Don't our illustrious lords and masters, who are presumably graduates of various Defence Colleges, (or similar) ever learn the old mantra that sustained military ops (i.e. not just a surge) require sufficient forces to allow rotations......1/3rd actually at the sharp end, 1/3rd training to go and last 1/3rd as re-inforcements to the other 2/3rds.
With the length of our present commitments in foreign places such as the FI, Afg and now Libya (ignore domestic tasks such as QRA - do we bother anymore?) then we are kidding ourselves than we can send even one squadron of Tonkas to enforce the NFZ over Libya and perhaps another one squadron of Tiffies. That's it!
Our polititians carry one as though we still had an inventory of Harriers, F3's, Jags and Nimrods. The're all gone and we won't get them back no matter how many times we may wish!
Why is it that the most basic lessons about defence get forgotten so quickly? I who never even did ISC can still remember the lesson of the three P's!
P***, poor planning = p*** poor performance!
I see failure ahead in Libya. The moral is either do the job properly, or don't bother. I don't think we should "bother" anymore....we (as a country) don't have the ability anymore to "shout".
MB