Have no concern about the spending on the military be it 2% or 10% of gdp,
The big debate needs to be about why the "Defence" budget needs to include "full spectrum forces,deployable worldwide"...I would expect the defence budget is more than adequate for the defence of the UK
How many times has the UK been under proper risk of invasion since the Spanish Armada...
If the UK government want to be a part of the world police along with the US is another issue altogether but i doubt most people would be prepared to pay more taxes for that
Napoleonic wars, WW1 and WW2 off the top of my head.
I've been deployed to Bosnia and Cyprus as part of the UN. We are one of the few permanent members of the UN security council.
Bosnia was because there was a civil war and genocide being done. Mainly to Muslims. If UNPROFOR hadn't been used it was thought the war might escalate and Muslim countries might intervene in the war to protect "their" people.
As it happened the UN safe havens wasn't that successful and Nato took over. As a Nato member we were involved in that as well.
Cyprus has been ongoing since the 70s with no resolution. The countries are both Nato members (as are we) and the UN hopes they might eventually agree to a settlement. I don't think it will become a shooting war but at one point in the past there was a serious riot. So a lot of the training was riot training. A lot of it, for me, involved putting out fires in the disputed zone, and working with multiple other nations. So a lot of diplomacy. The second largest commitment is Argentinian. Not think it's a good idea we work together, side by side diplomatically?
Iraq - down to Blair. He did win three terms. If you didn't want troops in Iraq, stop voting for him. Or maybe most didn't care enough.
Afghanistan - country was falling apart and a breeding ground for terrorism. After bombing camps, Nato decided to be pro-active and try and sort the country out by training up ISAF troops (Afghanis). The idea being we could stop terrorists there before they came here. It involved training locals, building schools etc.
First Gulf War. We were involved as Saddam invaded Kuwait and may have done similar to Saudi Arabia. That would have meant owning a huge chunk of the worlds oil. As we had created Kuwait it was felt we should be involved in the coalition to liberate it.
Sierre Leone - rapid intervention there prevented it going downhill and a huge success.
Haiti - humanitarian. We were still involved, troops, helicopters, carriers. Should we have done nothing?
Ebola outbreak - I have a mate who's a medic. He was deployed there, again for humanitarian reasons.
Uganda - involves training local troops.
Kenya - means closer ties between our countries, gives us a huge training area. Note if you are firing big shells you need massive ranges. Hence, Kenya, Canada etc. We need areas to practice in. Also involves working with allies. Stuff like this also "tests the system." It makes sure we can gather lots of kit and people and deploy it. Even low level stuff like map reading is tested. Keep using Brecon and after a while you don't need a map as you know every inch of it. That then means "skill-fade." You train in the same place with the same conditions constantly and you aren't tested.
I could go on, but a lot of the deployments are because we are a member of the UN and Nato, we can't ask other countries to help with other countries if we aren't ourselves.
Some of it is for humanitarian reasons. If you see an earthquake happen somewhere, usually it's on the news and people ask why we aren't doing something about it. Would you rather we did nothing? Serious question as it's your taxes.
Other deployments are to train up locals. I went to Kazakhstan to train the local forces so they could then be deployed by the UN in future. Which then means they can do it instead of us.
Not every other army in the world is as professional as us. Some might send troops who loot, rape, or torture. Or they might meet the bad guys and get killed rapidly as they aren't "professional." Again some training by us can fix that.
As another aside, what if the US decided to stop being the world's policeman and be purely a defensive force?
Where would we be in the last two world wars? If that had happened?
"The Man In The High Castle," follows this scenario. A former US president was killed, and a non interventionist president elected.
Later the UK never got the lend-leese kit, so Germany eventually ruled Europe, then developed a "Heisenberg device" and dropped it on Washington. The US surrendered, and was then occupied by Japan and Germany.
Africa then had mass genocide.
Edit: and following on, if we decided to not get involved with the UN, left Nato etc then there would probably be numerous civil wars, and invasions going on we might have stopped (with other allies).
Fine it won't affect us. Until all the people living in those areas decide to live somewhere where it's peaceful and come here. Are we going to accept them all or turn them all away?
So yes we could be isolationist but it will involve the humanitarian side as well as the military side.
Each of them were declarations of war by Britain.data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
.i think the Germans could have made a more comprehensiveplan for operation sea lion during WW2 if they were serious,even the Overlord planners thought so...
Well like i said that is an issue for the taxpayers to decide but i'm not one of them and humanitarian relief is a good reason but none of the instances you mentioned are anything to do with defence...
Not going to go through all your list but the biggest breeding ground and funding for terrorism is Saudi Arabia,i don't see the government doing too much about that place or any humanitarian efforts for the people of the Yemen who are being killed on mass(oh wait doesn't the UK sell a lot of those products to Saudi Arabia)
The result of Afghanistan is the easy availability of a certain product from that region in the UK and the terrorists are still among us
Just a thought but where would we be if we never declared war on germany and dragged the populations of 1/3 of the planet in to a conflict
Don't think the US were too keen to get involved anyway that's why when certain people in the US were informed of the pending Pearl Harbor attack (by British intelligence who had cracked Japans codes )they moved most of their important ships away and let it happen knowing the outcry from the US population would let them come in to the war
...and so what?data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
We were still at risk of invasion, which is what you asked data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
That's conjecture.
And conjecture that the world or UK would be better for us doing nothing.
I'll answer the rest properly later.
Let's suppose we'd never fought Napoleon or had an Empire and kept out of everything.
France under Napoleon and subsequently later, gets a big Empire. The Empire we would have had. France was a rival to the UK over Empire building. In fact the US war of Independence was a proxy war between the UK and France. We are keeping out of it so France dominates.
1940 - Germany takes France. Germany inherits France's Empire.
It was because we had the big Empire we were able to fight Germany.
Proper risk i asked data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
Not a few barges being towed across the north sea data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
Who knows but what is not conjecture is Britain was basically bankrupted by WW2..millions died ....For what exactly and before anyone quotes Tyranny etc they would do well to remember how the empire was acquired.
My point is maybe it should be called the Ministry of Offence in reference to Defence budgets because their hasn't been a lot of defending needed for years...You can't pick a fight with someone then start pleading self defence
The point of the thread is should Britain remain a tier one military power,,if you want it to be then get your hands in your pockets and pay for it,,,simple,,,,