CFL said:
I think in the near future we will just be dying.
You,
CFL, have touched on my great fear.
I have this deep seated dread that our governments' (any of them) desires for cheap 'glory' coupled with an equal desire to spend money on
anything but defence will see you, serving folks (which includes my son, in the Navy), deployed somewhere where (thanks to parsimony which means that even our friends lock us out of
some of the intelligence) we do not have adequate intelligence. You, whatever ships or units are involved, will get sucked or dragged deeper and deeper into a crisis until you are overwhelmed: stuck, outnumbered, outgunned, unable to be relieved or reinforced or extracted ... then defeated in detail, with heavy casualties.
Then there will be a great hue and cry and then there will be even more public inquiries and much finger pointing and even
mea culpa from a politician, here and there ... even some money, probably spent quickly and foolishly and with a cynical eye to political gain, too.
It is, almost, too painful to contemplate but it does keep me awake some nights.