.. to think that being unable to project power overseas is a good thing?

[PooshTun]

According to military commanders, the recently announced budget cuts will limit Britain's ability to fight and project power overseas. Gawd Dammit! No more invading/bombing other people' s countries because we don't like their politics or because they might impede our access to oil.

Depends on your feelings about the Falklands I guess.

I think you mean 'No more invading/bombing other people' s countries because America son't like their policies usually because it might impede their access to oil.'
YANBU though

the Falklands was 30 odd yrs ago pompom .Get with the program !

YANBU - the MOD is rife with waste and what they themselves would call corruption in another country.

In addition to wanting billions to waste spend on weaponry they also brief against the overseas aid budget - complaining that they should have the money. Because, of course, it's much better to have a bit of shock and awe than to build links to hearts and minds.

No more invading/bombing other people' s countries because we don't like their politics or because they might impede our access to oil.

Or because they're committing crimes against humanity.

... and forget about all the peacekeeping ...

"Or because they're committing crimes against humanity"

I forgot about that one. No more sending thousands of British troops to Africa to overthrow murderous dictators who were intent on killing thousands of their own countrymen. .... Hold on! We never sent British troops to Africa to prevent crimes against humanity. :o Or was you trying to be ironic?

The British government only deploy firepower in order to defend economic or political interests. Small detachments of 'observers' don't count.

As for the Falklands, does anyone seriously think that a task force would have been sent if the Falklands were islands in the Caribbean with a black population? If you naively say yes then look up 'Grenada' which was about the same time.

erm, the Falklands are inhabited by British people. Grenada is in the commonwealth, but its people are not UK nationals.

basically the ability to get involved overseas is a double-edged sword. the interests defended are usually trading ones....and the UK still has quite a hand in global trading operations or various reasons.

i don't think it really is a moral issue at all, but the Uk has these interests and keeping the status quo going is in many ways preferable to some of the possible alternatives.

and although it was 30 years ago, there's plenty of sabre rattling from Argentina in the direction of the Falklands ATM.

Edless - The legal status of the Falklands now is different to what it was before the invasion. I don't know how old you are but I am old enough to remember the events as they unfolded. I can't remember the diplomatic-speak but at the time the legal status of Granada, in terms of British protection, was higher than the Falklands.

As for the Falklanders ancestry being British, my point is that massive British forces are only deployed when British interests are at stake as opposed to where crimes against humanity is in play.

The 'funny' thing was that the Argentinians would have been successful if only they had waited a year or so because of the planned defense cuts which brings me back to my point. As it is, billions have been spent since not to mention the lives of British servicemen lost or injured.

But Argentina was a military dictatorship, I hear you say. Well, that didn't stop the Brits selling weapons to them before the invasion. Its not widely advertised but the General Belgrano was a British WWII era warship.

unless wiki is talking crap Grenada was independent from 1974.

despite desperate efforts to try to make the falklands independent on the part of some UK governments, they have always self-determined as UK...

which is a big sticking point when it comes to upholding the principle of self-determination!

I think we should invade Iceland. It's quite small so we can just send in the SAS disguised as tourists.
That would teach them not to let their oddly-named Volcanoes erupt & invade British airspace with ash clouds.

"massive British forces are only deployed when British interests are at stake as opposed to where crimes against humanity is in play."

very true. but all states do this - within their own sphere of influence. in some cases this has also served humanitarian purposes.

the Uk still has a wider sphere of influence to protect - and good reasons to protect it. As a country that still has half its exports going outside the EU, and commonwealth duties - it still has a role to play policing various huge bits of water, it is appropriate to have aircraft carriers. Maybe this could mean getting mixed up where disgression would be the better part of valour at times.

I'm not sufficiently interested in the argument to Google the subject but from memory Grenada was/is a British 'Protectorate'. I have no idea what that actually means in terms of diplomatic/military obligations but the status of the Falklands AT THAT TIME was of a lower class. In other words, Grenada had a greater expectation of British military protection than the Falklands yet it was Clint Eastwood (Heartbreak Ridge) that went in.

Up to the invasion your average Brit had never heard of the islands. I only knew about it because about a year earlier there was a World In Action documentary about it and how the MOD was withdrawing the islands from the patrol route of the icebreaker in the region (HMS Endurance?) because of defense cuts.

In the aftermath of the war various 'experts' have talked about how the Brit government's policies had given the military junta the impression that the UK either did not have the hardware or the will to make an issue of the invasion.

As for self determination, pleeze. That argument didn't work for the people of Hong Kong. That will teach them not to become sheep farmers.

YABU OP.

Just because some arse-end countries got their asses kicked by our brave boys years and years ago, doesn't mean we dont play a major part in peacekeeping the world over today. Our soldiers set an example of fairhandedness the world over and are a benefit to everybody except tinpot dictators, religious nutjobs, and foreign politicians using 'British empire' to cover their own incompetence back home.

We havent colonized another country and brought civilization to their shores for a long time now. Most of the world is now civilized (or pretending to be), we have people begging to dump their own countries to come live here, so we are doing something right.

Wars for oil - thats an American game. I didnt see us profiting much from Iraq.

"Wars for oil - thats an American game"

You mean because there is so much in the North Sea such that we don't care about the Middle East :o

It's irrelevant if your average Brit had heard of the Falklands. The point is that the Falkland Islanders consider them to be British citizens. The principle of self-determination is a critical one. Yes, it would be super-convenient if the Falkland islanders decided that. actually, they'll be Argentinian. It would save a lot of aggro, but that's not for us to decide.

Hk was completely different. The issue was that Hk was always leased to the British, with the exception of Kowloon and HK island, which are not sustainable as British territories (largely because they rely on water pumped from the Chinese mainland).

Also, the HK Chinese were not British citizens (passport holders). They were subjects.

I'm not too worried about projecting power overseas, but I would like to be sure that we could defend ourselves.

"The point is that the Falkland Islanders consider them to be British citizens"

Unlike those damned orientals eh? :)

I would imagine that the situation now has changed but Falklanders back then were not British citizens.

It always crack me up when I read people scramble for excuses :o

Basically one can expect the British Gov to stand up to dictatorships if the people you are defending are white and the other side don't have nuclear weapons.

Our soldiers set an example of fairhandedness the world over and are a benefit to everybody

Hmm, I wonder if the general population, let alone the actual family of Baha Mousa, of Afghanistan and Iraq would give such a fulsome compliment about them? I rather suspect not.

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/sep/12/iraqi-citizen-murders-servicemen-suspects

ConferencePear - who do you want to protect yourself against though?

As long as we have a nuclear weapon, are in NATO and are aligned with other countries in wealthy Northern Europe then we are highly unlikely to be attacked by any other nation state.

A large military will not protect us against terrorist attacks though.

Read my post. the Flakland islanders are British citizens and were at the time of the Falklands conflict. The HK'ers were never British citizens, and even had they wanted to be, there was no way to make it happen without everyone on HK island and Kowloon dying of thirst. Thatcher actually went to the handover talks (the famous ones where the Chnese were accused of pushing her over) intending to retain Kowloon and HK island as these were not subject to the lease conditions. Beijing made it very clear that she could keep them if she wanted, but there wouldn't be any water coming over from the NT/ South China.