Originally Posted by
Not_a_boffin
Digging up the old myth about it being a minister-led job creation scheme (...)
However, the spares shortages are the usual games played by all to overcome short term affordability issues. (...)
The real question is whether the UK having left the EU, reverts to being a European land power because the EU nations will not spend their own money, or whether it provides the high-end naval and air capabilities for the European part of NATO. It's not as if anyone else is going to provide the latter.
It isn’t just spares shortages though, it’s manpower too, and the root cause of both is the political direction for the Treasury to prioritise investment over spending for the last decade-plus (and indeed for the decade to come). That’s why I say the problem is minister-led and all of Tuc’s experiences reinforce that contention. Why else would someone as high as CDP (or CEO DE&S in today’s money) have such an unhealthy obsession with driving out support from project costings? I agree that the RAF has been just as guilty as the RN of taking the opportunity to plough capital into known-unsupportable capabilities throughout that time: hence both services’ manpower crises. Hell, maybe it’s OK to invest in the metal and only pay for the bodies, parts and fuel when you think a conflict is in the offing, but at least be honest with the taxpayer about it before someone expects you to deploy the capability and then wonders why you can’t.
As for “revert to being a European land power”, exactly what period of British history would that be reverting to?
The question should really be how we best deliver the air and naval power to which our geographic and geopolitical positions suit us so well (including our five-eyes privileges, although the Huawei episode made me wonder whether the current government placed as much value on them as many of us military types do. It’ll be interesting to see how the government’s positioning on ‘Europe v US’ matters changes with the departure of Sedwill and MacDonald just before the Integrated Review).