How much is all that going to run you?  Put it into expenditure/GDP terms... Britain spends about 2.5% of GDP on Defense.  It would be a HUGE increase, proportionally-20%-if Britain reached 3.0% of GDP.  Plus, supposedly, you all face the worst economic downturn in 60 years, so how likely is it that Britain is going to expend MORE on Defense, in this climate, plus IF the economy is shrinking, no idea if it is, but if it IS, 3% of a smaller economy isn't necessarily an increase, in real terms.

 

Bottom-Line: how much does your "ideal" cost?

 

For me, I'm happy if you can field a Brigade in the Balkans, a Brigade in Afghanistan, and a Brigade in Iraq, which would require 9 TOTAL Brigades, plus a CVBG built around a QE CV, an air defense ship, 2 ASW frigates, and an SSN, plus an Expeditionary Group built around Ocean, an Air Defense ship, and 2 ASW frigates, total force 2 CV's, 2 Amphibious hips, 3 Type 45's, 5 frigates, and 5 SSN's?  And whatever RAF forces you can send.  For the Army this may be an INCREASE, for the RN it's a DECREASE and I haven't a clue about the RAF...You guys don't have a lot of money to spend on Defense, and on a smaller economy it yields a fairly small force, what can you reasonably expect from Britain?

This has been discussed here http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/567-8986.aspx

In fact to have three deployed brigades, we would need a total of fifteen as the UK uses a one-in-five rota system (1 bde resting, 1 bde small unit training, 1 bde large unit traning, 1 bde standby, 1 bde operational).

 

Latest figures show that the economy is static.