The Eye Of Sauron.

A lot of negative vibes on the Reds. However, as has been pointed-out, the demise of manned a/c has been wrongly forecast before. Drones have their place for sure, especially where you don’t want aircrew falling into the hands of rabid animals.

Not withstanding the above, we will still need Transport a/c. That means Tankers. We’ll need battlefield and transport Heli’s. All those need to be manned, and it all needs protecting. Drones have a limited ability to do this. Drones cannot think, they are just robotic zombies only as good as the data streamed back to the operator eating his lunch. Cut or interrupt that stream, – and they are flying scrap metal. Or plastic. Drones are not, and are unlikely ever, in the foreseeable future, to become sentient, so the need for manned a/c will remain.

Lastly, given to effectively complete absence of military experience across todays breed of career politicians, all the evidence points towards continued pointless foreign pointless ventures. No lessons have been learnt. Irrespective of how one feels about the politics of this, the fact is, that we are now entering out THIRD conflict in Iraq in as many decades. Whilst we are thus distracted by matter which we can do very little to affect, the Eye of Sauron to the East has been watching, and, given the weakened defences in Europe, his dark forces are stirring beyond Mirkwood.

There are some striking parallels between today, and the 1930’s. Appeasement, as we know, only buys time. How we choose to use that time dictates the outcome. In 1939 we were, just barely, ready. Today our politicians look out and see economics first, and military strategic matters somewhere down the list after appeasing the political opposition and E.U. Mr. Putin obviously sees thing in more or less the reverse order. Putin has been just as clear as Hitler was, and just as deluded. The Soviet Union wasn’t defeated militarily. It was defeated because it couldn’t sustain it’s military spending. The West outspent it. A small price to pay for peace.

I have a feeling that in terms of size, our armed forces are at about the low water mark. If Putin carries on the way he has been, then the Government will realise that, as ever, ’tis better to talk quietly, but carry a big stick. In that context, chopping the Reds will look like very small-beer indeed, in an environment where Defence spending may well rise dramatically.