UK needs a bigger army, defence secretary Ben Wallace signals

36 comments
  1. the UK needs a lot of things right now, i think a bigger army is quite low on the priority list because if it doesn’t fix the issues there will be nothing and no one to defend.

  2. > UK needs a bigger army

    Not really. The UK has plenty of defence capability. So much so we were able to spare thousands of troops and resources to fight wars halfway round the world.

  3. It was the Tories who shed our military strength to the numbers we have today. The fact Johnson said tanks will never be used in future warfare last year, but look at Ukraine. We are ran by idiots.

  4. No offence to anyone in the army but the army should be bottom of the list when it comes to armed forces for defending the country. We’re an island nation so all we really need is a strong airforce and navy. The army won’t have the chance to fight if the enemy can’t even get their troops on our soil.

  5. No thanks, not a penny of public funding should be funnelled away from fixing our current situation

  6. Obesity in still increasing, so he will be in luck.

    Crapita were given the contract for military recruitment and dropped the ball massively, meaning we failed to hit recruitment targets every year under that contract. Wallace should start there if he wishes to see recruitment improve, then do something about wages and career development to improve retention. The Tories have had twelve years to get the armed forces in order, it is not anyone else’s fault that they have seen the number of serving soldiers reach such lows.

  7. More troops, ships, aircraft, and tanks (may be hold on the tanks and swap for drones) – also while your getting resources can we please have teachers, police, nurses, doctors, a solution for social care and anything else you see of value on the money tree !

  8. They were just talking a few months ago about reducing the infantry by 10,000 and boosting defence spending on cyber and technology. What the fuck are they doing? Ben Wallace got his flip flops on?

  9. I remember when they mindlessly hacked up the military to meet arbitrary goals back in 2011. We thought then, the army is now too small to meet our defence commitments…

  10. That’s a slippery slope. Over here across the pond we spend hundreds of billions on our army shit and it’s used to justify not having a functioning healthcare system *and* acts as a funnel for lower income people instead. I wish we’d spend less, a lot less. Or at least give it NASA or something constructive.

  11. Give PMCs a substantial tax break but make them commit to providing core cadre in the event of emergency. Job jobbed.

  12. Tbf the government have relied on the army to do covid tests, drive lorries and deliver fuel. Maybe they realised they also need the army to work at the airports, pick fruit, work in the passport office. Then run the train lines, postal service, work for BT, teach children, work in hospitals, police the streets due to strike action.

  13. The Army needs to spend smarter, not harder. AJAX is a shitshow that ate up funding for Warrior CSP, JSF and Challenger 3. The MoD needs a wobble first before they get more money to blow.

    France puts out 120,000 Army regs with modern vehicles and equipment (and a _fantastic_ expeditionary capability that puts ours to shame) and the Navy runs a carrier with 20 frigates and destroyers to our 78,000 and 18. The MoD has £55bn p/a, the MdA has £46bn p/a.

    It’s a question of cutting out bloat and inefficiency. We could have the best military in Europe on land and sea if the current budget wasn’t pissed away on hopelessly wasteful crap like AJAX and GPFF.

  14. I used to innocently feel defense spending was a low priority. But in a high risk world the uk needs solid capabilities to contribute to NATO, as this ultimately helps us secure the safety of ourselves and allies, and our economic, resource and food interests.

    Being a pacifist is fine, until Russians are murdering and raping in your town, or even if they are far away they are causing destruction that degraded the food and resource security of the UK.

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