Just to underline what George says, the Royal Saudi Airforce is about twice the size of the RAF flying identical aircraft in many cases (they have both Tornados - the German variant, and Typhoon fighters). Their ground attack capacity is about three times as great as ours
I don't disagree with much of George says on this as he has a more realistic appraisal of what we can bring to the table, and that we'll be at full stretch defending ourselves rather than trying to prosecute an attack thousands of miles away. If America isn't going to underwrite this with aggressive measures then its frankly futile
If we're to go in and try to sift through the population to find ISIL we're going to need substantial armies and support logistics to do it.
The only countries that could do it independently are
The USA
China
Russia
and increasingly, India
Organisations that might be able to do it?
NATO (which is America in all but name)
Some kind of Arab coalition (even if half of them would be broadly sympathetic)
If you're going to fight, then fight to win. This idea of chucking a few obsolete 1970's ground attack aircraft designed for penetrating the Russian Steppe into the fray ain't going to alter a thing. It hasn't done previously, and won't do again
This is where I disagree with George though. I don't think the tribes can sustain a fight against ISIL
You might recall that the last time we tried this 'smart' intervention in support of disparate on the grounds tribes, it was in Libya. The British were their with their crap planes, and once again their crap planes missed their targets with such frequency that they had to rush an untested version of the Typhoon into the front line. The 'success' of Libya (yes that's what the government described it as) was even heralded as a new model for intervention by Obama. It was felt then that this was a clean way forward that would allow us to settle these kinds of conflicts in such a way that we didn't have to fight ourselves. War by PR if you like. Programming co-ordinates into fire and forget missiles at 20,000 ft isn't that brave in the context military gallantry and is low immediate risk (for us)
In the immediate aftermath gay Hague and Cameron used to go to Libya to herald this model of fledgling democracy and hold it up as a flagship, a beacon of arab self-determination in a sea of militancy and corrupt government.
Anyone fancy explaining why our government no longer visits Tripoli yet alone mentions it.
This model that so many of you are now imploring us to follow is exactly the same
Sometimes war is really very simple and straight forward. You just get the biggest army with the most weapons, and say 'Go'. The Zhukov doctrine if you like. It might lack subtlty and might not be smart or clever, but it tends to work the best
I don't disagree with much of George says on this as he has a more realistic appraisal of what we can bring to the table, and that we'll be at full stretch defending ourselves rather than trying to prosecute an attack thousands of miles away. If America isn't going to underwrite this with aggressive measures then its frankly futile
If we're to go in and try to sift through the population to find ISIL we're going to need substantial armies and support logistics to do it.
The only countries that could do it independently are
The USA
China
Russia
and increasingly, India
Organisations that might be able to do it?
NATO (which is America in all but name)
Some kind of Arab coalition (even if half of them would be broadly sympathetic)
If you're going to fight, then fight to win. This idea of chucking a few obsolete 1970's ground attack aircraft designed for penetrating the Russian Steppe into the fray ain't going to alter a thing. It hasn't done previously, and won't do again
This is where I disagree with George though. I don't think the tribes can sustain a fight against ISIL
You might recall that the last time we tried this 'smart' intervention in support of disparate on the grounds tribes, it was in Libya. The British were their with their crap planes, and once again their crap planes missed their targets with such frequency that they had to rush an untested version of the Typhoon into the front line. The 'success' of Libya (yes that's what the government described it as) was even heralded as a new model for intervention by Obama. It was felt then that this was a clean way forward that would allow us to settle these kinds of conflicts in such a way that we didn't have to fight ourselves. War by PR if you like. Programming co-ordinates into fire and forget missiles at 20,000 ft isn't that brave in the context military gallantry and is low immediate risk (for us)
In the immediate aftermath gay Hague and Cameron used to go to Libya to herald this model of fledgling democracy and hold it up as a flagship, a beacon of arab self-determination in a sea of militancy and corrupt government.
Anyone fancy explaining why our government no longer visits Tripoli yet alone mentions it.
This model that so many of you are now imploring us to follow is exactly the same
Sometimes war is really very simple and straight forward. You just get the biggest army with the most weapons, and say 'Go'. The Zhukov doctrine if you like. It might lack subtlty and might not be smart or clever, but it tends to work the best