Yes we do.
You should have seen how the police struggled with unarmed teenagers whose ambitions extended little further than shop lifting. The IRA was only about 500 strong at any given time. I think you're likely to be proven wrong in the fullness of time regarding the ambitions for the radicalised muslim. Even if they stop short of trying to take over the state by force, I think they'll settle for killing us instead, but this is going to require the sort of tit for tat escalation that Grasshopper described earlier. We aren't there yet, but that is the direction of travel
I should have clarified (having re-read Clive's response) I've never advocated that Chinese troops be deployed on the UK's streets (they wouldn't do it anyway). What I've been envisoning in my mind is two theatres of conflict playing out simultaneously as home and away matches. The UK, and all other European countries for that matter, will be at full stretch defending our own streets. Without weapons training the civilian population we won't have the capacity to move to an aggressive stance in the coming war. We'll be desperately trying to defend our own country. The aggressive stance will need to come from those countries capable of projecting military power (not 'prowess' as Cameron keeps calling it) - trooping the colour, the red arrows, and Stanley Baker aren't much use to you now. There are only four countries in the world who combine military hardware with a big enough military machine to do this, The USA, China, India and Russia. Of these only the USA might be counted on at this stage. Without the others, you're asking America to take on a massive burden otherwise, and they could easily shift position yet and pursue a more isolationist stance in the future. Casper Weinnberger caused constenation previously in the 1980's when he talked about being able to confine a future war with the Soviet Union to Europe. I think it would be foolish to take American involvement for granted, or on our own terms
