Updated Defence Command Paper published

We have always been ‘Global Britain’ and we continue to be so. It is no myth and it does not mean we are a superpower with enormous armed forces.
It means we are globally engaged, have friends and bases in many parts of the world, have renowned soft power and diplomacy, excellent intelligence services operating in many parts of the world, a bluewater navy, globally deployable forces, export our culture and our goods widely etc etc.

Stop mainlining the cool aid.

Everything Graham said is factually correct, we are by every measure still a great power…the problem is we measure ourselves against the benchmark of being a superpower, we were one for over a hundred years before losing the status and for our generation we lived in a bipolar world of two superpowers….it’s sunk into the British way of thinking that if your not the worlds premier super power your nothing on the world stage..and that is just BS, for the majority of history the world has been sculpted by a larger number of great powers not one or two super powers ( that was really only a thing for around 50-70 years of PAX Britannia, then the 45 years of the Cold War and the 20 years of the US end of history era…..we are now back in a multipolar great powers free for all and the UK is most definitely one of around 10 recognised great powers..infact we are one of the more influential ones.

David, is that a serious comment? Which of my factors do you dispute?
You clearly don’t know the difference between a superpower, global power, hemispheric power, regional power or local power.

Being a global power does not mean you have the same level of armed forces or level of force projection as a superpower. Many other factors, mostly non-military, are considered.

Conversely having large armed forces does not make a country a global power – there are many far more factors at play, as I said. Russia, India are (strong) regional powers but are not global powers.

By all measures, the UK is a global power. See the Henry Jackson Society (HJS) Geopolitical Index. It includes 33 different indicators, 62 components and over 1240 potential data observations, combined into a composite score.

HJS determined, after a bit more analysis than you, that USA is a superpower – and UK, China, France are global powers. Hemispheric powers, regional powers and local powers were also listed and ranked.

Page 31 – https://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/HJS-2019-Audit-of-Geopolitical-Capability-Report-web.pdf

Agree, funnily enough we are the only country on planet earth with sovereign territory in striking range of almost every choke point on planet earth.

Choke point? As in maritime straits?

Yes

Good job we’ve got a good navy then!

exactly and those that continue to run the UK down should maybe leave and go to a more mediocre nation

Indeed, I agree with all that.

Every PRC involvement is a vulnerability. It both feeds their regime & puts a noose around our own necks.

We don’t need to go cap in hand to them, they need our ascent to join CPTPP.

there’s no need. If we invest in a few key building block technologies and our core infrastructure we can produce everything we need at the same or lesser price than anywhere.

Robotics, AI, Quantum, 3D printing are the key technologies
Access to natural Resources is the key and China are 20 yrs ahead in locking this down in Africa, but we have good relations with OZ etc.

What we do need is an industrial strategy that supports the UK, as only then can we be competitive to Export.

Time for a rest all round really

A Esteban, our favourite Mexican is back 😀

I prefer Speedy Gonzalez myself.

No one is sure what you exactly say with your pretend US accent…

A very clear exposition of known facts. That won’t do around here!

Nice one. This could be be closer. Two facets of the same argument, neither knowing what the other side is up to. We’ll have to watch and wait. :wpds_arrow: 

I do think we are like that spinning star. We have an identity crises. We can’t decide who we are because we haven’t come to terms with our history. So we go around changing GB stickers for UK stickers on our cars thinking that somehow this will solve the problem. I have an old wooden school ruler embossed with all the monarchs. It starts at 1066. That’s our problem. With the Domesday book the Normans attempted to airbrush England out of history. But England ( thanks mainly to the women folk) bounced back and the Plantagenets ruled half of France. We have to remember how we came into being, how we were formed as a nation – England ( and Scotland and Ireland) all came into being more than 1000 years ago as nation states by defeating Viking invaders. What we have to do is to politically recognise England; she needs her own parliament. Then reconstruct GB ( and UK if NI wants to join) in a federal arrangement. I realise its not easy since England is economically dominant, but a way has to be found. I think the reason people cling to the NHS ( we no longer cling to the C of E) is that it embodies what remains of the soul of England – it defines us as a people; together with the cricket team of course 🙂 The House of Lords also has to go. Its a system of patronage which dates from a time when William 1 handed out parcels of conquered England to his lieutenants. It’s not appropriate today, its not working and its being abused.

Cannot disagree with much of that to be honest. I agree there should be an English legislature …it both lessens the English and pisses off the Welsh and Scots that we have this thing called Westminster, that is both an English legislature and a British parliament all at the same time. We are three nations always have been, but we have huge shared culture as well. For me the UK should be a federal state it makes a lot of sense. I would go so far as to say that there should be a number of English legislatures based on the regions and blocks of around 10, million population…London does a piss poor job of supporting the English regions always has…at present this nation has a strong voice for Scotland, Wales’s and anywhere inside the circle of the M25..everyone else just gets lip service.

As for the Plantagenets they were French through and through for them England was nothing more than a bank and war camp.

finally the House of Lords, not having a seconded elected house is madness for a modern democracy…yes it needs to be a house of experts not politicians, but these can still be voted for and have a limited term of office. It should be something that people who have worked all their lives in afield and are expert could aspire to becoming part of….there also should be no politic parties in the lords…every member should be neutral…you can do it….parish councils are filled with people who are voted in without any affiliation to a party.

We need one Parliament & Government for England – the regions will be represented.
Most of the Lords are experts and we are all the better for that – but peerages should not be given to party donors, if that is their only claim to fame – that is corrupt.

Hi graham I think we can agree on peerages given out to party donors..but I think any system that allows the political parties to choose who gets a seat in the House of Lords is open to corruption..the lords it’s meant to be a check and balance as well as expert view…the only far way I can see of getting experts into the lords is some form of democratic vote ( with maybe an elongated term of 10 years or so). Also I would not have the lords votes based around just regions, but also other methods, so not just a popular vote but also expert votes etc: we could get imaginative about democracy…maybe the forces should get some representation in the lords and it’s actually serving personal and veterans that get the vote, same thing with healthcare professions..actually healthcare professionals have a good idea of what a good expert on health systems would look like so maybe they get the vote…we could mix and match…remove the party politics and get a different type of second house with a slightly different way of doing democracy for that house ( as it’s not a pin any way democratic at present we can play a bit).

Good ideas. There is talent in the Lords – many from Industry, the Arts etc – that is good. Must ban party donors, as we agree. Need some Lords coming up from the Commons as they know the business of law making.

I doubt many of the electorate would get enthused about voting for new Members. People have not been interested in voting for their local PCC, for example.

The Plantsgenate period saw the development of fundamental principles of English Law including opening it up to English speakers. https://www.johnsonastills.com/site/blog/ejablog/king-richard-iiis-law

You pack a lot in to your post. Fully agree that Blair blundered in not graning England devolution – that was ufair and undemocratic and it means that central government in Westminster spends an awful lot of time and energy in directing/lording it over English counties.
I disagree with your opinion of the House of Lords – it has been reformed numerous times and does not need further reform. We are well served in having very experienced and talented people there to review and amend draft laws. What does stick in the throat is ex-PMs giving peerages to their mates, some of whom have just bunged money at their political party – its that system that is wrong. I have no problem with the Hereditary Peers who are not tainted that way.

I am not confused by our national identity and place in the world – who is…and why? They must not be capable of much reflective thought.

Agree many peers have expert skills and do good work. But usually their influence is to no avail because their work is overturned in the Commons. In order for the Lords to have the influence or ought to it must become democratically accountable. It must morph into an elected senate. A peerage should just be the candidate selection process.
As regards confusion of identity I recall about 50% of people think we are a European nation and 50% think we are something else. 50% of Scots think Scotland should be an independent county and about 50% of people in Northern Ireland think NI should be Irish. Numbers approximate of course. The UK is united in name only. The US and the EU are looking on in bemusement and despair while Putin and China see a vulnerable wounded antelope which has cut itself off from the protection of the herd and are manoeuvring for the kill.

