OWR,
I'm light blue, so I'm grateful that this iteration of this argument hasn't yet descended into light-blue dark-blue mudslinging.... something that the previous CAS and 1SL seemed incapable of.
FWIW, I think you're largely right. The ideal would be a budget of £60 - 65bn p.a. for the next 10 years. But it just isn't going to happen - RUSI's Professor Malcolm Chalmers (
RUSI Professor Malcolm Chalmers) is suggesting that the scale of the cuts will be 10-15% over the next Parliament - or £4 - 6bn p.a.. Anything on this scale means the mass slaughter of sacred cows and then some.
I agree too that we need to be looking 20 - 30 years out (and even then I still have a problem with the comparative utility of CVF), but the reality is that as the PR09 "process" showed, we're able to look a maximum of 24 months out - 36 if the weather's fine. This is no way to run any sort of public policy, let alone defence and security policy!
So if SDR 2010 is a serious policy review, tied to long-term foreign policy objectives, and it is forced to live within its means - and the 10 year indicative budgeting in the Gray Report would certainly help with this - then we may be getting somewhere. And if the answer is "All Afghanistan All the time", then the FJ RAF and the RN are in for a tough time - rightly so, if that's the political direction.
And to complete my light-blue heretical status, I'd also transfer RAF SH to the AAC. (Note to all Wannabes: don't suggest this in your OASC interview unless you really mean it!)
S41