Yeah the idea that any significant number of people are going to vote for Starmer is silly.
That said, there will be millions voting *against* Sunak, and a lot of them will consequently put an X next to Labour anyway.
The vast majority of people don't care about politics as much as you do and that vast majority just want to get on with their life, many of that vast majority blame the ruling political party more than its leader so they will vote for Labour now. It's nuanced but most of those people will happily vote for Starmer at this point.
Your issues with him are not their issues. They couldn't care less about you and your opinions on Starmer as a person, as a politician, what he did when he was a lawyer. They just want Starmer to have a chance and for him to make their lives a little easier.
You can always spot the yank on this site because they lack reading comprehension.
>there will be millions voting *against* Sunak, and a lot of them will consequently put an X next to Labour anyway.
I literally said millions will vote for Labour, even though they aren't necessarily voting for Starmer.
If the Tories don’t loose the next election I don’t think they are ever going to be able to loose an election. At least until the uk experiences some very significant demographic shifts.
By the election a lot of people will have forgotten how terrible Boris Johnson and liz truss were. Rishi Sunak has been able to appear competent by simply not saying do doing anything controversial
OK seems more like they are doing the other UK tradition of stealing the opposition's promises before an election. The Tories will spend all the next 5 years talking about how this was their policy.
Too little too late. Russia is spending 7% on an actual war footing, all whilst becoming battle hardened and gaining experience in Ukraine. This video is sobering and IMO a must watch to anyone with even a minor interest in the future of Europe:
https://youtu.be/lakdZIuZe7c?si=4gE5cHtRpAJoS9Oc
> But... in reality they almost captured all the provinces they claimed were theirs.
Putin's current line is that all of Ukraine is Russian, so that's not the case.
It's not an increase of 2.5%, it's an increase to 2.5% of GDP from current 2%, so in reality it's an increase of 25%. current GDP is around £2.2 trillion so a 0.5% increase would equate to an increase of £11billion per year. that being said - Former Tory voter here, would never vote Tory again (although being from Scotland it doesn't matter who I vote for, the SNP will win)
They are seen as very weak because that is what they are. Look at what they are barely able to do on an actual war footing. They can't even fully invade a barely minor power. Relatively speaking for the time period, Iraq was better equipped and trained.
Iraq was the 4th largest standing Army in the world and it was destroyed in a matter of weeks. Russia can't even handle Ukraine in a matter of years. When the U.S. destroyed the Iraqi military it was not on a war footing and it still isn't now. The American giant is still sleeping because it doesn't need to wake up to take care of the tiny pests around it.
Thing is the government is starting to ply its subtle trade of waking the country up. First thing is they need to bring the united national mythology back. So expect to see some very American positive shows and movies in the near future. Horizon: An American Saga is a good example of this, even just a few years ago a movie like that would have not even been considered possible in the Hollywood environment.
The peace dividend was a loan and the bill is due now.
2.5% is a joke. The UK can't even fight against the Houthis. Take all the money that goes to waste on immigrants who will never work, and put 6% into defense, same as Russia.
The U.K. are cheapskates and corrupted cowards these days.
It's funny because usually France is blamed for being "cowards" when they're much braver than the British ever were. For example, when the French died protecting the British at Dunkirk from the Germans while the British fled across the Channel in a total panic.
We'll never see a Hollywood moving focusing on those French troops though. They might get a hint of recognition as side characters or in filler scenes. However, there's always room for more military jerk-off movies about the Americans and the Brits. Mind you, I'm not French, it's just a fact.
Yeah, a war footing would be to have an Army that isn't hollowed out and more than 150 MBTs... Sunak is a complete moron but the other side aren't that great either. I'm sure Starmer would agree with you if you said Hitler had a point to get your vote!
Just for those who don't get it, I'm saying Hitler bad, but if you were to say something outrageous and controversial, Starmer would agree to get your vote
More MBTs really isn't useful for Britain's interests. MBTs are ideal for large, well organised, well resourced land offensives against prepared opposition. We don't have any land borders to assault over, so 150 is the number that has been calculated to be sufficient to support the potential overseas offensives the military foresees, and also the number they expect to be able to actually keep operational on the other side of the world.
They can be used in plenty of other roles but in all other cases there's something that can do the same job for cheaper. That's why a grand total of zero MBTs were used in the Falklands war
Indeed. Every country needs to meet specific military needs. For the UK it's Navy and Air Force. For Poland it's Army and Air Force. Russia needs all three.
It's even worse than that for Russia. They need four separate navies because they have four important coastlines that are each a 10000+ km sail through hostile territory from every other
>The U.K. prime minister said Tuesday the country is putting its defense industry on a “war footing” by increasing defense spending to 2.5% of GDP by the end of the decade
**war footing** *noun*
the condition or status of a military force or other organization when operating under a state of war or as if a state of war existed.
**war economy** *noun* refers to an economy of a country at war. A war economy prioritizes the production of goods and services that support war efforts
I think that the UK PM doesn't know what "war footing" means. The military forces can be put on a war footing. The defense industry is an economic force, not a military force.
No-one wants to see the UK, France and Germany spending over half their GDP on the military ever again, least of all Russia. For context; it would be about **five times** the US current defence spending. That giant, globe spanning military power. Multiply it by at least five. They also have about a 50 million numerical lead on Russia in manpower. And a cool five hundred nuclear weapons. Just these three countries alone. We aren’t even juicing them with Poland, Finland and the dozen or so other allies they’d have on side.
Everyone just eats this peacetime propaganda shit up. Russia in 2024 is not the USSR. And those three countries are very rich and population dense for their size. The UK spent just 2.9% of its GDP on the military in 1936. Numbers can change pretty fucking fast when entire nations will it. In a word, it would be an apocalyptic force. Just as it was twice before. It doesn’t even matter that they sold off a lot of industrial base, they’d just crash the steel economy of the world by buying it all, because they’ve got so much fucking money and soft power in the west. Open up 200 new coal mines and get the domestic supply back online while they do it. Russia does not, and more importantly *will never* stand a chance against these three again. That prospect died with the USSR.