Sorry about the delay Paul, been away. Hope you read this.
I’ll kick off by saying I agree with everything you’ve said. We are becoming unraveled. Devolution, immigration, woke attacks? Even the desocialising effect of the internet. I don’t know what’s to blame but I do feel it’s happening.
There
should be a properly established English parliament with memers from English constituencies only. All four nations should have the same powers, including taxation (but not VAT), coming together for the likes of defence and foreign affairs and so on. Once upon a time I would have advocated some form of regional government but now we already have London., Birmingham etc. with elected mayors so perhaps it’s no longer practical. As an ex Councillor I think there is a vet strong argument as to why we need three levels of local government, county, district and parish. County is the most questionable. Education really needs to be fully nationally funded as most of the budget already is. Almost everything that’s left could become an agency eg fire service or taken up with A SINGLE COUNCIL of merged district and parish where there is huge overlap. This would bring a lot of the day to day decisions that effect people closer to the people.
Axe the House of Lords and remove the church. Alternatively if we want a second chamber then make it one of experts from all walks of life to advise the government. NO POLITICAL parties.

Afternoon Geoff. No worries, hope you enjoyed your trip. There’s no obligation to reply but have to say I agree with what you write; and with your impression or sensation that some ‘de-socialising’ influence is at work.

No obligation to reply but I wanted to. Your post was interesting.🙂

Thx. I do think that the discussion is improved by taking a longer view of history. Two thoughts: England came into being at the battle of Brunanburh in 937. That’s a long time ago. When a nation forgets how it was born ( as we did in 1066 and in the Reformation and the Civil War) it needs to refresh its memory by remembering the original coming together as a people to resist invasion – the Armada, Napoleon, Hitler… Brexit? Remember has 2 meanings. It also means to put something back together…
Secondly, remember that Nelson said England expects, not the UK expects. If you want to build a house you need sound foundations. In my view a UK constitution needs to be built explicitly on the identifiable foundations of the 4 nations. Right now its an English house with Scottish, Welsh and Irish extensions. There was an old lady who swallowed a fly comes to mind.
in addition to an English parliament I would like to see an English national anthem for sporting events ( Jerusalem) and a new national saint that is unique to England. Lots of countries have St George. St Alban comes to mind. cheers

Interesting starting point Paul. Who are the English? Prior to what I suppose would be the second “England”, the first being essentially a centralized Roman state, by 937 we were original Britons, Roman ( with all it’s races), Saxon and Norse. Predominantly then German and Scandinavian. Farmers, seaman and warriors. A good start.
Today, unlike the other nations who have largely kept their identity, England is a multi racial society with around ten percent of it’s population being Asian and Black. Does it make a difference? I don’t know. My belief and I hope I’m right is that the overwhelming majority of people regard themselves as British but I’m less sure about English?
I’m sorry to say that I don’t think most English people have any real knowledge of their heritage and to be honest I don’t think they care. National day’s ..St. Andrew, St. David, St Patrick. How many people know when St. George’s Day is? What do we celebrate? Nothing.
I’m all for an English National Anthem and Jerusalem will do for me. The King is not just the King of England so why not join the other nations and have an anthem of our own.

Evening Geoff, my starting point is a definition of the process of mutual self interest and shared defence by which a group of communities defines itself a people – at Eamont Bridge the kings of Anglia, Mercia, Wessex etc ( and also Scotland and Strathclyde and the Prince of Wales) pledged their allegiance to Aethelstan, the Victor at Brunanburh. In his ecclesiastical history of the English people in about AD 731 Bede effectively christened the various tribes on these isles as one people. The book has been described as a progression from diversity to unity, from heathendom to Christianity – a process which is iterative, repeating as each wave of immigration ( starting in 1066) has arrived. Not working so well of late though. Although the Windrush generation is a recent success story – they were rejected by the C of E but kept their faith and just started their own churches. Food for thought 🙂

Getting a bit deep for my historical knowledge now Paul but I do think the Windrush Generation were brave enough to take on all that was thrown at them and mostly make a successful life in the UK, they and their children. Is it true today? Probably not but this last twenty years we have entered a period of “I want and I want it now” across the younger generation of all races.

Glad you said that about the last 20 years. It’s almost as if a world wide epidemic spirit of ‘me, me, me ‘ has been running riot. I’m hoping it’s a kind of storm which is abating. cheers.

I don’t know about wasps but are you certain nothing more …? The fact is the version of ‘the British Empire’ we are given is through the lens of Hollywood, snobbish and always devious invaders and occupiers*. In fact Britain’s genius was establishing countries around the globe by giving them the benefit of our system of law and justice and standing them on their own feet. I have just this week seen a gross caricature of ‘the British’ in India on an American website that has it as red coats oppressing the natives. Still, there you go. Incidentally Belgium was a good choice as a foil to Blighty’s colonial record. It ran its African Empire with the uttermost cruelty, condemned before the world by the British. We recruited and trained numerous armies from the colonies. Despite Gandhi (a London trained lawyer!) preaching (anti-British) pacifism, a million Indians joined up at the out break of the Second World War. But it was an Empire based on trade protected by a navy. That was its only organising power; the rule of law and trade**.

* Britain left India in 1947 bands playing; Americans left Saigon and Kabul in disorder.

** Canada had two gold rushes but no wild west; Indians who fought for rights in the U.S. lived side by side with incomers in Canada because it had law.

Agree with all of that and have an interest in history and politics and recognise every part of that response. I was careful not to stray into the merits and evils of the British Empire, it was just to say the country was great power on land and sea and its power of the purse and ingenuity. For me the rule of law is the one to be proud of. Don’t get me started on Hollywood…in terms of Belgium, yes I lived there for many years and why I gave the casual reference, it’s ‘heart of darkness’ in Congo was pure evil but that’s too big to cover here. Only snort wasps, nothing else.

Yes but that does not lessen that fact Britain was the predominant great power for almost a hundred years, and every other power on the globe knew very well that Britain would crush them if they stepped out of line…. the US did spend the entire time from 1815 to the great rapprochement ( from 1895) just waiting for the chance to invade Canada…the only reason it did not was Britain making sure the US was well aware that any attack on Canada would result in its shipping being swept from the seas and a crushing economic blockade until they simple lost…all the worlds powers even those hostile to Britain followed the rules of PAX Britannia, not because they thought we were good chaps..but because they knew that to interfere in key British interests was have their economies destroyed by the RN and not having a thing they could do about it due to overwhelming force…the fact we were on balance more about trade and control of markets over conquest by armies was functionally irrelevant when measuring Britain as a great power. Ask china, due to a peculiarity of history and the east India company..china had no understanding of the actual power of the British empire and the RN, pushed a war with Britain and lost completely….which also shows that military power as deterrent only works if the potential enemy understands your power..the RN littering sailed up and down in front of the US to give them the hint…but never went near china due to the east India company agreement…so China made a big mistake and started a war with the premier world power of the time. But what makes a great power is conditional on the time and place….can you be a great power in the nuclear age without a credible number of effective nuclear weapons…in reality it’s possible but difficult…there is a reason five specific nations have permanent seats in the UN Security Council and anyone who thinks it’s because they were the powers that won a war 70 odds years ago is delusional ( the ROC got removed from the council and the seat was given to china just after it was clear they had a meaningful stockpile of deliverables nuclear weapons)…some time soon there will be new perimeters that a nation will need to be considered a great power ( maybe biotec, quantum tec etc).

Probably one of the greatest feats of any country was the British blockade in the war of 1812. Given how weak we were after the seven years war with many generals dead, I think wholly that if we had maintained our grip on the States in 1814, we would have crushed them.

