[News] UK moving to “war fighting readiness” - UK defence

[TomandJerry]

It's going to cost a fair amount..

I wonder what is going to be cut/what will go up to find this? And how will it work with net zero?

"The UK will need to spend around £68bn to prepare its armed forces for modern warfare, a long-awaited strategic defence review suggests, laying bare the budgetary pressures on Sir Keir Starmer’s government."

Quoted from the FT

 

[WATFORD zero]

It's going to cost a fair amount..

I wonder what is going to be cut/what will go up to find this? And how will it work with net zero?

"The UK will need to spend around £68bn to prepare its armed forces for modern warfare, a long-awaited strategic defence review suggests, laying bare the budgetary pressures on Sir Keir Starmer’s government."

Quoted from the FT

As mentioned earlier, rejoining the Customs Union would bring in close to £100B per year, now I'm no mathematician but ...........

 

[A1X]

As mentioned earlier, rejoining the Customs Union would bring in close to £100B per year, now I'm no mathematician but ...........

Rejoining the EU to fund the British army would cause an awful lot of headaches for some

 

[GT49er]

Millions of teenagers in their bedrooms, each flying a drone into the heart of Mother Russia.
The more I think about it, the more I like it.

I'd like to think we were investing in an army of geeks. The Russians have obviously got some high quality hackers, who can bring the major damage to big firms in the west, disrupting both commerce and, I suspect, the defence forces. We should be working to develop our own super geeks to:-
a). counter their cyber attacks;
b). launch devastating cyber attacks on Russian infrastructure, and -
c). (most important of all) over-riding Russian media with things that Putin would regard as disinformation - such as the fact that other nations only join NATO because they don't trust Russia not to invade them; NATO has no intention of invading Russia; that the rest of the world would be happy to have an open and friendly relationship with Russia if Russia gave up the ambition to re-create the Soviet Union and the post WWII hegemony of Eastern Europe - just get the message that people don't hate or want to destroy Russia, they just don't want to be ruled by them, or have a soviet socialist regime imposed on them.

Are we working on it? I hope so - but enough yet? I don't know - and nor do I know how well, or otherwise, it's working. Sadly, from a not ITK perspective, it doesn't convincingly look like it.

 

[Zeberdi]

If you’re wondering why you canot get a hospital appointment for months , or the Council have no money to fix the pot holes , or any number of things wrong with our services…. You might remember this increase in spending to build weapons to blast our fellow humans to oblivion.
Humanity is better at killing than caring ………

I know the thread is about military preparations and solutions and don’t want to derail that but we seem to have become very rapidly desensitised to the idea of a major World war, the thought of which less than 5 years ago would have horrified most people . Less than two years ago I started a thread about whether we need National Service. Even posing such a question was met with either mockery or outrage or both by the majority of posters.

Yet - We’ve gone from 0-60 the past few years from sanctions to unilateral peace proposals (that have no intention of negotiating peaceful outcomes with the ‘enemy’) to outright war mongering and hawking rhetoric of world leaders.

What concerns me deeply is that there is always an exponential inevitably about war when leaders start “preparing a Country for war” - partly because it tacitly admits diplomacy is failing and comes with an increasing belief that a war will be ‘won’ but it also generates it’s own momentum that gets harder and harder to control.

How did we get here? The inherent paradox of an arms race as a war ‘deterrent’ is that at some point, those arms must be used or decommissioned to make way for new technologies and more modern hardware in order to remain effective ‘deterrents’. As that happens weapons get more technical, more remote and have a more devastating impact than conventional hardware. We have left ourselves through decades of cutting back on conventional capabilities with too little capacity now to allow for enough ‘gentle’ escalation over a sustained period in a conventional armed conflict before the winning options left in any major conflict we get involved will too quickly be only those that will cause instant, widespread and devastating mutually assured destruction.

The lack of a willingness for mutual diplomacy in solving international and internal armed conflicts is the elephant in the room. So while we commit to expanding our own capacity for conventional armed responses to an increasingly techno-driven unstable World (which imo if we are to avoid a global nuclear war are absolutely necessary), we can’t let that override the absolute imperative in finding ways to reach peaceful political outcomes (which will require a genuine embracing of our enemy’s fears as well as our own) to prevent escalatory armed conflicts in the first place.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I'd like to think we were investing in an army of geeks. The Russians have obviously got some high quality hackers, who can bring the major damage to big firms in the west, disrupting both commerce and, I suspect, the defence forces. We should be working to develop our own super geeks to:-
a). counter their cyber attacks;
b). launch devastating cyber attacks on Russian infrastructure, and -
c). (most important of all) over-riding Russian media with things that Putin would regard as disinformation - such as the fact that other nations only join NATO because they don't trust Russia not to invade them; NATO has no intention of invading Russia; that the rest of the world would be happy to have an open and friendly relationship with Russia if Russia gave up the ambition to re-create the Soviet Union and the post WWII hegemony of Eastern Europe - just get the message that people don't hate or want to destroy Russia, they just don't want to be ruled by them, or have a soviet socialist regime imposed on them.

