Charles Gray wrote:

: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
repared to fight at the end of the journey.

Another big expense that Britain undertakes that most others do not;
power projection. Most other European forces are structured on the
assumption that if they need to move long distances they will have the
use of US strategic transport both to move the troops and keep them
supplied. This was one of the European crying points about the
Balkans intervention; if the US didn't play, most European forces
couldn't stay deployed in the region.

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney