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Lyneham Lad
10th Nov 2015, 14:43
Yes, really. It says so here (https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/study-finds-uk-is-second-most-powerful-country-in-the-world/).

I find myself greatly heartened...

Wyler
10th Nov 2015, 14:52
Cobblers.

Soap Operas and Reality TV of Mass Distraction is about it.

DunWinching
10th Nov 2015, 16:44
We cannot be a Global Power given that we seem to have run out of flying socks. Bet the Chinese have loads, could they let us have some?

a1bill
10th Nov 2015, 17:00
Is Israel incognito in the list? I would put them above Australia in power.

Rosevidney1
10th Nov 2015, 17:11
It looks like the frames of reference boosted (and flattered) our score more than somewhat.

exuw
10th Nov 2015, 17:42
Perhaps, too, the report's authors reckon that Hanbali Sunni Saudi and Jafari Shia Iran cancel each-other out in the Regional Power stakes? :rolleyes:

F-16GUY
10th Nov 2015, 21:06
According to this link, power is not the only area in which the UK fails to achieve pole position:

Which Country Has the Biggest Dicks in the World? - Mandatory (http://www.mandatory.com/2015/02/26/which-country-has-the-biggest-dicks-in-the-world/)

Here the UK's "performance" is only average......

exuw
10th Nov 2015, 21:36
Australia 5.2" UK 5.5"

Snigger.

And North Korea 3.8". How the hell do they know?

Thomas coupling
10th Nov 2015, 21:48
I thought, to be a global "blue water" power, one had to have reach (aircraft carriers)..................................:suspect:

How can the British military consisting of 140k personnel (almost half of the entire staff at Tesco......do anything other than patrol our coast line?
Pathetic self serving report.

smujsmith
10th Nov 2015, 22:22
TC,

"almost half of the entire staff at Tesco......". Absolutely classic sir, that really "stacks up" as a response :ok:

Smudge

dat581
12th Nov 2015, 00:35
Israel ahead of Australia eh? That doesn't matter as long as we beat New Zealand.

ian16th
12th Nov 2015, 10:43
Israel ahead of Australia eh? That doesn't matter as long as we beat New Zealand. What at?

Back on thread, this article put things into perspective: Modern India's view of Britain is purely pragmatic
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/11989460/Indians-consider-Britain-a-naive-declining-power-obsessed-with-a-past-they-dont-remember.html)

racedo
12th Nov 2015, 10:52
How can the British military consisting of 140k personnel (almost half of the entire staff at Tesco......do anything other than patrol our coast line?
Pathetic self serving report.

That really is a scary quote.

ShotOne
12th Nov 2015, 11:23
That's because you haven't properly read the report. It's not just about the number of servicemen. We are able to influence events around the world in a good way because people like us, want to trade with us, share our culture and history and use our language. Plus we can turn their capital cities to glass if they don't want to do any of that and upset us enough.

KenV
12th Nov 2015, 13:48
The OP title appears to be a little misleading. It should not read "second most powerful country in the world." It should read "second most in ability to project power globally". Russia, China, India, and lots of other big regional powers have a more powerful military, but they do not have the ability to project that power globally, outside their own region.

And nations project power with more than just their military. Nations also project power culturally, economically, politically, etc. Combine such "soft" power that has a global reach with "hard" power that has a global reach, and it is easy to see how the UK is number 2 overall.

Thomas coupling
12th Nov 2015, 15:40
Ok, joking aside guys....how EXACTLY can GB Plc "project" its military power?

Let's start with the RAF: Maximum a dozen modern jets with a reach of a 1000 miles perhaps.......mmmmmm

Now the Army: How are they going to be projected, then. What mode of transport will "project" them globally? I would argue they would struggle to get a battalion half way across europe before logistical line broke down.

Navy: What Navy. To be a global threat you need CARRIERS and Jets. We have neither. The rest of the entire British Navy consists of 19 (nineteen) warships FFS.

Nuclear deterrent: 4 subs, 2 at sea at any one time. 21 missiles each and each missile capable of wiping out half a city. BIG hitter here. The only hitter but I would wager everything that the Brit mil would never use it first and by the time Jermey Cordite thinks hard about defending us, he'd be in the bunker in High Wycombe telling his selected union members and CND that he was true to his word.....to the end.....when the first SSBN landed in London.

IF this self serving report was to draw up the list of global mil reach/power, I would suggest out of 149 countries in the world with such capabilities, we would be around half way, near, say: Saudi Arabia (conventionally).

Time to wake up and smell the coffee. Spend a fortune tweaking nuke's but accept that our 'clout' in the mil arena globally went out the window over a decade ago.

A decade ago, our economy was three times the size of India’s. Today it is barely 50 per cent larger. At current growth rates, India will eclipse us within another decade. It will eventually operate three aircraft carriers to our two, and churn out ever-larger nuclear missiles while we debate whether to scrap ours.

MSOCS
12th Nov 2015, 18:24
Study finds that the study, which finds UK is second most powerful country in the world, is the second most accurate study.

ShotOne
12th Nov 2015, 18:41
Let's go through your post, Thomas. Our 1000 mile warplanes are in daily use, rightly or wrongly, bashing targets in the Middle East, we'd love loads more but I count more than a dozen. We've placed a substantial army, again rightly or wrongly in Iraq and another in Afganistan for years. Above all, there are bases in many countries around the world where they'd be welcome and would likely be our allies in any foreseeable conflict.

Saudi? come on. Read the report again; it's about power, not top trumps and counting the tanks.

