UIK defence cuts

[Jason]

Depending on whose figures you look at, the UK is either 2nd or 3rd in the world for defense spending - that's in absolute terms, not per head. Order is USA, China, UK, France (or maybe even UK ahead of China - depends on assumptions you make around the real value of Chinese currency).

Even without the Ark Royal we have armed forces on a massive scale.

 

[798686]

Aye, true - but how to support an operation in Korea, for instance, without an aircraft carrier (with planes on, lol)? :/

 

[dandelion]

i think the german standing army 100 years ago was about 1,000,000 men. The Us is 1.5 million now? What was that about massive armed forces? Yes, I know, the machine gun was a wonderful invention, but there is a limit what can be done with relatively small numbers. As we have seen recently.

 

[Jason]

Aye, true - but how to support an operation in Korea, for instance, without an aircraft carrier (with planes on, lol)? :/

I don't think we do want to support an operation in North Korea.

All the world can do is pray. Imagine if someone launches an attack on North Korea. They are nuclear. The retaliation might be on South Korea, might be on Japan, or if China gets involved it might be on China. The world is hoping for an internal change so that we get someone with a bit of sense on the "throne". The kid who went to school in Switzerland might actually be sane (I guess the intelligence services will have poured over his school reports). If he is in power soon maybe we can deal with him.

In any case the UK should keep well out of the issue. This one is for South Korea, China, Russia, possibly Japan and maybe the USA. It is not for us.

 

[798686]

True - good call.

What I was actually getting that tho, is that without a fully-equipped carrier, we can't react to situations that arise suddenly in the way we used to (not specifically Korea). I know we have the Tornado fleet, etc but I dunno - have to hope we can do without the carrier jets for a decade. :/

 

[dandelion]

we going to invade Korea even if we had the troops? Having an army tends to put you under pressure to use it - to justify all that expense - but would we have any reason to but in on someone elses war? no.

 

[B_crackoff]

Depending on whose figures you look at, the UK is either 2nd or 3rd in the world for defense spending - that's in absolute terms, not per head. Order is USA, China, UK, France (or maybe even UK ahead of China - depends on assumptions you make around the real value of Chinese currency).

Even without the Ark Royal we have armed forces on a massive scale.

We're 4th here.
BBC News - World military spending soars in spite of recession

We're definitely no better than 3rd.

Defence spending: the world's biggest armies in stats - Telegraph

On the plus side, Palin think North Korea is America's ally, so maybe she would be a good POTUS after all:haha:.

Just think of all those peace agreements she might accidentally sign!