So what happens to the RAF after 2015?
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And now the RAF is to be reduced to a pathetic 8 (or even 6) squadrons of fast-jets? Ridiculous
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BEagle
The question is how many members of the current Government have seen Service (let alone Active Service) in the Military. Very few Members of either House will even have memories of WW2 or Korea and even fewer will have seen Active Service.
When Mrs Thatcher came to power many of her Senior Cabinet Members had seen Active Service; Lord Carrington for example had won a Military Cross with Guards Armoured Division. The same was true on the Opposition benches, Mr Callaghan had been Commissioned from the lower deck during WW2.
Serving Bishops sit in the House of Lords - why not the Heads of each of the Services?
Just a thought
The question is how many members of the current Government have seen Service (let alone Active Service) in the Military. Very few Members of either House will even have memories of WW2 or Korea and even fewer will have seen Active Service.
When Mrs Thatcher came to power many of her Senior Cabinet Members had seen Active Service; Lord Carrington for example had won a Military Cross with Guards Armoured Division. The same was true on the Opposition benches, Mr Callaghan had been Commissioned from the lower deck during WW2.
Serving Bishops sit in the House of Lords - why not the Heads of each of the Services?
Just a thought
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If you put the Heads of service into the House of Lords they become political.
Of course they are in many ways political already, but having them in a position where they vote on the issues of the day (inc. the defence budget) seems a step to far.
Of course they are in many ways political already, but having them in a position where they vote on the issues of the day (inc. the defence budget) seems a step to far.
When I realised in the early 2000s that the RAF's fast jet fleet was half of its cold war size, this seemed somewhat reasonable as a dividend for peace, although recent and proposed cuts provoke deeper frowns.
It would presuppose that the force structure that was big enough to allow us to mount an operation like Granby (a reasonable conflict to scale forces for to meet post Cold War challenges) or to be able to mount simultaneous ops in the Balkans and in Ops Northern and Southern Watch while still being able to meet 'contingencies'.
If we agree that the post Cold War world is a dangerous and unpredictable place, then surely being able to handle these scales of task don't seem unreasonable?
Taking the 'five turns of the handle' model for enduring ops, then surely having 25-30 FJ squadrons, allowing us to be able to deploy five or six squadrons, is not an unrealistic aspiration for a nation of Britain's size and pretensions to influence and importance? 18 Squadrons (able to support an enduring deployment by three squadrons, without compromising UK AD) certainly doesn't seen excessive, while a 12 Squadron FJ force seems too small, and anything less a joke.
Yet we are told, with apparent equanimity, that the RAF could no longer 'do a Granby or a Telic'. In today's unstable and dangerous world, how is that OK?
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With only 6 (or 8) FJ squadrons, how on earth is the RAF going to do 'Combat' ISTAR as well?
Maybe if you got all those squadrons airborne at the same time, formated in line abreast and flew over the sea and land to search the same area as a Nimrod and Sentinel.
Maybe if you got all those squadrons airborne at the same time, formated in line abreast and flew over the sea and land to search the same area as a Nimrod and Sentinel.
I'm not sure I would ever have expected the UK to have been able to unilaterally win a cold war turned hot.
Wearing my devil's-advocate hat, because we could have chosen not to do them. I would be the first one to advocate a much more muscular, interventionist foreign policy if I thought we could afford it, but while we can't, that might not be an unreasonable choice.
Funnily enough, I'd arrived at a 12-18 reasonable minimum as well, and if I can do it, I suspect the issue is not the complexity of the problem.
P
In today's unstable and dangerous world, how is that OK?
Funnily enough, I'd arrived at a 12-18 reasonable minimum as well, and if I can do it, I suspect the issue is not the complexity of the problem.
P
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JTIDS
1. And the Bishops?
2. A MRAF never retires - MRAF Lord Craig sits in the upper House.
1. And the Bishops?
2. A MRAF never retires - MRAF Lord Craig sits in the upper House.
The Field Marshal's and equivalent who now sit in the upper house I think only received their rank and place in the House of Lords on the day of their retirement from active service. They never sat whilst they were still serving full time. This policy of promoting heads of service on retirement was I believe abandoned in the mid 90's.
