How is British military spending so high, yet the armed forces are so small?

Question

I ask this because the UK has one of the highest defence budgets in the world, yet its armed forces are relatively small. Our navy is small these days, I don't think our air force is very big, and our land army certainly isn't large. Adding on top of this, the other day we required American intervention to track a Russian submarine off the Scottish (I think it was Scottish anyway) coast, because we had scrapped the required aircraft.

Yes, we have very longer training programmes compared to other nations, but seriously where is all of this money going?

MAJ Kev · Answer

A few points toponder:

- get over this crap that the UK somehow has the longest training periods;  it just isn't so .... the reality is that as a cost-saving measure and training doctrine issue, the UK combines many phases of training into one long course, whereas the US and other countries break the same training up into shorter successive training periods.

- the UK armed forces is stuck in a sort of Catch-22:  the UK requires the best possible equipment and systems that money can buy - just like other western militaries;  however, the small size of the UK armed forces means that there is no economy of scale for production ... the cost of paying for this modern equipment means that you can not afford larger sized forces
- as a side issue, the UK still requires it's armed forces to be able to respond to worldwide crisis situations - it is extremely expensive to maintain out-of-region force projection capabilities
- the UK armed forces also suffer from what other western militaries experience:  in order to maintain high quality personnel who make the service a career, then you have to pay very competitive salaries and benefits, i.e.:   BA and USA Privates are some of the highest compensated entry-level employees in the world;  while the base pay may not appear to be a lot, name me one other worldwide employer that pays its brand new, right-off-the-block employees as much, or provides as wide range of benefits, as a Private in the British or American forces.

What is rapidly happening to the UK military is that it is pricing itself out of a mission.  The public demands a top-of-the-line military, but is politically unwilling to provide for it.  When the Government insists on maintaining a worldwide capability with a Europe-wide funding, then things are going to break ...

For example:  I want the RN to have aircraft carriers, and the RN agrees, but the minute that they went conventional instead of nuclear powered, they automatically increased life cycle costs, and relegated the carrier force to second rate status because it can not realistically keep up with the nuclear powered carriers required to be a world power.  On top of that ... name me one realistic reason why the RN needs aircraft carriers to begin with ...

ANDY · Answer

Hello

Because of the cost of equipment. For example a Russian tank troop may have 1 tank with radio equipment, He delivers his orders by flags. Every English tank has at least 2 radios

Andy C

How is British military spending so high, yet the armed forces are so small?

2 Answers