United Kingdom defence cut backs lessons for New Zealand

Strategic ineptitude. As much as proper financial backing, what is desperately needed is an over-arching grand strategy for foreign and defence policy. We need a restructuring of the shambolic National Security Council that has minimal representation from the armed forces and is a reactive organisation lacking in the ability to proactively develop long-term plans.
We are now in the run up to the Strategic Defence and Security Review due in October 2015. Unless there is a dramatic change in outlook, this will be just another round of treasury-driven cuts.

Save the Royal Navy Op Ed

Another good article from The Lens of History friends at the Save The Royal Navy Campaign. @NavyLookout 

The Government should recognise that "defence is different" and treat it more generously than other spending departments, said the UKNDA.

Drawing a contrast between the PM who appeased Hitler and the one who defeated him, the association asked: "Does the Prime Minister wish to be remembered as a Chamberlain or a Churchill?"

Full article


The horse has already bolted from the stable. David Cameron is a Neville Chamberlain clone. The crippling defence cutbacks Cameron has overseen have guttered the UK armed forces. Appeasing Hitler , I mean Vladimir Putin's territorial ambitions in the Ukraine will invite future Russian military aggression against Western Europe. Cameron and other NATO political leaders have gone out of their way to ensure Europe and the UK will be plunged into its third war in 80 odd years.

The cut backs have ensured the UK will play an isolationist role in world affairs for the next decade or so. The UK retreat from its international obligations will play a part in the road to the coming global conflict. Since the end of the Cold War the UK military has been subjected to spending cut backs. After the Cold War ended UK and other western leaders mistakenly assumed a fairy tale peace had broken out.

Cameron is intent on delivering the final nail in the coffin to the UK armed forces . Once the nail has been hammered in with a giant mallet the UK will be subject to the winds of a increasingly unstable world. The Winds go by the name of expansionist Russia , Isis and Iran's territorial ambitions/Nuclear program.

Spending money on Education and Health is much more politically attractive to voters then adequate levels of defence spending. This applies to the UK and New Zealand equally. The voters who go to the polls without considering defence and foreign policy issues have enabled the resurrection of Chamberlain clones.

What are the lessons for the Kiwi reader? First of all the reader should note how in political terms the Prime Minster of New Zealand John Key is Cameron brother from another mother. Key has continued Labour's foreign and defence polices unabated.

Key is an actively pursuing the policy of appeasement towards China. Key either takes no notice of China rise as a military power or is completely ignorant of its geopolitical implications. The current National government view the Chinese solely as New Zealand's number 1 customer for our diary exports.

The current government's failure to ensure the NZDF has a suitable force structure that can cope with the prevailing winds (Just swap Russia for expansionist China). The NZDF weak force structure contributes nicely to the morally bankrupt policy of appeasement. The only way to prevent the occurrence of total war is Peace Through Strength.

New Zealand and the UK are on opposite sides of the globe. Despite the differences in the geographical placement both countries are unable to muster sufficient political will/military strength to prevent the coming world war.

The majority of Kiwi voters ignorance of world affairs manifests itself when they go to the polls every 3 years. In the same time frame the desire for every increasing amounts of social spending also dominates the priorities of swing voters. This can said to be why the New Zealand parliament doesn't contain a single dissenting voice in the mould of Winston Churchill.

The voters who I mentioned above have sealed the fate of the next generation who are still in school . The sons and daughters of what I will call the ignorant generations are set to pay a heavy price in blood for the mistakes being made by political leaders like Key and Cameron.