Is that why you lost the war? Sounds like a great plan. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened in history, but keep that thought alive. It’s a great story

Lost the war of 1812 ? I suppose thats whats taught in US high schools .
I suppose you reckon US won its previous war against its former ally France in 1798 , actually called the quasi war as it wasnt formally declared , but they against each other at sea after the US reneged on its war debts

Ummm really Great Britain did not loss the war of 1812..it was a draw..the US could not make headway and win the war even when Great Britain was fighting for its life during the Napoleonic wars.after the final collapse of Napoleon’s dreams Great Britain could have turned all its might on the US and the US would have been utterly destroyed ( ask any historian..the reality was the Britain was the last great power standing in Europe and it could have turned on the US and destroyed it). But Great Britain could not really take the expense of holding a county like the US so both sides came to terms…effectively Britain’s did not want to take the US by force ( it’s never been modus operandi of Great Britain to hold nations using military force beyond a certain point…it subjugated and controlled using other methods) and the US had used its entire military might at the point Britains was fighting against the worlds other premier power and got nowhere ( apart from having its capital city burnt). The simple truth is the US at that point in history was a hyper aggressive expansionist empire..( it destroyed and ethically cleansed a large number of nations) if it could have taken Canada by force at any point in the 19century ( before 1895ish) it would have done so at the drop of a hate…it feared and disliked the British empire.

Ah your fan boy support for the country that wont take you is admirable!

We never lost that war the yanks got lucky at New Orleans lolll remember wellington didn’t desire the North America command. With France defeated they’d have made mincemeat of you.
You’ll know that New England threatened to secede from the US, not only that, the federalists desired closer ties to Britain. Indeed Washington, Hamilton, Franklin etc never wanted to cut ties with Britain. Remember the olive branch petition after the king had forsaken the colonies a year before?? The Americans were so horrified that their kinsmen would jettison them, John Adams wife wrote to him saying “let us declare our independence they are not worthy to be called our brethren”!!

Lost the war of 1812? The U.S. declared war on the UK while its back was turned fighting Napoleon, thinking it could grab Canada but failed, the British burned down the White House (and most of Washington) … What other fairy tales do they teach in America?

War of 1812? Are you getting confused with the American War of Independence (1776-83)? GB was still fighting in the Napoleonic Wars in 1812. The Seven Years War ended 59 years before that.

That’s a great story. Not really true but it’s a good story nevertheless

Well actually the explanation of the RN and it’s deterrent approach and success in preventing the US from attacking Canada is a strait quote from a very respected US expert on geopolitical history…all Opinions are valid, it’s just some are well thought out and based on wide ranging reading and knowledge developed from a large numbers of sources..others are just thoughts of one person at that time based on their immediate feelings.

What, the story you tell the US border patrol? Up to you what you say when you keep getting caught.

Thanks for pointing out what parts of the “story” are factually incorrect and posting what u think actually happened.
So insightful 🤦🏼‍♂️

Read Paul Kennedy. Appeasement was first practiced in the 19th century when the U.S. threatened the Great Britain. Oregon conceded with chinks of the Dakotas and Canada and Newfoundland de-militarised.

I’ve read A lot of Paul Kennedy’ s works cheers, The simple fact is the US did not invade Canada after the 1815 war because it could not have won, simple as, if you look at the flow of the 1812 war by 1814 Britain was refocusing back towards the North America conflict, the war of 1812 was essentially a side campaign to Great Britain but it took every U.S. military resource to fight it..the US banked on Britain being tied up in a European fight to the death..so once Great Britain could focus on the North American war the US was never getting anywhere other than losing, later in 1814 Britain had retaken all the US gains had put a first rate battle ship on Lake Ontario and taken the coast of Maine, basically if Britain had gone all in the US was going to loss its east coast ports…with no Friendly European power to support them the U.S. would have been to put it bluntly buggered…the simple fact was the British at that time had other things to do than subjugate the US with all the expense that would have entailed. In the first half of the 19c the British government turned Canada into a fortress and ensured the RN were alway ready and able to blockade the US.then it went and focused on other places .It was not until the end of the 19c that the US could have really prevented that blocked…and by that time the rapprochement was well underway.

Just stop.

Stop what? Brit squaddies walking out of your local authority flat at 06:00hrs in the morning? You better tell that to them pal, not us, good lad.

I read it last century and I too cannot find when he said it. Whatever, it is true. Too small a country. Our genius was to raise armies in other territories, call them countries and teach them to defend themselves (and our interests!).

He did, but he changed his views on things more than he changeds his pants, so that isn’t surprising

the UK received 26% of total amount of the Marshall Plan

My understanding is it received around 4 million. That would pay the interest on the debt. West Germany was re-built. When Keynes went to Washington to ask for debt forgiveness he was brushed away; ‘Is America going to treat Great Britain as if it were Balkan nation?’ he asked. ‘Yes.’ A poll held in the U.S. on British debt relief was 61 per cent against ‘any further assistance’ to Great Britain.

Keynes went to the US to discus the UK war debt. He end up with a low (ish) interest loan from the US and Canada. He died in 1946 and the Marshall plan started in 1948. the split between loans and grants was pretty simlear for the UK,France and Germany

The problem Simon is the comparative figures at scale. Great Britain’s debt in 45 has been estimated at 75 billion (and that may well be rough guess). We re-built our country by our own efforts.

Yeah and they spent it on maintaining their bits of pink on the map while Europe was modernising! The Europeans had electric rail while we were using steam in the 60s

Indeed that is what happened. You often learn more about yourself and how you need to change when you lose or fail. If you win then you see no reason to change. You only get serious about self improvement when the strategies you have always relied cease to work. I think this applies to nations as well as individuals. No pain no gain as they say. The peculiar thing about British culture is that we are addicted to pain but don’t seem to learn anything. We keep voting for the same numpties.

Germans too had steam trains like Britain into late 60s early 70s
It was really about coal still the predominate energy source
US didnt have its cities and industries devastated by the war damage and huge oil production

or have to pay for oil in dollars.Coal was seen as keep the balance of payments better by the Tory’s and keeping people in work by Labour

Great Britain had coal and it was cheap. We rapidly dumped the ‘pink’ on the map following Suez (1956); Harold MacMillan was pro-Atlantic alliance and wished to appease the Americans by showing them we were harmless. One African diplomat, speaking this century, privately was of the opinion we went away too fast.

The Marshall Plan was around 13.5 billion USD. The U.K.’s share would be then around 4.5 billion USD as I wrote. Our national debt has been estimated (Mark Blyth) at 75 billion GBP, a colossal debt. Roosevelt always made it plain he had no intention of rescuing Great Britain from bankruptcy and at Yalta privately told this to Stalin.

other people have said 21 billion

Not half in France voted PCF in standard legislative elections
1946 28%
1951 26%
Prewar it was 15% , but a broader Popular Front , which included the communists, won with 57% in 1936

I believe polling suggested the ‘half’ figure. The Communists were determined to claim ‘Resistance’ was all their own work! DeGaulle had to put two Communists into his governments when he became President. The fear of Communist take overs was nota complete fiction. Still, those proportions have never had a matching figure in the U.K. Another British failure along with National Fronts.

Always the silly excuse. UK had the biggest Marshall Plan help and was not destroyed like Germany, France Italy.

By 1970 West Germany was already richer than UK. You have no excuse for the dominating Fabian ideology or worse that prevades UK since the 20-30’s till today.

John Maynard Keynes was a Liberal (as was William Beveridge, architect of the Welfare State). Nixon adopted Keynesian economics! Facts are not excuses.

All major and some minor (i.e. Dover, Canterbury, Plymouth, etc.) were heavily bombed. Three quarters of a million houses were destroyed and many more practically uninhabitable.

As I have pointed out Great Britain’s debts in 1945 have been estimated at 75 billion GBP. Marshall Aid was 4.5 billion USD. In real terms the national debt was more than eighty times greater (@ five dollars to the GBP) than Marshall Aid. The last repayment of British war debt was made in 2006.

