Originally Posted by
Onceapilot
As I have said, he is there to do the cutting!
Funny how he was "welcomed" by MOD. Also, funny how the USA are shouting against any cuts to UK Defence spending....they can see the cutbacks coming.
OAP
Further cuts, for that's what they are despite weasel word demands to call them adjustments, will be futile and damage UK standing at a time we are desperately pushing our global credentials.
We hear of 'unaffordable' programmes and lay the blame at underperforming Single Services or MOD planners. Now they may be underperforming in certain respects, but equipment programmes, operations, training activity, they all fall out higher political direction. Not because someone wakes up and suddenly decides ordering a couple of carriers or a new fleet of FJ might be a good idea. Cutting capability means cutting the requirement. To cut the former but not the latter is any one of naive, ignorant, wishful thinking, or just plain stupid. Probably all the above, but it won't make the current situation any better.
Senior leaders need to start asking questions of themselves and what their aims and objectives are, and then if the answer needs resource, resourcing it rather than pretending we can do everything with nothing. We are the Armed Forces not the Magic Circle; leave the rabbits and hats to them. But to keep continuing this saga of the emperor's new clothes does nothing for national standing or capability and seriously compromises our ability to project influence as we aspire to do in this post-BREXIT era.