Есть такой Лорд Эдвин Брэмелл, который в свое время был начальником британского ГШ. Вонь насчет бесмолезно выбрасываемых на ПЛАРБы денег пошла от него в 2004. В апреле этого года на слушаньях по будущему облику ВС, Брэмелл заявил следующее:
We must look again in more detail at how we spend our money in the context of, perhaps, a more flexible approach to our independent nuclear deterrent and what exactly follows Trident, and when, and, certainly, with the general recognition that, since the Cold War, the world scene and the scale of urgency of future threats have changed considerably. We cannot automatically feel bound by old Cold War cries and clichés such as, "You must have four and not three nuclear submarines, because there must always be one on station". Indeed, I was surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Malloch-Brown, repeat that in an otherwise wide-ranging and flexible summing-up of a foreign affairs debate.
The same intellectual rigour needs to be applied to the carrier argument. The Royal Navy has tasks that fall upon it regularly in peace and war—some on every day of the week—while we should take into account the new dimension of piracy. In order for it to do those tasks, we should look at whether the Navy would prefer two less than fully equipped carriers with greatly reduced and, I would suggest, insufficient small surface ships and killer submarines or, perhaps, one fully equipped carrier with everything required to fly off it and to protect it and, perhaps, rather more ships for their everyday tasks.
Но это верхушка айсберга. Кулуарно же мнение Брэмелла состоит в том, что "состояние, перспективы содержания и развития МСЯС нашей страны так сильно зависят от США, что было бы верхом нелепости считать их "национальным ресурсом".
На деле это скорее протест против тотального контроля британских СЯС из-за акияна.
