As someone who has a lot of close family in the Armed Forces, I agree with you OP.
The RAF is OK career wise, mostly, and way more transferable skills, almost no chance of getting up close and personal with the other side, and a very high likelihood of coming back home after "a job". (Granted, AAC, FAA SFSG are an exception).
But the Army (I'm including everyone here, Paras, RMC, etc) is a different kettle of fish, It's NOT something that should be sold as a career to young people. The "boots on the ground" are so, so vulnerable, and we don't even give them the proper kit they need to stay alive. I've heard absolutely shameful accounts of what some have had to do/improvise/bodge while on tour, it's a joke.
I think the Armed Forces are no longer required, at least not in the sense we have become used to. Those old stories of derring-do, war heroes and the like, it all rings a but hollow for me when I hear what they lost their limbs for. I get the sacrifice in the (apologies if I offend anyone) Ukrainian sense of defending your family, country and way of life from an invading enemy (I'm well aware of the history of that conflict, and I'm being deliberately simplistic) but to have your body torn to shreds by an IED, while your clearing a dirt track in the middle of fucking nowhere Afghan, is just so sad and needless. We lost so many young people, not just the ones actually killed, but the ones who were maimed, who carried the bodies of friends, who got used to being hunted like animals.
Why did we do that to them?
What the fuck was all that for?
What did we make safer?
We are too small a country to make any difference to anybody, we need to wind our neck in and stop being so bloody arrogant to think WE are the world's moral compass, that WE have to get involved in every petty little pogrom that takes place on the other side of the planet. We can't even stop a few inflatable dinghies crossing the channel for fuck sake.
In my opinion, we should keep our Nuclear deterrent, maintain our Submarine fleet, especially the 4 Vanguard boats. Then get rid of the ARMY completely, and most of the RAF, spent that money on beefing up the Coastguard and have a small, but astonishingly well equipped Navy to patrol our territorial waters.
I hate those recruitment ads, and