JMK, Nixon. What that have to do with anything? No one followed JMK despite many calling themselves Keynesians noe followed the cardinal rule of counter cycle policies.

Peanuts compared to Germany, France, Italy, others.

“The last repayment of British war debt was made in 2006.”

So,again what that has to do with anything. The longer you pay the better and as if debt can not be traded.

It is quite bizarre the arguments about British WW2 debt.

Global deployment is self-defence. The greatest short and medium term threats are through our global trade base to our economy. The world’s trade is globally interdependent, and its disruption in one place affects many others, as we have seen looking at the effects on the UK economy of the war in Ukraine. If US and China war over Taiwan, it will tank the UK economy for a decade or longer, whether we show up or not. Deterrence is the key to stability and it’s in our own interest to play our part.

Global stability was in reach in the 1990s, but we (the West) took our eyes off the ball, and decided that terrorism should use up those few resources we still gave to the military. We shrank, and allowed others to fill the vacuum.

Hi Roy there are are actually a number of great powers, they are states able to influence on a global scale…they due to their economic, political and military power. The Uk is the fifth richest nation on earth and is one of only five nations that can completely destroy any other nation state on the planet, it’s has one of only two/tree navies than can sustain significant global deployments. It has territories across every ocean on the planet and has its its military deployed across the globe. By every measure the UK is a great power and has been for around for a long long time. Your confusing super power with great power.

present great powers:
Full spectrum great powers( superpowers) :
US and China,
partial spectrum great powers:
UK, Russian, France, Germany, Japan.
other potential great powers (not universally agreed)
Italy and India
Emerging great powers ( not there yet but will be)
India and Brazil, South Korea and some include the major oils rich states Saudi etc.

I am afraid one can create any scale one wishes but the broader and more all encompassing the scale, the less useful it is. If the definition is: “states able to influence on a global scale”, that would basically apply to any medium-sized power; i.e. at least all the G20 states and probably more. That stretches the definition of the term “Great Power” to the point of irrelevance.

By any traditional definition (which is that which has prevailed since at least 1648), a Great Power is: a) a state that is recognized by other Great Powers in the system as one of the core rule makers in the system and b) a state capable of independent action, so that when it takes such action, even in a disruptive way, it cannot be easily opposed by other states in the system without risking system-wide war.

The UK has not met such a definition since at least 1956, and it was already severely weakened from functioning in that way even at the end of the Second World War.

None of the current Great Powers – the US, China or Russia – would really recognize the UK (or any of the other states you mention) as a power having an equivalent seat at the table with them. Yes, the UK and France hang-on to their permanent UNSC seats but really only out of inertia and due to the stagnant and increasingly irrelevant nature of the UN system.

As I say, I think Russia’s future status as a Great Power now hangs in the balance but there is nothing debatable about the UK’s position – at least based on a traditional definition which I personally see no need to depart from.

Roy I use the term in its fully accepted academic and geopolitical meaning as per generally accepted across the globe by all powers including the UN.

the simple fact is by any and every measure the Uk is around the fourth or fifth most powerful nation on the planet…

2014 publication Great Power Peace and American Primacy, Joshua Baron consider the UK a great power.

American international legal scholar Milena Sterio considered the UK a great power

zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski the United Nations security adviser considered the UK a great power.

the list is of key academics and leaders in the field of geopolitical who consider the Uk as a great power is essentially exhaustive.

im really sorry but you have fallen into the classic British trap of only considering the worlds premier powers as great powers. This comes from the fact we were the world’s premier great power for a hundred years and then moved to the Cold War and a bipolar world. Your view is not the accept view across the globe. It’s a valid view, it’s just not the accepted view.

What I do find it hard to credit that you would consider Russia a world power and yet not the Uk…Russia is only actually still on the list because of its nuclear weapons and the fact it’s a continent power with a dispersed geography…it’s GPD is a joke for its size, its military cannot project beyond Russias boarders, it’s tec base is well behind the west, it’s population is shrinking….it would loss a conventional war against any one of the major European militaries, it’s barely managing against a nation with a third world GPD ( it’s GDP is about that of Angola) right on its own boarders.

The reality is that there is, and has been for a long-time, considerable debate as to what constitutes Great Power status. I accept that.

But the question is, what is the purpose of the term? The purpose, first and foremost, has to be meaningful and it must describe something that is useful in terms of analyzing and describing the nature of the international system. The definition, as you have framed it, as a state “able to influence on a global scale” is far too broad to be useful.

Influence to what degree? Influence in what realm or area? Any state can exercise a modest degree of influence on a global scale (East Germany was very influential in Olympic sports for example which carried a degree of soft cultural impact), but that hardly makes it a Great Power.

I think much modern scholarship is reinvention for the sake of promoting individual academic careers. I suppose that this is to be expected but it may not introduce very much that is new and useful in explaining the reality of the international order. So I am somewhat of a sceptic in that regard.

Russia is a Great Power that is obviously the weakest of the three current Great Powers – if it indeed still remains a Great Power. But it has a long historical track record as a Great Power and has often seemed to decline before (after World War I and after the end of the Cold War for example). But up to the present, it has always recovered. It may or may not recover now. It is too early to tell.

Whether Russia would lose a conventional war against NATO European states is debatable. Nobody thought Russia would triumph in 1812 or in 1941, but Russia has always had remarkable resilience. But it is an academic question since Russia has an enormous tactical and strategic nuclear arsenal – which is precisely the major reason why NATO has not – up to now – intervened more directly in Ukraine.

As for the UK it is not capable of acting in opposition to American desires – at least not on any fundamental issue. Suez (1956) firmly illustrated that.

It is inconceivable that the UK would ever use its nuclear weapons, except in tandem with American use. This is not to argue that the UK should not have such a capability – there are advantages to having it and it introduces doubt in the minds of an aggressor – but 200 warheads does not make the UK a Great Power.

These are just my views of course. But I think they are consistent with how Great Powers have been identified and defined since the founding of the modern state system.

True.

In parallel, we should have been building High Speed rail lines from the mid-60s like the Japanese (factoid from Wiki – ‘Over the Shinkansen’s 50-plus-year history, carrying over 10 billion passengers, there has not been a single passenger fatality or injury on board due to derailments or collisions’).

How long have we taken to decide on another runway for Heathrow or Gatwick?

So much prevarication in the army on uprading or replacing AFVs and Artillery systems in the last 20-25 years.

How many of that 1.8 million are combat ready, fully equipped and supported, genuinely interoperable and ‘ready to fight tonight’? How long could they sustain operations before US support (including material, technological, etc.) was required? I suspect not long. Numbers on paper only tell a partial story.

Paul the simple truth is that the European NATO powers vastly overmatch Russia and any conventional threat. In reality the biggest part of any US security guarantees around Europe relate to nuclear weapons…Russia has failed to destroy a nation with a GDP small than Greece. The reality is Russia would have no hope of winning against the European NATO powers. It’s a poor nation.

Agree

Oh, you are your facts Jonathan!

And what fact is that Barry, it’s called an opinion we are allowed to have them.

Jonathan! Jonathan! That was a joke matey! I completely agree with your analysis based on facts. That might not be a common point of view around here!

Sorry feeling a bit sensitive, had one of those days at work when it does not matter the sense you talk some senior person just has to have the last say..

I sympathise.

Alot more than any enemy we face.

This comment is quite ironic.

The first aircraft carrier, the first purpose built aircraft carrier to have steel cut, the steam catapult and angled fight deck and optical landing systems are all British inventions.
The Manhattan project wouldn’t have succeeded without Britain.

Britain had an operational jet fighter before America, and had a jet land on a carrier before America.

Submarine wasn’t an American invention.

Sorry for the duplication I don’t know why that happened.

Countries without future look at glorious past.

