A very good point Jayand, not one that I subscribe to though.

I don't think it's a political issue but one of morality and ethics, no surprise that the politicians play on it then!

Do we decide to look the other way and ignore anything outside our little comfortable bubble? Maybe it is a sign of the times and our society has become totally materialistic and selfish.

Appeasement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jayand


Your post made me think of ostriches and head-in-sand.


Another thought was loaves and butter. The polititians these days seem to behave like ostriches and only see what they want to see, and deny everything they don't!


Equally, they never seem to give the MOD/NHS/Police (or whatever) enough "butter" to properly cover all the slices in the "loaf". Nor will they cut the size of the loaf to match the available butter......call me cynical but I think it has always been thus, only thing is that we never seem to learn from past mistakes.


For my part, I believe that there are some responsibilities that only the State must do and that it can only ignore at its peril and that includes defence. Many of the other "responsibilities" such as pensions/welfare/social services etc. could (and some say should) be the responsibility of the individual citizen. Where you draw the line depends on what kind of politics you believe in, and (so far thankfully) we live in a free country.


MB

'JAYAND', not going to get involved in the political tosh surrounding Trident. Bottom line we are an Island nation so therefore surely we need some form of MPA.

CFP Greenwood Seedcorn...update
 

I've just received an email from an old buddy at CFB Greenwood. He's a long time CP-140 operator. Part of his message reads as follows:

Mixed emotions actually. Proud certainly, definitely humble at reading such kind words but also p*ssed off with our bl**dy short sighted politicians.

I understand the same applies to the emigres we sent to all reaches of the (former) colonies. Certainly the guys at Jax seem to be in positions of some seniority (Chief Instructor etc) - not bad for having to cope with a foreign language as well! :ok:

There's a camping ground near here called "Sandy Balls". Any relation??:ooh:

Not since I stopped going to the sandpit ;)

Nimrod's Genesis
 

Nimrod's Genesis: RAF Maritime Patrol Projects and Weapons since 1945 by Chris Gibson

I've just spent the morning reading what appears to me to be an authoritative and illuminating book on this very controversial part of our defence effort. I'll be very interested to hear what those actually involved in this field have to say?

163,

You might be better off looking/asking on this pprune thread:

http://www.pprune.org/military-aviat...ng-weapon.html

However, most of the subject matter was/is highly classified and people will be reluctant to discuss much on an open forum such as this.

No state secrets required!
 

Biggus

The book specifically does not cover tactics etc so no need to give away secrets on here! It focuses solely on the policy directives, political manoeuvring etc that resulted in the various RAF maritime patrol aircraft projects that saw the light of day post 1945. Some actually flew some just never left the paper; as I previously mentioned input from those who were there would be interesting.

Just read the author's work on RAF ELINT operations. Good read and doesn't get bogged down in technical details too much

By Jove ! I think they are starting to get it!!

Putin has made the nuclear question even more complicated ? and Trident may not be the answer | Paul Mason | Comment is free | The Guardian



"So, the first awkward question is: if Trident plus Nimrod was a “minimum” defence option against a Russia that had given up aggression, how is Trident minus Nimrod still an adequate system, given this increased Russian submarine activity?"

A case for NATO MPA to patrol long African Med. coastline.
 

Good article and for once I agree in a small way with Farage.
Farage: Cameron must take some blame for migrant deaths in Mediterranean | Politics | The Guardian


RAF and other NATO members did bomb seven bells out of Libya, partially helping the rebels to achieve what we have now-the destruction of a functioning state and creating an almighty ungovernable violent rabble with thousands of miles of lawless coastline at the gate of civilization (Europe)which they cant seem to control.
From which attacks by Islamic terror organizations will spring eventually. At present this coastline seems to be the springboard for thousands of displaced people to try and reach Europe for a better life. Hundreds seem to be drowning in the attempt on a weekly basis now.
Wiser heads of European countries could perhaps have figured this out a few years back....still, we had CameronandSarcozy.


