One more sign that that age of the British Empire is long past:

A senior officer, currently serving with the Fleet in Portsmouth, said: "What this means is that we are now no better than a coastal defence force or a fleet of dug-out canoes. The Dutch now have a better navy than us."

Defence sources said it would be unlikely that the Navy could now launch an armada of the kind that retook the Falkland Islands in 1982.

Steve Bush, editor of the monthly magazine Warship World, said the MoD was bankrupt following the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"After 10 years of Labour government, the Royal Navy is on its knees without immediate and proper funding. I cannot see how it can recover —especially if Mr Brown becomes the next prime minister," he said.

In happier news, Britain is said to be reconsidering their participation in human spaceflight.

Who needs an old ocean when there is a new one?

Billions for social nets and regulatory bodies, not a penny for defense!

Oops! Another unintended consequence of the Iraq war? Blair spent all his pennies there, Big D, eh? Buggering up to Bush tch tch ;-)

...the Royal Navy is on its knees...

I'd heard this about British sailors, but I thought it was a joke.

The last time the Royal Navy was smaller then the French was in the 1780s - that's part of why they lost the American Revolution. The last time they were smaller then the Dutch was 1666 - the year the Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames and bombarded London.

When the fleet headed back downriver, they ran brooms up in their rigging, having swept the seas clean of the British.

Man that's gotta hurt.

TnT:

So, if there'd been no Iraq war, the British Left (including the "wets" of the Labour Party) would've backed more defense spending?

Canada's not been involved until recently in operations in Afghanistan, and stayed out of the Iraq War. Yet, Canadian PM Paul Martin was hardly a friend of Canadian defence spending.

fighting ill-planed wars in afghanistan and ill-conceived wars
in Iraq have broken the militaries of Britain and America.

The Neo-cons must be proud of themselves.
They have shattered their old enemies England,
and ruined their termporary home America.

"The Neo-cons must be proud of themselves.
They have shattered their old enemies England,
and ruined their termporary home America."

Since when did the Jews have England as an enemy or use America as a tempoary home?

Since when is battle hardened = broken?

Might I observe that the Dutch Royal Navy doesn't have Triton.

I see no need for a large navy. A working nuclear deterent and a willingness to use it is a perfect defence against a rationally acting nation state which has designs on expanding its borders.

Adrasteia, rationally-acting nations don't have designs on expanding their borders by force. You don't swat a fly with a flame thrower. Nuclear weapons are a political weapon not a military one. Projecting force with a naval fleet is still a great way to stop trouble.

puckett

the stern gang sure hated England, so did
Menachem Begin and the Irgun.

> Canada's not been involved until recently in
> operations in Afghanistan, and stayed out of
> the Iraq War

Canada was involved in Afghanistan right from the beginning, doing far more than the token forces from say, France. The only thing that's changed now is that we're losing more troops to the Taliban than to the US Air Force.

Staying out of Iraq wasn't just because it didn't seem like a good idea. With a war on in Afghanistan, troops still in Bosnia and small numbers of soldiers in several other peacekeeping forces, the Canadian government didn't want to admit that it wasn't capable of fielding a significant force in Iraq.

Some Americans seem to forget that since they spend more on thier military than most other countries in the world combined, any "multi-national" force is going to look like take-your-daughter-to-work-day at best. It's worse when your allies are already fighting along side you in another war.

Still, Canadians serve in AWACS crews over Iraq. Canadian ships in the Gulf are searching ships arriving and departing Iraq. A couple of Canadians have been killed on the ground, while serving in American units. Our long-term military base in the United Arab Emirates - built to support operations in Afghanistan - is interestingly close to Iraq.

But mostly we have a lot of combat troops in Afghanistan, allowing the Americans to largely abandon the place while they concentrate on another war.

The UK is not going to use nuclear weapons to deter or retaliate against Argentina in defense of the Falklands. Especially whan all Argentina needs to do is cross a body of water and simply show superior fire power than the troops stationed their, who are no longer backed by a strong navy.

Leland,

If I were the Brits and the Argies once again invaded the Falklands, I would simply have my subs blockade and interdict all shipping traffic until either the Argentinians withdrew or the economy collapsed.

They are still quite capable of that feat.

Wow, Anonymous agrees that Mike Puckett has correctly identified him as a Jew-hater. Well, that's one small step forward ...

That's what I'd be doing too Mike, there simply isn't a need to maintain a large surface fleet in modern warfare. Simply buy those swanky new F-22's and 787 tankers, and harpoon the shit out of their shipping fleets.

And who really cares if Argentina has the falklands. There is clearly nothing of economic value there.

And who really cares if Argentina has the falklands. There is clearly nothing of economic value there.

Ed, care to spin this?

"And who really cares if Argentina has the falklands. There is clearly nothing of economic value there."

Perhaps one could make the same justification for an illegal alien to take unauthorized ownership of your living room.

The Brits have sufficient cause to keep the Fauklands. It is theirs. If Argentinia is dumb enough to invade again, they deserve whatever they get up to and including a large application of canned sunshine. Call it national slection.

BTW, if you want to interdict shipping halfway across the world, you do not use fighter jets, you use Submarines.

Mike,

I'll agree that the Brits do have a fine submarine force, but they did do away with the Perisher school, which, IMO, made their officers a cut above all other submariners.

BTW, if you want to interdict shipping halfway across the world, you do not use fighter jets, you use Submarines.

Ok, probably not on Argentina, but if someone started thinking about Ireland or the Indonesians decided they wanted a crack at Darwin, you'd most certainly Harpoon the shit out of them.

I also agree with your stance on defending the Falklands on principle, and Lady Thatcher had it perfectly right to undermine Galtieri's leadership by kicking the shit out of his military. However, other than sovereignty and the Argentine democractic movement, there was clearly nothing of economic value to defend there.

There's apparently quite a lot of oil under Falklands territorial waters. But it was indeed a matter of principle.

However, it appears that the money is needed for buying Labour votes, by massively expanding the non-productive government-employed sector of the economy. After all, if you are in a government non-job in Britain and vote anything other than Labour you need psychiatric help for self-destructive behaviour.

Tax-and-spend is bad, but arguable in principle. Tax and throw away is bad, with no redeeming features - unless your nose is in the trough.

So rather than pay for enough soldiers, sailors and airmen and the equipment to let them fight effectively, to say nothing of decent accommodation for them - we get legions of chair-warmers.

I have to disagree about the economic value of the Falklands - besides the sheep industry (basically the whole economy in 1982), they've now developed some very lucrative fisheries off the islands. This is apparently something that's made the Argentinians even more envious, as a relatively small population of islanders has built a prosperous economy using the same resources that the Argentinians should be able to access from the mainland.

If I were the Brits and the Argies once again invaded the Falklands, I would simply have my subs blockade and interdict all shipping traffic until either the Argentinians withdrew or the economy collapsed.

Unh, Mike? Submarines can't blockade and interdict - they can only sink ships.

The diff being that a blockading force wants to board, seize or turn ships around. The goal is is prevent ships from reaching a blockaded port, not start a war with a third party.