London:
In a bid to streamline its armed forces and help reduce its daunting levels of national debt, the British government on Tuesday announced plans to cut its military personnel by 10 percent, scrap 40 percent of the army's artillery and tanks, withdraw all of its troops from Germany within 10 years, and cut 25,000 civilian jobs in its Defence Ministry.
In unveiling his Strategic Defence and Security Review, the first since the 9/11 attacks, Prime Minister David Cameron said the cuts were part of an effort to reconfigure a military that he called "overstretched, underequipped and ill-prepared" to meet the unconventional warfare challenges of the future. He added that Britain intended to remain a significant military power, with a military budget that would still be the fourth highest in the world, after those of the United States, China and Russia.
"Britain has punched above its weight in the world, and we should have no less ambition for our country in the decades to come," he said.
The new defence posture also calls for the immediate scrapping of the Ark Royal, Britain's only aircraft carrier capable of launching fixed-wing jets, along with the entire fleet of Harrier jump jets operated by the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force since the 1970s. The demise of the Ark Royal means that Britain will have a 10-year hiatus without a carrier-borne strike force until one of two new aircraft carriers is equipped with a new generation of Joint Strike Fighters in 2020.
The government said that it would go ahead with plans to build both carriers at a cost of about $9.5 billion only because it would be even more costly to cancel one of them, with both already under construction. But after three years in service, one of the vessels will be either mothballed or sold off.
The decision to forgo a carrier-borne strike force caused consternation among naval veterans, military analysts and others who have joined the opposition Labour Party in accusing the Cameron government of hastening the defence review to meet the needs of its overall austerity program.
Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, told Cameron in the House of Commons that the revised defence policy was "driven by short-term considerations" and that it was "simply not credible as a blueprint for our future defence needs."
Cameron came under even more pointed criticism earlier in the day at a military command centre in northwest London. There he was confronted by a pilot from the navy's Harrier force, Lt. Cmdr. Chris Ward, who said he had flown 140 combat missions over Afghanistan and now found himself facing unemployment.
Cameron also announced that the government would delay construction of a new fleet of Trident nuclear missile submarines, which now constitute Britain's nuclear deterrent, for about five years. The first of a new class of vessels is not expected to go into service until 2028. By putting back the final decision on the new submarines until 2016, Cameron conveniently averted a clash within his coalition government over whether Britain should retain a nuclear strike force at all.
Over all, the government plan will involve a staged, four-year cut of about 8 percent in real terms in Britain's annual defence budget of about $59 billion. That was significantly less than the 10 to 20 percent cuts that were under discussion as recently as last month, when the defence minister, Liam Fox, wrote a confidential letter to Cameron -- quickly leaked to Britain's newspapers -- that carried a hint that Fox might resign if the cuts were not scaled back.
The more modest scale of the military cutbacks placed extra strain on the government's overall effort to save more than $130 billion through spending cutbacks by 2015, a commitment that will require other government departments to make cutbacks averaging 25 percent.
The details of those cuts -- the most severe austerity program adopted by any British government since World War II -- will be announced by George Osborne, chancellor of the Exchequer, in a House of Commons statement on Wednesday. They are expected to bring months, and perhaps years, of political controversy and possible labour unrest.
Fox's pushback over the defence cuts appeared to have been helped by the concerns voiced, sometimes publicly, by senior Obama administration officials, including Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The American officials, together with senior American military commanders, including Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, were worried that the cuts could hamper Britain's ability to help American forces in conflicts around the globe.
For Cameron, 44, who leads a potentially volatile coalition between his Conservatives and a minority bloc of Liberal Democrats, coming down on Fox's side of the cabinet tensions over the cuts proved a bruising experience. He has said in recent days that the military cuts were "the hardest thing" he has had to do since taking office.
The Cameron government's program to bring down Britain's deficit more rapidly than that of almost any other Western country has conflicted with the Obama administration's appeals to its allies not to risk the sluggish economic recovery of the past 18 months by cutting government spending too fast.
Perhaps because of that, as well as the American concerns about Britain's military strength, Cameron telephoned President Obama on Tuesday, shortly before announcing the defence cuts. A Downing Street spokesman said the British leader had promised Obama that Britain would "remain a first-rate military power and a robust ally of the United States."
The prime minister also offered assurances about Britain's commitment in Afghanistan, where it has 10,000 troops, second only to the 100,000 troops committed by the United States. In his Commons statement, Cameron said that there would be "no cut whatsoever" in financing for the Afghan effort, and that he had "heeded" Britain's defence chiefs every time they had warned him that a proposed reduction might hinder the war effort. He also pledged more money for new armoured personnel carriers and helicopters, and a major commitment to strengthen and re-equip Britain's special forces, which have played a major, if little-publicized combat role in Afghanistan and Iraq.
All three arms of Britain's forces will endure major personnel losses in the cuts. With an overall level of about 175,000 -- roughly the size of the United States Marine Corps -- the army will lose 7,000 soldiers, with the navy and the air force each losing 5,000. But Cameron said that the army would still be able to put at least 7,000 troops into combat abroad, down from the current ceiling of 10,000, with a "one-off" capability to field 30,000 troops for a "major operation" should the need arise.