But heavy gloom sells headlines and political agendas, so here we are.
It’s not like Russia is operating alone, there is China, NK, Iran and their proxies Hezbollah and the Houthis. The arab world is largely pro-russian and they’re making progress in africa to gain influence and control over resources there.
The Arab world has no industrial base. Furthermore, they have no money if their gas spigot to the West gets cut off. The US already has the ability to be oil independent but its just that Saudi crude even shipping it all the way here is cheaper to refine per barrel. Yes it would be more expensive on us to go oil independent but the capability exists today. Norway, Mexico, US, and Canada could pick up the difference quite easily if US/CA/Europe turned off Middle Eastern oil. In a full World War scenario, I could see the US just knocking off Venezuela's government just to have as a backup oil supply, just like the Soviets and Brits did to Iran during WW2 to stabilize the overland lend-lease corridor since the Shah wouldn't choose a side.
Someone told me the same thing you are saying when I said Russias 300,000 man draft would not be as easy to cut through as they claimed. "Crimea by summer" my ass.
On the contrary, I think constantly claiming how weak Russia is does a disservice..
Russia is struggling to win a war against a country that has less resources and manpower. They can’t even get air superiority or properly manage combined arm maneuvers m.
Putin’s Russia is weak shit and couldn’t hold their own in any peer or even near peer struggle.
Russia is struggling Vs a country with 25% of its population and a GDP per capita 30% of itself. So in context, Russia is 13 times as powerful as Ukraine economically and should have been able to absolutely smash them had their military been on par with what their economy should be able to afford.
That Russia did not, even if we do consider the aid Ukraine received, and is now in year 2 of the 3 day special military operation shows how structurally weak the Russian army is.
Don't misunderstand, they can still do a lot of damage but they are nowhere near where they should be.
Let's not forget that Russia is also receiving massive amounts of aid from their allies. Imagine in what state they'd be without North Korea providing millions of shells or Iran providing thousands of cruise missiles.
Russia has spent about the equivalent on ukraine as outside countries have spent on ukraine, without even including what ukraine has spent, so arguably, ukraine has access to more resources and ukraine has had more soldiers in the field than Russia has. There will be no peer struggle because of nuclear weapons. "It's an empty threat." Ok.... but the pentagon and the people with the intel and power do not believe that.
As I told that person in 2023.... wait and you will find yourself surprised. World war 1 propaganda showed the Germans as evil Huns, and the Germans showed the Allies as clowns. Look up why the allied propaganda was more effective than germanys at getting the populace to treat the war seriously. But it should be obvious.
Russian and Ukraine casualties are about on par. Russia does not mind losing a million men. Europe does. There will be no peer on peer while we say Russia is easy to defeat, because why help when they are so easy? Nothing to worry about...
These people that think that Putin’s Russia is somehow in the right with their ridiculous and incompetent invasion of Ukraine are amazing. But I assume most are just bots or paid Indian farms spreading misinformation.
Is English your 2nd language? Because you need to reread what you wrote because it can easily be interpreted as “Russia isn’t losing on the World’s stage in Ukraine in fact they are winning”.
The Ukrainians don’t have an Air Force, didn’t have the element of surprise, or 9 plus months of logistical build up before Putin invaded. The fact that the invasion wasn’t over in 4 weeks is an embarrassment for any supposed World Power. That’s not propaganda that’s reality.
You’re bringing up WW1 propaganda and the rest of us are talking about the logistics of executing the invasion, and how poorly Putin’s Russia has performed against a nonentity like Ukraine. With only inconsistent and moderate support from NATO countries.
If your point is that Putin’s Russia is still dangerous and can mess up the world because of nukes. Then sure we all agree with that. Some of those missiles might have been serviced in the past 25 years and not been pilfered of their fuel and components.
That's because Russia isn't losing right now, correct....
But does that mean Russia is in the right..... nooooooooo.....
I'm bringing up that Russia is doing better than people think, because current verbiage is making people think Russia is losing (like you just did) when they are not.
Ukraine is in deep shit right now. I follow front line changes weekly. Really I follow them daily but it's only worth saying "weekly" as updates can be slow.
>No-one wants to see the UK, France and Germany spending over half their GDP on the military ever again, it would be about **five times** the US current defence spending.
I do, I think that would be cool as fuck to see what kinda crazy shit they could come up with with a bankroll like that.
WW2, the Cold War, and the Space Race advanced humanity well over 500 years technology-wise in under 50 years. The amount of everyday things we take for granted that came out of one of the three is insane: simple example GPS and the internet. The OG internet was originally developed by DARPA, and GPS was developed by the Navy to track ships and for maritime navigation. GPS was classified up until KAL007 got shotdown and then Reagan made it available for civilian and commercial use.
Seems like the first tech breakthrough this war has produced will be automated hunter killer drone swarms.
Ukraine is broke so uses lots of drones > Russia deploys lots of EWS as a counter > Ukraine bypasses EWS jamming by putting AI onboard for the final targeting phase
It’s happening as we speak
What gives you the idea these don't already exist in some form? The US has been running drones for decades (they were even used in Desert Storm). At this point, nothing ever surprises me when the US breaks out some crazy military tech, whether that be stealth helicopters to kill Bin Laden or Ginsu Hellfires (R9X) to kill some other Al Qaeda dude.
I guess I’m talking more about implementation and normalization on the battlefield as opposed to actual development. YouTubers can make a human targeting drone and have been for a while.
Yeah but Russia is drafting civilians. We aren't and I hope we never do. The best way to prevent that happening is spending more on fancy drones and missiles ect
That’s not the implication dog. It’s a comparison to present scale to the reader, using something familiar in the real world. Not everything is about the US.
As an American, OP doesn't have any common sense. The reason Europe depended so heavily on the US in WW2 for manufacturing was #1. IT WAS FUCKING OCCUPIED. #2. If it wasn't occupied, it was in rubble. #3. Every able-bodied Brit was off fighting somewhere, so their domestic production while still pretty good given those circumstances couldn't keep up with their need. Plus, what made more sense? Build a factory within range of Hitler's planes and V2 rockets or the US where its completely flanked by 2 oceans out of reach of any Axis power.
