The new roles and responsibilities of the new expeditionary air force are not, in themselves, the problem. The problem is overstretch. The RAF is simply too small, and too under-funded to do its job. But the answer (IMHO) isn't to scale back the commitments (you then run the risk of politicos asking "Why bother at all, what's the RAF for?"). The answer is to spend the available money much more wisely, and not to use the defence budget to prop up and subsidise excessive profits and share dividends for British Industry. If we were procuring 'smarter' most programmes would cost 1/7 of their present cost. Compare Tornado GR4 and Jaguar GR3A, as a quick 'for instance'.
And now is the time to point out that in the post Cold War world, we may no longer need WE177 (not convinced about that) and we may no longer need big Armoured Divisions in Germany. We certainly don't need Trident. But actually, we did need deployable fast jet squadrons, and to cut them back from 29 to 18 was short-sighted and stupid - especially when five of those units are next to bugger all use. (So why not give the F.MK 3 some useful capabilities, for starters - Vicon, an ELS and ALARM, etc.?) and why not up the number of OS squadrons, there are dozens of Jags sitting at Cosford with 1-2,000 hours on the clock, which could be converted to Jag 97 standards for under £0.5m a pop.
Oops! In dreamland again. Or am I?