Economically astute; well done HMG/MOD! Now that the monstrously expensive harrier is gone, at least we have succeeded in selling these unique and previously useful assets to recoup some of their cost. With such a good return on our investment and after years of developmental hard work by many people, we can now buy or cover off the following (approx):
- - 1.5 x Hawk T2s (almost)
- - 5 x PC-21s
- - 1 month of Libya ops
- - 4% the cost of procuring Brimstone (since 1996)
- - 30 x Litening pods (good!)
- - 0.4% of the foreign aid budget for 2011
OK I’m bored of doing more maths for this but you get the idea. After such a long term investment in the harrier by the UK I cannot find the words to do this justice. However, I was intrigued to learn that the UK also subsidises the EU to the tune of about 100 bn Euro per year (and receives about 40 bn Euros in return) – so there’s no money available for UK defence? Suffice to say that the money managing lunatics are in control of the asylum and defence is not as high on the agenda as ensuring one’s nest is feathered. An old squadron boss of mine said a few years ago that the wheels were coming off the bus – he was right, big time.
I think it's called politics; doesn't matter whether the decision to withdraw was right or wrong, fact is its been taken and DC et al aren't going to back-track on this one no matter how much logic and common-sense dictates otherwise. The decision to drawdown the entire force within 6 wks of SDSR announcement was as clear a signal as any that this was never going to go any other way.
Like others have said I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when Stanhope got read the riot act!
Fundamentally I guess we're somewhat fortunate in that our own inadequacies are nothing compared to that of most of our NATO partners. I never thought I'd say this but I see some kind of pan-European airforce/army/navy as being the only way in which we Europeans can remain credible....