..The country can easily afford to spend more on Defence, our politicians just choose not to.
There is no reason why defence should be immune to the financial needs of the time. It has to justify it's expenditure and literally get the biggest bang for our bucks. If there were no financial limit then you would be wide open to the even more of the inefficient procurement practices that have dogged us for years. Does our inventory look like the 4th largest (or wherever we are now) defence expenditure in the world? So, whilst I too I would like to see defence properly funded to meet its objectives, I wouldn't contemplate any increase until the procurement process has been fixed. If (a very big IF) that can be achieved, then even the same expenditure would get us further towards meeting very demanding objectives.
Of course the same financial discipline should to be applied to all the really big areas of government expenditure too; they should not be given free rein either. Pity those budgets are more likely to win more votes though.
Current options for such a fix are being debated elsewhere on PPRuNe. I sincerely hope that initiative is successful. If not, there is always UKIP's radical solution of sacking the entire MoD and starting again.
LF