Personally, I’m not that fussed about having the capability to fight wars without a friendly country in range. I’m not seeing a defensive rationale that meets a cost benefit analysis that I would support.
Does anyone have any examples which might change my mind? My counter example may be the current campaign in Afghanistan. When we leave, nothing will have changed, but we will be very much poorer. (Not that aircraft carriers have been much help there anyway.)
The always-entertaining Lewis Page in The Register has a 5-page, erm, rant or opinion piece on the subject (take your pick).
Well, I agree it’s not a patch on HMS Black Prince, HMS Warspite, HMS Terror or say HMS Indefatigable, and it does smack of sycophancy to 'er indoors, but there was a 1913-launched dreadnought called HMS Queen Elizabeth. Second-lamest name, obviously. 
I don’t know who Lewis Page is, but if he had his way the UK would have no domestic defense industry at all. Now, economically, that’s probably not a bad thing, but it’s kind of a problem national security-wise.
How about the Falklands? If Argentina were to invade again, we would need a nearby air platform. How about Taiwan if things get iffy with China? South Korea might get attacked too. And don’t forget that an airbase - mobile or landbased - isn’t just about providing a platform for launching aircraft but also maintaining them, providing secure weapons storage, and so on.
[quote=“Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party, post:1, topic:557870”]
[ul][li]The Nimrod project is scrapped[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
You’re still flying Comets?
They’re not much like Comets - the fuselage has a huge bumpout at the bottom running most of the length of the plane forming the bomb bay. Turbofan engines replaced the original jets, and the plane of course has been configured with military avionics and weapons.
I worked with Nimrod crews for several years at Sigonella - they were incredible aircraft in the ASW/ASUW role. We were using them as well as NATO P3 and Atlantique crews to enforce sanctions against the former Yugoslavia. The only major difference with working with the Nimrod was a somewhat shorter onstation time because of the turbofan engines - our prop planes were more fuel efficient.
It is an old platform, though, and I can see why a decision is being made to retire them.
In much the same way that the US Air Force is still flying the equally old B-52 (and will continue to do so for at least 30 years).
What’s funny is that a recurring point made it seems is planned integration of the ressources of the British and French navies. Who would have thought of that a century ago?
There already was some talk about Britain and France sharing ressources to build a common carrier and using it jointly. Considering the mess of the Charles-De-Gaulle, it will be fun to see another grand piece of junk this time flying both flags and not only the Tricolor.
I can’t think of anything more humiliating for a former great power whos admiration in part was the commandment of the seas, not to mention, the fact we won’t have any power projection capabilities to protect the Falklands for instance, I see as great annoyance.
As long as your calculation takes into account the fact that you have to hope America will take care of any problems that might crop up concerning your overseas interests in things like trade then you are quite right…you don’t need any of this stuff. Heck, you don’t really need any military at all, come to that…as long as you are cool relying on the US to do everything and protect your collective interests.
Personally, I think America is a great country and all (being a citizen), but I wouldn’t want to rely completely on us to always protect your interests…not unless you are willing to spend some serious scratch ensuring that most Americans consider the UK to be our bestest buddies and that our interests will always completely coincide with your own.
Well, if you guys got yourself into another Falklands war type thing. The US certainly didn’t directly support you, in fact most Americans didn’t want to get involved. If you had something similar crop up you’d be screwed if you didn’t have the capability to project power beyond your own shores, and you’d basically just have to swallow whatever some foreign power decided to spoon feed you. The point is that no one really knows what MIGHT happen or what you MIGHT need…that’s the point of trying to build a capability to meet at least some of the contingencies that could crop up. Before Iraq invaded Kuwait I doubt that US planners really considered sending a ton of troops to the ME to fight Iraq as a probable contingency, but we had a military that was capable and flexible enough to meet the unexpected. The UK has trade and other interests that are beyond it’s own shores, and even beyond the shores of the EU, and it’s at least theoretically possible that those interests could be threatened or impeded, and that the EU or the US wouldn’t want to become involved. By not having any capabilities to project power or enforce or protect your countries interest beyond your shores you limit what your response could be…and open the door to other countries taking advantage of you or bullying you. Plus, you become even more dependent on the US to be your big brother and defend and protect you, which might not be the wisest course (and I should think would also irk a lot of you Brits to no end…it would certainly have the French gnashing their teeth and pulling out their hair).
-XT
Under the circumstances, the actions make sense. Face it, there isn’t going to be another war like WWII.
As for intervening in places like Afghanistan- that has been really successful, hasn’t it.
And you know this how, exactly? If you are the UK you’d have to assume that the US will continue to dominate so militarily that a large scale war involving large navies will never happen. However, the US might run out of gas at some point, or we might fold our hand and become isolationists, or the liberals might completely gain control and completely gut the military. Any number of things might happen which would take the US out of the game or lower our military to such a level that large scale conflict isn’t a short way to suicide, and countries with regional or even global ambitions might be able to realistically consider their options.
