'Exchange posts' to tide us over?
A post in the MPA thread got me thinking - with fixed wing naval aviation, MPA gone, and other capabilties hanginging on by a thread (ASTOR?) a lot of the forward planning seems to rest on keeping these skills alive by placing UK pilots & aircrew in exchange posts with various allied chums around the world.
Great idea in theory - then get our professional folk on long term lease - and we get a core back when we can actually afford defence...
However as a previous poster noted the key is in 'exchange' - with a smaller and smaller force - what exactly can we offer in return? (unless we are happy to have 50% of Typhoon seats go to foreign exchange officers to the next few years?).
We even apparently have lost decent exchange postings with the USMC when we left them out on a limb holding the F-35B baby...
Any ideas?