Thomas coupling
12th Nov 2015, 22:10
Take our nuclear deterent away and the brit mil would be no threat to anyone.
We couldn't invade anwhere.
If Argentina invaded the falklands tomorrow, the brits have 3 tornado's and 2 seakings down there and about 500 troops.
6 aircraft for syria.
Why Britain's armed forces are shrinking by the day and does it really matter? - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/10924976/Why-Britains-armed-forces-are-shrinking-by-the-day-and-does-it-really-matter.html)
You can fit the entire brit army into wembley FFS.

Where is the fire power in all of this then?

Rhino power
12th Nov 2015, 23:16
If Argentina invaded the falklands tomorrow, the brits have 3 tornado's (down there)...

That one utterance shows you know f**k all what you're talking about, there haven't been any (operational) Tornadoes at MPA for about 6 years...

-RP

ShotOne
13th Nov 2015, 07:52
Not only that but has entirely missed the point of the report. Even if Argentina somehow managed to find easy credit to buy a hundred jets or a fleet that would make that "IF" a reality, that still wouldn't make her a powerful country

dallas
13th Nov 2015, 08:18
Brilliant. I do hope we paid several million £ for that fairytale. :rolleyes:

Thomas coupling
13th Nov 2015, 12:45
Tornado / typhoon.....does it really matter? The fact is, there are THREE of them.:yuk:

The worrying thing in all of this is that some people out there (some of you lot reading it) genuinely end up believing the report and go away with that warm fuzzy feeling of how powerful (militarily) the UK is.

Smell the coffee guys - it is a blip on the military power scale. We are a coastal defence force at best. With the odd jet buggering off to the middle east to make us look important politically.

[And please - before you start - my posts have nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of our mil. That is and always has been sacrosanct.]

pr00ne
13th Nov 2015, 12:54
THOMAS COUPLING

And still you are wrong! If each and every one of your hard facts is wrong, how on earth can we take your emotive and cliched opinions as anything but meaningless drivel?

Rhino power
13th Nov 2015, 13:16
Tornado / typhoon.....does it really matter?
Yes!

The fact is, there are THREE of them.:yuk:
Wrong again!

If you can't even be bothered to get minor details like these correct, as, pr00ne wrote, why should anyone take any notice of the rest of the bilge you spout!

-RP

Fonsini
13th Nov 2015, 16:40
I think it's our cooking that makes us great.

Who could deny the global power of a nation that gave the world mushy peas ?

Rosevidney1
13th Nov 2015, 17:28
Or Cornish Pasties?

KenV
13th Nov 2015, 18:02
Ok, joking aside guys....how EXACTLY can GB Plc "project" its military power?Who's joking? But to answer your question, it involves primarily three things:

1. A military designed to be expeditionary rather than be a garrison force. In other words a military that is designed to operate from places other than their home base. This sounds simple, but is actually exceedingly difficult to achieve. Very few nations have ever developed military forces that can deploy globally. The USA and UK are the only two I can think of.

2. Overseas bases to deploy your forces to, and from which you can sustain long term operations. Basically, only the USA and UK have such bases globally and not just regionally. The USA is unique in that it has mobile bases in the form of carrier battle groups.

3. A support infrastructure able to support military forces that are globally deployed.

As for item 1 above, the UK developed that ability in the mid to late 19th century and while it has since atrophied, enough has been preserved to maintain a global presence. The US began developing that ability between the world wars and fully developed it after WW2. No other nation that I know of has even attempted it, although Japan got somewhat of a start just before WW2 but completely lost it after the war. You should read Alfred Thayer Mahan. He was mandatory reading where I went to school. And if you want to go back to antiquities, Rome sort of achieved it in the Western world. Rome's greatest weapon was (arguably) its road systems that enabled it to move large armies rapidly and sustain them in the field. And while it never got the prestige of the Roman Legions, Rome's Navy was instrumental in the Roman Empire's expansion and intrumental in sustaining it.

Thomas coupling
14th Nov 2015, 09:44
Rhino and Pr o on.

Pray tell me the real answer then?

In the meantime, I'll disclose my source, who is a military pilot based down there FULL TIME. He tells me that on PERMANENT alert:

Four Typhoons (PS: One is permanently undergoing maintenance at any one time).
500 fighting troops and around the same again as admin/engineering/HQ and logistics.

They have one decent warship down there and two SAR helos.

Oooops look at this:

Britain's military defences in the Falkland Islands - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/falklandislands/11491580/Britains-military-defences-in-the-Falkland-Islands.html)

Where exactly have I been misleading anyone, then?

(PS: occasionally the odd deployment gets sent down there for a couple of weeks at a time, but they don't stay down there).

Rhino power
14th Nov 2015, 11:45
In the meantime, I'll disclose my source, who is a military pilot based down there FULL TIME.

So, your 'source' is a 'military pilot based down there FULL TIME'? To the best of my knowledge there are no military (RAF at least) pilots based at MPA 'full time', they rotate aircrews on a regular basis...

I suspect your 'source' is more likely to be HP or Heinz, in which case you've spelt it wrong, it's, 'sauce'!

-RP

Jimlad1
14th Nov 2015, 14:45
God I find moaning about how awful it is that we only have X in the South Atlantic tedious. How many nations sustain forces 8000 miles from home exactly? Try us, the French and the USA and thats it.

More to the point, given the Argentine Navy has no ammunition (its missiles are all life expired), has an average of 19 hours submerged per year for its submarine force and gets collectively less days at sea per year than a single RN hull, perhaps we could take the eeyore blinders off a bit here?

smujsmith
14th Nov 2015, 19:13
Aahh lads, ease up on TC a bit eh ? He probably reads the Beano instead of the Dandy. The latest posts seem to be erring more toward Argentinian inability to act rather than his charge of our limited capability to defend. I would put my money on whatever few are there being more than capable of rebuffing any Argentinian adventurists. Let's hope it never gets to that point shall we. Awaiting my re education from seniors and betters, never fear, I spent 30 years listening to it.

Smudge :ok: