Defence Chief: There is No Plan

Your weekly dose of defence news, biased opinions and poorly curated content. You’re welcome.

I’m going to come clean: when Sir Rich took the big job in Main Building, I had my reservations. Non-combat background, kinda nerdy, from the RAF (I’m joking, sky gods)…but I’m starting to like him.

He says what everyone else is too scared to say. Last month he shocked the wet flannels in government when he announced publicly that “our sons and daughters must be ready to fight”. He was at it again this week - the government hauled him in front of one of their committees and asked whether the current government had a defence plan. He said “no”, and added that there were no plans in place for how to use the NHS during a crisis either.

A geezer called Twigg then piped up and told Sir Rich he was going to have to cut defence programmes to make up budgets, to which Rich retorted: “you just put words in my mouth”.

Is the MOD finally starting to stand up for itself?

After the excitement caused by US action against the shadow fleet tanker Marinera, the SBS and Royal Marines have had itchy trigger fingers ever since. Well, their wish might be Defence Sec Healey’s command, as he dialled up the rhetoric against the Russians, including saying he’d like to “take Putin into custody [to] hold him to account for these war crimes”.

The Russians, with their typically colourful turn of phrase, said Healey’s remarks were “the wet dreams of British perverts”.

This is proper Luke Skywalker stuff. The government is ploughing another £20m into its DragonFire laser weapons system, this time deploying it around critical national infrastructure on land. The MBDA-developed kit is already being rolled out on Royal Navy destroyers as part of a £316m weapons upgrade.

Big events from the past, covered in brief and probably inaccurately.

This week, 242 years ago, the Continental Congress formally ratified the Treaty of Paris, officially ending the American Revolution.

Wait, wasn’t that 1776?

Although major fighting had indeed come to an end a few years earlier, this final legal hurdle made the independence of the United States from the British Empire official.

While the US focused on nation-building in the 19th century, Britain shifted its fire east and south, spending the next hundred years building the biggest empire the world had ever seen.

Changing things up? This is where we briefly look at career options from across the civvy world - everything goes here so expect some absolute drivel. Sometimes Forces Assist can help place you, sometimes we can’t. Either way we can offer advice.

Get on the roof. Good job. Outdoors. Solid pay. What’s not to like?

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Over at Forces Assist in the next few weeks we’re going to be publishing our annual Veteran Employers Guide. Get all your mates to sign up for Despatches and we’ll a) be grateful b) get the guide out to you and them.

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Cheers,

Team Forces Assist