On 4 Feb 2003 at 21:16, Richard Baker wrote: > Gautam said: > > > Marvin is exactly right. Those other countries > > _choose_ not to be capable of fulfilling their global > > responsibilities. All they have to do is reform their > > defense establishments for power projection and > > increase their defense spending. > > Not necessarily even that. Britain doesn't have a military optimised > for power projection yet (although it will do in about a decade when > the two new US-style aircraft carriers come online), and yet it does
To be honest, that's not entirely fair... > what it can. (The Royal Navy and the RAF are still pretty much > optimised for fighting Soviet submarines in the North Atlantic and > North Sea. That's why the current British carriers look more like > helicopter carriers than aircraft carriers. The RAF doesn't even have Uhh...it's more because of budgets. The carriers we have can't fly conventional jets, but they manage the Harrier (which is admitedly aging) and will fly the VTOL JSF varient. > an air superiority fighter - the Tornados are really pretty poor as > fighters go, but they're okay as long range patrol aircraft. There's The Tornados are airforce. They're optimised for missile warfare. No, they might not be up to American fighter jet standards, but they're also (as I recall) cheaper than the cutting edge American fighters. > not much in the way of airlift capabilities either, because the army > and marines were intended for fighting in Germany and operations in The Marines have HMS Ocean, which can carry a substantual landing force... > Norway and Turkey respectively. Of course, the UK's armed forces are > slowly moving away from those roles, but it takes considerable time to > develop and deploy new capabilities.) Maybe not as long as you think. The JSF will be an important step I agree. Andy Dawn Falcon _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
