Interesting point, HJ.
"If people have a belief in a political system, a religion or a culture and they're prepared to retain that belief to the point of death, all you can do is kill them or struggle to subjugate them. So if they're not interfering in your world, let them be."
I think it was you as well who asked the question of (basically) who among us, in this nation would be prepared to put their money where their mouth is, if the s**t really hit the fan... and, I'm afraid, I'd have to agree with you, beyond those who are either currently serving or have served in the last 10-20 years, given the paucity of the current leadership, I dont think that many of the UK population would be prepared to make that kind of sacrifice and that the kind of spirit we saw in WW2 has largely all but disappeared.
However, lets not get alarmist; theres a difference between protecting your national interests, being able to defend your territory and world power projection and as we all know, our traditional role has been based on state-on-state warfare, which is changing dramatically. It can never be said though (as someone else has pointed out, referring to the dwindling of natural resources over time), that just because the current - and maybe forseeable near-mid future conflicts - may be more asymmetrical that it is always going to be that way.
We have to decide what we're going to be and stick to it. NATO still remains relevant as a concept, despite its failings. Our perceived position as one of the global plastic plods to America's world policeman though is one that we have to seriously reconsider as to whether it is affordable, whether it is practical and whether it is really necessary.
On the subject of the strategic deterrent, I have to say, that dependant on which way the dice falls on whether we should remain punching above our weight and whether such an interventionist stance is in our true national interests, that for the first time in my life finding it somewhat difficult to justify 100Bn on Son Of Trident and conceptually, I find myself falling in behind those who are suggesting TLAM equipped Astute, or possibly even a TLAM/stand-off equipped stealth UAV.
Now, some may say that the range of current TLAM systems doesnt give you the flexibility and that CM systems are vulnerable to SAM/ABM systems and may possibly be negated by multi-layered AD systems. I accept that point. It doesnt mean though that future generation TLAM systems are going to be that way. Regarding the inherent problems with range, yes it would mean your delivery system has to get closer to the target area in order to deliver the weapon and then as soon as it is fired, the delivery platform's position is comprimised, but lets be serious here, beside the "Alamo" type scenario of defending your home territory with everything you've got in a last ditch attempt to prevent being over-run/invaded/wiped out, what kind of circumstances would it truly be necessary to use these systems many many miles from home?
I have to agree that I dont think that post-9/11 would have been the time to do it and would have exacerbated the current situation many many times over. It could be argued that Shock & Awe was what forced Ghadaffi to the negotiating table and got rid of the Libyan W.M.D. programme - having seen what happened to Saddam, Ghadaffi was in no mood for his regime to go the same way. So, there has been at least one positive pay-off from it, it could be said.
Radical Islam is not necessarily something that is going to be "defeated", if it ever possibly can be military, at the end of a gun. We have to think of other ways and a lot of it falls upon the regimes where the threat grows and comes from to marginalise it and negate its need (same with violent Irish republicanism, as we have seen over the last 10-12 years) as much as anything else... A state on state war machine is not necessarily the best way to achieve this objective, although elements of it, such as use of special forces, assassination teams, a la Mossad, targetted at senior elements of insurgents/those who pose a direct threat, use of UAV's against targets of opportunity and yes, as Clinton did, following the attacks on the US Embassies in the late 1990's use of TLAM's against known training sites etc, in my very very humble opinion is riposte enough without changing your entire military ethos and way of doing things.
The way things are going now, to the shame of not only the government and defence ministers who have dictated it and presided over it, but also to the greater disgrace of those of star rank in uniform who have allowed them to do it, is that going forward, all we are going to be able to carry out in the near to middle future is estuary cocktail parties and port visits and more Afghan campaigns or similar.
Were it to kick off again down south, we would be screwed and would have to let the FI go and comprimise our interests in Antarctica . Now, maybe in a post-colonial world, this is a wake up call we should have had years ago and maybe should have been better prepared for than what we are. But far better for us to decide thats the kind of society we want to be and move to that kind of position voluntarily, rather than having it foisted on us by a military defeat in a conflict the country didnt want and wasnt prepared to fight when the balloon went up.