Good to see everyone is being optomistic here! Lot of hyperbole banding around and most of it unwarranted, especially with reference to the RN becoming a coastguard. I doubt anyone here would accuse the dutch, Spanish or Italian fleets of being coastguards and the RN even with quite savage cuts being muted would be bigger and more powerful than those fleets. Likewise with the RAF and certainly with the Army. Its not the 1950s, the UK is not running an empire that requires constant guarding and neither is our constant presence required or wanted around the world. A decent, flexible, “fire brigade” capability is exactly what the UK requires, not a large scale “bobby on the beat” force. The UK will still be one of, if not the most powerful armed forces in europe and given a dire world crisis the combined might of the EU, is still one of the most powerful around.

Agreed. But where will it stop? Will this be the last round of cuts? Or will there be, next year, or in 2 years, another round? Where will it “level out”? Lord, for the last 20 years the UK armed forces have been steadily whittled down and at this point I see no indication that it will end in anything other than the utter gutting of all 3 branches of the British armed forces. So the question is: Where will it end?:confused: