Labour accepts £5bn of defence cuts

HAVE YOUR SAY

06 January 2012

"We no longer face a threat of invasion across the German plain. We don't need those tank regiments."

We no longer face a threat of invasion full stop. We don't need those Trident nuclear weapons.
Sean - London

06 January 2012

Sean

Trident is not about preventing invasion rather its an insurance against nuclear attack or nuclear blackmail.
Graham - High Wycombe

06 January 2012

Sean - London

In fact Trident should not be paid for out of the Defence budget, it should come out of the treasury pot, As it is a National asset that protects us against a Nuclear attack / blackmail as Graham stated.
Rob - Telford

06 January 2012

Sean
Maybe you are right, maybe you are wrong. People who claim to know the future are often bitten on the bottom by it.
Having no ocean patrol/rescue aircraft is a huge hole in UK defences. A cheap solution would be to convert the redundent short body C-130J to the same ocean patrol standard as the US Coastguard HC-130J. Perhaps use the spare radar & EO turrets from the Nimrod MRA4.
John Hartley - Woking/Surrey/UK

06 January 2012

Excuse me boys, but why would anyone want to nuke or blackmail the UK if they weren't planning to invade us (assuming, of course, we weren't poking our noses into something which was none of our business)? Trident is not needed and a waste of money. Rob, if you seriously think the Treasury will stump up extra funds to pay for Trident on top of the normal military budget - especially at a time when the UK is in such dire economic straits - you are seriously out of tune with reality.
Paulo - Bury

06 January 2012

Trident should indeed come out of the treasury pot and not defence. However this is not going to be the case.

As a result we must ask ourselves a hard question. Is trident spending really worth compromising conventional spending? Given the loss of MPA, carrier strike, escorts, boots on the ground, numbers of fighters and several other types of equipment I am steadily leaning towards trident doing more harm than good.

With regards the cuts I can in many ways agree with Murphy. The country has to save money and inevitably defence will be looked on for some of that money. Assets like heavy artillery and tank regiments are a good way to save money IMHO, although I would have done that by putting them in the TA. That way you retain the equipment and keep some measure of the skills.

That said I disagree with Nimrod completely. Regardless of cost the fact is that aircraft was BADLY needed. The lack of MPA has been telling already and not just at home.
Anthony - Bristol, United Kingdom

07 January 2012

Agree with you sean,Trident is no deterrent at all,is iran a fraid that a defo not.There is no need for us to be a nuclear nation at all and save ourselves 100 billion.sorry graham and rob but you are both wrong.
Trevor - Newcastle

09 January 2012

Stop Trident continual patrols. Reduce the wear on the boats and cut costs. Increase the potential lifetime of the boats. The killing ability of the missiles will not decline for the foreseeable future.
This will satisfy the Pro nuclear lobby.
Then debate, budget,cost and what is needed by whom.
Determine that strategy then continue. Currently I feel strongly that
A: Detterent should not be in Defence budget
B: Renewal is proliferation
C: We do not need Nuclear detterent anymore.
D: The cost of replacement if we have to do that is disproportionate to UK strategy and will destroy our conventional capability reducing our options further and to a dangerous level.
Degradable - UK

09 January 2012

Paulo - Bury

Thanks "Boy", you would not be the first person to say I am out of tune with reality, however I would love to live in the world you live in, take your rose tinted specs off and have a look around. There are a lot of nations out there who are developing Nuclear Weapons and delivery systems, I would rather we had an Insurance Policy in these unstable times.

I don't doubt that there is any way we will go back to the treasury stumping up the cash for the Nuclear Deterrent, I know that it is wishful thinking, I was just stating an opinion, or is that not allowed anymore?
Rob - Telford

09 January 2012

Rob - Telford

I think your right, Trident is not a defence budget asset but a government asset and therefore should NOT come out of the defence budget.

However if you had to accept that Trident came out of the defence budget what would you do? Would you retain it at cost to conventional forces? Look for alternative, cheaper and smaller delievery methods? Or would you get rid of it entirely?

Ultimately I think that is what we have to consider. I'd be keen to know your thoughts on the matter.

Unfortunately while you, Graham, Degradable and everyone else seems to be in agreement that it shouldn't be in the defence budget I just *DONT* see that happening.

Well unless the country has a significant social shift in it's opinions.
Anthony - Bristol, United Kingdom

09 January 2012

Even if we got rid of Trident, other nations would still see us as a legitimate nuclear target, as we have the knowledge to build nuclear weapons.
There would be an incentive to nuke us first, then when the rest of the World complained, claim "intelligence" said Britain was secretly rebuilding its warheads, regardless of whether we were or not.
John Hartley - Woking/Surrey/UK

10 January 2012

Paulo - Bury

"Excuse me boys, but why would anyone want to nuke or blackmail the UK if they weren't planning to invade us (assuming, of course, we weren't poking our noses into something which was none of our business)?"