My badly made point is, perhaps a few potential leaders are hinting in this Grad article we may have to do more to either stop or help this growing band of Med crossers. My long shot guess whats left of UK mil somehow get redrafted back to somehow do something.
Hercules aircraft as spotter planes (because they have the range and endurance to run from Gibraltar? The remaining LPD as a picker-upper of flotsam? In conjunction with other NATO forces?
Something's got to be done. How many will drown before we help?


* Ok, not thousands of miles but a bleeding good stretch of coastline.

UK mil could only provide very limited support I'd say (in time and asset sense). I suspect the next UK Gov (whatever flavour) will offer a small sum of money towards increasing the EU Med effort (which is sub-contracted out to tender so civvy aircraft I think?). No doubt a big fanfare will be made about our 'generous' cash contribution by the next PM.

History shows that any country in which we or our allies have intervened in the last century and this sees an immediate influx of refugees and immigrants from those countries irrespective of whether they have any affinity with our respective countries.

In other words, when we intervene, or rather before we consider intervening, we need to make plans for the inevitable influx.

One curiosity, given the violence we have delivered on their heads, is why they then want to come here. Come here now that is rather than come before we bombed them.

"Them" is not one homogeneous group. Quite probably they have had violence visited upon them by people at home perhaps more than "we" flatter ourselves to have delivered. They have seen the films and TV of safe Europe and want to escape their instability. Put yourself in their position instead - surely you don't want to hang around and get co-opted into or knocked off by militias? Presumably lawlessness also creates opportunities for traffickers. Perhaps they have often imagined going, as you might imagine living in the South of France, but now they have finally got the motivation they need to take the risk.

In this case it's groups from all over Africa using Libya as a gateway as it's (a) Close to Italy and (b) Pretty lawless.

Some may fit within the asylum seeker/refugee designation, but most are economic migrants.

Damned if they did and damned if they didn't. Don't forget, the trigger for the "intervention" was Gadaffyducks threat to butcher the residents of Benghazi. ISTR the word genocide being flung about with gay abandon. Back then, many people were also busily wailing

They got what they asked for. It's only a matter of luck (not the intent of Millipedes manoeuvring) that the Guardianista / Beeb class haven't managed to get us involved on the ground in Syria as well.

Back in the 90s I remember a defence study which attempted to look at the future in 2015. It was a NATO event and although I haven't dug out the material in years, the one thing it did suggest was that mass movement of refugees / displaced persons / economic migrants from Africa to Europe was going to be a major feature. None of that was predicated on us getting involved in Iraq / Afghanistan / Libya (delete as appropriate). This has been coming long before that.......

NaB, what you say was the raison d'etre for NATO wheeling its infrastructure and command systems to the southern flank as the eastern front on the IGB and ECO had ceased to exist.

Thread drift I know but.....many years ago as part of the MODs push to educate its people I attended a lecture on the Sources Of Future conflict , It concentrated mainly on Environmental change and the effect of mass migration. The speaker emphasised that as mother nature changes its MO over decades, net migration will slowly increase,however any threat of geopolitical upheavel would have an immediate and potentially catastrophic economic effect on stable regional neighbours.


We seen this coming, we educated our people, we allowed it to happen and still we are outraged when it comes to pass!
I also participated on the Investors in people accreditation. So a dramatic waste of money on both fronts.

To put this thread back on a sensible track crawl - Maritime Merlins are crap. ( Except when they bring the fresh milk and mail):ok:


http://cirrus.ucsd.edu/~pierce/midea...d_conflict.pdf




Migration


There is considerable evidence from the behaviour of past societies to show that

large-scale migrations of people have followed episodes of environmental change.

With the rapid increase in the world’s population over the last century and the

location of large numbers of people in environmentally marginal regions, it is likely

that climate change will drive future migrations and produce environmental refugees.

Clearly, a large-scale movement of people has the potential to destabilize political,

economic and social systems in neighbouring countries with consequent lowered

thresholds for conflict.