Specifics aside, the general message is clear, Britain’s military faces some turbulent times on the home front over the next couple of years.
Domestic press stories in the past few days have suggested swingeing cuts in the air force as well as the option of flogging one of the navy’s two planned 65,000 ton carriers to India.
The ministry is already working on Planning Round 10 (PR10) – due to be completed by the second quarter of 2010 – which deals with near term funding. PR10 is focusing on “rebalancing” expenditure “to reflect current priorities” and to deal with budgetary pressure.
The rumors and leaks of options that go hand in glove with standard planning round work are being compounded by the pending Strategic Defense Review.
Discussing claims in the Sunday Times that the air force was looking at reducing its strength from 41,000 to 31,000 over the coming five years, and axing several more bases, one defense ministry official notes: “As with any planning round everything; bases, aircraft, helicopters, numbers of personnel… are all looked at. The options are still being discussed, normal for this time of year, and therefore no decisions have been made.”
Suggestions by the paper, however, that the Nimrod MR2 and Puma helicopter fleets were to be grounded until April were flatly denied by the ministry official.
The fate of the aircraft carrier program will inevitably be examined in the SDR, though just how many sales enquiries the UK might get in the coming months remains to be seen.
Picture Credit POA Paul A'Barrow/Crown Copyright
