Cost is always a constraint that’s reality no one can do it all. It’s why you have to choose priorities and do them well. I think we miss the fact we spend more on defence than any other equivalent sized country we have a very big budget we waste a lot with short term decision making.Poiuytrewq wrote: ↑19 Dec 2023, 20:13Agreed, so what does that look like if cost is not the driving factor?SW1 wrote: ↑19 Dec 2023, 18:33 “The first duty of government is safety of its citizens”
It’s a true phase but does that mean more money on military equipment?
This country isn’t going to be invaded by a foreign army nuclear weapons have seen to that. I would argue the same for nato territory. There will be provocative actions along its borders that will require conventional force to observe and deter.Closing or massively disrupting Suez has widespread and extremely costly knock on effects for the U.K. population.Your then into harassment and disruption of flow of material, people, information that destabilises norms. This has been labelled many things over the years the latest is the grey zone. Some may refer to it as economic war.
If it’s only France, U.K. and U.S. to protect the rules based order for the long haul then so be it. Permanent seats on the UN Security Council has costs attached to such a responsibility.
Deterrents provide the best value for money, especially if they are never used.
Absolutely but it’s only one part of the matrix.Do we increase the safety of our citizens by becoming more resilient as a nation re-shoring manufacture to improve our industrial base, increase resilience in energy, food, water and chemicals do we then export more to our allies to help them do the same things and govern along the democratic principles we champion.Yes but it’s primarily in the border force/domestic security sphere.Do we need to be robust on knowing who comes here and what cause they champion and who maybe sleepers for hostile regimes? If we spend money on that is that defence?
No argument but a purely risk based SDSR would be fascinating document.In terms of numbers you would need to know the working that went into the number. Was it we think we need 12 so we will ask for 18 because we know some will get cut. Did I know I needed 4 to get 1 to sea because the tech was quite unreliable in the past? Or was that just what was there already. In the end it’s people, spares and the industrial infrastructure not equipment that is in short supply you see it across the board the classic example is in the submarine fleet right now with dry docks.
If the equipment lines are running and you build capacity into them even if you’re not using it all you can get equipment reasonable quickly. But that’s more about having sensible industrial strategies than equipment.
Much of SDSR 1998 still rings true but even then it’s clear that ambition was receding and pressure was being applied to divert spending.
Within the current funding envelope the UK Armed Forces are completely hamstrung and at the mercy of events. IMO the lack of mass and starvation of resource will prove to be unsustainable, even in the short to medium term especially if a second major conflict erupts before the current one has concluded.
For this reason and even with the ongoing headcount crisis, RN must prioritise maximum hulls in the water. Clean sheet T32 and T83 designs are luxuries that RN cannot afford to be seduced by at present.
It would be prudent for HMG to formalise a plan for a rapid 30% increase in defence spending, if the unthinkable was to occur, and have a clear idea of how to reorganise UKPLC to swiftly react to such a procurement shock. The money would be the easy part, it’s the industrial capacity that is lacking now.
Ramping up production even if just to support allies almost seems implausibly expensive now. Perhaps it’s time to step back from some of the hyper expensive bleeding edge tech and invest a higher proportion into mass and presence in an effort to successfully deter.
Suez has been closed in the past and work arounds do exist but nothing lives in a vacuum. Presence is important for deterrence I agree, in these areas but presence requires resilience and if that’s your choice then you need to resource it as such.
My point is keeping people safe is very much more than simply the MoD and buying equipment for the military it is but one part and not necessarily the biggest part of it and in the work of finite spending choices always need to be made.
I know a lot of people exalt 98 sdr. I think it was not only fundamentally flawed in that it got its costing all wrong but it was also based around an interventionist foreign policy which is and turned out to be strategically illiterate.
They are neither hamstrung by finances nor at the mercy of events. They waste and act as if they are awash with money. There is no focus or willingness to take decisions to stick to a set of priorities. They want to do everything that applies to governmental and senior officers. Others with a fraction of the budget make better tradeoffs imo.
I would agree around the bleeding edge and to a large extent it’s around investing in the manufacturing of expendables and integration capabilities. One big thing that would help is taking a leaf out of the US on what they call LRIP for things and continuing to buy min quantiles even if there not needed per se by the military. That may mean binning some early equipment examples sooner specifically to keep the manufacturing going but strategically that maybe prudent. It’s significantly easier ramp up existing production lines than attempt to restart from scratch.