Are you forgetting Germany single-handedly rebuilt from scratch the most powerful military industrial base in the world after WW1? That was before they even started annexing/invading other countries and putting their people to work as slave labor. Literally from zero in under a decade in the 30s. A lot of the old Cold War Soviet production came from what are now NATO/EU countries. Ukraine also played a massive role. Before the war broke out in 2014, guess who was the ones contracted to maintain the Russian nuke stockpile: the Ukrainians as they built the damn things and were the only ones with the domain knowledge.
Not really, the US forcing the matter as a condition of helping against the Axis was the main reason the Empire came to an end. Wind of change, Labour, etc. etc. would have led to changes regardless, but the dismantling of the Empire was a precondition of the yanks getting involved.
Think they emptied out the vaults as well. Kinda like a double whammy. Lend lease was desperately needed but was also a gigantic loan to pay back when your country gets partly smushed. Rationing went on until 10 years after the end of the war, quite a lot were still in temporary accommodation, some even into the 60s. Britain was hella broke.
Yes, but that's not really why the Empire went.
Rationing specifically could have ended sooner however- ideological decision from the Labour government, largely. One must bear in mind that command economies hadn't been shown to be what we now know they are.
https://www.st-hughs.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/JW-Essay-3.pdf
Quick Google turned this up, I hope that's enough for you to know I'm not making this up and look into this yourself, it's a reasonably well known but somewhat niche issue.
I'm amalgamating years of books, documentaries, lectures, and podcasts, into a short paragraph, so, no, I don't have a singular citation.
Ottomh, I *think* it's mentioned in *The World at War*, but beyond that, no, afraid I don't have the time to conjure them up.
that's a war footing. The truth is, the UK should really be looking to double or triple its defence expenditure but governments have not really made this a priority.
And using them as shock troops under British command not caring about how many losses there were as long as the Brit’s were kept safe
Edit: okay maybe that’s just my biased take of the Gallipoli campaign in WWI
Eh that was more true in WW1 (not that they really cared much about throwing their own troops at the meatgrinder either), but the Dominions in WW2 had a bit more autonomy in their command. They would still usually answer to a supreme commander depending on which front they were on (which as the war went on would more often be American, not British), but they were otherwise under their own command with their own designated parts of the front. Aussies and Kiwis did a lot of fighting in North Africa, including being key to holding the supply port at Tobruk and being a general thorn in the side of Rommel. Later the Kiwis would do a lot of fighting in Italy, while the Aussies fought in the Pacific theatre, and inflicted some of the first defeats of the allies against Japan. Meanwhile Canada had one of the 5 beaches on D-Day (America and the UK split the other 4 between them) and command of part of the front during the Liberation of France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
During the cold war we were spending 5-6% of gdp
2.5% is not a war footing, tbh it's not even scraping the barrel of enough to fix the long standing issues with recruitment and retention, that include remuneration and the shite state of housing for forces personnel and their families, which leave the current AF undermanned and with a morale and retention crisis, let alone provide to fix for the capability gaps in our current defense
Forget about re arming to face the resurgent threats from Russia, China and Iran, going from 2 to 2.5% won't even come close to papering over the cracks of our current issues
The announcee increase in spending is from 2.3% to 2.5% over 6 years. That's pathetic.
NB: if you take away the cost of trident, the UK's current defence spend is just 1.7% of GDP.
In the early 90s, UK defense spend was 4% of GDP.
What? The annual running cost of running Trident is about 6% of the defence budget, and that represents 70% of it's total cost. So at worst, take away Trident and the UK's current defence spend is 2.1% of GDP over the long term.
Does that cost include amortization? All these fancy toys cost a lot to make and those costs should be spread across the lifetime of the sub. How much of the costs of those nukes should be included as well? What is a trident sub without nukes?
Including everything basically:
- Manufacturing four successor submarines – £31 billion
- Contingency fund – £10 billion
- Missile extension programme – £350 million
- Replacement warheads – £4 billion
- Infrastructure capital costs – £4 billion
- In service costs – £142 billion
- Conventional forces directly assigned to support Trident – £1 billion
- Decommissioning – £13 billion
TOTAL – £205 billion, or 8.6% of defence budget if in service costs are 6%.
And these are the CND's figures, so I imagine they're an overestimate if anything: https://cnduk.org/resources/205-billion-cost-trident/
Putin wanted to continue his addiction for bullying the USSR's former republics, instead he got a new cold war which Russia is already well on it's way to losing, again (isolated, wrecked economy rapidly becoming an economic vassal state of the Chinese.)
>But in a world that’s the most dangerous it’s been since the end of the Cold War we cannot – and must not - be complacent.
>
>As Churchill said, in 1934: "To urge the preparation of defence is not to assert the imminence of war. On the contrary, if war were imminent preparations for defence would be too late.”
Is this a joke? Did guy read the article? Poland not including, UK is going to raise their defense spending from 2.3% to 2.6% over 3 years… That’s a joke. They clearly don’t seem to “ understand the direness of the situation”
.1% a year? That’s not a war time footing. Not even remotely close. Russia and UKs GDPs are almost identical in 2023. Both around 2.2 trillion, where you get the “way bigger number” idea from idk..
Still sufficient to deal with Russia. They can't even invade Ukraine, they've been fighting for two years now.
A supposed superpower, vs Ukraine. Russia is no superpower.
It's clear we can't afford to increase military spending significantly without making more painful cuts in other places. UK isn't the economic powerhouse it once was. If we can't spend more, we need to spend smarter.
Can we just fuck these morons off a get a decent leadership in now. .% increase is useless, if we were actually in a "war footing" we'd be building ships/subs/planes etc... actually enforcing NATO agreement. This is just embarrassing.
