Predictable, yes.
But also obviously (and to some extent regrettably) the right thing to do.
As the Defence Committee are coming to realise.
"Pressures on the defence budget are so great that ministers should consider sacrificing one of its most prestigious projects - the £4bn replacement of two aircraft carriers - rather than simply delaying or cutting back planned new weapons systems, a powerful scrutiny committee will say today.
In a report critical of how the government procures new weapons, the cross-party Commons defence committee will challenge it to explain "what roles the two future carriers will perform ... and what capabilities these ships will give us that could not be provided in other ways".
Two carriers, the largest ships ever built for the navy, are due to be completed in 2014 and 2016 at an estimated cost of £3.9bn. Delays are likely to increase the costs while separate delays in the US Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme mean the first carrier will make do with ageing British Harriers, the committee notes."
The carriers and the JSFs they will carry are a massive funding item, which grossly distort, and will continue to distort, the defence budget, making it impossible to afford the bread and butter items we actually NEED, as opposed to being merely nice to have.
Yes, yes, I've read and understood all of the stuff about land-based and sea-based air power being complementary in an ideal world. But this isn't an ideal world and we can't afford it. Land-based air power can be useful on its own, naval air power isn't. We've needed and used land based air power every time we've been on ops, we've seldom NEEDED sea-based. Naval aviation is a luxury we cannot afford, and keeping the Royal Navy as a gold-plated, Cold War leviathan while the other surfaces become cash-starved tinpot jokes should not be allowed to continue.
JSF costs are increasing exponentially, such that the GAO already predicts that the USA will be paying more per aircraft than we paid for Typhoon. It's time to jettison CVF and JSF, and with them the unrealistic aspirations of grandeur which they represent.