misunderstanding sealord, by the crown jewels i mean technologies that india does not have but if it does get could put it on par with US and in those terms the technology used to build the superhornet is fairly state of the art. then add in the AESA radar, its composite construction, materials used for its construction.. etc.. etc..

the shornet perplexes me, technologically and production wise it is very very advance compared to anything currently flying… but it still manages to be un impressive and resented by most.

The Super Hornet would not put India on par with the US. This is the fundamental problem with the MMRCA program, none of the contenders will provide anything that is not already available to India through other projects.

I wasn’t criticising the language, but your argument: you do not speak for all.

WRT, your “pathetic” comment, well that is just name calling….when you don’t want to address the arguments, throw stones!

Russia is a clear and present danger because they possess nuclear weapons and vast offensive capabilities. Yes, the west out numbers them in many key areas, but that does not negate their offensive capabilites.

In an earlier post you asserted that “military procurement is irrelevant without intention as intention inspires it,” and then later admitted that this applies to China. You, apparently, can devine the intentions of China, and Russia, and others (witness your comments about my “attitude”). Yet, you won’t address the central question: Why is China increasingly acquiring offensive weapons if not to eventually use them?

You have apparently determined that their intentions are peaceful, which does not square with their actions (investing in the weapons in the first place). It is enough for me to know they have capabilites, and are “intent” on expanding them. All the rest of your blather is just, to quote Admiral Spruance, “words, words, words.”

The fact that you took four lines to express criticism of my use of language just shows how little you actually have to contribute here.

I suggest that if you wish to know why China is modernising its armed forces that you open a new thread where it will be explained to you. The title of this one and the content of it thus far make it highly unsuitable for discussions relating to Chinese military modernisation. Thus this is not a central question at all.

Are the UK’s intentions not peaceful? The US? Japan? Not to mention the fact that you can not explain why China should be a threat to the United Kingdom militarily. Hell what about the UK, they have plenty of offensive weapons and are aquiring more. Under your perverse logic all five permanant members of the UNSC are clear and present threats to each other. Your point is ridiculous beyond comprehension.

Blather it is certainly not, it is completely absurd to proclaim that becouse a country is aquiring offensive weapons then it is an immediate threat, if that was the case then the US, and France would be very immediate threats indeed which is why it is imperative to establish the motivations behind it.

To summarise your post is utterly irrelevant to this thread and in no way illuminates the discussion regarding increased UK defence spending. If you wish to know the motivations behind Chinese military modernisation then PM me and I will provide you with a list of recommended reading.

If congress has agreed to give india sensitive technology, and even us brits have major trouble getting information from within our own ranks, you have to realise it is with caveats. The f/a 18 shornet avionics will be altered in some way or form to allay the fears of congress this we can garantee or it maybe that the radars are given but the weapon systems that go with them are limited and may require congressional approval for export to india as with most major equipment buys from the US by its CLOSE allies!

So they get money from india return machines and technology that are not state of the art and for all those variables they recieve India on a leash.

No plane in the competition including super hornet is ready for export to india in one way or form.. people really believe India will be given the crown jewels of the USAF when it has the potential to be the next US foe? And lets not beat about the bush here guys, with indias size population and energy needs it will be competing against the US in the future if it wants to lift its population up from the dirt.

The crown jewels of the USAF are the F-35, F-22 and B-2 and that is where the tech transfer issues arise. Look at Singapores F-15’s UAE’s F-16’s and Australias Super Hornets and one will realise that there is very little technology refusal with the generation which India will be offered for the MMRCA.

I do not gree to some of your comments

In paragraph one:

Whilst the examples were successfully dealt with within the existing bugdet in terms of winning (if that is what you mean) lives have been lost due to inadequate equipment. Lack of body amour is an example. I would only regard an operation as successfully dealt if it was properly equipped at a reasonably minimal level for the job. That does not necessarily mean the latest equipment but equipment that can do the jobs well as enough of it.

In my opinion, with the current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the MOD and government as a whole are not providing the minimal level of support for the job and it remains to be seen if the outcome in Iraq and Afghanistan will be a success. When the armed forces is overstretched, I do not regard that that a success. Ultimately, it will drain our capability and the fatigue life of some of our equipment (Pumas need replacing)

Paragraph 3:

I have not made any mistake at all. Can you quote my mistake? Where did I write it? Did I write that some people prefer to spend nothing on defence? I do not think I even implied it. I prefer to think that I have given an honest opinion in my post.

