What are your thoughts on Army 2020?

Call me cynical, but I'm sceptical that any money saved by moving away from Trident (either by removing all nuc capability or transitioning to a more limited delivery) would actually end up back in the Defence budget.

Deterrent is in practical terms useless. Unless it comes to a proper invasion or some other nation deploying WMD on us - we're never going to put the nukes on anyone. The Argentinians could do anything they liked, but short of dropping half a barrel of Anthrax on RAF Mount Pleasant, we're never going to go nuclear on them.

lol exactly....i'm at MPA at the moment lol

As unpopular as my opinion is onthese matters, I support a fewer-man/Higher-tech Army. Although I wouldn't want to see our Army dip below 75,000 regs really, I certainly think our emphasis needs to be on cutting edge, first-strike, shock and awe et al, tech and ability. We are not a country on the frontline of any war, and I'd rather we have drones over Afghan, than men. Of course though, I fully understand the need for highly trained soldiers, which is why we need the 75,000 odd regs, backed up by roughly the same number of reservists.

In my ideal world, we as a country would be solely focussed on overwhelming tech and surgical strike units. Should we ever face any other major player in open combat we simply do not have the men to fight a war of attrition. And as peacekeeping duties go, it's time for UN and NATO members beyond the US and Commonwealth to start pulling their weight. We have the best tanks in the world, we had the best VTL aircraft in the world, soon we will have some of the most hightech fighter jets and recon aircraft in the world too. This should be where we focus our spending. Giving a smaller force the very best equiptment out there, and comitting them only where they will have the best support. We are not the Empire, as we are so scoldingly told by so many, therefor our commitment to police the world is at an end. The ball is in the NATO and UN court, let them have a swat at it whilst we look after ourselves.

Having a strong deterrent didn't stop Argentina trying to take the Falklands. Only strong conventional Forces were useful in retaking them.
Has having a nuclear deterrent actually deterred anything in the last 40years?

We can still have a deterrent. But a smaller one. A more mobile one. We have air- and sub-launched cruise missiles already in service. Finding small nuclear warheads to fit those would not be hard. We retain the ability to hit anything globally. We retain First Strike. We retain a lot of money.

The Falklands are different because the Falklands don't really matter. It would have been considered an absurd overreaction at home and abroad to nuke Buenos Aires and kill hundreds or thousands or millions of largely innocent people for the sake of a few distant islands with a combined population of a large village. If the stakes are higher - say a third world war in Europe - then that isn't the case.

Are the Falklands a good argument for strong conventional forces? Depends how much you value honour. Financially, it's more in our interest to surrender them.

Tbh I think we should have a smaller army and a bigger navy because of how our borders are sea borders.

Not really. As long as there a huge amount of natural resources down there they will be worth keeping.

But lets be fair, do you really think it belongs to the UK? I bet money, if there were no natural resources there, then we would not even bother. I just think we're just greedy ****ers... if you go back in the history of time, UK always colonize everywhere they went, enslaving the people and taking over their land...it's not your land, wtf you want to come and steal other peoples land for? would you like if someone else came and colonize your country?

Why?

But lets be fair, do you really think it belongs to the UK? I bet money, if there were no natural resources there, then we would not even bother. I just think we're just greedy ****ers...if you go back in the history of time, UK always colonize everywhere they went, enslaving the people and taking over their land...it's not your land, wtf you want to come and steal other peoples land for? would you like if someone else came and colonize your country?

There were no known valuable resources on the Falklands in 1982, and they didn't have a population prior to European settlement (unlike Argentina, which is now almost entirely Spanish and Italian descended).

This makes no sense?

If the Falklands do not belong to the Falklanders who do they belong to?

I didn't say that the Falklands didn't belong to the Falklanders(?).

The Falklanders are European (ie. British) settlers, not natives in the sense of American Indians, if that is what you mean. The islands did not have a permanent population until 1840.

I see, your post is a little confused, as early you effectivley said the Europeans had no claim to such Islands, the implication there being that Argentina does, but Argentina was equally a 'settled' nation.

I didn't say that either.

The previous poster claimed that Britain took the Falklands from someone else, when in fact they had no prior permanent population. I didn't comment on the legitimacy of Britain's claim but it's generally considered legitimate to settle land that was previously unoccupied. Since the implication was that Argentines were the original population of the islands, I thought I would also point out that the Argentines are no more native to South America than the British.

That's the silliest reply so you got negged!

A Quote from the film Crimson Tide : "I just think that in the nuclear world the true enemy can't be destroyed...In my humble opinion, in the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself" - Hunter