At the risk of getting very boring, being administrated in a commercial fashion is fine - what isn't fine is squandering scarce resources on non-priority line items, slavishly demanding rigid annual accounting, and making decisions without assessing the cost of those. Spend the money more sensibly (and that includes proper manning, good man-management (rather than trendy management speak) pay and conditions), and many of these problems would go away.
And on the commitments side. If we need armed forces we need them to defend our sovereignty, territorial integrity, interests and values. It's not trying to be a Superpower (if we were we'd do things alone, or insist on leadership), nor is it trying to be a World/Global/Colonial policeman. It's doing the right thing, standing up for our principles and values, and fulfilling the obligations which go with being on the Security Council, a G7 nation and what Mr Blair would like to see as a beacon of democracy, enlightenment, etc.
It's unfortunate that 'doing what's right' sounds so idealistic and naive, and while these are cynical times, in which such attitudes may be unfashionable, if you didn't agree, you would never have joined the armed forces, never have sworn anything to Queen and Country, and would now be working in the city, diddling old ladies out of their carefully hoarded savings. So please don't be too cynical - it's just too easy a cop out to say "Falklands - electioneering. Gulf - oil. Bosnia - sucking up to the EU/Clinton, whatever." What they all have in common (like 39-45, 14-18 and maybe even Suez) is doing the right thing.
We can laugh at talk about 'an ethical foreign policy' but actually it had huge resonance among the voters. This might all sound like high-flown b0ll0cks, but actually.....
And the alternative is to ignore the fact that massive threats can develop more quickly than we could restructure to meet them, and say (as we did in the 1920s and 1930s) there is no immediate direct threat to Britain, therefore we only need token armed forces.
In 1920 everyone thought that Germany was broken, that its people and politicians had fundamentally changed, and that the nation had learned the lessons of history and defeat, and was thoroughly bankrupt (and thus unable to be a threat). Sensible, well-informed strategic analysts believed that a second World War was impossible. We were at war within 20 years.
In 1990 everyone thought that Russia was broken, that its people and politicians had changed, and that the nation had learned the lessons of history and defeat, and was thoroughly bankrupt (and thus unable to be a threat). I'm not predicting a new Cold War, but history teaches us that the world is a dangerous, unstable and unpredictable place. If being a 'global policeman' (and I don't think that's what we are) helps pay for the armed forces which might deter a future enemy, then that's a price which we should be prepared to pay. And I think the bulk of the population are prepared!
What they are not prepared to support is to see their hard earned taxes used to prop up inefficient monopolistic suppliers, to be used wastefully or inefficiently, to buy crap, to further corruption, or to be spent with no obvious visible return.
Sorry to rant on!
[This message has been edited by Jackonicko (edited 15 June 2000).]