Here's a thought experiment: imagine a government that had the courage, and strategic wit, to increase defence spending to 5%, as Trump has demanded. That would be just over double current spending: roughly from £64 to £130 billion. This would be met by shaving some 5-6% off other departments (à la Mrs Thatcher in 1981). This would have several effects:
1. It would allow us to field an army of at least 100,000, plus at least one fully equipped Carrier Strike Group. Our troops would be in the front-line across eastern Europe, and the next emergency in the Middle East would see the UKCSG first on the scene in the eastern Med.
2. It would sufficiently impress the Americans (not just the Trumpites) to the extent that they would look upon us with favour with respect to trade deals etc. The effect on our economy would be substantial, generating tax income to pay, at least in part, for the increase in defence spending (as happened in the 1980s-90s)
3. We would once again be a taken as a serious country - call it the Falklands effect. Not least of all it would, to say the least, give pause to the Russians, bluster notwithstanding. It would also humiliate the French (an object in itself for some of us); they would respond with defence increases of their own - others would follow (1980s-90s again)
Of course, this will never happen under the current timorous government. I suspect in the coming months we're going to see the two carriers scrapped; flogged off to some shady company in Hong Kong, perhaps.
Here's a thought experiment: imagine a government that had the courage, and strategic wit, to increase defence spending to 5%, as Trump has demanded. That would be just over double current spending: roughly from £64 to £130 billion. This would be met by shaving some 5-6% off other departments (à la Mrs Thatcher in 1981). This would have several effects:
1. It would allow us to field an army of at least 100,000, plus at least one fully equipped Carrier Strike Group. Our troops would be in the front-line across eastern Europe, and the next emergency in the Middle East would see the UKCSG first on the scene in the eastern Med.
2. It would sufficiently impress the Americans (not just the Trumpites) to the extent that they would look upon us with favour with respect to trade deals etc. The effect on our economy would be substantial, generating tax income to pay, at least in part, for the increase in defence spending (as happened in the 1980s-90s)
3. We would once again be a taken as a serious country - call it the Falklands effect. Not least of all it would, to say the least, give pause to the Russians, bluster notwithstanding. It would also humiliate the French (an object in itself for some of us); they would respond with defence increases of their own - others would follow (1980s-90s again)
Of course, this will never happen under the current timorous government. I suspect in the coming months we're going to see the two carriers scrapped; flogged off to some shady company in Hong Kong, perhaps.