20th+: MIC

00:00 - Intro (22-3-31)
00:45 - Topics of this video
01:33 - German F-35
05:37 - Defense planning announcement
07:09 - Germany's shopping list
11:36 - €100bn: Setup
13:49 - €100bn: Analysis
20:01 - Outro

The DoD is prioritizing China as the top pacing priority, as it remains the only U.S. competitor able to combine its economic, diplomatic, military, and technologic power to mount a sustained challenge to the international system. The rapid development and operational focus of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) constitutes a significant and long-term security threat to the United States and to our allies and partners. This threat is a consequence of nearly two decades of intense effort by China to modernize and reform the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and other forces into an increasingly capable joint force able to conduct the full range of military operations across every warfighting domain.

In addition to a significant buildup and modernization of its strategic forces, the PLA is advancing its capabilities and concepts for conducting information, cyber, space, and counterspace operations. China is also mobilizing vast resources to become a global leader in emerging technologies and is leveraging those advances in support of its military modernization.

China has made clear that it expects the PLA to be a global military actor capable of securing China’s growing overseas interests and advancing other PRC objectives abroad. These changes are accompanied by aggressive and at times coercive activities that seek to expand the PRC’s military influence by forging closer ties with foreign militaries, developing overseas military bases, and expanding the PLA’s presence worldwide.

China’s robust military modernization activities have, in recent decades, sought to erode the ability of U.S. forces to project power in the region, and China has continued to accelerate the development of capabilities specifically designed to counter key U.S. strategic and operational advantages. The continued erosion of U.S. military advantages relative to China remains the most significant risk to U.S. security interests. If left unimpeded, this continued erosion could fundamentally challenge our ability to achieve U.S. defense objectives and to defend the sovereignty of our allies, the consequence of which would be to limit DoD’s ability to underpin other U.S. instruments of power.

https://comptroller.defense.gov/Budget-Materials/Budget2022/ .

Why military aid to Ukraine has a positive effect on Western economies: In the short term, the increase in military spending due to the war in Ukraine has a stimulating effect on the GDP of the Western allies’ countries. This was reported by Ukrainian media, quoting the National Bank of Ukraine’s Inflation Report (July 2023). Various factors have been mentioned in the report.

According to the report, one US dollar spent by donor governments on military needs generates $0.79-0.87 of GDP in these countries within one to two years, and the overall positive effect does not disappear even after five years.

There are several additional positive effects for nations providing military aid to Ukraine, such as the possibility of sharing military experience, more efficient allocation of defence resources, a boost for arms exporters, and increased productivity due to additional investment in research and development.

Sunday, January 27, 2019

BEF & Ten Year Rule

Was Chamberlain wrong to appease Hitler? - IWM > .

BEF & Ten Year Rule

The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was the name of the British Army in Western Europe from 1939 to 1940, in the early stages of the Second World War.

During the 1930s, the British government planned to deter war by rearming from the very low level of readiness of the early 30s and abolished the Ten Year Rule^^. The bulk of the extra money went to the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force but plans were made to re-equip a small number of Army and Territorial divisions, potentially for service overseas.

The BEF had been established in 1938, in readiness for war, after Nazi Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss of March 1938 and made claims on Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, that led to the Munich Agreement (30 September 1938), ceding Sudetenland to Germany and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia (15 March 1939). After the French and British governments had promised to defend Poland, the German invasion of Poland began on 1 September and on 3 September, after the expiry of an ultimatum, the British and French declared war on Germany.

The BEF (General Lord Gort) began moving to France in September 1939. The British assembled along the Belgian–French border on the left of the French First Army as part of the French 1er groupe d'armées (1st Army Group) of the Front du Nord-est (North-Eastern Front). Most of the BEF spent the Phoney War digging field defences on the French–Belgian border before the Battle of France (Fall Gelb) began on 10 May 1940. The BEF constituted 10 percent of the Allied forces on the Western Front. The BEF participated in the Dyle Plan, a rapid advance into Belgium to the line of the river Dyle but had to retreat through Belgium and north-western France, with the rest of the 1 er groupe d'armées, after the German breakthrough further south at the Battle of Sedan. The BEF, French and Belgian forces were evacuated from Dunkirk on the French North Sea coast in Operation Dynamo.

Saar Force, the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division (with reinforcements), had been detached for service along the Maginot Line as part of a plan for the BEF units to gain experience. The force fought with local French units after 10 May, then joined the Tenth Army along with the improvised Beauman Division and the 1st Armoured Division, to fight in the Battle of Abbeville (27 May – 4 June) on the south side of the Somme. The British government attempted to re-build the BEF with divisions training in Britain, troops from France and lines-or-communications troops south of the Somme river (informally known as the 2nd BEF) but after the success of the second German offensive in France (Fall Rot) over the Somme and Aisne rivers, the troops were evacuated from Le Havre in Operation Cycle (10–13 June) and the French Atlantic and Mediterranean ports in Operation Ariel (15–25 June, unofficially to 14 August).

^^ The Ten Year Rule was a British government guideline, first adopted in August 1919, that the armed forces should draft their estimates "on the assumption that the British Empire would not be engaged in any great war during the next ten years".

The suggestion for the rule came from Winston Churchill, who in 1919 was Secretary of State for War and Air. Former Prime Minister Lord Balfour unsuccessfully argued to the Committee of Imperial Defence which adopted the rule that "nobody could say that from any one moment war was an impossibility for the next ten years… we could not rest in a state of unpreparedness on such an assumption by anybody. To suggest that we could be nine and a half years away from preparedness would be a most dangerous suggestion".

In 1928 Churchill, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, successfully urged the Cabinet to make the rule self-perpetuating and hence it was in force unless specifically countermanded. In 1931 the Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald wanted to abolish the Ten Year Rule because he thought it unjustified based on the international situation. This was bitterly opposed by the Foreign Secretary Arthur Henderson who succeeded in keeping the rule.

There were cuts in defence spending as a result of this rule, with defence spending going down from £766 million in 1919–20, to £189 million in 1921–22, to £102 million in 1932.[4] In April 1931 the First Sea Lord, Sir Frederick Field, claimed in a report to the Committee of Imperial Defence that the Royal Navy had declined not only in relative strength compared to other Great Powers but "owing to the operation of the 'ten-year-decision' and the clamant need for economy, our absolute strength also has...been so diminished as to render the fleet incapable, in the event of war, of efficiently affording protection to our trade". Field also claimed that the navy was below the standard required for keeping open Britain's sea communications during wartime and that if the navy moved to the East to protect the Empire there would not be enough ships to protect the British Isles and its trade from attack and that no port in the entire British Empire was "adequately defended".

The Ten Year Rule was abandoned by the Cabinet on 23 March 1932, but this decision was countered with: "...this must not be taken to justify an expanding expenditure by the Defence Services without regard to the very serious financial and economic situation" which the country was in due to the Great Depression.

A group of retired admirals have called the planned decade-long gap between the retirement of the Ark Royal and the coming into service of the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers a new "10-year rule"

British Expeditionary Force (World War II) .

British Expeditionary Force (World War II) - after Dunkirk .