by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
A think tank has stated that Britain does not need and cannot afford much of the defense equipment that the government wants to buy.
Trident is not needed and too expensive and other equipment the same.
What we are seeing here is, yet again, the power of the Military Industrial Complex and the way the government has its fingers in it.
In a statement the defense industry entirely slammed the findings basically saying that Britain cannot afford to upgrade Trident and all other big military projects.
The question is to why for in the new global conflict operations where we are faced with terrorist and insurgents rather than a nuclear exchange and a battle of huge tank forces and naval battle groups upgrades and huge new battleships are a waste of money; money which we can ill afford to waste, as a country.
The way that the military industrial complex rants and raves and wails as regards those findings shows that the interest is but money, for them, and the government will give in to their demands, no doubt, for they will tell them how many jobs will goo if the country does not have all those new bit of military hardware made.
The entire arms race in the last century was fueled – to a great degree – not so much by any real threat from say the then USSR but by the greed of the military industrial complex in the West.
Yes, similar things were afoot in the then USSR but, I tell you, the Russians really are and were scared of the West and the West's possible ambitions and the military was a huge influential power.
I can but say that we wee lucky never to have had to go to war against the Warsaw Pact for they would have licked us and not simply because of manpower but especially for the fact that all weapon system were interchangeable. The AK47 made in the USSR was exactly the same – to a degree – than those made in Waffenfabrik Suhl, GDR, or in Radon, Poland, or in Brun, CSSR, while NATO had so many different systems none of which would have been able to salvage parts from another.
However, while there is a little saber rattling going on in the Russian Federation, the former USSR, again and some rhetoric is being spewed forth here and there, the fact is that there is no real threat on that level. Russia can hold the West to ransom simply via oil and gas and does not need firepower.
On the other hand fighting against terrorists and insurgents does not require nuclear missiles and huge carriers and such like, and even, should it ever be contemplated, an attack against Iran would be a more or less conventional low-level operation, in the same way as the Iraq war, and not one of nuclear exchanges. We all know that that would be stupid and I am sure that even more military people and even the people in Whitehall have understood that.
As far as defense equipment that we cannot afford it is also a case that this is equipment that we do not need.
What the British fighting man or -woman needs is not nuclear missiles on submarines but decent equipment and armor on which he or she depend andn not stupid snatch Land Rovers that might have worked in Ulster but are useless in theaters such as Helmand, Afghanistan or such places where IEDs are a threat and not stone throwing kids.
On the other hand, once we have given all the right tools to our fighting men and -women, how much could be achieved on the green front with the money left. A tremendous amount, methinks, to create a real green infrastructure and green jobs.
But all the government seems concerned about is to be able to wave the nuclear club which is too heavy and too dangerous to use.
The joke with the two cavemen some years back by the anti-nuclear bomb folks was a good example. One had a club that he could not even lift and his comment was that is was indeed too heavy to actually swing but that it was a great deterrent.
And that is the same with Trident and any such systems and hardware; useless. While the boots on the ground lack basic equipment such a proper body armor and armored vehicles and even more simple things than that. What a way to fight a war.
© 2009
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Country can't afford much of defense equipment government wants to buy
