Myu replies to A-P in italics

 

"Surely any military should be designed to defend your nation and it's interests, anything else is suicidal."

 

I'd set Defense at 3% of GDP as a constitutional committment personally. In belgium they are importing virtually everthing so it costs Belgium PLC... When the UK spends on defense it goes mostly on jobs based in the UK, which are then taxed back, all of these skilled or high value jobs too, and goes to UK companies the cheif sahreholder bieng the UK government anyway...

Your basing your comparisons with belgium and italy on small scale geographic reckoning, Geopolitically we are most similar to the US, in terms of total nominal GDP China, in terms of overall strategic economic positioning Japan. As for being ripe for the takeover - yes, they are. Amusingly all the nations you mention were taken over in the last century about three or four times each! That's in the life time of my parents, what do you think has changed since then to make them no longer ripe for the take over exactly?  

 

"Arguments that the world is less dangerous now are very easily put down...."

Quote    Reply

"Your basing your comparisons with belgium and italy on small scale geographic reckoning, Geopolitically we are most similar to the US, in terms of total nominal GDP China, in terms of overall strategic economic positioning Japan."

 

 

"Amusingly all the nations you mention were taken over in the last century about three or four times each!"

 

Good point, but in all fairness the situation has completely changed.

 

"Today = yes. But we don't have a crystal ball."

 

As you pointed out in your reference to Russia, it will take years for a threat to materialise. We will also have time to rearm should this be necessary.

I believe the answer is in having a set legal amount of finance, as per GDP, which we have to spend on defence.  That way the government can't spend too little, or too much on defence.  The only question, is how much goes to the army, how much to the navy, and how much gets wasted.

"Your basing your comparisons with belgium and italy on small scale geographic reckoning, Geopolitically we are most similar to the US, in terms of total nominal GDP China, in terms of overall strategic economic positioning Japan."

 

 

Yes, sorry my point there wasn't very clear. Geopolitically similar to the US in that we enjoy geographical protection from potential foes, they have two oceans, we have the channel and the bulk of western europe. few other countries are as lucky. nominal GDP china, well their GDP is closest to ours in numerical terms. Japan high tech industry and large service sector, island nation relying on sea based trade. You could of course argue with those comparisons, they're purely of the top of my head anyway, but my overall point is that european countries are not neccessarily the best comparison with the UK just because they're closest physically. Indeed Italy with large scale low tech manufacturing industry and a large agricultural sector is very different from the UK. Italy also has a national debt of (I can't remember) what twice GDP? Japan spends 1% on defense because it has the US guaranteeing it's protection. We don't. Japan has also been canny in it's procurement, it spends it's 1% on big ticket items with a long lead time in terms of build and development, knowing it's a heck of a lot easier to crash produce missiles than it is to crash produce destroyers.

Any assement of a nation's overall weakness needs to be based on a number of things, I'd argue:

GDP, how much is the nation currently producing on home soil? GNP, how much real economic weight can a country call upon when the proverbial hits the fan? (Massive stocks of a fiat currency like the dollar are worthless if you go to war with the US for instance) Population level. Education level. Ability to sheppherd its own citizenry, current military capacity, Technology and R&D.... consider all of these together and we're not similar to Belgium

There will never be another war akin to those of WWI and WWII.

 

Although in 1910 and 1920 such a thing to say would be foolish, today I can say it with 100% confidence.

 

The difference between now and then, is the Atom and Hydrogen bomb.

 

This is why I support our nucler deterrent so highly.  I honestly would rather see our army shrink to nothing but a 10 battalion peace-keeping and rapid reaction force, than see us lose our nuclear deterrent.

 

"Although in 1910 and 1920 such a thing to say would be foolish" - Didn't stop virtually everyone from saying it then.

Agree entirely on the nuclear deterrent, but also worth pointing out that I'd be surprised if DEWs won't make ICBMs and indeed all missiles obsolete within our life times, maybe not for 20 years, but look at RADAR, who'd heard of that in 1939?

"I think, that this really is the heart of the matter....but the bunkers of China and Russia (their's have not been sold as tourist attractions or data storage facilities) do not beat to the same pulse. They are still playing the Great Game."

 

 

Ok, just to summarise my arguments, I think we have enough money to spend say 3% of GDP on defense, that it virtually pays for itself as it is an investment in R&D and high value jobs, that our interests as a nation (Trading power, service sector led economy) mean that we have more interest in what happens outside our own borders than most, and that with monotonous regularity the UK has had to re-arm suddenly and in a panic to meet the threats that are invisible to people at the time but blindingly obvious afterwards... We'll have to agree to disagree I think.

I didn't by the way mean to imply that I presumed you were a student, your spelling (unlike mine) is too good.

Ok, just to summarise my arguments, I think we have enough money to spend say 3% of GDP on defense, that it virtually pays for itself as it is an investment in R&D and high value jobs, that our interests as a nation (Trading power, service sector led economy) mean that we have more interest in what happens outside our own borders than most, and that with monotonous regularity the UK has had to re-arm suddenly and in a panic to meet the threats that are invisible to people at the time but blindingly obvious afterwards... We'll have to agree to disagree I think.

I didn't by the way mean to imply that I presumed you were a student, your spelling (unlike mine) is too good.

No worries A-P.

 

As a matter of fact I'm pretty open minded about the subject and am willing to be convinced that I am wrong. I just think that we should be clear why extra resources need to be committed to the armed forces before actually doing it.