For something that’s been obvious to casual observers since 1945 (1956 if you’re generous), it’s taken a while to admit:
The warning comes from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) thinktank in a tough report which questions whether Britain’s defence crisis is really over.
Last year’s Strategic Defence and Security Review led to sweeping redundancies across all three services, and the early mothballing of, among others, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, and the fleet of Harrier jets.
In a brutally frank assessment of the British military, the report states: “The UK will never again be a member of the select club of global superpowers. Indeed it has not been one for decades.
“But currently planned levels of defence spending should be enough for it to maintain its position as one of the world’s five second-rank military powers (with only the US in the first rank).”
Many in the military are likely to bridle at the analysis; last week the former head of the Royal Navy, Admiral Lord West, struck a completely different tone, causing a furore when he said the UK should not consider itself a second-tier power like “bloody Belgium or Denmark”.
Except for brief wartime surges, Britain’s military strength has rarely been the army: it’s been the Royal Navy that provided Britain with both military and economic clout. Gutting the striking power of the navy (HMS Ark Royal and the Harriers) was merely the final admission that the government had higher priorities domestically than internationally. As Admiral Cunningham once said, “It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition. It’s remarkable how quickly one can destroy a tradition.
T.R. Fehrenbach wrote about America’s disarmament after 1945
‘Even a rich society cannot afford nuclear bombs, supercarriers, foreign aid, five million new cars a years, long-range bombers, the highest standard of living in the world, and a million new rifles.
Admittedly, somewhere you have to cut and choose.’
Here’s hoping that when Her Majesties forces find their Task Force Smith it’s not as bad as the original.
Comment by Brian Dunbar — September 27, 2011 @ 15:03
Wasn’t it Heinlein who said that the worst investment of all is a military that’s second-best? Britain still has some of the best troops in the world . . . but do they have enough of them, with adequate weapons for the task, and the means to get them to where they’re needed in a timely fashion? I don’t know, and I don’t know if they’re even asking that question when they attack the MoD budget.
Comment by Nicholas — September 27, 2011 @ 15:10