Army troop numbers to be cut to Boer War levels

[Dr. Pain]

The US government spends around a third of its budget on the military. Do you really think that's appropriate?
.

Of course. Massive massive stimulus to their economy and creation of probably hundreds of thousands of American jobs, supporting and building their military infrastructure.

I'd like to know the full count of employed military personnel, AND the total jobs with all the companies providing services, hardware, and machines to the Airforce, Army, and US Navy.

 

[Amp34]

I think it's a good thing, military spending should be appropriate for a country of our size and at the moment it isn't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

TBH...

As AH said we are about proportional to our standing in the world with spending.

Given the number of wars we found ourselves embroiled in that we didn't expect, i.e. Libya, Sierra Leone, The Falklands etc. then this is just plain idiocy. Every defence review's been the same, a hollow pretext retrospectively justifying decisions that have already been made to take the axe to our armed forces.

Pathetic.

Yep. It's been like that for the last 100 years though so don't expect it to change. We scrimp and downsize yearly then expand massively when a war comes out of nowhere (struggling for the first year or so) then start all over again... Lessons never learned...

In before the "we're not going to have another big war" idiots... Now how many times has that been said before?

 

[Hatter The Mad]

Maths fail of epic proportions. You don't pay 100% tax.
Almost as good as the bread and fat quote by who ever it was.

I think you had the maths fail. He said 'the tax pound' - meaning 17% of tax money goes to defence.

You're both wrong, anyway: 7% (7p in every tax pound) goes on defence

 

[Hatter The Mad]

This decision is the worst one of the lot yet. This government is a bunch of ****holes with no clue whatsoever.

I actually used to be conservative, but I shall never, ever, ever vote for them again.

The utter LUNACY of this decision is mindbending.

You do realise that the military cut backs are taking place over nearly a decade, and we're winding down our operations over that period too..?

 

[Glaucus]

I think you had the maths fail. He said 'the tax pound' - meaning 17% of tax money goes to defence.

You're both wrong, anyway: 7% (7p in every tax pound) goes on defence

No ,I'm right.

He said he would prefer a 17% pay increase, applying that 17% of his pay goes to defence. Which it doesn't as his first line states.

 

[Energize]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

TBH...

As AH said we are about proportional to our standing in the world with spending.

You are going by GDP, I'm not. Geography and population size are more relevant.

 

[Xordium]

It's warfighting on the cheap. I don't think any of us would go into surgery under the knife of a surgeon who dabbled with medicine 20 days a year, why should we go to war with people so poorly trained.

As ex TA in a very similar capacity to your example I can say that falls down as I would never have got the experience I gained from my civilian job being employed full time in the military. Why would a soldier entrust their life to a surgeon who rarely gets to practice their trade? Sweeping generalisations can be made both way - we need to see the specifics which of course will be regular cut by x % reservists promised + y % and then that never actually delivered on and then 4 more theatres committed to in god knows where for whatever corporate reason is currently funding the current administration.

 

[Tefal]

The rest of the world (excl. US) has appropriately sized military with related funding. Why can't we?

as a proportion of it's gdp the us isn't really that high. (15th i think)

It's just the fact that America has an insanely high gdp that makes it so high in absolute terms.

 

[Tefal]

You are going by GDP, I'm not. Geography and population size are more relevant.

why are they?

Lets face it these days the army's role of protecting our economic interests is far more important than our mere geographical interests.

 

[Xordium]

why are they?

Lets face it these days the army's role of protecting our economic interests is far more important than our mere geographical interests.

Always been the case that isn't anything new - old Nosey and the East India Company?

 

[Tefal]

Always been the case that isn't anything new - old Nosey and the East India Company?

at least the EIC started their own army too

How great would it be to see the shell expeditionary force seizing oil fields

 

[starfighter]

We don't spend that much GDP wise so our millitary shouldn't be cut. I would prefer the rest of Europe played their part so overall we had something similar to the USA. Germany, Italy and Spain need to up theirs imho.

sux balls but better than losing the new carriers and f-35s. The Army can easier increase its numbers at a later date.

Army is important but we are an island and unlikely to be invaded, having 2 carriers and the appropriate support ships and planes is more important for projecting power. Even France will only have 1 supercarrier. After the USA with their 10+ we will be #2 with 2.

 

[TheYoungster]

You would have thought that 2 world wars would make them think twice about cutting troop numbers, wht if the argentine take another crack at the falklands? do you think with reduced troop numbers, no harriers, no ark royal, reduced numbers of armoured vehicles, fewer tornado's i think we'd struggle to be honest, i think its disgusting they are doing this to our once great country

 

[do_ron_ron]

It is all about saving money. Mind you UK Govt's are as usual a tad slow in reducing numbers in Germany. An expensive country to base troops. They should have been pulled out about ten years after the collapse of Russia. They are not needed in Germany.

About time Govt realised the UK is a small country and cannot afford such large numbers of service personnel. Let the US fight it's own wars. I see Cameron getting flack from SA for being in Libya.

The MOD consumes far too much for the size of the country.

 

[TheYoungster]

So it's fair to keep paying politicians and MP's ridiculous bonuses, spending thousands on education of some officers and civil servants children, bankers bonuses ect ect, but paying soldiers disability benefits and recojperation costs is a bit too difficult for them? I'm going to tay out of this thread because its a subject i take to heart a fair bit

 

[Biohazard]

You would have thought that 2 world wars would make them think twice about cutting troop numbers, wht if the argentine take another crack at the falklands? do you think with reduced troop numbers, no harriers, no ark royal, reduced numbers of armoured vehicles, fewer tornado's i think we'd struggle to be honest, i think its disgusting they are doing this to our once great country

No, because we only need one Typhoon it can single handedly defeat the whole of the South American continent. Don't listen to the naysayers, this thing can take off on a runway the length of my leg, get in the clouds in miliseconds, spot everything in the southern hemisphere and fire off it's missiles so quick that the pilot is having cups of tea on the ground re-arming before they've downed the targets.

Rinse repeat, we've won the world. That's the lasting impression I get from the armchair generals...

 

[Efour]

Its a good viable way to save money.

When we need more cannon fodder all you guys on here that are outraged can sign up and fight for Blighty on my behalf.

 

[Tefal]

You would have thought that 2 world wars would make them think twice about cutting troop numbers, wht if the argentine take another crack at the falklands? do you think with reduced troop numbers, no harriers, no ark royal, reduced numbers of armoured vehicles, fewer tornado's i think we'd struggle to be honest, i think its disgusting they are doing this to our once great country

the submarines typhoons and commandos there might be a bit of a deterrent and the fact that we'd have plenty of warning when the argies try to build up thier military ion advance.

and there's always plan B.

 

[Energize]

why are they?

Lets face it these days the army's role of protecting our economic interests is far more important than our mere geographical interests.

Geographic interests? I'm talking about the country we live in, that's as important as it gets. Such a small landmass and population does not need such a large force to guard it.

 

[Tefal]

Geographic interests? I'm talking about the country we live in, that's as important as it gets. Such a small landmass and population does not need such a large force to guard it.

technically a small population needs a proportionally larger army than a large population to maintain an equal footing.

but what i mean is you're right getting to Britannia for an invasion is very unlikely due to where we are but we still need to operate over seas to secure out economic interests which are considerably larger than many countries much bigger both geographically and population wise than us.