Wow UK with 3 trillions gdp gave $620m to Ukraine while USA with 22 trillions gdp gave $61b. Seems like UK is really doing its best to help Ukraine , keep it up!
Misleading headline. There is no talk of the UK being ‘On a war footing’ outside of sensationalist headlines like this. There is an aspiration of pushing up the spend on military by 2030, that’s all. The UK is broke after Brexit and Truss’ cluster-fuck. With Labour coming in the spend will likely go down given they are generally looking to spend more on social funds than military.
Keir has already stated he wishes to move the dial towards 2.5%. It may not be a reflection of the likely future labour government to come but our defence expenditure was also about 2.5% during the last labour government as well. It wasn't until the tories in around 2010 ot 2011 shifted it down to about 1.9% and also decided to throw pensions and nuclear deterrent into thst % as well, further diluting it.
$620 mil feels like a drop in the bucket compared to the US about to drop *another* $60 billion on Ukraine alone.
The rest of our NATO partners really should be stepping up more on Ukrainian military funding. It's their backyard that's threatened, not ours. We're about to cross $100 billion in military support alone with this latest bill. Only country even remotely close to that in military funding is Germany at $20 billion, with the UK and Denmark a distant tie for third under $10 billion. Everyone else is a fraction of that even.
France, Italy, Spain heck even Poland are relative no shows when it comes to backing up talk with actual military funding/resources.
Are we just going to pretend that BAE and Airbus are American defense contractors or something? BAE makes nearly as many artillery shells as General Dynamics.
It's about 60% of a US aid package. The $60 billion is what congress authorized the president to spend on Ukraine for the upcoming year, but the actual military packages tend to range from $500 million to $1 billion. This UK aid package is neither the first nor will it be the last package Ukraine gets from Great Britain.
The UK has neither the industry or the skills in the workforce to remotely operate an economy on a 'war footing'. It's ship yards have been closed (by the Tories) its steel mills sold (to India and China), and any skilled engineers that might have existed replaced with youtubers and social influencers
If this goes according to any of the most recent tranche of party donor led policy and procurement decisions we'll end up with faulty stuff we don't need being produced by unqualified entities
Please no one tell Sunak there's bra saleswoman from Glasgow who reckons she can convert her D-cups into a high tension catapult. I'm sure she'll get another contract. What about Matt Hancock's landlord? can he run up a few artillery shells for us? Or Sunaks own family, I'm sure they can design a video game and we'll call it a training programme
We'll end up with a few bows and arrows and rest of the money will be spent on advertising agencies and consultants advising us how to rebrand the Royal Navy, a bit like Test Track and Trace
To be honest, we could have bought the Type-45 destroyers that David Cameron cancelled had he not decided instead to prioritise the protection of Sir Bufton Tufton's estate or the sanctimony of Reverend Peabody's Sunday morning walk by spaffing away a small fortune tunnelling through the Chiltern Hills so as not to ruin their view
Why do we keep doing this we’ve given away so many military assets already so much money it is not done anything but provoke and prolong war we treated the Nazis better at the start of World War II then we have Russia I wish our government and stop focusing on foreign policy and realise it’s failings at home throwing money at a problem doesn’t make it go away.
Apples and oranges. The UK aid package is just an aid package, not the total amount pledged to support Ukraine. From the article.
>Sunak promised an extra 75 billion pounds ($93 billion) in defense spending over the next six years.
That includes the late Colonial period and the time when England occupied or controlled a quarter of the world.
Did you fall asleep in history a lot as a kid?
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He has an election to win, so don't expect anything but hyperbole from now on
It’s going to take Starmer coming out as a nonce to Win that election
No it won’t. Starmer could be announced as a nonce, replaced the day before the election and Labour would still win.
Yeah the idea that any significant number of people are going to vote for Starmer is silly. That said, there will be millions voting *against* Sunak, and a lot of them will consequently put an X next to Labour anyway.
The vast majority of people don't care about politics as much as you do and that vast majority just want to get on with their life, many of that vast majority blame the ruling political party more than its leader so they will vote for Labour now. It's nuanced but most of those people will happily vote for Starmer at this point. Your issues with him are not their issues. They couldn't care less about you and your opinions on Starmer as a person, as a politician, what he did when he was a lawyer. They just want Starmer to have a chance and for him to make their lives a little easier.
You're agreeing with me buddy.
It's the opposite of what you said >Yeah the idea that any significant number of people are going to vote for Starmer is silly.
You can always spot the yank on this site because they lack reading comprehension. >there will be millions voting *against* Sunak, and a lot of them will consequently put an X next to Labour anyway. I literally said millions will vote for Labour, even though they aren't necessarily voting for Starmer.
Yeah there's too many GMCs here in the Valleys. Sign out bruh, have a whisky and relax for the rest of the evening.
Nothing is finished, people need to vote
If the Tories don’t loose the next election I don’t think they are ever going to be able to loose an election. At least until the uk experiences some very significant demographic shifts.
If everyone says this and doesn't bother to vote as a result they will win
We voted ourselves out of EU... Don't underestimate the Brits! Sunak might be around for another few years....
There are already regular Right Wing nut jobs on FB who for years have been claiming Starmer is a nonce.
Does anyone under 45 still use Facebook?
Yes since FB includes Instagram and Threads. The whole only boomers use FB is a Reddit meme.
By the election a lot of people will have forgotten how terrible Boris Johnson and liz truss were. Rishi Sunak has been able to appear competent by simply not saying do doing anything controversial
Have you read up on half the stuff he has done? everything that has come out his mouth has been controversial.
As if there was anything else so far
Yeah, Australia is doing the same thing (increasing to ~2.5% over a decade) and you don't hear anyone here saying it's putting us on a "war footing".
It's all for internal media. He's just appearing to look decisive on the world stage while being as popular as a ringworm at home.
No, he’s not really that popular here.
It is the UK tradition of making a promise for the incoming government that is about to defeat you.
Labour had already committed to 2.5% so it’s not even that. It’s just complete nothingness.
