Britain's impoverished military laid bare

An interesting article by Bronwen Maddox in today's 'Times' backs up a situation I have often commented on in this blog - that militarily we are broke. A kippers and curtains nation trying to pretend we are not punching above our weight. Bronwen says:-

The delay over Britain’s new carriers – and the fudging of the reason for it – is exactly why Britain’s stock is falling so low in Washington. There is real doubt in President Obama’s team – as there was in George W. Bush’s Administration – that Britain has any significant help left to give.

Good luck, Gordon Brown, in trying to portray yourself as the economic wise man who can offer avuncular advice to the novice. It won’t make up for Britain’s reluctance to offer many more troops in Afghanistan – and the US suspicion that even if Brown wanted to, he couldn’t.

To Washington eyes never has Britain seemed more like toytown than in the heady first 48 hours of the Obama White House. But even if the attention that Obama’s military advisers pay to British affairs is slight, it takes only a second to register the hard numbers.

They can see at a glance the cuts in military spending, the shrinking of the Army and the national debt. It doesn’t take much to work out that this means cutbacks, and mysterious delays in expensive new kit. It is significant that Robert Gates has stayed on as Defence Secretary from the Bush era. He shares this scepticism about Britain’s future military contribution, officials suggest.


There is more along the same lines to the degree that for all the niceties and politeness, the Americans are not really taking Britain seriously as a major contributor to further suppliers of troops.



Of course what will happen is that the British Government will hastily scrabble together some sort of financial package - undoubtedly at the cost to something more worthwhile - to ensure that we 'keep our end up'. Good Lord we can't have these American chappies suggesting that we're not up to the task! Let's keep supplying troops somehow even if they don't have protective body armour, if they have crap boots, if the planes are not coated with anti inflammatory spray. Let's put lives at risk!! Anything rather than admit that we can't hack it any more.

It is a policy which is utterly ridiculous. As I have said many times before, Britain should concentrate its attention on being a full participant in Europe and that includes supporting a European Defence Force which can take on military actions which involve the defence of Europe and to which Britian will supply a reasonable number of troops.

We should back off these ridiculous international commitments, many of which our electorate, if consulted, would not support anyway, and cut our cloth according to our means. It is insane for our politicians to continue making military promises we are not in a position to honour - and furthermore it is criminal to do so by cheeseparing on armour and equipment which increases the dangers for soldiers already doing a highly dangerous job.