You have £100m for defence and you run the country...
You currently spend £8m on humint, sigint, MI5/6.
You currently spend £62m on the conventional Army, Navy, Air Force.
You currently spend £30m on a strategic nuclear deterrent.
Now. I *think* the biggest threat to this country at the moment is something like nerve agent release on the Tube, a fishing boat full of radioactive waste & semtex sailing up the Thames or some nutter hitting me on the head at work and driving into Big Ben.
So, dealing with the biggest threats first, I want to shift money from conventional forces into the intelligence areas - don't I?
I might have a good long think about whether we need to remain a nuclear power. I might think about the costs of replacing Trident sometime in the next 20yrs and take a long lie down in a dark room. Then I think I would be happier to retain the ultimate deterrent in these times when the likes of Pakistan has it.
So do I want a couple of hundred main battle tanks sat on Salisbury plain or 20 squadrons of jolly smart Eurofighters or 2 gor blimey aircraft carriers? Or would I rather have an extra 5,000 intelligence agents in the field, some amazing sigint capability and possibly a competent robust civil defence architecture?
I want to have intelligence agents in every corner of every dodgy country around the globe. I want them expertly trained and perfectly equipped and supported. I want them to have plenty of cash to loosen tongues and I want the best and brightest not Oxbridge Shaylors.
I want to be able to read every email listen to every phone call, track every mobile and scan every computer at will and without trace. I want to be able to watch any point on the globe in minute detail 24/7 regardless of weather and I want to share and exploit the capabilities of friendly nations to achieve this.
I want to have emergency services on standby that can handle a small nuclear detonation or a biological weapons release in a major city. I want a command and control structure that really will work when the worst happens, that can lock down the country in the event of a biological attack. That can stop the deaths of tens of thousands from being the deaths of millions.
Now at present we don't have any of the above 3 paragraphs.
If you tell me that most of Typhoon, most of the heavy tank equipment and most of the surface Navy is the price. Well. I'm tempted to pay it. I think it would serve my security interests better.
Terrible shame. I would have loved to pole about in a Typhoon had I been good enough and I'm sure a ChallengerII and Type42 is equally sporting in its own way. But the threat really really really HAS changed this time. I'm weary of pat historic parallels when its been said before.
The threat is as dedicated as the the suicide bomber. The threat is totally asymetric. The threat is illogical and idealogical. The threat exists without a state and without state backing. The threat is competent.
The only defence and offense is intelligence.
The odds on failure suggest investment in civil defence.
Both these things will require a lot of money. You tell me where it should come from?
Cheers
WWW