Exodus......
I'm one of those that went for the exit in 1989 at the end of the Cold War and can't say that I've ever looked back with any regrets.....Saying so may sound that I'm gloating which is the last thing on my mind. What concerns me is how's this going to end.....
Ok, we all know the country is broke and can't afford to maintain the armed forces we once could. The problem is knowing when it's going to stop. If we all knew that a 10% cut, or even a 20% cut would be the end of the story then we could perhaps cope. What is so unsettling is the compounded cuts year after year and now there are new "black holes" in the MoD's budget, which can hardly be a surprise given the un-funded wars in Iraq, Afg and now Libya.
The problem soon will not be asking for volunteers to take an early bath, but how to ensure that there is enough people left to field a team. At this rate of sink it will be very hard to pull out of the dive......never mind the over-stress.....the airframe's already been bent too far!
All this made worse by a sense of mistrust and poor leadership from above, which the coalition government has done little to improve, or even to understand.
MB