The Americans?
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The one thing you cannot criticize the US Army for is not spending enough…value for money a different proposition.
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Yes but without us they’d just friendly fire themselves to oblivion.
Just for reference:
The UK is not at all bad by NATO standards, the largest country other than the US that is actually above the 2.0% of GDP commitment mark. The UK’s problem is that it has an aspirational military that costs a great deal to echo the global forces of the past - in particular the Royal Navy.
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Well there’s a long history of governments buying the weapons that the industry want to sell rather than those that their forces actually need. Eisenhower famously warned about it.
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When did United change their club badge to a blue and white lion rather than their traditional red and yellow ship above a pixie?
I was specifically replying to @RedWhippet ’s post.
The US might but given we out-spend all the rest, any and all “despair” from our poverty spec neighbours should be treated with distain. If there is any. That’s my point.
US spending example.
The issue I was referring to is that the UK necessarily has to spend more than anyone else in NATO (other than US), because the military ends up trying to do too much. The French military has a similar problem, though not as exaggerated. The British armed forces have a higher ‘overhead’.
That said, agreed that there are definitely glass houses going on. The German military is basically nothing but overhead. The Canadian military has an absurd number of generals, something like 135 for a force of 65k, or one general for every 500 or so…that is a battalion size formation. Majors presumably carry a broom to sweep up. Outside the US, all of NATO really has to get away from spending for jobs etc., and build serious capability as the world enters a dangerous period.
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We’ll soon be in 7th generation fighters controlled by AI. Now where’re we heard that before? Sarah Connor sends her regards.
LOL - apparently someone (younger) at the Pentagon suggested that the centralized control system be named Skynet. The idea was rejected for the obvious reason by a decision maker who was alive in the 1980s. That’s just too good to be true.
The wife asked me last night wtf this thing was about seven different bins. Having no idea , I replied it was probably something the Tories had dreamt up to scare voters.
And guess what …
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To be fair, we only allow them to stay in NATO in case we ever have to surrender.
I give this 24 hours max.
To be honest, its something most countries should do.
Its what happens in Sweden and they have a 99% recycling rate.
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Most countries do already do it. I doubt very much whether there’s a single one that has seven different bins however. This nonsense , along with his other lies about taxes on meat and car-sharing have been dreamt up because the Tories needed some kind of an alibi to deflect criticism away from their net zero u-turn. After their unexpected by-election victory in London they believe that voters are going to be responsive to more , for want of a better word , anti-green policies. The fact that the PM is now willing to lie to garner votes reveals not only their desperation but plants them squarely back in the moral vacumn that they had supposedly vacated with Johnson’s demise.
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I’m wondering whether they have massively misjudged that. They seem to be convinced that their base support consists of knuckle-dragging bar room bores (that is the only reason I can think of them having Lee Anderson as deputy chairman). However, a huge base of their national vote are what you would describe as small “c” conservatives. There is a big crossover between centre-left Green voters and these conservative minded, middle-class mainstream voters. In Australia, they call them Teals.
It’s just possible that a stuffed shirt like Keir Starmer or Ed Davey is going to appeal to them a lot more than the Tory party yobbos.
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Thats who these announcements are targeting. Its an attempt to try and reopen the traditional anti Labour attack angle of being the party who unnecessarily tax and spend. While the majority of voters appear to support the policies to reduce pollution and damage to the environment - many believe there would be little difference whether it is delivered by 2040 or 2050.
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I do wonder what proportion of the NHS budget for each nation is spent on private contracts? Then a corresponding figure for the costs of managing those contracts?
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