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Britain
Blair and Brown to reduce UK's Royal Navy to mere coastal defence force
2007-01-05
NuLabour's contempt for the military continues unabated.
Snip, duplicate x 2. We've done this one, folks. AoS.
Posted by:Elmeck Glising3472

#12  It's a natural fallout of a conscious decision by the British to source their equipment from Europe. They Brits were never going to get 8 destroyers. The 6 they may get are near twice the cost of Aegis destroyers for less than half the capability. The Eurofighter is 3 times the price of F-16s and 25 years late. The brits are paying 4-5 times the price for Stormshadow as they could for JASSM. The list goes on in vehicles, electronics, munitions.

If they cancel their carriers, then they won't need any F-35B, but still get $10's of billions of production contracts for it. Sweet deal.

Anyway, I don't think the US and Britain will be going off together on any more adventures. At least until continental European countries begin to be overrun in 20 years. But by then, the US will most likely play the reticent coquette.
Posted by: ed   2007-01-05 15:39  

#11  This is the natural evolution of the EU experiment. Why should the British pay for (in capital, cash, and manpower) the bulk of the European navy when they will only have some say in it's use (and the most likely use is to let it rust as the Germans are unlikely to support force projection).

Better to save the money, IF*, the British intend to follow the EU course.

*Better yet they should dump the EU and join Nafta.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2007-01-05 14:49  

#10  A Navy is not much use if you aren't going to use it. Allow me to play Devil's Advocate and ask what exactly Britain needs a navy for? It's not like they are going to fight the Spanish Armada again.
Posted by: SteveS   2007-01-05 14:24  

#9  WTH? What did you do with JoeM you faker? There's NO way Joe's posting at 12:45 pm EST unless he's hit a blackhole somewheres.
Posted by: BA   2007-01-05 13:28  

#8  And thus, the final trappings of the English empire are thrown off and England has become nothing more than a minor country.

Nelson must be rolling in his grave.
Posted by: DarthVader   2007-01-05 12:57  

#7  Return of the Privateer - support your local Pirate(s) of the Caribbean???
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2007-01-05 12:45  

#6  This current WOT is barely even tapping our full war potential yet becuase of this interanal Seditionist movement we are teatering on defeat.

I for one, welcome our new interanal Seditionist overlords! Besides...teatering is fun!

Actually, all kidding aside, when do we start collecting the LLL arseholes?
Posted by: Chuck Darwin   2007-01-05 12:45  

#5  At some point the West to survive is going to have to handle the internal threat that is literally killing US. Liberalism, LLL peace-love-&-happiness mentality.

This current WOT is barely even tapping our full war potential yet becuase of this interanal Seditionist movement we are teatering on defeat. Economically, Financialy, and casualtie numbers the WOT is less than that of a peace time 80's military required yet somehow this has been turned into a defeat failure. WTF is their a historical comparison that has not been blown away by the current WOT, is there one that the current WOT is worse compared to? The war over there is for our survival to be able to fight the War right here that either now or later will have to be fought or our future is suicidal death by self hating LLL's.
Posted by: C-Low   2007-01-05 11:42  

#4  Meanwhile the French navy, which will be far superior to the Royal Navy after the cuts, will announce before the April presidential elections that a new carrier will be built.

Don't sweat it. If it's anything like the last one, it'll take 'em 15 years to build and will probably sink when they flood the dock.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski   2007-01-05 11:35  

#3  I wonder if this was front page news in the Buenos Aires Scimitar Defender?
Posted by: tu3031   2007-01-05 11:25  

#2  This, if true, is totally astounding.
Posted by: SpecOp35   2007-01-05 11:25  

#1  Maybe Ethiopia can get them to protect their new port in Mogadishu.
Posted by: Brett   2007-01-05 11:19  

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