Should Britain remain a 'Tier One' Military Power?

IronGiant

Preaches the man who pays no UK taxes whatsoever

Trollslayer

Maybe we should look at what our armed forces are to be used for.
Being part of US operations or doing things that are more relevant to the UK?
That way we wouldn't be buying the fighter aircraft that looks like it was made by Currys and that we aren't allowed to maintain ourselves.

woody10381

Didn't Russia recently invade a neighbouring sovereign state? Are we confident that they wouldn't push their luck further if they thought there would be no significant reprisals? Obviously it's unlikely that Russia or anyone else would contemplate a full scale invasion of a nuclear-armed NATO member but there is no doubt that they are constantly attempting to determine, undermine and degrade our own capabilities.
What about the defence of our allies, our interests overseas or the defence of those facing persecution (irrespective of this being for political, strategic or humanitarian purposes)?

Ultimately it comes down to the UK government to understand and decide what influence it wishes to project across the globe, what are it's key political interests and what are the threats to those interests - both at home and abroad. This in effects drives its needs /requirements for defence (or offense if you prefer) and defense capability - which has to be balanced against affordability.

Big worldwide influence and strong threat deterrent = "full spectrum forces,deployable worldwide", as you say. Can we afford that in the current climate? Probably not, so we end up leaving it to the politicians to argue over whether 'our' interests are better served through investing in defence, or putting the money elsewhere and accepting the consequences of the resulting capability gaps. I am obviously biased so I know which option I prefer, but that is why we have democracy.

springtide

You mean one of countries that used to be part of the USSR that are constantly changing on the world map?  Chances are, pick one of the ones you mention and see if you can find that country 40 years ago.  

The UK has been he UK on every map I've owned ;-)

woody10381

Irrelevant. Ukraine is a sovereign nation and has such been invaded by a hostile neighbour.

The USSR no longer exists. Is the fact that it used to be part of the USSR a valid justification for its annexation? If so, I guess in your eyes that Russia would be free to stroll back into Eastern Europe, including half of Germany?

India used to be part of the British Empire (or at least ruled by the Empire), which also no longer exists. Would it thus be acceptable for the UK to annex a good chunk of India?

springtide

Its not what I said at all, just the area mentioned has been forever in conflict.
That is how you assess risk of invasion.

Sonic67

Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo by a European coalition.

Historians can't agree on why WWI kicked off.

10 interpretations of who started WW1

And we had made a treaty anyway. Invade Belgium it's war, Belgium is invaded, guess what?

BBC - History -                  British History in depth: The Pals Battalions in World War One

From the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914, it took only five weeks for Europe to slide from nervous peace to raging war. Britain, bound by treaty to aid Belgium, declared war against Germany on 4 August, determined but unready. Its professional army was badly equipped and minuscule in comparison to the conscript-heavy standing armies on the continent.

No realistic chance...

These are the guns of HMS Rodney. One of around a dozen battleships in the Royal Navy.

                                                                               

Note that isn't all the guns on the ship. Look at the blokes near them to get an idea of scale.

Germany had lost most of it's meagre surface fleet during the Norwegian campaign. This is what Germany had in sufficient numbers to carry an invasion force. A German river barge:

                                                                               

If it came to a battle between these two ships, who do you think would win?

Germany had maybe 3 battleships, 7 cruisers, about 20 destroyers.

UK - 15 battleships and battle cruisers, 7 carriers, 35 cruisers, 95 destroyers, and also about 25 submarines.

Note see the link, as different sources have the total slightly different depending on whether they were considered sea-worthy at that moment.

Royal Navy in 1939 and 1945

For some fire support there was the hope of Germany putting some 88mm guns on rafts. Rafts! In the English Channel. Imagine a day of bad weather.

The German army wanted to be landed on a broad front.

The Luftwaffe wanted a narrow front as they felt they couldn't support a broad front.

Neither could come up with a compromise on that and the invasion was cancelled anyway.

Outcome of a wargame:

Operation Sea Lion (wargame) - Wikipedia

The German navy's relative weakness, combined with the Luftwaffe's lack of air supremacy, meant it was not able to prevent the Royal Navy from interfering with the planned Channel crossings. The Navy's destruction of the second invasion wave prevented resupply and reinforcement of the landed troops, as well the arrival of more artillery and tanks. This made the position of the initially successful invasion force untenable; it suffered further casualties during the attempted evacuation. Of the 90,000 German troops who landed only 15,400 returned to France. 33,000 were taken prisoner, 26,000 were killed in the fighting and 15,000 drowned in the English Channel. All six umpires deemed the invasion a resounding failure.

Have a look at how much was involved in D-Day, which was also only four years later, and compare with what Germany had available at the time.

Note, we needed to have lots of Battleships and a big navy to destroy a chance of being invaded.
Preventing the bad guys coming here at all is a perfect defence...

Forces don't just fight wars.

They are dealing with drug runners and pirates. Right now they are dealing with fires in the UK. In the past I was involved with flood relief. There was foot and mouth disease. And it wasn't that long ago that troops were on the streets with police on Op Temperer, and then there was the troops called up for the Olympics.

London 2012: Security measures


Dubious as a simple Google search brings up Africa a lot. Remember my mention of Uganda above?
So are you advocating more money and intervention?
And initially the poppy fields were being destroyed. Then it was felt this was alienating the people were trying to have on our side. Farmers. They want the same as anyone else, an income, to have a family, that stuff. This made money. It was felt that a better solution was to try and improve the country and then as the people feel secure, their is investment in the country, then the country will improve. They are Muslims, you think they want to make money from drugs?
Because you will never reduce it to zero.
See The Man In The High Castle above. Germany rules most of the planet under a dictator, mass genocide. Countries weren't "dragged in." Most of the world was voluntarily against Germany.
Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge conspiracy theory - Wikipedia

However, the Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge conspiracy is considered a fringe theory and is rejected by most historians.

Agreed. But it was the right thing to do. Even ardent pacificsts struggle with WWII not being justified on account of the holocaust.
To defeat tyranny. Millions more would have died if we'd have done nothing. Even putting aside the holocaust there was just 13 democracies left on the planet by 1939, and there was just 9 by 1940.

Just 9.
You mean no different to the rest of Europe?

Si vis pacem, para bellum
Or cut elsewhere. Point is if you have a cancer it's better to deal with it early, than leave it.

EarthRod

It's still conjecture.

Sonic67

We are part involved in it. We aren't going to be buying an aircraft we helped design?

                                                                       

Sonic67

Agreed, though these wars have had a huge raft of historians, documentaries, museums, books and whatever else devoted to them. On balance there's a lot of consensus.