Have you by any chance noticed the gigantic war currently going on in Europe?
Yeah, no need for defence spending with the world currently in a golden era of peace!
Maybe let’s not give £11bn to Pakistan you shore up their flood defences.
The only reason NATO troops aren’t sipping vodka in Red Square right now is because Putin has nukes. Any country that has them is uninvadable.
Now more than ever we need them to protect ourselves, and other European countries, against buttholes like Putin.
No that’s a very good idea. Only a complete idiot would want to give up nuclear weapons after the Ukraine war.
So, 2 things:
1. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re currently not going through a period of great stability. Maybe now isn’t the best moment to start cutting into defense spending?
2. Don’t even get me started on the whole “we should cut military stuff, and use that spending on the public good!”. You and I both know, for a fact, that if the Tories cut spending on the military, those savings would just end up being passed on in the form of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. There’s 0 chance of it actually being spent on the public good, because the public is icky and poor.
Makes perfect sense. I can’t see any issues in the world that would require high defence spending.
Nuclear arms are the biggest waste of taxpayers money imaginable.
1) you cannot win a nuclear war
2) If you *ever* have to use them, then they were *never* a deterrent.
Instead of getting rid of nukes altogether, Britain and France should be working together to achieve economies of scale by jointly manufacturing the same warhead design. This would cut some costs as well as demonstrating NATO solidarity.
AWE employs 6000 people – it could be combined with the French equivalent to reduce duplicated effort.
Our nuclear deterrent is specifically designed to stop the UK being nuked in the event of global nuclear war, because the other “side” (almost certainly Russia) knows we could still strike back. Wouldn’t work – they target us specifically because we have nukes and they know they’d be fucked anyway so might as well go all out.
You know what would reduce risk of nuclear attack on the UK? Dismantle all our nukes and kick out all USAF presence in the UK. Make our armed forces a non-nuclear defence force only. When asked to get involved in any foreign conflict in any way, the answer is simply “no”.
We’re no longer a target, the world is much more peaceful. We then use this position and influence to encourage nuclear disarmament elsewhere.
EDIT – I see the Thatcherites and conspiracy theorists are downvoting this idea…
I wonder what public services would look like when we get bombed into an inhalable dust after not being able to defend ourselves and our allies.
We need to fight for our fights and freedoms from this criminal and tyrannical government
The idealist in me says scrap it but the pragmatist says we need it now more than ever. The fact is nuclear deterrent is necessary in a world of Putins and with america likely to elect more nutjobs like trump in future it seems unwise to be totally reliant on them for deterrence.
We spend 2% of our GDP on our defense budget which is the NATO minimum, other countries in NATO actually spend less, because it’s in no way enforced or enforceable. But that is kinda beside the point, we are members of NATO and the origination could get together and decide to revise that number down. Regardless defense spending will go down as our GDP shrinks so at least there’s that.
As for Nuclear Weapons? it’s a tenuous peace if you can even call it that, the world is full of proxy wars, ‘peace keeping’ and armed interventions. They didn’t stop the Falklands war for example. The US recently survived an internal coup and realistically is living under a judicial one. The UK has shown with Boris that a bad actor can simply do whatever they want with little interference from parliament and certainly none from the monarch.
I also don’t think Russia or anyone else is desperate to invade the UK, the war in Ukraine is about reclaiming the perceived might of the USSR and taking back something they believe was stolen from them.
All that said, we’re in a terrible situation in general and defense spending seems to inconsequential. I think any reduction would either go to the deficit or just be stolen by rich people/MP’s.
Defense spending has been cut as badly as any public service.
If you think that defence spending isn’t necessary, you haven’t been paying attention and live in an idealized world that is very different from the real world we actually inhabit.
I never hear that military spending should be cut for horses (and their associated requirements, such as vets), for instance
And build 5 new battleships just to keep the perversity going strong
18 comments
Have you by any chance noticed the gigantic war currently going on in Europe?
Yeah, no need for defence spending with the world currently in a golden era of peace!
Maybe let’s not give £11bn to Pakistan you shore up their flood defences.
The only reason NATO troops aren’t sipping vodka in Red Square right now is because Putin has nukes. Any country that has them is uninvadable.
Now more than ever we need them to protect ourselves, and other European countries, against buttholes like Putin.
No that’s a very good idea. Only a complete idiot would want to give up nuclear weapons after the Ukraine war.
So, 2 things:
1. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re currently not going through a period of great stability. Maybe now isn’t the best moment to start cutting into defense spending?
2. Don’t even get me started on the whole “we should cut military stuff, and use that spending on the public good!”. You and I both know, for a fact, that if the Tories cut spending on the military, those savings would just end up being passed on in the form of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. There’s 0 chance of it actually being spent on the public good, because the public is icky and poor.
Makes perfect sense. I can’t see any issues in the world that would require high defence spending.
Nuclear arms are the biggest waste of taxpayers money imaginable.
1) you cannot win a nuclear war
2) If you *ever* have to use them, then they were *never* a deterrent.
Instead of getting rid of nukes altogether, Britain and France should be working together to achieve economies of scale by jointly manufacturing the same warhead design. This would cut some costs as well as demonstrating NATO solidarity.
AWE employs 6000 people – it could be combined with the French equivalent to reduce duplicated effort.
Our nuclear deterrent is specifically designed to stop the UK being nuked in the event of global nuclear war, because the other “side” (almost certainly Russia) knows we could still strike back. Wouldn’t work – they target us specifically because we have nukes and they know they’d be fucked anyway so might as well go all out.
You know what would reduce risk of nuclear attack on the UK? Dismantle all our nukes and kick out all USAF presence in the UK. Make our armed forces a non-nuclear defence force only. When asked to get involved in any foreign conflict in any way, the answer is simply “no”.
We’re no longer a target, the world is much more peaceful. We then use this position and influence to encourage nuclear disarmament elsewhere.
EDIT – I see the Thatcherites and conspiracy theorists are downvoting this idea…
I wonder what public services would look like when we get bombed into an inhalable dust after not being able to defend ourselves and our allies.
We need to fight for our fights and freedoms from this criminal and tyrannical government
The idealist in me says scrap it but the pragmatist says we need it now more than ever. The fact is nuclear deterrent is necessary in a world of Putins and with america likely to elect more nutjobs like trump in future it seems unwise to be totally reliant on them for deterrence.
We spend 2% of our GDP on our defense budget which is the NATO minimum, other countries in NATO actually spend less, because it’s in no way enforced or enforceable. But that is kinda beside the point, we are members of NATO and the origination could get together and decide to revise that number down. Regardless defense spending will go down as our GDP shrinks so at least there’s that.
As for Nuclear Weapons? it’s a tenuous peace if you can even call it that, the world is full of proxy wars, ‘peace keeping’ and armed interventions. They didn’t stop the Falklands war for example. The US recently survived an internal coup and realistically is living under a judicial one. The UK has shown with Boris that a bad actor can simply do whatever they want with little interference from parliament and certainly none from the monarch.
I also don’t think Russia or anyone else is desperate to invade the UK, the war in Ukraine is about reclaiming the perceived might of the USSR and taking back something they believe was stolen from them.
All that said, we’re in a terrible situation in general and defense spending seems to inconsequential. I think any reduction would either go to the deficit or just be stolen by rich people/MP’s.
Defense spending has been cut as badly as any public service.
If you think that defence spending isn’t necessary, you haven’t been paying attention and live in an idealized world that is very different from the real world we actually inhabit.
I never hear that military spending should be cut for horses (and their associated requirements, such as vets), for instance
And build 5 new battleships just to keep the perversity going strong