Saturday 21 November 2015

Stating the bleeding obvious ....

Well done to the Westminster Defence Committee for pointing out the bleeding obvious: the Tory's UK's conventional defence planning provides the UK with all the safety and security of a gusset-less pair of skid mark shattered Y-fronts.

Why this sudden Damascene revelation?

After all, the folk who have worried about the Tory Party's run down of the UK's conventional military provision have been pointing this out since the 2010 SDR was 'announced' by David Cameron. Ex Cold War veterans, like myself, have long wondered just how Cameron's 2010 SDR was going to allow the UK's Armed Services meet their primary NATO role as it ripped the heart out of the UK's long standing maritime reconnaissance role with the scrapping of the Nimrod and the RN surface fleets tracking commitment trailing Russian submarines as they exit the Faroes - Iceland gap having been handed over by the Nimrods.


The lack of Nimrod aircraft have rendered the fishery protection agency's ability to monitor illegal industrial scale fishing within the UK's 200 mile limit and without the RN presence in the Faroes-Iceland gap there is no capability to directly challenge illegal fishing in our deep ocean waters, leaving massive factory ships from all around the world to hoover up mackerel and sand eel at will as Westminster turns a Nelsonian blind eye to the impact of political decisions, taken to allow them to afford the Trident replacement, on some of the UK's most important resources.

The UK is a maritime nation, we are reliant on the oceans for both imports and exports, Scotland has some of the best fishing grounds in the world around its shores yet the UK has no ability to patrol or protect our vital sea ways. It is the combination of maritime air reconnaissance and surface vessel patrols which prevent illegal dumping of contaminated bilges, cargoes and over quota fishing in our international waters. Let alone the prevention of illegal drug and weapon importation in combination with what is left of HM Coastguard revenue cutters.

The really frightening aspect of the Tory's defence scam is it is defending not a single UK interest and is just another piece of Tory and Westminster dogma about 'The UK punching above its weight.' projected on a nuclear weapons system not even our bestest pals in the USA's Pentagon think the UK should be purchasing. This is all just part and parcel of the Tory Party's need for self aggrandisement and a sense of self importance of which Cameron's Air Farce One is just part and parcel.

As long as a fawning UK media continue to praise Cameron's empty promises and his party's failed economic ideology there can be no challenge to the serious and threatening deficiency in the defence of the UK's real interests, in its own territorial waters, or the economic and environmental damage this is causing.

Ignoring the moral argument against Trident, for now, there is a serious risk in terms of the UK's balanced defence needs of putting all our eggs in the one basket case of a 'deterent weapon system' which has not prevented or deterred any number of wars across the world since it first burst over Hiroshima.

3 comments:

  1. Anyone could land in Scotland. And blow the Trident to smithereens. And Scotland with it. We have no marine Defence. There is nothing watching our North Seas. There is no patrols. The Trident is an abcient lumbering falling to bits. We also don't have permission to use it.

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  2. I believe Peter that the MoD had a policy of denuding Scottish defense infrastructure leading up to the referendum just in case things didn't work out the way they hoped.
    They wouldn't have had to pay for defending Scotland's maritime borders and for sure would have removed everything from Faslane and Coulport if they could.
    Noticeable that Hammond announced the relocation of all the nuclear submarine fleet to Faslane immediately after the No vote.
    Aircraft can be flown south at the drop of a hat.
    I am sure that this is still in the thinking of the MoD contingency planners.

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    1. They do not have the aircraft they need and the F 35 vstol variant is over ten years away from being front line, if it ever gets there. I am actually talking about the UK here, not just Scotland. Today's blethers from Osbourne were designed to cover up the total arse every government since Thatcher has made of UK defence in its vain glorious pursuit of "punching above our weight". The reality is we currently could not punch ourselves out of a wet paper bag .... we have no capability to put soldiers or our ships and planes in harm's way without Uncle Sam holding our hand and wiping our arses.

      If Argentina invades the Falklands tomorrow we have no ships or men to send south and will just have to give them away.

      The UK military is on the point of collapse as morale, as a result of Tory policy on defence, sinks ever lower. The idea you can create a reserve force to make up the numbers is now short over 10,000 personnel for the Army alone while senior rates and middle ranking officers in the RN are taking their pensions and running. The RAF pilots are concerned they are not getting enough flight time to keep their skills at operational levels a d the planning for recall of pilots will not work given the rapidly changing world of combat avionics. The new Typhoon aircraft is already on new avionics fit 3 ... if the bangers turn on the UK for the latest genocide Cameron's mob have perpetrated against them we would be forced to surrender.

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