Agree with Tallsar - did we not go thru the same ruinous process during the inter-war years? Massive underinvestment in fighters etc as we didn't think we'd have another war - then WHAM! Here comes your Black Swan event. WW2.
Today's wretched announcement of more 'Battle Winning Chinooks' taking the fleet to 70 is very short sighted in my opinion. Why, if Gordon Brown is talking of reducing our commitment to Afghan by 2011, is the MoD investing in another 22 odd Chinooks that won't be delivered until 2012-14??
This short sighted focus is being driven by the Army who have ditched all their long term plans in favour of fighting THE war as apposed to retaining extra capabilities to fight A war?!!
It's these illogical short term budgetary constraints that end up causing more angst down stream as potential adversaries decide it may be worth having a pop at under resourced nations (Think China etc who yesterday tested another satellite killing missile, as they have realized that we are totally dependent on GPS for all our weapons and navigation)
This Government has ruined the Military and the wider country. Good riddance come May although the rot is that bad it will take years to fix no matter who's in power!