I read an excellent Telegraph article pointing out some of the issues with us continuing to slash defence budgets.
Link
here (bear in mind it's a progressive paywall thing, so will count as one of your "20 a month" or whatever)
Basically, it says that US spending as a proportion of NATO defence spending has increased over the past few decades from 63% to 75%. The US spends 4.8% of GDP on defence; we spend 2%, the rest of Europe's NATO members around 1%.
It accuses us of slashing defence to pay for large welfare systems, and assuming the US will always pick up the slack. In the meantime, with Asian defence spending rising, and China rapidly emerging as a new defence superpower, the US focus is shifting to the Pacific. Gates stated that he doesn't think future Generals will see the US participation in NATO as worth the cost once the Cold War becomes a memory.
Apparently important US defence people have expressed surprise that we're happy to carry a carrier strike and MPA capability gap, with the assumption being they'll just pick up the NATO slack. What if they decide not to?
End of the article:
How might this be avoided? Britain has a crucial role to play. The defence and security review of 2010 was designed to keep us above the vital but undefined threshold that makes Britain a worthwhile ally for America, while still making inevitable cuts. The more realistic goal turned out to be ensuring that when we did fall below that line, we would eventually be able to clamber back up again.
In this way, Britain tried to avoid relegation to the free-riders. So we lost our ability to launch strike aircraft from carriers, but we will regain this when the first Queen Elizabeth Class vessel enters service in 2018.
However, the current defence equipment programme assumes that its budget will rise by 1 per cent above inflation after 2015. That may not be a safe bet. True, the Trident issue is something of a red herring: we can maintain the capacity and have a proper military if we really want to spend the money. But there is still a Potemkin village quality about some of our aspirations. The Royal Navy will get two giant carriers, each capable of carrying 36 Lightning II fighters, but only one vessel will be available at any given time – and this will probably have only 12 planes. In theory, Britain will have two platforms capable of embarking 72 fighters; in reality, one will be available with only a sixth of that number of planes.
Put bluntly, Britain is perilously close to joining Europe’s free-riders. If that happens, and a future American president then turns decisively towards Asia, the government responsible will have made a great strategic blunder.
... perhaps cutting defence isn't such a smart move beyond 2015 after all?