Back on thread:-
In a perfect world the politicians would lay out what they want the military to do - the military would then estimate independently what forces are needed and then someone (also independent ) like the Institute for Fiscal Studies would crunch the costs and tell Govt this is the bill ....... you'd go round the hoops a few times to get to an answer
I'm sure people e.g. Sir Humphrey Appleby) will claim that this is what is done now in Whitehall - but I think it should all be done in public - then we can see who is grandstanding