just finished reading todays Daily Telegraph. On the back page is an article about how much Gordon Brown is in the red and paying for the war is going to mess up this years budget even further, blah, blah.

Much of the article discusses the cost of the war, but buried in the middle is a paragraph that mentions rumours of yet another defence review circulating around Whitehall (SDR part III?). At the moment we are spending circa £25 billion or 2.4% of GDP on defence, compared with cold war levels of £54 billion (in todays money).

Now this may just be what the article says it is, a rumour. But maybe the politicians have realised that the extra pocket money we received a couple of years ago is simply not enough and may actually be considering funding (and maybe even manning if thats not going too far) us properly.

Is there anyone out there who can throw some light on this? Are we likely to get the extra cash?

:-/

 

Blair and Brown couldn't give a flying toss for the forces, when they gained power they saw the army, navy and air foce as good source of money to fund their PR campaigns as they cut the MOD budget and TA (now be nice) There's no chance any money will go to the forces after this is finished, however many platitudes Honest Tony and the Gay Gordon spout.

The cost of the war is, partly, a con to bring in more tax too. What do people think? Squaddies and the rest, with their equipment, just sit and cost nothing in peacetime? They count the costs based on everything, but we still use kit, fuel and pay the lads.

 

And worse for the caring liberals, the Forces represent the history and Establishment they detest with a passion and wish to destroy. Who remembers the drive to open up the armed forces to the disabled and the "study" to put women in the Inf that the Brig in charge said was nothing more than a coupl of days "aggressive camping"?

 

What they will fail to address is the areas where the cuts (sorry, efficiency measures) have made the most difference.  Units need to be able to hold their own stock of spares, so a tank is not off the road for 6 weeks waiting for a throgglesprocketthingy that cost 50 pence.  Also we need the kit to do the job-period.

Tony Blair will I think try to help, after all we are saving his face, but as for Gordon Brown!

He hates us, always has, always will

 

Seems that there's another £1.25bn on the table

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2891835.stm

 

You just beat me to it

Chancellor Gordon Brown has announced an extra £1.25bn ($2bn) of funding to help pay for the war on Iraq.
He told the House of Commons that the new amount would take the Ministry of Defence's (MOD) special reserves for the war to a total of £3bn.


That's to spend on war fighting operations. Of course, there isn't much chance of getting it back, if American companies have all the contracts, and are dealing with the oil sales now is there?

I don't know why, I'm really angry, and very emotional about this issue. it feels like when a trusted mate shafts you, or, when you can see a mate is about to get shafted by some bird, but he's so in love, he's not listening.

Blair has done nothing  but suck arrse at Camp David apparently, so good men will continue to bleed for nothing.

 

Maybe, they can buy some boots and trousers:

http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=24397

 

I've just read an article in todays Daily Telegraph with the ominous title of "Army to axe one in five of its tanks".

Have a look at the Telegraphs website for the full text, but I've abbreviated and paraphrased relevant parts below. In short though, it transpires that there were plans afoot, devised a while before the fighting stated in Iraq to cut between 58 - 84 Challenger 2's and 18 - 24 AS90's. This was initially reported by the journal "Defence Review".

The article elaborates by saying that the measures were part of the MoD's 'Equipment Plan 2003' and were not based on costs (hmmm...) but on the belief that in future the Army would be required to fight "lighter" battles.

The plans however are already been seen as a mistake as a result of the past 12 days or so of fighting. The Americans already reinforcing their heavy armour. I wouldn't be surprised if we followed suit, despite Mr Hoon's denials.

The importance of the AS90's operating under 1 Div has been emphasised by repeated request for fire support from US Marines operating around Nasiriyah.

Further to this is reports that Apache helicopter gunships have alarmed allied commanders by its apparent vulnerability at low level to RPG's and that less than a third of them are currently operational. The Apache is/was intended to take over the RAC's anti-tank role.

the article ends by quoting "Defence Reviews" editor as saying that the plans needed rethinking.

Hopefully they will be. This does look like another exercise in bean counting. One thing that GW2 has proved so far is that we must maintain an effective high intensity capability.

Comments please.

 

have a horrid sense of history repeating

Anyone care to place bets as to a few more amalgamations after this war is over!!

I have a horrid feeling that we will see the financial short termism demonstrated to such good effect since GW1 rammed down the armed services throats once this conflict is over.  

I'm sure they (the government) will try and package it in glowing terms that they are really spending more on kit, uping the force ratio and improving things for the soldiers - very similar to what is being punted around for the NHS at present.

It is all crap - no matter how clever the kit is you still need somebody to take and hold a piece of ground - airpower on its own does not work - period.  If it did the americans would have won vietnam without any trouble, we wouldn't currently be charging around the desert getting shot up by trigger happy ********* in A10's.

As has been said above - the vindictive narrow minded politicians, whining liberals and politically correct incompetants will want to have a go at the military once this is over to ensure that we don't get too big for our boots!!!!

I'm sure Gordon Brown will have some scheme to help him get out of the trouble he has caused with the economy, by stealing funds and resources from the forces and them happily sending them off to do his and Blairs dirty work. It seriously pisses me off.....

 

...the future is in our hands then.....

 

Lions lead by donkeys

our argument is with the donkeys, not the lions

 

who is our ?

 

I agree with WOOPERT, either IRAQI_DMI has sausage fingers when it comes to typing or he needs to reconsider what he posts on this site.