Are we working on it? I hope so - but enough yet? I don't know - and nor do I know how well, or otherwise, it's working. Sadly, from a not ITK perspective, it doesn't convincingly look like it.

Hopefully yes, but not just with slow horses.....

 

[Biscuit]

I merely meant that our warships are far more advanced and modern than the Moskva.

Understood. Sorry, I read my post back and it came across a little OTT.

 

[Pavilionaire]

Becoming the main net contributor to EU funds again will free up ..................... how much, exactly?

European nations are our friends and neighbours.
Full co-operation on matters of security and defence (and international crime)? - yes, absolutely.
Some usefully beneficial free trade/customs agreements? - yes.
The full shebang, Brussels, European Parliament and all that?} No, the above two cover everything that's worthwhile.

We'Re 9 years on, we're well past Covid, growth is still flatlining, yet the world has changed greatly since 2016.

This is beyond party politics, we're outside a Single Market of half a billion people and we can't afford to defend ourselves. We can all see with Trump that isolationism doesn't work in a global economy, we're too interconnected.

My advice to Tory, Reform and Labour is simple - look at the map. 25 miles away from Dover are our friends, allies and trading partners.

It seems to me this country is stuck in the past on some big stuff, like economy, defence, immigration, the voting system, House of Lords, Royal Family, the influence of Fleet Street on the news agenda. It will take us 30 or 40 years just to get to where China are now.

Bottom line - we're kidding ourselves, we can't afford the military stuff Starmer is talking about unless there is a RADICAL change, and everything seems to be playing into Farage's hands. It's almost inevitable he will be in government before the end of the decade, and it will make things even worse.

 

[jcdenton08]

So how do you think the Brexit that you voted for (and apparently new exactly what you voted for) has gone for the UK defence policy ?

Maybe we should give the economic, immigration, protect our borders bollox a wide steer until later because I'm sure you can't you still be naive/stupid enough to think we can still cherry pick anything we want from the EU

Again, I agree largely with your point but the performative smiley does your point an injustice. Believe in your words - you’re a reasonably good communicator. I believe in you.

 

[smiler]

As mentioned earlier, rejoining the Customs Union would bring in close to £100B per year, now I'm no mathematician but ...........

You could put that on the side of a bus!

 

[Moin]

I’ve not read the thread so someone may have already made this point. It’s becoming increasingly obvious to me that Labour have no option but to raise taxes, despite the manifesto pledges. The only way of possibly avoiding the massive political hit is to position it as the UK now unexpectedly being 'on a war footing', thereby turning tax hikes into a patriotism issue.

 

[cunning fergus]

Much as we all dread to think about the possibility of war on our shores, a big day today with Starmer’s pledges.

Starmer says UK moving to 'war-fighting readiness' as he unveils defence spending plans

But the prime minister declines to give a precise date on when defence spending will hit 3% of GDP.

www.bbc.co.uk

It feels appropriate to have a dedicated thread to discussing UK defence, which is an issue quite apart from party politics in my opinion.

Mods feel free to merge if a similar thread exists and I’ve missed it.

Starmer is being disingenuous, there are many headwinds to be confronted if we are to turn this country towards a state ready for war. The first headwind is industrial capacity and our ability to produce war materiel to any substantive level. The current (and previous) Government’s energy policy works against this key objective.

https://search.app/YfDyHj3kGUEWtwfa6

Manufacturing output is at a 35 year low……

Output in UK energy-intensive industries hits 35-year low

High electricity prices undermining competitiveness of British businesses, official figures show

search.app

The U.K. will be the first G7 country unable to produce its own steel.

https://search.app/Y18LjjbXAQ6Q7ooS7

So before we worry about whether or not this country has the stomach for a war of mass casualties, or even the ability to mobilise itself beyond the existing professional armed forces Starmer needs to deal with industrial capacity issue immediately, bin of net zero and get the U.K. using its own oil and gas.

If he doesn’t we know this is not a serious matter, just a bit of political window dressing.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Unfortunately, as with Reform, it is very easy to snipe from the sidelines, knowing you're not the ones making the unpopular cost decisions, like removing winter fuel allowance.

Something has to give to reach the target sooner, I wonder what Mr Davey would like to see cut to pay for it now?

SKS said this

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced an overhaul of the U.K.'s defense spending on Monday, warning Britain it faces "war in Europe."