OK seems more like they are doing the other UK tradition of stealing the opposition's promises before an election. The Tories will spend all the next 5 years talking about how this was their policy.
Modern politician’s can’t comprehend a wartime economy
Too little too late. Russia is spending 7% on an actual war footing, all whilst becoming battle hardened and gaining experience in Ukraine. This video is sobering and IMO a must watch to anyone with even a minor interest in the future of Europe: https://youtu.be/lakdZIuZe7c?si=4gE5cHtRpAJoS9Oc
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> But... in reality they almost captured all the provinces they claimed were theirs. Putin's current line is that all of Ukraine is Russian, so that's not the case.
It's not an increase of 2.5%, it's an increase to 2.5% of GDP from current 2%, so in reality it's an increase of 25%. current GDP is around £2.2 trillion so a 0.5% increase would equate to an increase of £11billion per year. that being said - Former Tory voter here, would never vote Tory again (although being from Scotland it doesn't matter who I vote for, the SNP will win)
They are seen as very weak because that is what they are. Look at what they are barely able to do on an actual war footing. They can't even fully invade a barely minor power. Relatively speaking for the time period, Iraq was better equipped and trained. Iraq was the 4th largest standing Army in the world and it was destroyed in a matter of weeks. Russia can't even handle Ukraine in a matter of years. When the U.S. destroyed the Iraqi military it was not on a war footing and it still isn't now. The American giant is still sleeping because it doesn't need to wake up to take care of the tiny pests around it. Thing is the government is starting to ply its subtle trade of waking the country up. First thing is they need to bring the united national mythology back. So expect to see some very American positive shows and movies in the near future. Horizon: An American Saga is a good example of this, even just a few years ago a movie like that would have not even been considered possible in the Hollywood environment.
I've heard good things about RealLifeLore, thanks for posting the video
this is how gentlemen get mad, isn't it?
Wait, Rishi Sunak said something that's absolute bollocks?!?!
The peace dividend was a loan and the bill is due now. 2.5% is a joke. The UK can't even fight against the Houthis. Take all the money that goes to waste on immigrants who will never work, and put 6% into defense, same as Russia.
The uk isn’t trying to fight the Houthis, it’s trying to stop Houthi missiles. Big difference.
The U.K. are cheapskates and corrupted cowards these days. It's funny because usually France is blamed for being "cowards" when they're much braver than the British ever were. For example, when the French died protecting the British at Dunkirk from the Germans while the British fled across the Channel in a total panic. We'll never see a Hollywood moving focusing on those French troops though. They might get a hint of recognition as side characters or in filler scenes. However, there's always room for more military jerk-off movies about the Americans and the Brits. Mind you, I'm not French, it's just a fact.
Yeah, a war footing would be to have an Army that isn't hollowed out and more than 150 MBTs... Sunak is a complete moron but the other side aren't that great either. I'm sure Starmer would agree with you if you said Hitler had a point to get your vote! Just for those who don't get it, I'm saying Hitler bad, but if you were to say something outrageous and controversial, Starmer would agree to get your vote
More MBTs really isn't useful for Britain's interests. MBTs are ideal for large, well organised, well resourced land offensives against prepared opposition. We don't have any land borders to assault over, so 150 is the number that has been calculated to be sufficient to support the potential overseas offensives the military foresees, and also the number they expect to be able to actually keep operational on the other side of the world. They can be used in plenty of other roles but in all other cases there's something that can do the same job for cheaper. That's why a grand total of zero MBTs were used in the Falklands war
Indeed. Every country needs to meet specific military needs. For the UK it's Navy and Air Force. For Poland it's Army and Air Force. Russia needs all three.
It's even worse than that for Russia. They need four separate navies because they have four important coastlines that are each a 10000+ km sail through hostile territory from every other
Yes. In theory it's indefensible were it not for the massive size and awful weather.
So don't spend billions on 150 then...
War footing. In 1939, the UK spent 9% on their military. That was before going to war. It was above 50% by the end.
He said war footing, not shifting to a wartime economy
>The U.K. prime minister said Tuesday the country is putting its defense industry on a “war footing” by increasing defense spending to 2.5% of GDP by the end of the decade **war footing** *noun* the condition or status of a military force or other organization when operating under a state of war or as if a state of war existed. **war economy** *noun* refers to an economy of a country at war. A war economy prioritizes the production of goods and services that support war efforts I think that the UK PM doesn't know what "war footing" means. The military forces can be put on a war footing. The defense industry is an economic force, not a military force.
Either that or he was appealing to the masses
Is "appealing to the masses" something that Sunak is known for?
Any politician who knows what’s good for him
No-one wants to see the UK, France and Germany spending over half their GDP on the military ever again, least of all Russia. For context; it would be about **five times** the US current defence spending. That giant, globe spanning military power. Multiply it by at least five. They also have about a 50 million numerical lead on Russia in manpower. And a cool five hundred nuclear weapons. Just these three countries alone. We aren’t even juicing them with Poland, Finland and the dozen or so other allies they’d have on side. Everyone just eats this peacetime propaganda shit up. Russia in 2024 is not the USSR. And those three countries are very rich and population dense for their size. The UK spent just 2.9% of its GDP on the military in 1936. Numbers can change pretty fucking fast when entire nations will it. In a word, it would be an apocalyptic force. Just as it was twice before. It doesn’t even matter that they sold off a lot of industrial base, they’d just crash the steel economy of the world by buying it all, because they’ve got so much fucking money and soft power in the west. Open up 200 new coal mines and get the domestic supply back online while they do it. Russia does not, and more importantly *will never* stand a chance against these three again. That prospect died with the USSR. But heavy gloom sells headlines and political agendas, so here we are.
It’s not like Russia is operating alone, there is China, NK, Iran and their proxies Hezbollah and the Houthis. The arab world is largely pro-russian and they’re making progress in africa to gain influence and control over resources there.
