UK Strategic Defence Review 2020 - get your bids in now ladies & gents
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: UK
Posts: 152
A small addition to the highlights above (my bold):
There is a clear message here – as Defence is always saying ‘with a bit more cash we could do the following’, it now has a chance to follow through on this.
While this may be painful to hear, the message is a simple one – don’t screw this up. Getting this wrong could have very painful long term consequences for Defence, and enrage a PM and Chancellor who have taken a lot of political risk to deliver this for the MOD.
While this may be painful to hear, the message is a simple one – don’t screw this up. Getting this wrong could have very painful long term consequences for Defence, and enrage a PM and Chancellor who have taken a lot of political risk to deliver this for the MOD.
Join Date: May 2011
Location: NEW YORK
Posts: 857
Originally Posted by SamYeager
A small addition to the highlights above (my bold):
Fact is that of course it will be screwed up, there is no program, no leader and no deliverables, just more money.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Peripatetic
Posts: 10,922
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...on-report-says
UK should tilt foreign policy to Indo-Pacific region, report says
Thr UK should make a major post-Brexit tilt towards the Indo-Pacific region, ploughing military, financial and diplomatic resources into building a major democratic counterweight to China’s growing threat to the post-1945 world order, a major report urges.
The report, prepared by a group of UK politicians for the right of centre thinktank Policy Exchange, and endorsed by the former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, represents a key shift in UK foreign policy thinking.
The UK and the EU have agreed on the need for a new role for Britain dedicated to helping the countries of the Indo-Pacific area stand up to Beijing by upholding democracy, free trade supported by open seas and an uncensored internet.
The report is deliberately framed as an attempt to carve out “the essence of a manifesto of what a global Britain looks like in the 2020s and beyond”.
Requiring a major shift in resources – in part enabled by last week’s rise in defence spending and the summer merger of the UK’s foreign and aid budgets – the proposals would set the UK up as a country committed to challenging China’s authoritarian model. It proposes the Indo-Pacific countries commit to a 21st century charter for democracy akin to the Atlantic charter signed by the UK and the US in 1941.
In a region accounting for close to half of global economic output and more than half the world’s population, the report envisages the UK working closely with allies such as Australia, India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
Overseen by Stephen Harper, the former Canadian prime minister, it will also receive support from the current Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison.......
As part of the tilt, the UK would apply for membership of the regional free trade partnership, seek to join the existing US, India, Australia and Japan security dialogue and enhance its military capacity in bases such as Diego Garcia.
“The UK government should expand the deployment of Royal Navy assets, RAF aircraft and Army (including Special Forces)/Royal Marines personnel to achieve uninterrupted, year-round UK military presence in the IPR (both on operational and training missions).”".........
In the case of Hong Kong, the report proposes that sanctions are now imposed on to Chinese Communist party officials for their role in the destruction of the territory’s sovereignty.
In a move that would further antagonise China, the report suggests the UK should start normalising relations with Taiwan, especially on global issues such as cyber security and health.
UK should tilt foreign policy to Indo-Pacific region, report says
Thr UK should make a major post-Brexit tilt towards the Indo-Pacific region, ploughing military, financial and diplomatic resources into building a major democratic counterweight to China’s growing threat to the post-1945 world order, a major report urges.
The report, prepared by a group of UK politicians for the right of centre thinktank Policy Exchange, and endorsed by the former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, represents a key shift in UK foreign policy thinking.
The UK and the EU have agreed on the need for a new role for Britain dedicated to helping the countries of the Indo-Pacific area stand up to Beijing by upholding democracy, free trade supported by open seas and an uncensored internet.
The report is deliberately framed as an attempt to carve out “the essence of a manifesto of what a global Britain looks like in the 2020s and beyond”.
Requiring a major shift in resources – in part enabled by last week’s rise in defence spending and the summer merger of the UK’s foreign and aid budgets – the proposals would set the UK up as a country committed to challenging China’s authoritarian model. It proposes the Indo-Pacific countries commit to a 21st century charter for democracy akin to the Atlantic charter signed by the UK and the US in 1941.
In a region accounting for close to half of global economic output and more than half the world’s population, the report envisages the UK working closely with allies such as Australia, India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
Overseen by Stephen Harper, the former Canadian prime minister, it will also receive support from the current Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison.......
