70th Anniversary
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain where the German Luftwaffe attempted to gain air superiority over southern England. If they had succeeded, they could have prevented the Royal Navy from decisively intercepting a Nazi invasion force. Britain would have been invaded and enemy forces would have used attack routes that certainly included our part of England. Our history and that of the rest of the world would have been very different.
It is always worth remembering the heroism and sacrifice of ‘The Few’ in the summer of 1940. Whatever deprivations and difficulties that we have today, at least we are not the under the calculated military attacks of other nation-states. Our issues and problems, while serious, still allow us to be a relatively upbeat country. There were much more substantial challenges in the 1940s with more uncertain outcomes. Yet the country pulled through with total commitment and an unshakeable belief in final victory.
To learn more about the events of 70 years, it is worth taking a look at the website www.raf.mod.uk which provides historical background and details of commemorative events. As with much historical study, we have the ability to learn from both our successes and our mistakes.
Learning in this area is particularly pertinent with the government supposedly considering large savings in our defence budget. Ultimately defence spending is for an insurance policy. The high cost of deterring conflict is still massively lower in every sense than the price of engaging in it.
Critical to the concept of deterrence is recognising the difference between capabilities and intentions on a global basis. It takes a huge amount of investment and time to create a new capability but a much shorter time to change a political intention. Today’s ally can in theory be tomorrow’s threat over a much shorter period than it takes to build a capability to deter.
The technological heroes of the Battle of Britain, the Spitfire and the Hurricane, took five or more years to develop. Their natural successor, the Eurofighter Typhoon, had its development company formed up in 1986. The maiden flight did not take place until 1994 with operational service starting more than 20 years after the development was initiated. Essentially the project made good progress for two decades which is obviously a contradiction in terms.
It is to be hoped that the government will learn from the difficulties with previous military projects and our ability to deter conflict. In doing so, it should conclude that it must be right to maintain a credible deterrence posture to make our contribution to a more peaceful future.
Bob Lanzer, Leader of Crawley Borough Council
25th August 2010