Originally Posted by
Melchett01
...That's why I think we are struggling so much these days; the political perception appears to be that the major threat, for now, isn't state on state (it isn't necessarily even Russia long term, I'd be looking at China and Iran for state on state issues), the government deems security and terrorism as the major threat and is investing heavily on countering it up stream through the work of the FCO and agencies like DFID and downstream through the work of the police and security services. And none of that sadly requires large numbers of fast jets (or tanks and destroyers for that matter).
I think that's right and some shift in the overall balance of things to reflect that was probably appropriate. I think the issue we face now though is that things have shifted a little too far to quickly - and so it is that we find ourselves struggling to mount a sustained deployment of 8 airframes so as to get two into the air on ops, with nothing much left in the cupboard.
The turn of world events suggests that, shift of emphasis notwithstanding, things aren't quite in kilter as they stand (and as they will be in 2019 when front line FJ strength dips to just 6 sqns on current plans); and that a little rebalancing is needed in a positive direction if we're not to continue running on fumes. I doubt many would realistically suggest veering back towards the 30 or so sqns we had only a couple of decades ago, but an establishment of say 9 sqns (5 Typhoon, four F35) by the early-mid 2020s (supplemented in the short term by the temporary stand-up of a sixth Typhoon sqn via retaining some Tranche 1s) would put things into slightly better balance, and shouldn't be entirely unrealistic as an SDSR outcome.
Anyway that's my two penn'orth for what little it's worth. Other views are available.