What would be the consequences of ditching the armed forces?

[Pappa]

Assuming the police, spooks and security services continued handling matters of internal security, what would be the consequences of ditching the armed forces in your country?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

External security.

[Clinton Huxley]

You've got to have armed forces because...err..because.....well, just jolly well shut it, enough of this Lefty nonsense from you. Hrrrrrr!

[klr]

We couldn't contribute to U.N. peacekeeping.

[Rum]

Deficit gone in one stroke.

French in charge of us.

[Clinton Huxley]

Pith helmet manufacturers would go out of business and who wants that on their conscience?

[klr]

Deficit gone in one stroke.

French in charge of us.

Just like old times then.

... I had to get in before Clinton on this one.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The term for an unarmed nation is "pre-occupied".

[klr]

Getting back to serious matters: You would have little or no influence on any foreign state that decided to throw its weight around. You might also lose influence amongst your neighbour states and others with whom you regularly co-operate and/or align yourself.

[klr]

... and while you might save on the defence budget, you might lose on arms exports, perhaps big-time. Besides the money, being an arms exporter is (oddly enough) another way of exerting influence, for good or ill.

[Clinton Huxley]

I do wonder what the UKs armed forces would look like if they were thought out rationally - what do we really need to defend Britain's interests rather than what we need to be a US satrapy.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Getting back to serious matters: You would have little or no influence on any foreign state that decided to throw its weight around. You might also lose influence amongst your neighbour states and others with whom you regularly co-operate and/or align yourself.

Exactly. Mutual defensive cooperation goes a long way toward keeping "frisky" nations from gobbling you up. Of course you need to keep those under control or you wind up with a Triple Entente scenario.

[Pappa]

Getting back to serious matters: You would have little or no influence on any foreign state that decided to throw its weight around. You might also lose influence amongst your neighbour states and others with whom you regularly co-operate and/or align yourself.

I was thinking about this when I posted the OP and I'm pretty sure this would be the worst consequence.

The external security issue is interesting. Does it matter? Do we need to deal with security issues outside our borders? I don't really buy the claim that we need to be in Afghanistan and Iraq (for example) to prevent terrorism within our borders. If anything, our actions there exacerbate the problem.

There's the obvious point about getting invaded by another country. A risk assessment would have to conclude that the UK being invaded by a foreign power is a low risk threat, but something that has extremely serious consequences if we did have no armed forces.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

There's the obvious point about getting invaded by another country. A risk assessment would have to conclude that the UK being invaded by a foreign power is a low risk threat, but something that has extremely serious consequences if we did have no armed forces.

"Times of peace are best used to prepare for times of war."

[Clinton Huxley]

Given that the US is going to have to "delete" capability, as the US is bankrupt, it will be interesting to see how China, India and Brazil fill the gap...

As for Blighty, we have little influence to protect anyway.