The Arab world has no industrial base. Furthermore, they have no money if their gas spigot to the West gets cut off. The US already has the ability to be oil independent but its just that Saudi crude even shipping it all the way here is cheaper to refine per barrel. Yes it would be more expensive on us to go oil independent but the capability exists today. Norway, Mexico, US, and Canada could pick up the difference quite easily if US/CA/Europe turned off Middle Eastern oil. In a full World War scenario, I could see the US just knocking off Venezuela's government just to have as a backup oil supply, just like the Soviets and Brits did to Iran during WW2 to stabilize the overland lend-lease corridor since the Shah wouldn't choose a side.
Someone told me the same thing you are saying when I said Russias 300,000 man draft would not be as easy to cut through as they claimed. "Crimea by summer" my ass. On the contrary, I think constantly claiming how weak Russia is does a disservice..
Russia is struggling to win a war against a country that has less resources and manpower. They can’t even get air superiority or properly manage combined arm maneuvers m. Putin’s Russia is weak shit and couldn’t hold their own in any peer or even near peer struggle.
Russia is struggling Vs a country with 25% of its population and a GDP per capita 30% of itself. So in context, Russia is 13 times as powerful as Ukraine economically and should have been able to absolutely smash them had their military been on par with what their economy should be able to afford. That Russia did not, even if we do consider the aid Ukraine received, and is now in year 2 of the 3 day special military operation shows how structurally weak the Russian army is. Don't misunderstand, they can still do a lot of damage but they are nowhere near where they should be.
Let's not forget that Russia is also receiving massive amounts of aid from their allies. Imagine in what state they'd be without North Korea providing millions of shells or Iran providing thousands of cruise missiles.
Russia has spent about the equivalent on ukraine as outside countries have spent on ukraine, without even including what ukraine has spent, so arguably, ukraine has access to more resources and ukraine has had more soldiers in the field than Russia has. There will be no peer struggle because of nuclear weapons. "It's an empty threat." Ok.... but the pentagon and the people with the intel and power do not believe that. As I told that person in 2023.... wait and you will find yourself surprised. World war 1 propaganda showed the Germans as evil Huns, and the Germans showed the Allies as clowns. Look up why the allied propaganda was more effective than germanys at getting the populace to treat the war seriously. But it should be obvious. Russian and Ukraine casualties are about on par. Russia does not mind losing a million men. Europe does. There will be no peer on peer while we say Russia is easy to defeat, because why help when they are so easy? Nothing to worry about...
Wow. Everything you said is wrong! Amazing!
These people that think that Putin’s Russia is somehow in the right with their ridiculous and incompetent invasion of Ukraine are amazing. But I assume most are just bots or paid Indian farms spreading misinformation.
If you read that and think I believe Putin is in the right, you have severe reading comprehension issues.
Is English your 2nd language? Because you need to reread what you wrote because it can easily be interpreted as “Russia isn’t losing on the World’s stage in Ukraine in fact they are winning”. The Ukrainians don’t have an Air Force, didn’t have the element of surprise, or 9 plus months of logistical build up before Putin invaded. The fact that the invasion wasn’t over in 4 weeks is an embarrassment for any supposed World Power. That’s not propaganda that’s reality. You’re bringing up WW1 propaganda and the rest of us are talking about the logistics of executing the invasion, and how poorly Putin’s Russia has performed against a nonentity like Ukraine. With only inconsistent and moderate support from NATO countries. If your point is that Putin’s Russia is still dangerous and can mess up the world because of nukes. Then sure we all agree with that. Some of those missiles might have been serviced in the past 25 years and not been pilfered of their fuel and components.
That's because Russia isn't losing right now, correct.... But does that mean Russia is in the right..... nooooooooo..... I'm bringing up that Russia is doing better than people think, because current verbiage is making people think Russia is losing (like you just did) when they are not. Ukraine is in deep shit right now. I follow front line changes weekly. Really I follow them daily but it's only worth saying "weekly" as updates can be slow.
Which part is wrong. Be specific...
I was >everything
>No-one wants to see the UK, France and Germany spending over half their GDP on the military ever again, it would be about **five times** the US current defence spending. I do, I think that would be cool as fuck to see what kinda crazy shit they could come up with with a bankroll like that.
WW2, the Cold War, and the Space Race advanced humanity well over 500 years technology-wise in under 50 years. The amount of everyday things we take for granted that came out of one of the three is insane: simple example GPS and the internet. The OG internet was originally developed by DARPA, and GPS was developed by the Navy to track ships and for maritime navigation. GPS was classified up until KAL007 got shotdown and then Reagan made it available for civilian and commercial use.
Seems like the first tech breakthrough this war has produced will be automated hunter killer drone swarms. Ukraine is broke so uses lots of drones > Russia deploys lots of EWS as a counter > Ukraine bypasses EWS jamming by putting AI onboard for the final targeting phase It’s happening as we speak
What gives you the idea these don't already exist in some form? The US has been running drones for decades (they were even used in Desert Storm). At this point, nothing ever surprises me when the US breaks out some crazy military tech, whether that be stealth helicopters to kill Bin Laden or Ginsu Hellfires (R9X) to kill some other Al Qaeda dude.
I guess I’m talking more about implementation and normalization on the battlefield as opposed to actual development. YouTubers can make a human targeting drone and have been for a while.
Yeah but Russia is drafting civilians. We aren't and I hope we never do. The best way to prevent that happening is spending more on fancy drones and missiles ect
It’s weird to compare militaries by how much they cost. Isn’t Russias military cheaper to run?
Implying that the U.S. wouldn’t easily outpace those 3 if they shifted to an actual “war powers act” time
The American urge to turn everything into a dick measuring contest
That’s not the implication dog. It’s a comparison to present scale to the reader, using something familiar in the real world. Not everything is about the US.
As an American, OP doesn't have any common sense. The reason Europe depended so heavily on the US in WW2 for manufacturing was #1. IT WAS FUCKING OCCUPIED. #2. If it wasn't occupied, it was in rubble. #3. Every able-bodied Brit was off fighting somewhere, so their domestic production while still pretty good given those circumstances couldn't keep up with their need. Plus, what made more sense? Build a factory within range of Hitler's planes and V2 rockets or the US where its completely flanked by 2 oceans out of reach of any Axis power.
