Quote:
Originally Posted by Skybird
If so, state must be given the tools to fulfill this demand to enforce the protecxiton of its borders. If it fails to do so, or is not allowed these means and ways, then a state in my zero-state-thinking is not needed at all. That is true for mass migration - but also true for military capacities that are sufficient to fight off any possible foreign military aggressor. I assume there is something similiar in British laws...!?
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The aim under the last white paper IIRC was to draw down the number of standing forces and bolster it with the Territorial Army, the reserves if you like. As it stands there's 87k regular, 30k regular reserve, and 28k volunteer reserve, so we an field at a push around 145k, which is about average for a Western European nation at the moment. In an emergency there are powers to draft, but it'd have to be a major war for it to be enforced, and it's questionable how long a major war between nuclear powers would go on for before someone pulled out the warheads.
I think there's quite a few firearms in boxes in warehouses somewhere, so you'd be able to put weapons in hands, but the rest of the kit would be a bit hit and miss, probably more akin to the Red Army of Stalingrad than NATO.
Honestly, we've priced ourselves out of the weapons market as individual nations, which is one of the many reasons I'm annoyed at this whole nationalism thing that is popular at the moment when we really need to be banding together to solve major global problems rather than splitting up and infighting and just making ourselves weaker to any external force.
Europe has been suckling from the American teet for a long time and right now we're going to be looking at being introduced to solids, and we really cannot afford to be bickering over borders when the likelihood of France being invaded by Spain is pretty damn small.
Still, that's just how it goes, we'll argue over who gets the best chairs on the fore-deck of the Titanic as the iceberg looms closer and closer.