Smaller armed forces?

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

In the UK at present, we have the smallest army we have had since the Boer War of Queen Victoria's time.

Is this a good thing or bad thing?
Will a smaller army, navy and air force stop our politicians from meddling in unnecessary wars in far off places? Will it lead to a focus on home defence instead of adventuring imperialism?

Or will a smaller Military Establishment mean that we are ill prepared to repel a foreign invasion ?
I mean, who is ~capable~ of invading Britain right now, even if they wanted to? Should be be paranoid about 'what if', or go for a realistic assessment of the actual threat level?

Comments

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

Yeah - supposing we built the ships and the rest of the guys provided the planes?
That Rafale is pretty cool, as jet aircraft go...

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

I think that what is most important is a shared vision of what a joint European naval task force wants to accomplish. A commitment to sharing the risks and the costs is also important, of course. There have been divisions within NATO in Afghanistan and in other situations, with some countries appearing to be less willing to put troops into combat, and to generally share the burden. Patrolling the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas, and the North Atlantic would seem to be missions that all of Europe could get behind, and protecting European shipping in cooperation with other countries and groups of countries should also pass muster.