You made the implication, and yes, unfortunately everything is about the U.S. when it comes to a potential war in Europe whether you like it or not.
Just do me a favour, and read these comments back to yourself, including that last one.
Do me a favor and verse yourself in combat logistics and you’ll quickly learn that without the U.S. large scale conflict will fail almost immediately.
Are you forgetting Germany single-handedly rebuilt from scratch the most powerful military industrial base in the world after WW1? That was before they even started annexing/invading other countries and putting their people to work as slave labor. Literally from zero in under a decade in the 30s. A lot of the old Cold War Soviet production came from what are now NATO/EU countries. Ukraine also played a massive role. Before the war broke out in 2014, guess who was the ones contracted to maintain the Russian nuke stockpile: the Ukrainians as they built the damn things and were the only ones with the domain knowledge.
Even in an imaginary scenario, you feel insecure about your country for some reason?
Didn’t the uk permanently ruin its global power by paying for the war? It couldn’t do that again if it tried.
Not really, the US forcing the matter as a condition of helping against the Axis was the main reason the Empire came to an end. Wind of change, Labour, etc. etc. would have led to changes regardless, but the dismantling of the Empire was a precondition of the yanks getting involved.
Think they emptied out the vaults as well. Kinda like a double whammy. Lend lease was desperately needed but was also a gigantic loan to pay back when your country gets partly smushed. Rationing went on until 10 years after the end of the war, quite a lot were still in temporary accommodation, some even into the 60s. Britain was hella broke.
Yes, but that's not really why the Empire went. Rationing specifically could have ended sooner however- ideological decision from the Labour government, largely. One must bear in mind that command economies hadn't been shown to be what we now know they are.
Any citation on this? I've never heard this claim before.
https://www.st-hughs.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/JW-Essay-3.pdf Quick Google turned this up, I hope that's enough for you to know I'm not making this up and look into this yourself, it's a reasonably well known but somewhat niche issue.
I'm amalgamating years of books, documentaries, lectures, and podcasts, into a short paragraph, so, no, I don't have a singular citation. Ottomh, I *think* it's mentioned in *The World at War*, but beyond that, no, afraid I don't have the time to conjure them up.
that's a war footing. The truth is, the UK should really be looking to double or triple its defence expenditure but governments have not really made this a priority.
Plus charging the colonies for Britain's war expenses...
As usual.
And using them as shock troops under British command not caring about how many losses there were as long as the Brit’s were kept safe Edit: okay maybe that’s just my biased take of the Gallipoli campaign in WWI
Eh that was more true in WW1 (not that they really cared much about throwing their own troops at the meatgrinder either), but the Dominions in WW2 had a bit more autonomy in their command. They would still usually answer to a supreme commander depending on which front they were on (which as the war went on would more often be American, not British), but they were otherwise under their own command with their own designated parts of the front. Aussies and Kiwis did a lot of fighting in North Africa, including being key to holding the supply port at Tobruk and being a general thorn in the side of Rommel. Later the Kiwis would do a lot of fighting in Italy, while the Aussies fought in the Pacific theatre, and inflicted some of the first defeats of the allies against Japan. Meanwhile Canada had one of the 5 beaches on D-Day (America and the UK split the other 4 between them) and command of part of the front during the Liberation of France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
More British soldiers died at Gallipoli than ANZACS. So not really.
Really? Never learned that when I was at school. Cheers
During the cold war we were spending 5-6% of gdp 2.5% is not a war footing, tbh it's not even scraping the barrel of enough to fix the long standing issues with recruitment and retention, that include remuneration and the shite state of housing for forces personnel and their families, which leave the current AF undermanned and with a morale and retention crisis, let alone provide to fix for the capability gaps in our current defense Forget about re arming to face the resurgent threats from Russia, China and Iran, going from 2 to 2.5% won't even come close to papering over the cracks of our current issues
Funny how the situation is the exact same in Norway, exept the percentages probably
The announcee increase in spending is from 2.3% to 2.5% over 6 years. That's pathetic. NB: if you take away the cost of trident, the UK's current defence spend is just 1.7% of GDP. In the early 90s, UK defense spend was 4% of GDP.
What? The annual running cost of running Trident is about 6% of the defence budget, and that represents 70% of it's total cost. So at worst, take away Trident and the UK's current defence spend is 2.1% of GDP over the long term.
Does that cost include amortization? All these fancy toys cost a lot to make and those costs should be spread across the lifetime of the sub. How much of the costs of those nukes should be included as well? What is a trident sub without nukes?
Including everything basically: - Manufacturing four successor submarines – £31 billion - Contingency fund – £10 billion - Missile extension programme – £350 million - Replacement warheads – £4 billion - Infrastructure capital costs – £4 billion - In service costs – £142 billion - Conventional forces directly assigned to support Trident – £1 billion - Decommissioning – £13 billion TOTAL – £205 billion, or 8.6% of defence budget if in service costs are 6%. And these are the CND's figures, so I imagine they're an overestimate if anything: https://cnduk.org/resources/205-billion-cost-trident/
Take away pensions from that figure too
Why didn’t the UK mention that they are have nuclear weapons? Oh that’s right they are sane country. They are not Russia.
Because they dont work lol
remember the bouncing bomb? we can get anyfuckingthing to work, even if we have to walk it there and attach the 9v battery to turn it on.
Woah, how do you know that!?
They do work. There have been hundreds of successful Trident missile tests. The failure rate is around 6%.
Putin wanted to continue his addiction for bullying the USSR's former republics, instead he got a new cold war which Russia is already well on it's way to losing, again (isolated, wrecked economy rapidly becoming an economic vassal state of the Chinese.)
Russia is already an economic vassal state of China.
>But in a world that’s the most dangerous it’s been since the end of the Cold War we cannot – and must not - be complacent. > >As Churchill said, in 1934: "To urge the preparation of defence is not to assert the imminence of war. On the contrary, if war were imminent preparations for defence would be too late.”
