PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - UK Strategic Defence Review 2020 - get your bids in now ladies & gents
Old 20th Dec 2019, 15:48
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Easy Street
 
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Asturias56 and Herod - agreed. SofS’s statement (as quoted) was nonsensical, which rather confirms my earlier point about a military background not being a reliable indicator of ministerial competence. It doesn't bode well for coherence of the supposed integrated review; the level of ambition should be certainly be dictated to MOD by Government and the HM Treasury-supplied cloth is cut into service-sized chunks by MOD, not the services themselves. If SofS thinks the services are guilty of pursuing their own narrow interests, he is more than capable of constraining them should he wish to do so.

On the other hand, perhaps SofS is just playing cynical politics, setting the services up to be seen as cutting themselves so that the Government doesn't have to take the blame. I can easily imagine Cummings spinning a line such as 'the Army actively wanted to reduce its headcount to 60,000 due to recent advances in training methods and equipment automation' and ruthlessly discrediting any retired general who dared to disagree...

Last edited by Easy Street; 20th Dec 2019 at 16:45.
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