Doug Bandow: The Incredible Shrinking Militaries of Europe
[Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He is a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and the author of several books, including Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire (Xulon Press).]
Great Britain ceased to be a great power when it emerged from World War II militarily victorious but financially ruined. Nevertheless, it still tried to play the part, punching “above its weight in the world,” as Prime Minister David Cameron put it. As such, it has been America’s strongest military ally. But Britain’s pretense of global power is disappearing with London’s announcement of significant military cutbacks.
It’s hard to criticize the British. There are few serious security threats in Europe. Instability persists in some regions, but most Britons probably don’t believe that the Balkans is worth the bones of a single healthy Welsh grenadier. Nation-building missions in Afghanistan and Iraq are even more dubious. London gave up attempting to make the former a protectorate more than a century ago.
Moreover, the government of the British Isles is broke. It’s one thing to playact as a Weltmacht when you’re flush with cash. But when even the hallowed British welfare state faces significant cutbacks, London’s military-greatness game truly is over.
The Conservative-led coalition government has proposed significant reductions in public spending. The Liberal Democrats are taking a particular risk in challenging influential domestic interests.
In return, the Tories had to apply tough love to the armed forces. Defense Secretary Liam Fox managed to fend off calls for cuts of up to 20 percent, but Great Britain no longer can afford to field a military so much larger than its means.
Over the next four years the government plans a roughly 8 percent real reduction in the budget, 10 percent cut in uniformed personnel, one-third reduction in heavy artillery, 50 percent cut in tanks, twenty-five thousand reduction in civilian personnel, assorted naval cutbacks and full troop withdrawal from Germany.
Great Britain still won’t be a pushover. It will remain one of the world’s few nuclear powers, with the globe’s fourth-largest military budget, and will still possess one of the world’s most capable forces. Amyas Godfrey of the London-based Royal United Services Institute said: “it is still our intention to be a small island with global impact able to project our force around the world. And unlike many, like Germany and France, we actually do it.” Britain’s ambassador to America, Nigel Sheinwald, made a similar argument: “Our future force will be the most modern, capable, and deployable of any U.S. ally.”
Still, that’s not a difficult standard to meet...
Read entire article at National Interest
Great Britain ceased to be a great power when it emerged from World War II militarily victorious but financially ruined. Nevertheless, it still tried to play the part, punching “above its weight in the world,” as Prime Minister David Cameron put it. As such, it has been America’s strongest military ally. But Britain’s pretense of global power is disappearing with London’s announcement of significant military cutbacks.
It’s hard to criticize the British. There are few serious security threats in Europe. Instability persists in some regions, but most Britons probably don’t believe that the Balkans is worth the bones of a single healthy Welsh grenadier. Nation-building missions in Afghanistan and Iraq are even more dubious. London gave up attempting to make the former a protectorate more than a century ago.
Moreover, the government of the British Isles is broke. It’s one thing to playact as a Weltmacht when you’re flush with cash. But when even the hallowed British welfare state faces significant cutbacks, London’s military-greatness game truly is over.
The Conservative-led coalition government has proposed significant reductions in public spending. The Liberal Democrats are taking a particular risk in challenging influential domestic interests.
In return, the Tories had to apply tough love to the armed forces. Defense Secretary Liam Fox managed to fend off calls for cuts of up to 20 percent, but Great Britain no longer can afford to field a military so much larger than its means.
Over the next four years the government plans a roughly 8 percent real reduction in the budget, 10 percent cut in uniformed personnel, one-third reduction in heavy artillery, 50 percent cut in tanks, twenty-five thousand reduction in civilian personnel, assorted naval cutbacks and full troop withdrawal from Germany.
Great Britain still won’t be a pushover. It will remain one of the world’s few nuclear powers, with the globe’s fourth-largest military budget, and will still possess one of the world’s most capable forces. Amyas Godfrey of the London-based Royal United Services Institute said: “it is still our intention to be a small island with global impact able to project our force around the world. And unlike many, like Germany and France, we actually do it.” Britain’s ambassador to America, Nigel Sheinwald, made a similar argument: “Our future force will be the most modern, capable, and deployable of any U.S. ally.”
Still, that’s not a difficult standard to meet...