Paragraph 4:

I agree that there are no current viable threats but that is far as I will go. My point is in having a viable force to deal with or necessarily involve us in an unexpected event. The Strategic Defence review would have provided this. As you are determined to stick with your position, perhaps we can agree to differ.

Lastly with paragraph 2:

Yes two aircraft carriers on order. However I do not share your confidence. If a Falklands case scenario happened tomorrow we could still make a successful recovery though those Sea Harriers may have to be brought back in to service unless some GR9s re brought up to some of level fighter capability very quickly.

Unfortunately the way our destroyer/frigate fleet is going with ever decreasing numbers of platforms I do not think it could be viable force in a few yeas time even with the carriers. April 2008 will probably see more cuts being announced

With speculation that two T45 destroyers have even been considered for sale, it would not surprise me that when one of the carries is built it shortly ends up being sold to India.

Please excuse my cynicism.

Martin

Still no viable threat scenarios that demand an immediate increase in defence spending.

On the Falklands issue, the Islands are under no immediate threat, by the time they are (if they ever are) the RN will have two carriers flying F-35’s the escort force is currently adequate. If anything the capabilities, if not the numbers, of the UK armed forces will be greatly enhanced by the end of the next decade via multi-role Typhoons, F-35’s and new naval construction- all perfectly capable of dealing with any current plausible threat scenario. A Falklands war will not break out tomorrow for the simple reason that Argentinas armed forces would not even be capable of overcoming the Islands current defences yet alone resist a UK reponse. This is how defence planning works, plausible scenarios are considered not paranoid ill-thought out tabloid nightmares.

Your speculation is irrelevant, facts matter speculation does not. However I would agree that it is likely that the RN will suffer further cuts in the spring but for now it is best to deal with known facts.

Iraq and Afghanistan are funded as far as personnel allows, all the funding in the world will not make up for poor recruitment figures. This is primarily a social/political problem. improved living conditions and pay will make a difference but to suggest that it is a panacea is blatantly dishonest. In times of high employment, generous welfare and unpopular wars with perceived high casualty rates in a safety and comfort obsessed society recruitment will always be very difficult.

If you want to prepare for possible scenario that Tom Clancy can come up with then I suggest that you take a look at North Korea becouse that is where this ends.

Current UK defence spending is perfectly sufficient for UK national security and in the medium term the security of its overseas posessions. Existing alliance structures ensure plentiful deterrence against Tom Clancy type scenarios.

The 1998 SDR was not a blue print for national defence- it is another common misconception that it was. That review would have been better called the Strategic Offense Review. Its purpose was to design armed forces that fitted in with the Blair governments ideological affiliation to liberal interventionism. It was not conceived to defend the UK against a threat to its national survival it was conceived to allow the Labour government to undertake its political and ideological fantasies. As such the government can abandon it, manipulate it, modify it, even ridicule it at its hearts content. The SDR was the product and exemplification of choice not of necessity.

First you started with the farcical claim that the Virginias and Sea Wolfs can take out the PLAN SSK fleet in ‘seconds’. Then when I called you on that, you suddenly went all offensive, attempting to save face by expanding Sea wolves and Virginias to the USN SSN fleet as a whole.

The PLAN SSK fleet is no match for the USN SSN fleet, but it far from the walkover you seem so desperate to believe for the USN to take out the PLAN SSK fleet in Chinese littoral waters.

And just FYI, I said ‘older Songs’.

It is irrelevant what type of SSN we discuss, all three types available to the USN are far superior to anything available to the PLAN, thus it is pointless for you to engage in such a meaningless rant about types. The harsh reality is that the USN has more SSN’s than the PLAN has submarines and each is individually superior to anything in the PLAN submarine force………..live with it.

Well done. Excellent post.

I would add that cost of defence inflation has certainly and inevitably lead to reductions in equipment for the navy, army and air force. However, delay after delay in procuring equipment due to insufficient funding in the first will only lead to a tipping point where so much will have to be replaced that the costs will be so huge as to be unaffordable.

In my opinion this point is now being reached and in the end may require an even bigger increase in defence spending than even a 3 per cent share of GDP which of course would not be for forthcoming.

