Personally I'm not sure what Fox means when he talks about "kissing goodbye to the cold war" - didn't we do that in the 90's with Options and the follow on SDR? From a RAF pov significant manpower reductions took place and cold war focussed capabilities are already gone (anyone remember RAFG and tactical nuclear optons, etc).
The problem with predicting the future is it's always the unknown that catches you out; therefore balanced forces and capabilities are a must. So if we take the IND (Navy) as a given then that means Army and Air are left to squabble over what's left.
In that context any pretence to willy waving carriers must go; so bye bye QE2 and for that matter JSF. In service Typhoon needs to be properly funded and fielded in sufficient numbers to allow disposal of first Harrier and (much) later GR4 fleets. Lets free up some Army money by halving tank and artillery composition and fully funding Apache, and buying more if necessary.
Agree that MRA4 (more than 9) is a must as it gives us options as well as fulfiling a basic need, we are an island nation with overseas territories after all. But probably time to wave goodbye to at least 3 sentries (E-3D's) or even all of them - why can't we leverage the NATO capability here?
We need more strat AT and some decent (none ancient, none PFI) AAR, not sure about 70(!) chinooks plus Merlin, Puma, SK and Wildcat. Don't think I'm alone in saying that a number of Blackhawks could replace many of those mentioned?
I'm sure there's more....