Pr00ne let me firstly apolegise. But since you seemed to advocate things such as the RAF having no air defence aircraft I suspected that you might have been acting on some less than honest politicians.....
Rollocks, it was the "admiralty" that took the decision, the same people who removed Sea Eagle from the inventory and even now are reviewing the need for Sub-Harpoon in the SSN fleet.
If I may be allowed to comment on that statment...
In early/mid 2001, the then CINCFLEET, Admiral Sir Nigel Essenhigh, wrote a report called the Fleet Risks Register. In it he made a number of worrying remarks, most notable of these was that ships of the Fleet were at a greater risk of being hit by sea skimming missiles than at any other time since the Falklands war, due to various problems with ship based defences. He was First Sea Lord when the Sea Harrier decision was made. He left the post early....
His replacement, Admiral Sir Alan West, who had been CINCFLEET at the time of the decision, had experience of being on the receiving end of an air attack when his ship,
Ardent, was sunk during the Falklands campaign. On the first page of this thread I provided a link to a recent interview with him, in which he says that from 2006 until the time JSF enters the Royal Navy will be unable to conduct a major operation against an opponent with a significant air force without the support of the US, in other words the Navy doesn't need air defence as long as it isn't required to go to war without Uncle Sam. Remember that he too has to just go along the company line in public.
Also since the SDR the Sea Harrier units have come under the command of 3 Group (RAF), part of Strike Command. This may or may not be relevent, but it is worth remembering.
Jacko you may well wonder about the importance of naval/maritime forces - but you might want to think about the commitment of naval forces to UN and NATO operations off of Bosnia. For several years we permantly had a carrier commited to that theatre of operations, with Sea Harriers (initially FRS1 but later FA2) flying air defence, attack and reece sorties, sometimes all three roles in the same mission. Before you start harping on about escorts, the CVS was in general supported by one or two frigates. We also contributed to the NATO Operation
Sharp Gaurd, over the time it ran the UK contribution had involved something like twenty frigates and destroyers and four or five SSNs. Then there were several stand offs with Iraq in the late '90s, then Kosovo, then Sierra Leone (whether or not land based aircraft could have got there faster naval forces would have been involved), Sierra Leone again in late 2000 (the Amphibious Ready Group sent to deter the rebels), then Operation
Veritas, then
Telic.... Plus routine operations at the same time.
The following two links may interest you....
http://www.parliament.the-stationery...38we/13828.htm
http://navyleag.customer.netspace.net.au/fc_07jop.htm
As pr00ne says, terrorism is a major threat. However, it is not the only one, indeed when the Sea Harrier was discussed on
Newsnight last year Lewis Moonie himself said that sea skimming missiles are the most serious threat to naval forces. Also see....
http://www.navalofficer.com.au/missiles.htm
http://www.global-defence.com/2001/MSpart4.html
http://www.aeronautics.ru/moskit01.htm
http://homepage.tinet.ie/~steven/anti_ship.htm
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/m...row/index.html