As part of the tilt, the UK would apply for membership of the regional free trade partnership, seek to join the existing US, India, Australia and Japan security dialogue and enhance its military capacity in bases such as Diego Garcia.
“The UK government should expand the deployment of Royal Navy assets, RAF aircraft and Army (including Special Forces)/Royal Marines personnel to achieve uninterrupted, year-round UK military presence in the IPR (both on operational and training missions).”".........
In the case of Hong Kong, the report proposes that sanctions are now imposed on to Chinese Communist party officials for their role in the destruction of the territory’s sovereignty.
In a move that would further antagonise China, the report suggests the UK should start normalising relations with Taiwan, especially on global issues such as cyber security and health.
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Near the coast
Posts: 1,862
Asturias
Do you mean to tell me that the intelligence services and the government of Great Britain have not sought your opinion before stating their defense policy?
I am shocked. Shocked I tell you.
BV
I am shocked. Shocked I tell you.
BV
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Portsmouth
Posts: 71
Originally Posted by ORAC
The UK and the EU have agreed on the need for a new role for Britain dedicated to helping the countries of the Indo-Pacific area stand up to Beijing by upholding democracy, free trade supported by open seas and an uncensored internet.
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2018
Location: Ferrara
Posts: 2,329
Originally Posted by Bob Viking
Do you mean to tell me that the intelligence services and the government of Great Britain have not sought your opinion before stating their defense policy?
I am shocked. Shocked I tell you.
BV
I am shocked. Shocked I tell you.
BV
I offered them a really cut rate deal to advise them (about half what they paid those PPE merchants) and they refused - said they could get all the advice they wanted for free from a well established, publicly available UK aviation website.......... I am sitting in my palazzo plotting revenge
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Peripatetic
Posts: 10,922
The ThinPinstriped Line
https://tinyurl.com/y67j4tfk
Making the Sums Add Up - The NAO Report on the Equipment
https://tinyurl.com/y67j4tfk
Making the Sums Add Up - The NAO Report on the Equipment
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2018
Location: Ferrara
Posts: 2,329
Thanks ORAC - that's looks like a horribly accurate forecast of the issues ................ It looks as if something BIG will have to go - "The MOD probably faces a somewhat schizophrenic few years ahead of it. On the one hand, it has got a very generous budget outcome, which will help fund major improvements to its capabilities and ambitions. On the other hand, it remains in a state of near perpetual crisis when it comes to realising in year budgets and will find itself constantly forced to make in year cuts that reduce activity, output and morale, in order to stay solvent.
The IR is an opportunity to reset the EP – by providing political top cover to delete multiple projects, remove significant costs from the EP and then use this new direction to fund ambition elsewhere. If done sensibly, then the opportunities over the next few years are huge. There is opportunity ahead – a balanced EP, with new capabilities like robotics, autonomous drones, cyber forces and North Atlantic Surveillance properly funded will be a game changer for so much of what Defence aspires to do. But to get there is going to require some painful defence cuts to find the space and headroom to make it happen. What is not clear is whether this is deliverable, or if the MOD will continue to exist in a state of financial challenge.
This challenge becomes even more considerable when put in the likely context of the post COVID world. With economic pain ahead, and more financial challenges likely, the MOD is probably not going to get a large budget boost anytime soon. Instead, it will be scrabbling for resources alongside other equally worthy departments."
The IR is an opportunity to reset the EP – by providing political top cover to delete multiple projects, remove significant costs from the EP and then use this new direction to fund ambition elsewhere. If done sensibly, then the opportunities over the next few years are huge. There is opportunity ahead – a balanced EP, with new capabilities like robotics, autonomous drones, cyber forces and North Atlantic Surveillance properly funded will be a game changer for so much of what Defence aspires to do. But to get there is going to require some painful defence cuts to find the space and headroom to make it happen. What is not clear is whether this is deliverable, or if the MOD will continue to exist in a state of financial challenge.
This challenge becomes even more considerable when put in the likely context of the post COVID world. With economic pain ahead, and more financial challenges likely, the MOD is probably not going to get a large budget boost anytime soon. Instead, it will be scrabbling for resources alongside other equally worthy departments."
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Peripatetic
Posts: 10,922