😐 what do you want me to say to that?
You’ve brought nothing to the table in this discussion, instead just spouting out nonsense

Hard to say who invented the sub, but the first British subs were based on the US version built by Holland ( born in Ireland though)

The first British submarine was built by Mr Drenbel in the 1600s. I doubt they where based on anything American since it didn’t exist then.

Thanks for that . I was thinking the later practical military type.

‘The Manhattan project wouldn’t have succeeded without Britain.’

I haven’t seen the film Oppenheimer, but I doubt much will be made of the British speedy progress towards making a feasible nuclear weapon. In 1941 Peierls and Frisch working at the University of Birmingham correctly determined the critical mass of nuclear material required, a feat the great physicist Heisenberg on the Nazí programme, failed to do. The use of shaped charges to initiate a detonation, was also contributed to the Manhattan Project by a British scientist.

.

Why would the RN not have two QE-class carriers without the US?

Why would the RN not have two QE-class carriers without the US?

Without F-35 there will not be QE.

OK, I see your angle now. Although if F-35B did not exist we would have built the carriers with cats and traps – it was a design option from Day 1 of the programme.

None of that’s true, F35 is a joint project LM/BAE with UK and US both tier 1 partners, and it would not be able to land vertically without RR technology. Should I be greatful to Germany for being a partner in Eurofighter or Japan in GCAP.

Seem to remember us building something called Vanguard after Trafalgar and being given access to EB computer and design team hardly means the USA is responsible for astute. It certainly was not involved in Dreadnaught.

Trident sure, they sold us a weapon system, I would rather we built it on our own. France does this on a lower budget than us or do you feel inferior to the French as well 😀

I love the USA and greatly value them as an Allie but the Trump delusion of the UK and Europe are defenceless without the USA needs to stop, its nonsense. The UK can easily defend itself from any potential opponent.

F-35 is an american project, they had resources to go it alone without UK, the inverse is not true.
Astute needed American design teams because UK cannot afford to have silly military-political decisions like US (LCS, Zummy, Ford) but keeps making them.

And yet we built aircraft without the US before F35 (Typhoon, Tornado,Jaguar)and we are building aircraft without the US after F35 (Tempest) if America did not need or want our help why did it offer us such an amazing deal to be part of F35, 15% workshare when we only put up 5% of the development fund and promised to buy 4% of the planned aircraft.

Why did America offer us such an amazing deal, do you think they are stupid?

Please explain you rational.

No answer for that one 😀

Trident – US sold us missiles less warheads. The warheads and the boats were British made.

What power do we depend on the US to defend us from…Russia….this is a nation that has been unable to defeat a nation with a GDP smaller than Greece that had a airforce of Cold War relics and a half trained army….if Russia actually went up against the RN and RAF I would not go well. As for land invasions of NATO what do you think would happen if Russia invites Poland, Finland or the Nordic nations, it would be chewed up and spat out.

let’s be very very honest here the major Defense guarantee is a nuclear one and even then the UK and French deterents are plenty big enough to gut Russia as a nation.

Not tongue and cheek John, you are aware that Uk defence spending is varied on the threat environment, we have done the same since 1707, can you please explain the threat since 1990 that our defence spending has been unable to defend us from?

This just simply isn’t true. In the two major conflicts the US has fought this century, Britain was vital.
Britain spent more money as a % of GDP and similar casualties per capita in Afghanistan, for the US to pull out on their own terms.
It wouldn’t have been viable politically to invade Iraq in 2003 without Britain.

The largest threat to the UK this century has been the invasion of Ukraine.
Britain has given more aid as a % of GDP than the US, trained many more troops than the US and led the way in giving certain equipment- CH2, Storm Shadow etc.

Who exactly are the US protecting us from?

I disagree, the US could have cracked on perfectly well without us in Iraq and Afghanistan, we were small players in the greater scheme.

That’s certainly no swipe at the total professionalism of our Armed forces, who fought with distinction as ever..

Our involvement was no more that George W Bush leading Blair by the nose into ill conceived interventions.

The total tragedy of our Afghanistan intervention was the utter pointlessness of it. It ultimately achieved absolutely nothing (as most forecast it would), just took hundreds of young lives and left many thousands living with permanent injuries.

Today it’s like we were never there and those responsible for that bloody mess are happy for us to forget it too…

Blair was a bloody jingoistic War monger, nothing more…

I agree with you on the fact that we shouldn’t have got involved in either wars.

Politically it would’ve been more difficult to invade Iraq alone for the US. They would also have to find an extra 4 brigades for the invasion (7 brigade was huge and almost the size of 2 brigades).

All of that is pretty irrelevant to the fact that we do not rely on the US for our defence. Even the US would struggle to invade Britain.

With respect Louis, the US would be able to overwhelm our defences on day 2 of an altogether unlikely invasion, I’m not sure what phantom Army/ Navy/ Airforce capability you think we have that could stop the overwhelming strength of the US military sledgehammer…

Not so absurd.
USAF
The distance between the US and UK rules out the USAF aside from bombers and drones.

USN
11 carriers, 2 of which are being refuelled so are not part of the active fleet leaves 9. At an 50% availability rate that leaves 4-5 carriers, each with total 51 F/A-18, F35C and EF18s, for a total of 204-255.

USMC
9 LHD’s, 50% availability and 16 F35B each gives a total of 64-80.
Total US fighter jets at 268-335.

RAF
32 F35B
137 Typhoon
3 Typhoon at BAE Warton.
Assuming none of the Qatari Typhoons can be scrounged that leaves 172 aircraft.

RAF would be facing 1.55-195 to 1 odds. Not impossible with advantages like Meteor and GBAD.

At an 50% availability rate for RN ships that gives 3 T45s, 4 ASW T23s and 1-2 GP T23s. Add to that 24? CAMM launchers in batteries up to 32 in the recent announcements and maybe even higher, alongside 5 regular SHORAD batteries and 4 reserve batteries protecting key targets.

It would then be up to 6 Astutes (Agamemnon commissioning next year) and HMS Triumph (would be extended in service) to sink 4-5 Carriers. 50% availability leaves 3-4. You can add in 2 Vanguards which although are pretty useless in this situation but they’ll have nothing else to do and are better than nothing.

50% availability rate on SSN gives you 25 SSN, split between defending the carriers, ASuW and land attack.

Both countries will want to look for a quick victory.

Britain would aim to stun America by sinking the carriers- effectively ending US Air Power over the UK.

America needs a quick victory because most of their available naval assets would be tied up.

The US doesn’t have the amphibious vessels to land enough troops in an amphibious operation. 4 ARG’s are needed to land an MEB, with 5 being fully available you could land an MEB+ which isn’t enough. Additionally yo do that you would have 55 less F35B.

Of course this scenario will never happen.

The US needed us politically in the two Iraq wars and in Afghanistan – to internationalise the conflict and give the US president the tacit acceptance of ‘the international community’. The UK’s involvement persuaded others to join the endeavours.

How many missiles did Obama launch at Syria after the British parliament voted not to intervene?

Zero despite French support.

True. Obama was weak, indecisive and changed his mind. He set a red line (Syria using WMD), then ignored it.

He also prevaricated a lot on the raid to kill/capture Bin Laden.

Yes all true, trump did much the same against Iran pulled back last minute.

For all the US strength it has never liked to act alone just as Britain never has.

While the UK may be smaller relative to the US today militarily it’s still desperately important in US domestic politics. No American president wants to be seen acting on the world stage and deploying forces without British support and approval.

Obama was ready to go in to Syria but the pulling back of British involvement stopped him.

How is it irrelevant?

You spend 50% of your personal annual budget giving weapons to Ukranians, is that relavant to the size of the war?

Effectiveness of modern equipment aside, during the Cold war, we were regarded as having a small professional armed forces.

As a snap shot, the RAF had 31 fast jet squadrons at the time of the gulf war, how many does it have today?

