Loads of spare cash for MoD
As I've posted before the MoD has a big windfall coming if they play their cards right. There's a big sale of MoD radio spectrum coming up that could raise up to £10bn. If those MPs who claim to be committed to defence got their act together they could put a lot of pressure on both Darling and Osborne to ring fence that money for the services, as they did on the sale of Chelsea Barracks.
Whether we need all of the big projects is a question that clearly we disagree about. At the moment all our efforts are focused on non-state actors but can we assume that this will always be the case?
In the last few years the Russian Government closed down airflilights over large parts of the Norwegian Sea during a Russian Navy 'exercise', invaded Georgia and continue to refuse to ratify the CFE Treaty. It is claimed that unofficial supporters of the Russian Government conducted a large scale cyber attack on a NATO ally, murdered a political exile living in London and continue to murder journalists on a regular basis.
On the other hand the Cold War is over and I don't think the Russian Armed Forces are anything like fit for purpose. The number of political prisoners in Russia today is nothing like the scale of the Soviet era, and the judiciary is far more independent.
Nothing is inevitable and we do have choices.