Originally Posted by
Heathrow Harry
It's not all (or even mainly) the carriers that are to blame - Typhoon is a much bigger item and Successor/Dreadnought looks like another horrible black hole going to happen.
Trouble is those two programmes are deemed essential whereas the carriers have always been seen as a nice-to-have. Even many in the RN are expressing dismay at the loss of other capabilities and are (rightly or wrongly) pointing the finger at the carriers.
Depends on your PoV as to what is essential and what is nice to have. See earlier on minimum national defence vs alliance contribution. While I would also say that Typhoon and CASD are essential, there are a lot of other things that (IMO) are not because they are well provided for elsewhere in the NATO alliance.
However, that should not obscure the simple fact that 2%GDP is a minimum. If we want to do more than minimum national defence then we need to budget accordingly.