The RN had 45 escorts, how many today?

The Army had 140,000 regulars and 800 MBT’s, how many today?

The answer is a ‘tiny’ fraction of the above….

You actually seem blind to the size of our armed forces today?

In 1991, we were capable of deploying mass unilaterally, today (no matter the political bullshit spin) we are configured to deploy at re-enforced Brigade level at best.

The fact that we are buying 60 Trophy systems for our Chally 3 is very telling for example, it shows you we are never planning to deploy more than a single armoured Regiment.

The ability to quickly deploy in a crisis a full Armoured Brigade with c.100 modern MBTs is a good measure of whether a country is a regional or global military power. The UK passed the test in 1991 and just about passed the test in 2003, but can’t now.

People put waaaay to much stock in names and not capabilities.

👍

I look forward to the Shadow Secretary of State for Defence answering those questions! If the Tories won’t, will Labour?

Ha ha ha

Good joke.

Nobody wants a costed timelined anything to be measured against.

Mind you if they did that I would salute them as a grown up. I’d accept it might slip a bit and have to change as things evolved.

However, the key issue is that the budgets will never add up to the aspirations without that most useful of weasel devices – wishful thinking….

No chance at all, that way we would know what is needed and what it costs, re what we have to sacrifice or pay..that is never going to work as I don’t think anyone would vote for an honest politician.

No – they have said the first thing they would launch when returned to power is yet another Defence Review. So in the context of this paper its virtually pointless as any new administration would write another one.The last thing they would do is make any commitment beyond existing contracts and I suspect some of those may be up for review..

Excellent questions that demand answering for the future security of the nation & its role on the world stage. Unfortunately we lack mature political leadership, being offered far too many “fillers”, money worshippers & idiotic pseudo-celebs. People with real ability & the national interests at heart don’t often ehough reach the positions to do good.

I think we can safely say that’s unfortunately true. I do think it’s how we now select our political classes. They very much seem to choose politics as a way to personal power. Personally I would like to see our political classes come from a wider range of people who have already spent their lives in the betterment of our society. Politics should be the remit of the old and wise. Not the young and ambitious.

Ambition is no substitute for ability.

Thanks mate.

My mistake and apologies.

The Rhodesia Solution from Yes Minister.

Haha that’s a great mistake to make. We have all been watching videos about Nigeria for the last 12 hours wondering where it all went wrong for Nigeria 😂😂😂😂 classic

Due to efficiency savings at the home office the system was scaled back, now we have a massive back log.

Didn’t answer the question did you! How do you process people with no identification?

DNA, facial recognition all being used, it’s really not a big problem in asylum applications.

Didn’t Wallace mention Swedish built kit somewhere recently. I thought that was for the RA to replace kit sent to Ukraine – or maybe that meatballs for the NAFFI.

With build rate of Boxer being 3/month, it would take 42 years to issue 1,500.

I know, ridiculous at present. Obviously, it will ramp up.
What, in your estimation is an acceptable build rate for an APC like Boxer, once things are up to speed?

Just done some maths – US/Canada built 18 Strykers per month, but we are not in that league!
French built 5 VBCIs per month. Perhaps 5/mth would be the most that Boxer could ramp up to. Not great news, is it!

I’m stunned. Surely not. There are 2 UK production lines I understand.

Maybe it will be more than 5/month – I may be over-cautious. There really is little info to go on. You are right that there are 2 manufacturers.

MoD contracted with ARTEC who build 117 Boxers in Germany then hand over to UK contractors.
ARTEC have sub-contracted to WFEL (was Fairey Engineering) and RBSL who will split the Tranche 1 order equally.

https://defence.nridigital.com/global_defence_technology_jun21/wfel_boxer_miv_facility

“WFEL’s slice of the workshare includes fabricating hulls, assembling finished vehicles, and integrating and testing finished vehicles”. WFEL specialise in military bridges and have never made a vehicle before! WFEL has built a bespoke Boxer fabrication and vehicle assembly hall (over 5,700m2 of working space), and have installed all the right manufacturing kit.

This link says that RBSL is manufacturing 260 Boxers.
https://rbsl.com/news-and-events/news/rbsl-gbp860-million-subcontract-for-uk-mod-s-miv-programme.

The various reports are confusing, particularly those from RBSL, which I believe are spun too heavily. That 260 figure you link to is from 2020, before the extra 100 modules were ordered in 2022.

I had thought the two production lines were for base hulls and modules, WFEL building the bases and RBSL building the modules. Now I’m not so sure. What I think is happening is that WFEL build most of the drive units (480) and RBSL and WFEL split the mission module production between them, with RBSL getting more of the modules.

Try this article from Battlespace, regarding work at Telford.

… the Mission Module is fabricated in Hall 2.The Drive Modules from WFEL in Stockport come into the plant at the other end and are mated to the Mission Module in Hall 3.

Seems pretty clear. It also says

RBSL and WFEL are responsible for the Infantry Carrier and Command Vehicles whilst WFEL will build the 50 specialist Ambulance variants

which implies both sites do mission modules.

Then there’s this article from RBSL that talks about power pack deliveries

[David Brown Santasalo will] integrate the [Rolls Royce] engines into the complete Boxer Powerpack Assemblies, prior to delivery to WFEL.

Again implying drive modules are only assembled at WFEL.

However other sites (such as the Engineer) report

For RBSL, assembly and testing of the Boxer Powerpack (transmission, engine and cooling systems) will take place at its manufacturing site in Telford.

So that’s as clear as mud, right? Do WFEL do all the drive modules or not? That’s why I think it’s most.

Shephard say (I won’t link as I find too many links gets my posts sent to arbitration purgatory)

[WFEL] will manufacture approximately 480 Boxer drive modules and assemble fewer than half of them into APC, Ambulance and SCV variants. The rest of the WFEL-manufactured drive modules will be shipped to RBSL for final assembly.

A Shephard article from this March talks about

RBSL has declared the achievement of an AFV industrial capacity and intended to ramp up production at its Telford site to 50 Mission Modules a year for the British Army’s Boxer armoured vehicle programme.

So that’s the rate at Telford. Until we know the rate of module production at WFEL, we aren’t going to get an overall delivery rate. And don’t forget the first hundred or so are being built in Germany (105 or 117 depending on website).

I’ve read that they are all supposed to be delivered by 2032. 635/10 gives an average of 63 a year, but these things are subject to change. If the army orders more of different variants for the Warrior replacements, they might speed up the production rate again. I suspect it may be finance limited.

I’ll leave you with this comment about the extra 100 ordered last year that comes from the WFEL site (rebranded last month as KNDS UK after the Nexter merger).

The additional vehicles will be manufactured in both UK and Germany and will be delivered from 2024, whilst the original order for 523 Boxer vehicles will deliver from 2023.

The only way that makes sense to me is if all of the original German order will be delivered before the end of 2024 (I think that’s about 50).

Jon, you have my admiration for trying to make sense of this. So many websites give scant to no detail – it is such a problem for those of us who like at least some details.
You talk about 635 but someone said recently on UKDJ that funding is in place for over 1,000 Boxers.

I hate this site’s downer on longer posts that means whenever I try to reference something properly and link to sources, it goes to approval hell. Then it’s just a toss up whether it eventually makes it out of the other side. That algorithm need a serious rethink!

I’ll keep fingers crossed my long reply gets through. The tldr is that the “equal” split isn’t what you might think and your 260 figure is from before the 100 extras, so it’ll be more.

Why do some posts go to Approval – didn’t used to happen to mine, but it often does now. One day all my posts (about 10) went to approval, and none were long.