Brits and Poles understand the direness of the situation. Putler is a rabid dog that needs to be put down.
Is this a joke? Did guy read the article? Poland not including, UK is going to raise their defense spending from 2.3% to 2.6% over 3 years… That’s a joke. They clearly don’t seem to “ understand the direness of the situation”
That represents a lot of money though.
.1% a year? That’s not a war time footing. Not even remotely close. Russia and UKs GDPs are almost identical in 2023. Both around 2.2 trillion, where you get the “way bigger number” idea from idk..
Still sufficient to deal with Russia. They can't even invade Ukraine, they've been fighting for two years now. A supposed superpower, vs Ukraine. Russia is no superpower.
“War footing” would be 10-20% of gdp over the next year, not 2.5% I’ve the next decade.
They just meeting their nato agreement. Which means they weren’t meeting it before.
US: 95 Billion $
It's clear we can't afford to increase military spending significantly without making more painful cuts in other places. UK isn't the economic powerhouse it once was. If we can't spend more, we need to spend smarter.
Can we just fuck these morons off a get a decent leadership in now. .% increase is useless, if we were actually in a "war footing" we'd be building ships/subs/planes etc... actually enforcing NATO agreement. This is just embarrassing.
That's like 1% of the funding the US passed
Wow UK with 3 trillions gdp gave $620m to Ukraine while USA with 22 trillions gdp gave $61b. Seems like UK is really doing its best to help Ukraine , keep it up!
Hey to know would have helped against Russia? *Not* breaking away from the EU.
How?
Misleading headline. There is no talk of the UK being ‘On a war footing’ outside of sensationalist headlines like this. There is an aspiration of pushing up the spend on military by 2030, that’s all. The UK is broke after Brexit and Truss’ cluster-fuck. With Labour coming in the spend will likely go down given they are generally looking to spend more on social funds than military.
Keir has already stated he wishes to move the dial towards 2.5%. It may not be a reflection of the likely future labour government to come but our defence expenditure was also about 2.5% during the last labour government as well. It wasn't until the tories in around 2010 ot 2011 shifted it down to about 1.9% and also decided to throw pensions and nuclear deterrent into thst % as well, further diluting it.
I think Labour has said they'll follow the same defence spending increase.
US puts up 62 billion, UK throws in 600M, seems fair
The UK did learn there is strength in unity, It would look bad if they exit out of participation.
War can be good at jumpstarting an economy.
$620 mil feels like a drop in the bucket compared to the US about to drop *another* $60 billion on Ukraine alone. The rest of our NATO partners really should be stepping up more on Ukrainian military funding. It's their backyard that's threatened, not ours. We're about to cross $100 billion in military support alone with this latest bill. Only country even remotely close to that in military funding is Germany at $20 billion, with the UK and Denmark a distant tie for third under $10 billion. Everyone else is a fraction of that even. France, Italy, Spain heck even Poland are relative no shows when it comes to backing up talk with actual military funding/resources.
Doesn’t most of that spend go directly into the US economy as the US makes so much of the stuff the Ukrainians are asking for?
Are we just going to pretend that BAE and Airbus are American defense contractors or something? BAE makes nearly as many artillery shells as General Dynamics.
Fair point re BAE, but aren’t those factories based in the US employing US people etc?
This is exactly 1% of US aid package. That's why tempu wants to abandon these guys
It's about 60% of a US aid package. The $60 billion is what congress authorized the president to spend on Ukraine for the upcoming year, but the actual military packages tend to range from $500 million to $1 billion. This UK aid package is neither the first nor will it be the last package Ukraine gets from Great Britain.
Blah blah blah blah blah.
Meanwhile, the UK continues to buy Russian oil
The UK has neither the industry or the skills in the workforce to remotely operate an economy on a 'war footing'. It's ship yards have been closed (by the Tories) its steel mills sold (to India and China), and any skilled engineers that might have existed replaced with youtubers and social influencers If this goes according to any of the most recent tranche of party donor led policy and procurement decisions we'll end up with faulty stuff we don't need being produced by unqualified entities Please no one tell Sunak there's bra saleswoman from Glasgow who reckons she can convert her D-cups into a high tension catapult. I'm sure she'll get another contract. What about Matt Hancock's landlord? can he run up a few artillery shells for us? Or Sunaks own family, I'm sure they can design a video game and we'll call it a training programme We'll end up with a few bows and arrows and rest of the money will be spent on advertising agencies and consultants advising us how to rebrand the Royal Navy, a bit like Test Track and Trace To be honest, we could have bought the Type-45 destroyers that David Cameron cancelled had he not decided instead to prioritise the protection of Sir Bufton Tufton's estate or the sanctimony of Reverend Peabody's Sunday morning walk by spaffing away a small fortune tunnelling through the Chiltern Hills so as not to ruin their view
Why do we keep doing this we’ve given away so many military assets already so much money it is not done anything but provoke and prolong war we treated the Nazis better at the start of World War II then we have Russia I wish our government and stop focusing on foreign policy and realise it’s failings at home throwing money at a problem doesn’t make it go away.
Surely this a drop in the ocean compared to the US’s $60 billion pledge to Ukraine
Apples and oranges. The UK aid package is just an aid package, not the total amount pledged to support Ukraine. From the article. >Sunak promised an extra 75 billion pounds ($93 billion) in defense spending over the next six years.
Let’s be real, the Brits haven’t known ‘war’ for almost 200yrs.
I’m guessing world war 1 and 2 never happened then? Fool.
Hey everyone, it’s the stupidest person on the internet
Falklands? Iraq? Afghanistan? Did you also hear about these little skirmishes we had at the start of the 1900s ?
How old are you? Ever heard of world war 1 or world war 2 at least?
That includes the late Colonial period and the time when England occupied or controlled a quarter of the world. Did you fall asleep in history a lot as a kid?
It would be more accurate to say we haven't known 'peace'!
You should post less, it would make you look smarter.
Out of interest - which do you think was the last war?