From Patriotic Alternative.
Edward Saunders
Two shocking statistics have come to light from the Ukrainian war, which proves what a farce the Ministry of Defence really is. The Ukrainian military are using the same amount of artillery in one day that Britain produces in an entire year. Further, that in a conventional war, it has been estimated that Britain would run out of bullets after just 3 days of combat. When you consider the Russians are using even more artillery per day than the Ukrainians, and have been doing so for almost a year, you begin to realise how the British Army has been shrinking over successive decades, and also how large Moscow’s military industrial complex actually is. What’s even more bizarre – and this shows the complete incompetence – is that we actually spend more on our military than Russia does ($68billion compared to $65billion), yet our war making capabilities are infinitely smaller.
Budgets slashed
Observers state correctly that European politicians have cut defence budgets again and again because they are in NATO, and thus protected by nuclear weapons and the large amount of American personnel stationed on our continent. However if America was to withdraw, the reality is that we would have literally no capacity at conventional defence whatsoever. After all, there’s no point having state-of-the-art aircraft carriers if their jets run out of missiles after a few sorties. I genuinely don’t believe Russia has any intention to invade NATO territory, because as I have stated previously Ukraine is in a completely different context, but other threats may emerge in the future that we have no capacity to repel.
How exactly could Brussels and its unelected Commission (the great annoyance that it is) manage any kind of war-like situation? How exactly can European peoples feel safe when Germany’s troops are training with broomsticks? How is draining our ammo reserves and sending them to Ukraine helping Britain, France and Germany, whose capabilities are already in a complete shambles? And why is Boris Johnson, a backbench MP, being allowed to visit Kiev and bang the war drums without any mandate whatsoever? The former Israeli prime minister stated recently that the West prevented Ukraine making peace last year, and when asked to comment Johnson didn’t deny it.
This strange obsession with foreign conflicts that our political class has correlates strongly with the defunding of our own troops. It’s easy to use jets to bomb jihadis in the deserts of Iraq, but it’s a lot more difficult to create and sustain the industrial chains needed for artillery stockpiles and the maintenance of bases. The latter has come under the spotlight recently, where shoddyaccommodation for personnel and their families has resulted in water leaks, black mould and structural faults. Indeed, a recent poll showed thousands of personnel want to leave because their housing was so poor.
Weakness of the West
The problem is that we don’t do the basics any more, and instead focus on high-end procurement. For example, we can build two modern aircraft carriers and buy the F-35 jet to use on them which is all well and good. Yet what’s the point of that if we can’t deploy a single tank division? Do they expect British soldiers to take towns without armour, and also within three days before they run out of bullets? Good luck with that. The reality is that civilisations are largely built on strength, not GDP, which is why despite having a smaller economy than us Russia has a larger military and space capability.
Our political class decided many decades ago to focus on the NHS and financial services rather than power, and as a result our Navy no longer has the mandate or willpower to stop Albanians trafficking illegal migrants crossing the channel. This is despite the fact that if the French and British personnel were ordered to, the entire trafficking route could easily be stopped once and for all. What exactly is the point of having a Ministry of Defence if they can’t stop 20,000 men coming ashore? Defence surely starts at home. And on that note, Boris Johnson’s recent plea to give away our entire Eurofighter fleet verges on the unhinged. Did we and our allies really spend decades designing, building, maintaining and upgrading these jets just so Russia could wipe them out in a few months? What a waste of money, and how would we pay for their replacement? Perhaps giving away a large swathe of Britain’s fast jet fleet isn’t a particularly good idea.
Britain’s military of course has a remarkable history, from Trafalgar and Waterloo to the Falklands, but the reality is that today’s force is a shadow of its former self. Underfunding and misplaced priorities are leading to a situation where conventional warfare will be all but impossible. History isn’t exactly kind to declining powers, and evidence shows they are usually gobbled up by bigger fish sooner or later. To prevent that, apart from the obvious campaign to stop mass immigration, Britain needs a military that is functioning properly and serves the interests of the people who pay their bills (taxpayers). In an unstable world, this must be at the top of the political agenda.
From Patriotic Alternative.