My guesstimate that UK Boxer production could go from 3 to 5 per month is based on doubling the stated 3/mth figure for the 2 lines, then taking away 1 (3×2-1)to reflect that we always seem to have some difficulties.
Can’t work out the numbers properly without knowing how many build stations each company has, how many workers, what the build time is, what the build process is including QA checks testing etc.
Even if it is quite a lot more than 5/mth for the 2 factories combined, the build time for 1,000-1,500 vehs is long.

Whatever it turns out to be, it is a reason is going nowhere for now.
Just read on the Major Projects reports on Twitter ( Gabs Blog ) that Boxer is slightly delayed due to a comms fit issue.

Not surprised there will be a glitch or two with a vehicle that is new to UK manufacturing. Comms fits are notoriously complex to design, develop and test.

But… on the other hand, that means that the buisness won’t go under. Japan has been builting the Type 10 MBT at a pretty consistent rate of 10 per year AFAIK, which is incredibly slow…. but on the other hand they maintain an active production line of MBT’s so….

True. VDS/BAE made 386 CR2 and 22 DTTs in 1993-2002, then 66 T2 in about 2002-3. Then had no further tank orders and no contracts for major upgrades. So two new tank factories at Newcastle and Leeds closed. What a waste.

Have a read of the Times article on Warrior, it’s rather interesting.

I cannot read it, and not interested in signing up for tree trials that they suggest.
What’s your take mate?

That is definitely amusing; did you suggest that the author might deserve a bonus? 🤔😉

I fear that the recipient would have realised the the contributor was one whom the present interlocutor was in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun.

To borrow a phrase from Sir Humphrey…….

The Next Defence secretary will only be in the job for 9 months at most and won’t be doing a defence review thank god. Rishi sunak specialises in having a government specifically designed to do nothing and leave no trace.

He is worse than Obama who at least managed to play a fair bit of golf.

Agree on US budget, it’s absolutely astounding your spending over $800 billion a year and you just increased it by a further $80 billion.

Clearly the US military is the most powerful force on the planet but I think that’s more to do with the dedication and skill of the men and women of your armed forces than the absolute size of the defence budget.

For $800 billion a year you should be getting Death Stars and photon Torpedos, not a navy with 270 ships or an Airforce with just 150 operational F22’s. 😀

Most of your land vehicles are just as out of date as ours and your artillery systems are even older.

Maybe if the US military got sufficient bang for its buck it would be too scary for the rest of the world to handle.

Basically you would be 120 Finlands 😀

You need to include how much of that 800 billion disappears into their “Black Budget”
That is where their “Death Stars” are.

I bloody hope so for that price 😀

…and he can’t be reruited to be SG of NATO due to Joe Biden favouring Ursula vdL.
Options to replace Big Ben must include: James Heappey, Tom Tugendhat, Penny Mordaunt – although rumour has it that James Cleverly is interested but that would be a demotion, so that’s puzzling.

Cleverly answered the rumours saying that he really wanted to stay put at FCDO (you will see the fingernail marks on the parquet flooring of my office if anyone tries to drag me out). Why would Sunak want him anywhere other than where he is? Home Office would be more likely than Defence, but then who would take FCDO?
I don’t see Mordaunt going back and I think Heappey will get it over Tugendhat. I like Tugendhat, but he has opinions and will want to do something. Rishi won’t want a boat rocker in the run up to an election. Heappey could be viewed as a Wallace protégé, a keep-calm-and-carry-on man that Sunack would be okay with. The Wallace/Heappey double act in the Defence Command paper, suggests an attempt to put him front and centre.

Tugendhat came across as too quiet and not strong enough in the leadership debates. Useful that he has military experience but I cannot understand how he went from 2Lt to Lt Col in the Army Reserve/TA in only 10 years – in the regulars it took 18-20 years for the gifted.
I think it will be Heappey.

Check out the Times article on Warrior. You couldn’t make it up if you tried.

Its behind a paywall. What were the main points?

Here is my take on this. There were 2 options.

Option A – Cancel WCSP and buy Boxer for the AI instead. Cost of this option includes: write-off of £473.467m on NRE for WCSP (which would have upgraded 380 Warriors of various types); purchase of 380 Boxers at £5.36m ie £2037.1m. Grand total of £2,510.567m. I have not included the costs to the State of 158 men losing their jobs at LM Ampthill, some of whom might now be getting dole money and Job Centre support.

Option B – Continue with WCSP. Accept that WCSP over-ran by £227m so the programme is now £1,227m, so spend the remaining £753.53m to upgrade those 380 Warriors.

One option is a minimum spend of of £2,510.567m to scrap tracked IFVs and replace with wheeled Boxer – and the other is to do a phenomenal upgrade to a tracked IFV for a further spend of £753.53m

….and which Option did MoD choose? Go figure!
[Here I have been comparing like with like on numbers – I do know that we have ordered 623 Boxers out of a total of 1,016 Boxers that are funded]

Trouble is we then had the dreaded austerity…so that stopped everything in its tracks ( it screwed the NHS from undertaking modernisation for 10 years and the).

Did the NHS really suffer during the austerity period (as much as Defence)? I don’t recall hospitals and GPs surgeries closing but I do recall the loss of manpower and assets from the Forces.

Hi graham, the thing that crippled the NHS and its ability to change was the loss of the PCTs and the senior experts in how to build a health system. Effectively the government gutted the organisation and made redundant all the people who new how the system was put together and worked as a whole. The health system is hugely complex and you have different levels but effectively it’s layered as follows.

Before 2010 the health system was designed in the following way:

1) political and national policy: political appointees and those who work for them ( civil servants) decide overall budget, strategic aims and policy direction. This is the DOH, it was very lean and gave only high level policy direction it gave the cash to the regions.
2) strategic implementation of policy: this is the organisation that divides out the cash out at region level and sets boundaries for what can be spent on what to make sure it followed policy ( there were around 4 of these in England). They also got assurances the local systems were working effectively. These were called strategic health authorities.
3) local system implementation and design: This is the engine room level, it’s basically a county level system looking after the health needs of 500,000 to a couple of million people. They decided how much money each hospital got, what services were needed in each town, what mental health services looked like, what community services looked like, ensured there were the correct number of GP practices, sorted public health, dentists practices, pharmacies etc..basically designed and run what most people understand as the NHS. These were called Primary care trusts…and held all the contracts for…
4) the providers of care each provider is an independent organisation, this is important to remember, the NHS does not and never really has existed as a single service, it’s made up of lots of individual organisations with contracts to provide a specific service. So a hospital may be owned by the state, be called an NHS hospital, but in all legal ways it’s its it’s own organisation, it has a contract with the local NHS system ( pre 2010 the PCT) to proved a specific set of outcomes ( so much emergency care, so many knee replacement etc into the thousands of conditions), this is the same with GP practices ( who all all privately owned companies that have a contract with the NHS), community services who can be organisations owned by the government, third sector or private, mental health etc…

now in 2010 the government decided it did not need PCTs anymore..so it restructured and sacked loads of system experts.

it created a monster that was unable to change because it was a baby with no experience.

1) DOH stayed the same
2) the strategic health authorities were gone..instead we had one national level organisation called NHS England..public health was removed from the NHS and given to a new organisation ( which was idiotic). This became a centralised nightmare organisation that had no real understanding at regional level and most of the regional staff were made redundant.
3) the PCTs were disbanded, public health was given to county councils, General practice, pharmacy and dental were give to NHS England. Instead of one county level system the government creates Clinical commission groups, these were run by General practitioners ( who actually had no expertise on managing the whole system as well as no interest and has to be paid a fortune to even turn up..when they should and needed to manage their practices)..these CCG only oversaw the care of around 100,000 to 500,000 ( my PCT was spilt into 5 of these pointless organisations). The IT, business intelligence, procurement and other specialists were moved into organisations called commissioning support units that were designed to sell their services to the CCGs as needed…( they were actually designed to be sold to big American health providers and big services providers like group4, but it was such a buggered concept with so little resources the corporates would not take then).