Here is the thing…if you (‘you’ being the UK) decide not to build a navy that has the ability to project power beyond your shores but you do need it, you are fucked. It takes a long time to build such a navy, and building it up quickly is going to cost a hell of a lot more in terms of resources than building it slowly over time. Also, you aren’t going to have the experience with either building or manning such a thing if you don’t maintain the capability, and rebuilding that stuff is going to take even more time and probably cost you a lot of blood and treasure relearning lessons lost.
Yeah…this kind of thinking worked so well for the French during WWII that I’d say it’s a no-brainer. The Brits should definitely gear up to only fight the last war…no sense in being flexible when you know all the threats possible in the future, ehe?
-XT
The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom doesn’t even have a standing deployment east of the Persian Gulf. In order to deploy a carrier group to the Western Pacific and South China Sea would require an extraordinary commitment that would deplete the standing deployments in the North and South Atlantic and Mediterranean which are far more crucial to the security of the British Isles and shipping thereto.
If Argentina decides to invade the Falklands Islands again (unlikely unless vying military juntas need to conceal the dire economic straights the country is in by launching on an ill-advised campaign) then one hopes that the British will have more foresight than to rush in with weapons blazing. The Falklands War was a Pyrrhic victory for Britain, accepting far more losses than the Argentines and generally demonstrating that US-RN combined naval strategy has some serious deficiencies. It would have been relatively for the British to have starved shipping and logistical support to the islands and forced Argentina to accept a negotiated peace to Britain’s favor. Instead, ownership of the islands is still technically disputed.
Great powers come and go. The heyday of Great Britain was ending even before WWII, and Britain’s heavy investment into that war diminished the influence over the Crown’s dominions. Spending a large amount of money on building up a navy to no evident purpose won’t make Britain a great power; from a historical context, having a large but unnecessary military establishes simply encourages needless military adventurism to a foolhardy degree, and that way lies disaster. Britain will be greater in history for her contributions to science, technology, art, and literature than for the fleeting ability to impose military might.
Stranger
:rolleyes:
Why roll your eyes? There are a lot of liberal types on this board who would gladly cut off the military if they could, and a lot more who would cut back to the bone. Or do you think I’m just making this point up? 
The point, though (other than the tongue in cheek aspect), is that if you are the UK you don’t know what the US is going to do over the long haul. There is no guarantee that the US will be able to sustain our high level of military indefinitely…in fact, I’d say that we probably won’t be able to do so, and at some point we’ll have to cut back. Way back.
And even if that’s not the case, there is no guarantee that the US will always support the UK in everything it does, always take an active role in protecting the UK’s foreign interests. Again, I’d say that, realistically, we probably won’t. We didn’t during the Falklands dust up after all, and something like that could happen again, in which case our British brethren will either have to do for themselves or just turn the other cheek and let whatever happens happens. C’est la vie.
-XT
That was an awesome post, Stranger.
You could also select an admittedly smaller subsection of conservatives who would gladly isolate America from her military obligations (while perhaps not cutting defense – but the same effect w/r/t this thread.)
If I said “well, the conservatives could take control and gut America’s international cooperation”, you could rightfully accuse me of cherry-picking. By asserting that “a lot of liberal types” = “liberals”, you are doing the same thing.
Exactly. I implied as much when I also listed that the US could become isolationist, which is one of the whacky-er RW memes. And there are plenty of conservatives who would gladly cut the military if they could get us into an isolationist posture.
No, I wouldn’t, since you’d be giving a possible though improbable scenario to back up your main point. I don’t THINK ‘liberals’ with a hard on to gut the military will take over in the US, just like I don’t THINK that conservatives who want to make take us back to the glory days of US isolationism will take over, but it could happen. The point, however, is that if you are the UK then you have to consider the possibility that the US might not be there to help you protect your interests.
ETA: And besides, if I wanted to tweak a groups nose and possibly spark additional discussion on this board, it makes more sense to tweak liberals than conservatives. Had I tweaked conservatives all I would have gotten for my troubles would have been people taking me seriously and chiming in with ‘yeah, exactly’ or a lot of silence as people just nodded their head and scrolled on down.
-XT
I really don’t get what you are trying to say. You seem to be trying to convince people that it is wrong to assume that the US will always help the UK by bringing up the only war in the past few decades that troubled British territory. A war in which the US didn’t help.
So if we already, due to past experience, don’t assume it, why are you telling us not to assume it? Utterly bizarre.
Maybe I am being a bit weird, but why should the UK be worrying about Taiwan and South Korea? That sort of getting involved with world policing is why we got bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, two wars that the UK just cannot afford and are deeply unpopular.