weemonkey said “homeland security” which pr00ne twisted to “home defence”; I don’t think they are quite the same thing as ‘security’ has wider scope and includes such things as protection of shipping elsewhere. And unless pr00ne is proposing to withdraw from NATO then we have Alliance burden-sharing responsibilities to fulfil which would add to the minimalist shopping list he presented.
The problem weemonkey alludes to is aggravated by a perceived need for force elements to be kept ‘busy’ to justify their existence; why, for instance, are Typhoons still taking part in Op SHADER? So I think an important issue for this review will be readiness states and what we expect our NATO contribution to do while waiting for WW3. Less interfering in far-flung corners and more focus on training would improve retention and might even reduce pressure on the wage bill.
Trouble is, the carriers were acquired precisely to interfere in far-flung corners, and rebranding them as ASW platforms for the NATO context doesn’t really help the case for the rest of the F-35 acquisition programme. That’s just the kind of problem that Cummings will focus on.