UK military problems & policies

[davidbfpo]

A Kings of War blog article laments the political attention given to foreign and security policy in the General Election campaign so far:

Whilst some people might look at the treatment of foreign policy, defence and security issues during the 2015 UK General Election campaign as a farce, is it not now becoming something much more akin to a tragedy?

Link:http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2015/04/cclkow-the-2-doctrine/

Sometimes the leaders refer to their opponents stance on the Trident dettterent, without mentioning the Scottish Nationalist's adamant opposition to its basing in Scotland. Fewer wonder as defence is not "ring-fenced" from spending cuts how much post-election defence will be cut.

I expect that the UK will end up spending less than 2% even after fudging the figures. What the UK spends does not IMHO affect other European nations; it may annoy the USA though.

[davidbfpo]

With two momentary exceptions the British General Election did not feature foreign policy or defence matters and now we await a new 'emergency' budget statement in July, which is widely reported as announcing further budget cuts.

Oxford Research Group has a paper on the options, from a different perspective - which I would call retrenchment away from the UK pursuing intervention as an option:http://oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/pu...tion_austerity

[davidbfpo]

Each year there is an official survey of attitudes within the armed forces, called The 2015 Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey and the BBC in a very slim report:

The rate of personnel planning to leave, or who have given their notice, increased from 16% in 2011 to 25% now. Those planning to stay in the service for as long as they could also fell from 41% in 2011 to 34% now.
However, the survey of 11,877 personnel also found there had been an increase in morale, with 45% rating their morale as high, compared with 41% in 2014

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32851668

[davidbfpo]

A letter from a ret'd RN Admiral, who in 2002 retired as the UK's most senior RN officer, appeared today's in the Telegraph:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...the-world.html

Two sentences give you a flavour:

There are disquieting parallels between the situation that confronted our country some 90 years ago and that which now prevails...Today, although in very different circumstances, there are some uncomfortable similarities.