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julianhj said:
This was my take on it a few days ago. Classic fear mongering, though judging by the state of the forces, greater spending is exactly what's needed.
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I’m not sure - preparedness can be useful but without “fear” the politicians have to pitch it to the voters.

It seems like the tories are being given a get out of jail free by putin - either prepare military and look bad to reluctant voters, or, don’t prepare to keep voters in their warm fuzzy lives but risk not being prepared for putin’s european tour’24.
 
platinum87 said:
You are correct, but you skip nuclear weapons entirely. We dont need any soilders (frontline infantry) at all, not even one.

We do need pilots, and mechanics, and engineers though etc, and we should have mandatory military service for the purposes of discipline.
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You need people to arm and fire the missles and you need a tracking system(in the hands of the Yanks). I am dead against any mandatory military system. Once you start with that it is a small step to get the new military minds into a war.
The trouble with nukes is that it is a lose, lose game. If you do not fry first then the cancers from increased backgound radiation will kill more for many, many years. The best is to have a non-military population who despise the military.
PS Back in the day when I was at Uni in the OTC I asked a Major who was in charge of our training about conscription and he said "No way". "You get guys just living for the day they are finished. I want people who want to be there". At that time, given his age and the time, he would have experienced conscripts.
Are you going to pay the extra taxation for an increased military? It means more trainers, bases, food, loads of equipment. All costs so you will need a few pence increase in taxation to pay for it.
 
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Just to put it into perspective this is what the army appear to be asking for:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68097048

'Cuts have already seen the size of the British Army fall from more than 100,000 in 2010 to around 73,000 now. Gen Sanders said that within the next three years the British Army needed to be 120,000 strong with the addition of reserves. But he said even that is not enough.....'

'He was not making a case for conscription or for an imminent call up of volunteers. Instead, he was urging Britain to prepare for a mass mobilisation of tens of thousands of people, should war break out.'
 
esmozz said:
Just to put it into perspective this is what the army appear to be asking for:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68097048

'Cuts have already seen the size of the British Army fall from more than 100,000 in 2010 to around 73,000 now. Gen Sanders said that within the next three years the British Army needed to be 120,000 strong with the addition of reserves. But he said even that is not enough.....'

'He was not making a case for conscription or for an imminent call up of volunteers. Instead, he was urging Britain to prepare for a mass mobilisation of tens of thousands of people, should war break out.'
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From the same source

To train and equip that larger army would inevitably require more money. The government says it wants to spend 2.5% of national income on defence - but has still not said when.
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The UK is structurally crumbling but the military wants to spend more on new toys which means less for the leaking schools(Panaorama recently), NHS etc. Sorry, I think the people come before militarists especially when the threat to the UK from Russia is almost non-existant. I am more worried about Russian money to the Tory party.
 
do_ron_ron said:
The UK is structurally crumbling but the military wants to spend more on new toys which means less for the leaking schools(Panaorama recently), NHS etc. Sorry, I think the people come before militarists especially when the threat to the UK from Russia is almost non-existant. I am more worried about Russian money to the Tory party.
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Personally don't consider the threat from Russia, or a greater global escalation, non-existent, but having a more robust readiness would go a long way to rendering it non-existent IMO. The world is far more destabilised since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Russia might not pose much of a threat in terms of a wider conventional war now but they are rearming - ignoring that lead to WW2.
 
esmozz said:
Just to put it into perspective this is what the army appear to be asking for:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68097048

'Cuts have already seen the size of the British Army fall from more than 100,000 in 2010 to around 73,000 now. Gen Sanders said that within the next three years the British Army needed to be 120,000 strong with the addition of reserves. But he said even that is not enough.....'

'He was not making a case for conscription or for an imminent call up of volunteers. Instead, he was urging Britain to prepare for a mass mobilisation of tens of thousands of people, should war break out.'
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At a tail to tooth ratio of 10:1, 120,000 still only gives 12,000 combat troops.
 
413x said:
As I thought. That's me out.
Luckily I can be relieved about something that was never going to happen.

I mean...
Of course I would. I love my country. Throw me in the grinder... But.. Knee issues!
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You can type, you can fight.
 
do_ron_ron said:
From the same source



The UK is structurally crumbling but the military wants to spend more on new toys which means less for the leaking schools(Panaorama recently), NHS etc. Sorry, I think the people come before militarists especially when the threat to the UK from Russia is almost non-existant. I am more worried about Russian money to the Tory party.
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Indeed. There are much more important things to spend the money on than more military personnel.

I can't understand how anyone can realistically see a war between nato and Russia ever ending up with feet on the group in either territory vs a nuclear wasteland.
 
Uther said:
Stuff like that would go right out the window in a real emergency. How many Ukranians are off with a bad knee currently do you think...
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It'll never get that bad. UK would be gone by time it even came to organising this.

We are a small country too. Wouldn't take many nukes to kill everyone in the UK and make it a dead zone for centuries.
 
413x said:
Indeed. There are much more important things to spend the money on than more military personnel.

I can't understand how anyone can realistically see a war between nato and Russia ever ending up with feet on the group in either territory vs a nuclear wasteland.
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There are a lot of dimensions in between - a very realistic long term outcome of Ukraine is a return to the worst days of the Cold War and needing a significant presence on the borders of Europe as a deterrent and that doesn't work without boots on the ground.

A less likely but not improbable one is Russia trying some version of the so called "salami slice" tactic, gambling on how far they can push it without triggering a nuclear escalation. Though I can't see that happening before they've established themselves in Ukraine and got to work on exerting their influence into eastern Europe via a mixture of threat of force and internal meddling, before maybe moving on to the Baltics if they can sow enough chaos in eastern Europe.
 
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