So basically all the experts got redundancy…they system was now being managed by GPS who the week before had been small business owners and drs thinking about no more that a couple of thousand people…who were suddenly asked to manage the care system for a few thousand. People…primary care ( the most local of services was being managed by a national organisation)..public health was now a county council Job ( that’s all health visitors, school nurses etc)….

basically in one swoop of redundancy and reconfiguring the government destroyed the Health systems ability to not only manage and plan but also change…( imagine If all of a sudden the senior officer branch’s within the the armed forces were removed, the army was given the amphibious ships to manage,..senior NCOs were popped in the place of very senior officers, ( because they work on the coal face every day and must know what it’s all about)…logistics and planning were given to group 4…that’s what happend to the NHS in 2010….

The other cunning thing is that although we did not loss any budgets we actually did..health inflation is not the same as normal inflation it runs at around 4%. Above normal inflation, that’s mainly because you use more healthcare the older you are and our population is getting older and older…that last ten years sucks up about 80%-90% of the lifetime health costs of a person..so as more people get into the 80s they cost exponentially more than someone who is dead at 69. So the health service saw year on year cuts to all services as we tried to manage a 4% deficit a year for around a decade.

as for closing stuff we have lost huge numbers of GP practices, dental practices, pharmacies, mental health, community services, public health services, numbers of hospital beds over the last decade etc none are big ticket items each has degraded the ability. As an example we have lost around 30,000 acute hospital beds between 2010 and 2022…in 2009 there were 49,400 General practitioners now there are 36,000..for a larger, older and more unhealthy population.

Hi Jonathan, I have never heard anything so crazy in my life. Why does no-one vet these harebrained plans?

The 2010 reforms were utter insanity to be honest, what was worse is that they had not even been thought out…the conservatives manifesto at the time had been no top down changes to the NHS ( everyone knew the NHS needed time to start modernising and reforming/changing services and the only way for the to happen was for the politicians to leave the decision making structures alone for a bit so they could look at provision). But they get in and within a year the new health secretary Andrew Langley had put in a place the complete destruction of the senior leadership and management/planning structures of the NHS. He removed Primary care from local control, removed public health and basically parcelled up all the support elements for sell off….within a year of this utter destruction of the health system’s ability to manage itself he was removed and then popped into the lords in 2015 and made a career advising corporate clients on UK health service reforms and how to take advantage of them.

what is sad is that it took covid and the realisation that they had destroyed the health systems ability to change and adapt for the conservative government to start putting it all back…,this year we now have the creation of ICBs….that oversee integration care systems that are essentially very close to what PCTs were 13 years ago….essentially 13 wasted years in modernising and changing the NHS all in the name of one man’s political dogma and wish to fragment they systems ready for easy corporate takeover of the potentially profitable areas ( corporate services are profitable, public health is not).

Then after that we had the madness of the control freak years…it’s got worse and worse with the DOH now telling local systems what they can and cannot spend money on..only telling them they have money a few weeks before they can spend it and having it taken off them again until next year…imagine if you will a situation where your suddenly give 6 million pounds in sept and told to set up services for that winter, but you have to spend the money by March..and it must be on supporting discharges from hospital…then every week having to report to the department of health what you have spend, how many discharges you have supported…now imagine that happening for every county system in the country every few months or so….that’s how mad our government has become….now I’m a planner and over see specific services for one county ( I’m senior but not that senior…the civilian equivalent of an O5/6 I know this as I’ve worked oppose that grade of officer on planning around some stuff). and last year I was reporting every week to a policy advisor in the department of health on how many discharges my new project has supported ( we are talking piss ant money lever services a few hundred thousand here a few more there..ect)….it’s bonkers this government has literally lost its mind to be honest…

you cannot just dump 6 million on a county and given them a couple of weeks to set up services ( it takes months just to find and employ a workforce)..then you cannot just say it’s only for a few months…you cannot just employ and then get rid of healthcare professionals…they will Simple’s not work for you…London DOH should not be telling the regions and local systems how every pound should be spent and who the hell insists that every county report back micromanaging level details from each counties system like number of discharge packages you have paid for that week to policy advisors in central government….the department for health work force doubled since Johnson from around 3500 to 7000…but remembering that health is managed at a strategic level not by the DOH but by NHS England as an executive agency of the government.

All in all its an utter mess and has been since the conservatives took office in 2010…they are control freaks.

The 2010 review was insane in many ways. Two points stick out for me. 1.The Treasury wanted the defence cuts to be a lot more severe than they were, especially in terms of manpwer cuts.2. The MoD could not agree to give up the last of the carriers and the Harrier Force, so Cameron had a meeting on the Sunday before the Announcement and forced it on the MoD.
Many of the decisions later cost money to do U-turns.

From memory, the nuclear budget is £54bn over the 10 years to 2032, so £5.4bn pa.

£1.1 bn goes on an Astute SSN, the other £4.3bn goes on the Dreadnought programme and all the other nuclear elements that Daniele mentioned.

It is d4prrssingly revealing to compare the main annual equipment budgets. From memory:

Nuclear programme £5.4bn
RAF fast jets £1.7 bn
RAF other aircraft: £1.6 bn
Army equipment: £1.8 bn
RN, excluding subs: £1.7bn
Helicopters: £1.4m

I’ll see if I can dig out the source for this. What stands out is what a whopping share of the cake goes on our nuclear deterrent, the sole purpose of which is to justify our place at the top table.

Without that mega dent in the budget, we could near-enough double our army, navy and Air force equipment spend, which would really boost our defence capability.

With 2% of our GDP available to defence, that might about cover a small conventional military force with reasonably modern equipment and weapons. There was never any chance that we could additionally fit in the political willy-waving SSBNs and carriers on that kind of budget. They were possible when we were spending 4%+ of GDP, barely plausible when Blair/Brown were spending 2 5%, just not realistic on 2% over the last 13 years.

This for me is the big issue Parliament needs to air and debate, rather than reading the torturous, self-serving, delusional ‘leading power’ nonsense pumped out in defence white papers like this latest one.

Bingo. I couldn’t agree more. It needs to be removed or conventional forces compensated for it’s inclusion.

Fat chance.

thanks Daniele,

appreciate the response

It’s a polictical process not a military one. The aim of the game is to make the government in power look good. That would not be achieved if a defence paper came out saying the forces were not geared or numbered to achieve the threats. Generally the going in position is now to make cuts that will get the least amount of bad press.

Very good understanding of ‘realpolitik’, Steve.
Its whey they cut the army so often – Joe Public is not bothered that a few tanks cannot be manned and so fewer of the next generation will be ordered (CR3) – they would be bothered if we could not man 2 or 3 DD/FF or most of the Atlas A400M fleet (as an example).

Prior to every SDSR there is always a series of ‘leaks’ about huge cuts and the government sees what the reaction is and tones backs on the ones that get the biggest reaction. Also it allows them to play the classic trick of making it look like massive cuts and then when smaller ones happen they don’t look so bad. Polictics 101.

Interesting. You could also say that the USSR suffered strategic exhaustion in being unwilling to maintaining the Cold War beyond 40 years. That strategic exhaustion encompassing financial overstretch.
However strategic exhaustion suggests a situation arising due to long duration and failure to make adequate progress. State-state wars can also end for other reasons.
Putin has often warned that he might release tactical nuclear weapons in his war in Ukraine if Russian territory is (seriously) threatened. He would not expect retaliation from NATO in terms of NATO committing conventional forces or launching nuclear weapons either tactical or nuclear – he is probably right.

That’s true buying a charter flight for a civilian passenger or cargo airliner is not difficult or expensive, there is lots of civilian capacity and your then are not sitting on al whole new set of training and logistics pipelines to keep a small number of airframes in the air, you just charter as needed… Although I can see sense in a greater number of A400m simple due to their utility, strategic lift, tactical lift, parachute and things like air sea surveillance….