I think you have raised some very valid points. One thing I would hasten to point out is that I believe that the United Kingdom would never seek to sustain continuous wartime operations as a single nation.
A couple of points: There's a large element of chicken and egg here. I believe that I would never seek to cross the Channel by swimming, because I know full well that I can't. Secondly, and more importantly, the function of the military is not simply to carry out our government's policy but to defend us against the military policies of others. The UK did not seek to initiate WW2 and most certainly did not ever seek to sustain that as a single nation. However, the fact is that we had to do it. We did not elect to start the Falklands War either.
It is a modern institutional failure to think that war is something we elect to do.
We place such a huge reliance (look at the recent Government recent promise to uphold) on the importance of NATO and the interoperability between those nations as, I think, it is right to assume that we would not be operating in such an environment without the support of those nations.
We do place a huge reliance on NATO, partly because we don't have anything else to rely on. Reliance on NATO is an unwise policy. Firstly, when it comes down to it, it is very questionable what value NATO has. There are two problems: Firstly, excluding the US (which is a realistic possibility these days), no other country has adequate military resources to defend an ally either. It is an alliance which claims strength through mutual inadequacy. It gives a false sense of security while at the same time presenting the excuse for failing to have a sovereign capacity for even elementary self-defence.
I would challenge anyone who states that any nation can operate as a single entity without relying on significant support from others. Russia v. Ukraine are prime examples of that on both sides.
I would challenge anyone who presumes that all adversaries will necessarily be single nations. Ukraine is certainly a prime example, but it was virtually a failed state anyway with very low economic resources. Russia is a less good example - it has sustained for far, far longer than we could a fairly high degree of sustained operations (excluding help) despite endemic corruption and a thoroughly corrupt and badly led military, supplied by a thoroughly corrupt and dysfunctional industrial base, but one that does at least exist.
I will concede that your point regarding the issue of size is a real and valid one. I see it as States can broadly choose to do one of two things; either invest in sheer size of force (think Russia and/or cannon fodder style militia) or invest in technologies which reduce the requirement for size (think the majority of Western Europe).
The problem with the latter approach is that while attractive on paper it is excessively sensitive to losses. Our equipment is undoubtedly more advanced and capable by far, but ultimately it is still vulnerable to loss, becoming unserviceable and lack of supplies.
To take a naval example, our destroyers may well be fantastic and equivalent in firepower on target to a dozen or even 50 old surface ships, right up until the moment one gets sunk or breaks down, or simply happens not to be in the right place. At that point, they are decidedly inferior. We can't operate on the delusion that we will never experience losses.
You can choose to do both but that comes at a significant cost and also isn't something that you can just change over night as it likely requires a culture switch - think USA and China.
We certainly need a culture shift in Whitehall, and apparently in the military.
Or do neither and hope for the best - but that tends not to work too well!
Be under no illusion, there is some seriously impressive kit available to the military that could be deployed in a wartime scenario both in an offensive and defensive environment. Some of this kit far exceeds the capability of some of the things that you have seen in the news surrounding recent conflicts.
I'm certain that there is. I am also certain that there is not remotely enough quantity of it. I also have the strong suspicion that this is our major weakness, not a strength. We have focussed too much on technologically advanced kit in tiny quantities, and not enough on large quantities of cheaper, less technical lethal power which lasts more than a few days. The allure of "surgical warfare" has blinded our leaders to the real nature of war at scale. We are not allies with several larger nations which are outspending us. Russia has already started a war. China has said it wants to. Iran is constantly at war. India.... we're not sure whether they are friend or foe. We're running a kindergarten foreign policy of pretending everyone in the world is like David Miliband - benign and just interested in getting rich and massive welfarism.
Clearly, I cannot say whether we would be blown out of the water in the first phase of war because that will all depend on what the threat is and the environment within which you are presented with that threat.
The problem seems to me less that we'd get blown out of the water, but that almost any likely initial losses would be too problematic to risk the rest. The depressing fact is that we can't even make ammunition in a wartime environment. I have doubts as to whether the navy and air force could defend our shipping requirements. There is, I believe, only one operational nitric acid factory in the UK. That is the essential precursor to all ammunition and missiles. Lose that and......
We're not going to get a decade's advance warning of war. Even if we did, it is not clear that our political establishment would act on it.
Could we fight a war in the same way that Russia v Ukraine have done? Absolutely not. But that's because the military tactics in which those nations are using is a very peculiar hybrid of WW2/modern fighting methods (think launching ICBM's over the top of your frontline troops that are in a complex network of trenches). We just don't operate in those types of ways and haven't done since WW2.
Which is great so long as we can induce our opponents to fight on our terms, where we want them to, and to give up when we've run out of ammunition. It is probable that if we did have to fight a war with Russia, that we would also be drawn into the same problems as the Ukrainians - an inability to establish air superiority, small numbers of combat aircraft, too little armour, and an inability to manufacture enough ammunition or advanced missiles.
A more pertinent question might be who could we win a war against? What is the actual utility of the military and defence industry we do have? Can it be scaled up in time to defeat a likely adversary?
Why are we 20 years into the era of the UAV and we don't have a very large number of indigenously designed and manufactured combat drones for air, sea and land combat? Even if second-rate.
What do we do to defeat, either by cold war or hot, the axis of China/Russia/Iran and fellow travellers? The current policy of resignation coupled with fantasy is a disgrace.
All food for thought, especially as there is no right or wrong answer!
On the contrary, there are lots and lots of wrong answers. I just pray we don't find out.