There is suppose to be trade off between quality and quantity of equipment but the quality is simply not advanced enough technologically to reduce equipment levels by so much. I my opinion there is no balance any more in this trade off. The equipment levels are now too low.

There has been a lot of posts on the current benign environment in terms of defence that the UK is now finds itself in. That is a concentration on the here an now. It is probably right to state that the Soviet Union is not a threat to us at the moment. In 1945 the United States government certainly did not think the Soviet Union was a threat. Stalin hoodwinked the US government and it took the United States three years to wake up to the fact.

Again in my opinion. it is completely useless to try and forecast what the environment is likely to be in a few years time. The reason is that every forecast made in the past has been so wrong due to the so called unexpected.

Falklands War – Unexpected (though I would disagree with that)

First Gulf War – Unexpected

Kosovo – Unexpected

September 11 2001 and Afghanistan – Unexpected

One would have thought that within two years of the Invasion of Afghanistan the MOD would have seen the need for additional Helicopters then and not six years later. Perhaps they hoped the Taliban would just go away.

Second Gulf War – where are those additional helicopters?

Also the so called Northern Ireland Peace dividend. A smokescreen. There is no peace dividend as our soldiers are now in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There is an earlier post in this forum suggesting that as military spending is consumption then if you spend more than 1 per cent on defence a share of GDP, your county will go in to decline. There is plenty of consumption spending by the UK Government and the biggest share is on the NHS. I hardly think that the NHS has contributed to the relative decline of the UK. You could argue for US style Medicare to enable spending on health to be reduced, release precious resources on technology and innovation, give us tax cuts on personal income and corporate taxes so that the private sector is no longer squeezed out of funding on investment. As defence spending is consumption, then the suggestion that a greater than one per cent spend on defence leads to a decline in the country will also have logically to be applied to the NHS.

Why did the Roman Empire go in decline (or rather the Western Roman Empire) Depends on what book you read. Historians do not agree on why it went in to decline. There were other things happening at around the late western Roman period One example is the river (can’t remember which river, perhaps it was the Rhine) that divided the Roman Europe from Barbarian Europe completely froze a few times so it was no longer a natural border. This enabled the barbarian hordes to cross more easily. It did not help that one or two of the barbarian previously served in the Roman Army. One of those leaders and his force sacked Rome in AD410 after being refused settlement within the Empire. Perhaps Rome’s attitude towards the barbarians was to blame for the decline in the later period of the Western Empire?

I remember a couple of years ago of a Minister responsible for the NHS (can’t remember her name) commenting that the then £1b deficit on the NHS budget was so small compared to total spending on the NHS that savings could easily be found. Well if that is the case then finding additional funds on military spending compared to total government spend should be even easier. Also and whilst I agree that if too much is spending on defence can divert resources away from private sector investment, I hardy think that 3 per cent on military spending is going to make any difference.

I have no doubts that in the past people said that if you increase spending on defence it will put up your income tax by so much in the £. In reality income tax is just one of many taxes. There is VAT, Corporation Tax etc, etc. Take these other taxes in to account then extra taxes to fund defence spending would be minimal. Perhaps someone can calculate how much he extra spending to 3 per cent of GDP is likely to put up ALL taxes.

At the end of the day it is about choices. If you scrap some of the ill thought and costly schemes (ID cards as an example) you may not even have to put up taxes at all.

The Government came out with the Strategic Defence Review. Nothing has changed since then. It should stick to it. It promised us a force (although at relatively lower levels of equipment) with reasonable breadth and depth and a good trade off between quality and quantity.

Thsands

Martin

Fundamentally flawed post. Still no viable threat scenarios. All of the examples given were successfully dealt with within the existing budget or with minor increases in spending.

The only one with any validity is the Falklands (indeed you seem to recognise this yourself) as it shows the importance of working towards viable threat scenarios. The Falklands should always have been seen as one and still should be, thus defence should be orientated towards that. With Europes most capable amphib fleet, 2 aircraft carriers on order not to mention the rest of the fleet this is well within the capability of the UK armed forces.

You seem to have made the mistake of thinking that some people here are suggesting that the UK spend no money on defence at all, the simple fact is that nobody is suggesting that and it dishonest to suggest that they are.

Again: defence spending being relatively low is not a valid reason to increase it without viable threat scenarios.