On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 01:37:20 GMT, Fred J. McCall
wrote:

(phil hunt) wrote:

:The UK has very small armed forced considering the size of the
:country's defence budget. Compare the UK (Population 59
:million, spends 2.5% of GDP on arms) ordering 220 Typhoons whereas
:Sweden (population 9 million, spends 2% of GDP on arms) can order
:almost as many (204) Gripens. Even taking into account that Britain
:spends a larger proportion of its defense budget on its navy, and
:the Typhoon's unit cost is larger than the Gripen's, there's
:something wrong here.

Britain spends money on things that Sweden does not, of course.
Strategic weaponry is expensive to develop and maintain.

Not to mention the abilty to quickly deploy-- how long woudl it take
Sweden to move a unit of soldiers to the Middle East, or move them
prepared to fight at the end of the journey.