Difficult choices could not be avoided in review of defence

YOUR Editorial on defence cuts (Yorkshire Post, September 1) was poorly thought through.

It failed to recognise that the UK has a major financial and economic crisis, meaning that the defence budget is constrained. The UK Armed Forces need to understand that resources are limited and have alternative uses.

More for defence means less for hospitals, schools and roads. Difficult defence choices cannot be avoided and the Armed Forces cannot work on the assumption of unlimited resources. In fact, the 2010 Defence Review was relatively successful in protecting the defence budget compared with the scale of other public spending cuts. Your demand that the UK should be ready for any emergency is unaffordable.

Nor is it convincing to argue that the defence cuts “were crude and poorly thought through”.

Work on a Defence Review started in late 2009 well before the election. It also needs to be remembered that the UK MoD has devoted considerable resources to improving its management information systems which provide detailed costing of various policy options. The MoD should have been more than ready for the Defence Review (if not, why not?). The Review was well thought through; but its results were not universally accepted.

There is a more fundamental problem, namely, the future of the UK’s world military role.

In recent years, this role has probably cost the UK up to one per cent of GDP: is this a worthwhile investment?

The unit costs of modern defence equipment continue to rise. Norman Augustine famously forecast that by the year 2054, the entire US defence budget would only buy one combat aircraft. The UK is forecast to reach this position two years earlier. These are real threats to the future of our Armed Forces.

From: John Halkon, Hermitage Court, Richmond.

I CANNOT agree more with you regarding your Editorial (Yorkshire Post, September 1).

This Government and Prime Minister must be out of their minds if they think they can achieve reductions, of 11,000 armed forces personnel of all services by April 2015, without a loss of morale and a sense of satisfaction in doing a respected good job on behalf of their country. For them to face unemployment is a crime.

I am amazed that RAF staff are being made redundant this week while we are still flying over Libya and in action over Afghanistan.

I am sure the majority of British people do not agree with these measures just to save £2.3bn by 2015, but I do not hear much of an outcry particularly from our local MPs who must have, I hope, a keen interest in the wellbeing of the RAF and Army bases in North Yorkshire. I wonder what is the view of the Foreign Secretary on these reductions?

The loss of the expertise of personnel with many years of service will be a blow to those who remain and the vacuum left will take time to fill, if ever.

I just hope nothing is around the corner which our depleted forces will have to deal with. Only time will tell.