If the UK wanted to go to war she would, regarless of what th US think, to thaink that we can't fight on our own is mindless lunacy. It is a fact that current doctrine is based on fighting as part of a coalition force but certainly don't think th UK need US permission for anything.

As for sharing technology, is there anything wrong with that? Britain buys Trident missles because they are superb at their job, why spend time on R & D when you don't have to, especially when we have such a goos relationship. Another missgided point is that we can't use them independantly, this is silly. Britain build it's own warheads to be placed on the trident bodies, and although they are primarily assigned to nato britain has total independant control if necessery over deployment. The missles are no serviced in the US.

To judge Britain as a vassal state of the US is ubsurd because of our relationship with the US, almost childish in fact.

The french blab on about being independant because evrything is R & D'd at home, well thats great but it DOES NOT make you more powerful. What the UK does is buys and shares technology with her number one ally the US, and thats it in a nutshell, it does not mean we can not fight on our own. What it boils down to is that France won't commit to ANYTHING without UN approval, and her complete lack of support over Iraq was unbelievable.

So, if our soveriegn nation is attacked, or one of our colonies like the Falklands then Britain WILL defend her interests with or without US approval, and again all this talk about how good you are, we've NEVER seen you in action and i'm afraid that speaks much louder than words my friend........ACTION, something we do, not talk about.

neofire, you neglected to mention one of UK's major advantages which is the will and confidence to use its military. This makes it quite formidable but is a factor that is never dealt with in military stats/'top 10 lists' or whatever.

And as for the will to expand militarily among emerging powers, i would look very closely at Poland. because of its geography and history, it has great interest in building up a powerful military to counter any moves by russia or uncertainty in russia. the 'orange revolution' in the ukraine was partly implemented by Poland to make the Ukraine into a buffer zone. But this is only the political side of Poland's self-defence schemes. Building a large military under the auspices of 'adapting to NATO standards' will be a big incentive to the Poles building a large, western standard, high quality military.

They will be a force to reckon with in a few years and will fill the vacuum that exists for many of these peacekeeping/Afghan/Iraq missions in years to come.

I said of course "piss on the USA" diplomatically.Unless we attack them first, I don't think that US would ever attack us.

It would  need a big chain of events for USA to think they could think to strike us, and in this time our deterrent would be much more powerfull conventional and nuclear.

I'm sorry but France has participated in many conflict including with UK in 1956.

And we did not ask UNO approval for going in a lot of place like Ivory Coast.We like UNO approval to covert ourself with full international legitimity but we can go without.

The fact is that on a military point of view UK is not more powerfull than France in projection or even lack currently essential capabilities, and more over US can blackmail you like in 1956 in Suez expedition.
Until you get a real carrier with real fighters with radars (in 2015) , we will be in fact stronguer than you between 2008 and 2014 if things stay as planned, except for SSN but you would understand that your SSN advantage is usefull only to fight USA, China, Russia or India.

http://navy-matters.beedall.com/cvf1-06.htm

Sorry, but believing that the UK is the second most powerful nation, even in the sole military dimension of power, is being seriously deluded.

1) I will not insist too much about the other dimensions. Look up trade, look up industry, you'll see the UK is not number 2 !

2) About the military, one may enter a debate whether the UK is above or below France's level of military power, but it's not the simplest way to end the argument, because it's quite long to explain why France is presently above the UK, and the UK is clearly above France in certain sub-domains of military power (SSN is an example)

Therefore, let me just remind everybody that Russia is the clear number 2 in military power now. A few pieces of data so that it is perfectly clear :

- Russia has the largest operational nuclear deterrent outside the US, far above France's or Britain's

- Russia has the largest and most complete military space constellation outside the US

- Russia has a large inventory of modern air fighters, primarily Su-27 (and derivatives) and Mig-31, far larger than France's, not to speak of Britain's, inventory of equivalent fighters

- Russia has modern intercontinental bombers (Tu-160), while neither France nor Britain has a single one

- Russia has the second operational SSN force, behind the US. That force includes modern SSGNs with supersonic long range antiship missiles, the only ones of their kind that can put a significant threat even to a US aircraft carrier group

- Russia has a true aircraft carrier (the Admiral Kutnetsov), one of only three countries with them (US : 12, Russia and France : one each)

- Russia has very large ground forces with a very large inventory of modern MBTs and other armor, much larger than either France's or Britain's, even though her forces have been very much reduced since Soviet times

This is not to deny the UK is a very important country. It is indeed.

It's simply not the number 2. Even in the sole province of military power.

Is there any point in bringing Nuclear weapons into this argument, no one is gonna use them I hope, therefor can't be counted in a countries ability to project a global force.

I don't personally think UK is above France although the French posters get on my nerves, what I do think and my argument all along is that Britain has the will to use force when necessery and carry out military operations with or without US support.

The French navy is larger than the UK in terms of personnel, the UK is larger in terms of gross tonnage.

The UK can field aroun 102000 troop (army), 35000 (TA). theres also the navy and RAF personnel with the Royal Marines as well. We all know France can field a larger ground force in terms of troops but thats not really the argument.

God knows how I got drawn into this and I couldn't give a toss where we are in terms of global power, but I know through personal experience that when push comes to shove the UK will fight, we will never surrender to any army and we will fight clever.

Just a thought, the Russian navy is in a poor state and is SMALLER than the UK in terms of fleet tonnage.

To sum up, France is a great western power, so is the UK so lets leave it at that and talk about sommat else.

Cheers.

As well as reaming off lists of whos got what kit and money, look at each states tradition of military Success. Since 1789:

France was defeated in: The Napoleonic wars, The Franco-Prussian War, WW2, Algeria

Russia was defeated in: The Crimean War, The Russo-Japanese War, WW1, Afghanistan

Britain was defeated in: ........hmmmm.....good record!!