"We are moving to war-fighting readiness,"

The war is now, not in years times, if we are on a war footing now (the term that been used) it needs to be sped up, they need to find a way to do this


Europe are woefully unprepared for war.

 

[darkwolf666]

SKS said this

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced an overhaul of the U.K.'s defense spending on Monday, warning Britain it faces "war in Europe."

"We are moving to war-fighting readiness,"

The war is now, not in years times, if we are on a war footing now (the term that been used) it needs to be sped up, they need to find a way to do this


Europe are woefully unprepared for war.

Which doesn't really answer the question as to where the money comes from NOW - what cuts will need to be made...

 

[Jackthelad]

It's going to cost a fair amount..

I wonder what is going to be cut/what will go up to find this? And how will it work with net zero?

"The UK will need to spend around £68bn to prepare its armed forces for modern warfare, a long-awaited strategic defence review suggests, laying bare the budgetary pressures on Sir Keir Starmer’s government."

Quoted from the FT

Net Zero with a large sprinkle of war.

 

[darkwolf666]

I've a cunning wheeze. Slash GDP, then the % target for defence is met earlier... That'll show 'em!

 

[cunning fergus]

Which doesn't really answer the question as to where the money comes from NOW - what cuts will need to be made...

Cuts HAVE been made, it’s why (in July last year) there’s circa 19000 deployable front line troops in the British Army, (with hardly any heavy artillery having donated most of it to Ukraine) and perhaps 150 tanks.

https://share.google/Oxz9ptFNMrnaDIY40

There’s no conventional war ready capability in the U.K. because there no Army of any substance; the speech certainly got the front pages and media’s attention though.

 

[GT49er]

Or, perhaps, increase tax specifically to fund defence given things are turning very nasty indeed.

I can guarantee people wouldn’t be happy if we were militarily unprepared (“what’s the government doing?!”) in the face of increasing threats from Russia’s incursion towards us, China’s might and America’s instability.

“why didn’t they do anything?”

Oh that would be because the government was scared to increase taxes by a penny in the pound to bring our neglected military up to date.

Then the Tories get in on a promise to lower taxes. And our defence spending disintegrates (see graph on previous page).

Raise the taxes specifically for this. Get it done.

We'Re 9 years on, we're well past Covid, growth is still flatlining, yet the world has changed greatly since 2016.

9 years since what? Yes, I know you're griping about Brexit, but we didn't leave the EU 9 years ago; it was several years later because of establishment blocking.

This is beyond party politics, we're outside a Single Market of half a billion people and we can't afford to defend ourselves. We can all see with Trump that isolationism doesn't work in a global economy, we're too interconnected.

My advice to Tory, Reform and Labour is simple - look at the map. 25 miles away from Dover are our friends, allies and trading partners.

Yes, our friends and neighbours

It seems to me this country is stuck in the past on some big stuff, like economy, defence, immigration, the voting system, House of Lords, Royal Family, the influence of Fleet Street on the news agenda. It will take us 30 or 40 years just to get to where China are now.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. How awful that everything is wrong with our country!

Bottom line - we're kidding ourselves, we can't afford the military stuff Starmer is talking about unless there is a RADICAL change, and everything seems to be playing into Farage's hands. It's almost inevitable he will be in government before the end of the decade, and it will make things even worse.

No hope then. Hand out the white flags. Sorry, I know we're in dangerous times, but I refuse to have as miserable outlook as you.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

It seems to me this country is stuck in the past on some big stuff, like economy, defence, immigration, the voting system, House of Lords, Royal Family, the influence of Fleet Street on the news agenda. It will take us 30 or 40 years just to get to where China are now.

Bottom line - we're kidding ourselves, we can't afford the military stuff Starmer is talking about unless there is a RADICAL change, and everything seems to be playing into Farage's hands. It's almost inevitable he will be in government before the end of the decade, and it will make things even worse.

I am increasingly of the view that the only thing that'll stop Farage and Reform getting into power is reform of the voting system to stop anybody getting a majority from just 30-40% of the vote.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

9 years since what? Yes, I know you're griping about Brexit, but we didn't leave the EU 9 years ago; it was several years later because of establishment blocking.

Yes, our friends and neighbours

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. How awful that everything is wrong with our country!

No hope then. Hand out the white flags. Sorry, I know we're in dangerous times, but I refuse to have as miserable outlook as you.

The establishment didn't block anything. Votes were held in Parliament, and court cases were brought to make sure it was legal, as unfortunately, quite a few MPs were trying to run the government unlawfully, as proved in two court cases.

Friends, neighbours and allies. We haven't left NATO.

There is a huge difference in waving a white flag, being miserable and being prepared. But then you know that.