Pardon? Sorry does actually understanding the world, having the facts to hand and realising that aid can actually constitute as defence budget in that it prevents conflicts and the need for UK soldiers to die make me wet?

That doesn’t make you wet at all. Foreign aid is a perfectly valid tool for conflict prevention. It’s your Guardianista guilt trip that makes you wet, you’ll be going all Simon Jenkins on us next.

I refuse to be held responsible for anything some relative of mine did 60 years ago. I feel the same contempt for the British who bang on about the second world war.

And the SSBN may be only 3, no matter the risk of being unable to provide continuous presence at sea. Liam Fox seems to have said it today, for what i read in the news.
Most likely, four Vanguards will be replaced by 3 boats at this point. The shrinking continues, regardless of who is in power.

Except he didn’t say that at all, infact you can hear his very words on the subject of 3 or 4 SSBN at 30 mins 17secs here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU-_s4BxIVw

once the CVF comes out, would the CdG have the 2nd largest carrier air wing in Europe, followed by Cavour?

‘potential airwing’ i’d say. It’s very unlikely to see CVF with anything more than 15 F35 on board.

Don’t worry about whether 6 small carriers or 2 large ones are better – apparently our development minister thinks we should be ditching the carriers so we can send 2/3rds of Africans to school !
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/7884333/Navy-carrier-costs-could-school-Africans.html

I’d like to see Liam Fox’s face when he hears about this report which seemingly comes from an uniformed South African journalist.

Let’s hope so.
You’ll pardon me and my doubts about it, but i have no confidence left for this kind of things, you know.

Well for sure that is their intention, since all parties had an input into the green paper

‘UK must retain military capability to fight alone, says Liam Fox’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/feb/08/defence-liamfox

The proof is simple: if the carriers survive BOTH and are equipped decently with planes, we’ll have a UK capable to act outside its islands even on its own.
If the carriers aren’t saved, i don’t see how they can claim to be able to act independently outside the reach of land-based Typhoons.

As the Army said in 1982: “without air cover, we won’t get there.”
Be it COIN or state-on-state, you’ll need air cover. And carriers will be handy.

I don’t think anyone will disagree with that premise, which is why I think both carriers will be built following an SDSR that recommends them for use as the UK’s big conventional stick.

A piece in the Telegraph today
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/7877408/Military-will-be-made-smaller-lighter-and-more-dependent-on-foreign-allies-minister-says.html

‘Military will be made smaller, lighter and more dependent on foreign allies, minister says’

Ignoring the deliberate ‘woe is us’ headline, there are a few interesting snippets from Nick Harveys speech – possible pointers to the outcome of the SDR?

while the Forces needed to maintain the ability to “apply lethal force”, Cold War models of large standing armies were no longer relevant.

the military had to become more agile and adaptable; more mobile; better integrated; and better merged with “other levels of national power and influence, at home and abroad

They will need to be less focused on scale when contributing to multinational operations, with the emphasis moving to quality.

“And we should have less duplication of capabilities held in large numbers by our NATO allies.”

Sounds like a smaller mobile army with good news for the navy in that case. Where that leaves the RAF is anyones guess.

Strange article in the Sunday Express, including an option about changing PoW to CATOBAR with a further 2 year delay (which would further add to the cost, no?)
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/184841/20-000-jobs-at-risk-from-RAF-base-closure/

Any idea of what timescale we’re looking at for the SDR? I know there will be more departmental news on each individual budget in October.

The uncertainty cannot be doing those building things like CVF any good, though I guess we’ll get some idea as there are bound to be press leaks before anything is actually announced.

I read in the paper the other day that the Army top brass is getting a bit snotty with Fox thinking he is too pro-Navy.