In unveiling his Strategic Defence and Security Review, the first since the 9/11 attacks, Prime Minister David Cameron said the cuts were part of an effort to reconfigure a military that he called "overstretched, underequipped and ill-prepared" to meet the unconventional warfare challenges of the future. He added that Britain intended to remain a significant military power, with a military budget that would still be the fourth highest in the world, after those of the United States, China and Russia.
"Britain has punched above its weight in the world, and we should have no less ambition for our country in the decades to come," he said.
The new defence posture also calls for the immediate scrapping of the Ark Royal, Britain's only aircraft carrier capable of launching fixed-wing jets, along with the entire fleet of Harrier jump jets operated by the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force since the 1970s. The demise of the Ark Royal means that Britain will have a 10-year hiatus without a carrier-borne strike force until one of two new aircraft carriers is equipped with a new generation of Joint Strike Fighters in 2020.
The government said that it would go ahead with plans to build both carriers at a cost of about $9.5 billion only because it would be even more costly to cancel one of them, with both already under construction. But after three years in service, one of the vessels will be either mothballed or sold off.
The decision to forgo a carrier-borne strike force caused consternation among naval veterans, military analysts and others who have joined the opposition Labour Party in accusing the Cameron government of hastening the defence review to meet the needs of its overall austerity program.
Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, told Cameron in the House of Commons that the revised defence policy was "driven by short-term considerations" and that it was "simply not credible as a blueprint for our future defence needs."
Cameron came under even more pointed criticism earlier in the day at a military command centre in northwest London. There he was confronted by a pilot from the navy's Harrier force, Lt. Cmdr. Chris Ward, who said he had flown 140 combat missions over Afghanistan and now found himself facing unemployment.
Cameron also announced that the government would delay construction of a new fleet of Trident nuclear missile submarines, which now constitute Britain's nuclear deterrent, for about five years. The first of a new class of vessels is not expected to go into service until 2028. By putting back the final decision on the new submarines until 2016, Cameron conveniently averted a clash within his coalition government over whether Britain should retain a nuclear strike force at all.
Over all, the government plan will involve a staged, four-year cut of about 8 percent in real terms in Britain's annual defence budget of about $59 billion. That was significantly less than the 10 to 20 percent cuts that were under discussion as recently as last month, when the defence minister, Liam Fox, wrote a confidential letter to Cameron -- quickly leaked to Britain's newspapers -- that carried a hint that Fox might resign if the cuts were not scaled back.
The more modest scale of the military cutbacks placed extra strain on the government's overall effort to save more than $130 billion through spending cutbacks by 2015, a commitment that will require other government departments to make cutbacks averaging 25 percent.
The details of those cuts -- the most severe austerity program adopted by any British government since World War II -- will be announced by George Osborne, chancellor of the Exchequer, in a House of Commons statement on Wednesday. They are expected to bring months, and perhaps years, of political controversy and possible labour unrest.
Fox's pushback over the defence cuts appeared to have been helped by the concerns voiced, sometimes publicly, by senior Obama administration officials, including Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The American officials, together with senior American military commanders, including Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, were worried that the cuts could hamper Britain's ability to help American forces in conflicts around the globe.
For Cameron, 44, who leads a potentially volatile coalition between his Conservatives and a minority bloc of Liberal Democrats, coming down on Fox's side of the cabinet tensions over the cuts proved a bruising experience. He has said in recent days that the military cuts were "the hardest thing" he has had to do since taking office.
The Cameron government's program to bring down Britain's deficit more rapidly than that of almost any other Western country has conflicted with the Obama administration's appeals to its allies not to risk the sluggish economic recovery of the past 18 months by cutting government spending too fast.
Perhaps because of that, as well as the American concerns about Britain's military strength, Cameron telephoned President Obama on Tuesday, shortly before announcing the defence cuts. A Downing Street spokesman said the British leader had promised Obama that Britain would "remain a first-rate military power and a robust ally of the United States."
The prime minister also offered assurances about Britain's commitment in Afghanistan, where it has 10,000 troops, second only to the 100,000 troops committed by the United States. In his Commons statement, Cameron said that there would be "no cut whatsoever" in financing for the Afghan effort, and that he had "heeded" Britain's defence chiefs every time they had warned him that a proposed reduction might hinder the war effort. He also pledged more money for new armoured personnel carriers and helicopters, and a major commitment to strengthen and re-equip Britain's special forces, which have played a major, if little-publicized combat role in Afghanistan and Iraq.
All three arms of Britain's forces will endure major personnel losses in the cuts. With an overall level of about 175,000 -- roughly the size of the United States Marine Corps -- the army will lose 7,000 soldiers, with the navy and the air force each losing 5,000. But Cameron said that the army would still be able to put at least 7,000 troops into combat abroad, down from the current ceiling of 10,000, with a "one-off" capability to field 30,000 troops for a "major operation" should the need arise.
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