Duh.. Paulo, I suppose stopping genocide in Kosovo was poking our noses in, I suppose helping the Libyan people free themselves from a tyrant was poking our noses was it well we've done a lot of good 'poking our noses' Paulo and your attitude is a god send to tyrants and dictators.

And no Paulo we don't have to be facing the threat of invasion we simply have to need to take action when necessary and if faced at the time with a regime that has nuclear weapons we are not in a position where we cannot act in our national interest or because it is morally right to do so as in Libya and Kosovo.

Something else until 2010 the nuclear deterrent was paid for by a supplementary budget and not part of the defence budget so if it was good enough for forty years its good enough now!
Graham - High Wycombe

10 January 2012

Trevor - Newcastle

Oh Trevor, while having our own deterrent may not prevent Iran from trying to posses nuclear weapons as they know we won't use them first to stop them getting nukes it is our best deterrent to stop Iran using nuclear weapons against us any time in the future!

There will be another dozen or more nations becoming nuclear weapons states in the next 50 years or so. Can you guarantee that they will all be in the possession of benign democracies because if you can't then having a 'deterrent' is a good insurance policy.

The clue is in the name Trevor 'nuclear deterrent'.
Graham - High Wycombe

10 January 2012

Anthony - Bristol, United Kingdom

Your asking the wrong person here, I still believe (rightly or wrongly)that we should have a Nuclear Deterrent. Paulo is correct, it will only ever come out of the defence budget now, I still think that we could have decent conventional equipment for the three armed forces if we just bought our equipment a little smarter, there is good equipment available in the market place at reasonable prices, our procurement policies are ridiculous, the German Army got Puma from the drawing board to mass production in eight years, on time and on budget, they have themselves a superb MICV. We started the FRES progamme years before that and we still haven't got anything in service yet, ships, aircraft programmes have all suffered because we are not smart with our equipment purchase's.
Rob - Telford

10 January 2012

Rob - Telford

Perhaps, however I just can't agree with further reductions to the conventional capability for the sake of retaining Nuclear deterence.

It would be like handing a policeman an RPG but not training him to use a baton or other minimum force techniques... At some point all he can do is either left a petty theif get away.... or kill him and potentially hurt everyone near him.

If you are going down the route of "We won't get nuclear deterent out of the defence budget" then you must also logically go down the route that "We won't resolve our rubbish procurement and political meddling".

Trident is going to cost over £20 billion in the end to replace... That's a lot of money that could solve a lot of current equipment and manpower problems.
Anthony - Bristol, United Kingdom

10 January 2012

Anthony - Bristol, United Kingdom

Sorry, I didn't really answer your question in full, I would like us to maintain an SLBM type system as our deterrent, however if the costs became to prohibitive I would advocate the use of alternative (cheaper and less effective) systems, such as a Cruise missile, or an aircraft delivered system, but this would really have to be a last resort as neither are as effective as Trident or its proposed replacement.

However, the point you make is valid, if it got to the point where all we could afford were 4 x SSBN's, a couple of helicopters to escort them to open sea and a company of Infantry to Guard them in port, then something has to give and alternatives would have to found to ensure that our conventional forces were still able to meet its obligations.
Rob - Telford

10 January 2012

Rob...

Fair enough. My next point then is that we are already at this point. The Navy is being forced to cut back on, or even ditch, patrols that used to be standard routine. The Army may be pulled out of Afghanistan early. The RAF had issues getting enough operational Typhoons to Libya.

With advances in ABMD we have an alternative as well especially given that our Type 45's are capable of being upgraded for it.

Let's face it, if Russia and America or even India or China decided to nuke us... we are going to lose. They have large countries more spread out, often have more missiles than us as well so a first strike isn't going to stop the UK being torn apart.

As for nations like Iran, they may get nukes but I was under the impression they are likely to be scud launch, nor sub launched ICBM's. As a result maybe we should invest in the technology to shoot them down...

We already forward base a MCMV group in Bharain... perhaps a contious SAG made up of some Type 26's for ASW and a Type 45 for ABMD is an alternative deterence for those middle eastern countries that are developing nuclear weapons.

While it's out there that SAG can do other duties as well... not to mention providing presence.


I just don't think people have looked at our national strategy objectively with regards to our foriegn policy and budget... I know that was meant to be what the SDSR was for but it didn't deliver that really did it.
Anthony - United Kingdom