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Originally Posted by jfman
They certainly could - but that doesn’t detract from it being a political choice by our Government to participate in joint military action with the Americans against them. Just as it’s a political choice for those Governments in NATO and around the world who do not.
Post office pardons, trips to Ukraine to fund our military industrial complex some more. Things are looking up for Rishi.
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The Post Office I’ll give you. Something that was recently very difficult and down to the appeals court is suddenly solvable via once-in-a-lifetime legislation. Fairly obvious electioneering.
As for the rest of it … interest in freedom-of-navigation issues is longstanding UK foreign policy. From the Armilla Patrol in the Persian Gulf in the 1980s and 90s, to sailing a carrier through the South China Sea or patrolling off the coast of Somalia or in the Caribbean Sea to deter piracy, it’s manifestly just what we do. In the present situation the severely heightened threat is obvious, as is the necessary response.
And no, our involvement in Ukraine has nothing to do with promoting our military industrial complex or whatever else you’ve been inhaling on hard-left Xitter. Such nonsense belongs in the Socialist Worker or similar profoundly unserious publications. If you want to understand the UK’s approach to Ukraine you would be better off listening to what Russia’s near-neighbours in Eastern Europe and the Baltic have to say on the subject. We have been listening to them and taking their warnings rather more seriously than most of Europe or indeed the US.
I grant you, our Prime Miniature will be thinking that footage of him touring Ukraine or ordering the RN into action will play well with the electorate, but the suggestion that this is why he’s doing it doesn’t stand up to even a microsecond’s actual thought.
---------- Post added at 14:29 ---------- Previous post was at 14:20 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1andrew1
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Other Western nations
1. Don’t have very big navies
2. Those that do (France) don’t like putting them under US operational command
3. Don’t have anti-air capabilities anything like as sophisticated as the UK’s T-45 destroyers, whose initial design concept was informed by real, hard earned experience of the only serious naval war since WW2 (the Falklands)
4. For the most part feared that the US’s proposed rules of engagement were too timid and liable to lead to heightened risk of damage even to well defended naval vessels.
Note that the ‘final straw’ swarm attack on Tuesday was repelled by 3 US destroyers, a US aircraft carrier and 1 RN destroyer (HMS Diamond) which took down around a third of the incoming ordnance all by itself. We do it because we can. Most others can’t.