The Royal Air Force will be slashed by nearly a quarter. The Navy will have 12 fewer ships. Almost a third of the Army’s primary battle tanks will be gone. In total, Britain’s armed forces will be cut by 10 percent. Never before have there been such wide-ranging defense cuts in Britain.
One would think a national debate would be set off among politicians and the media over the prudence of such action. In times past, certainly. But not today.
In a July 31 article in Britain’s Spectator, Stephen Glover reported that “the armed forces were literally decimated without either the opposition or the press raising much more than a grumble.”
To be fair, the defense cuts did catch front-page news in several newspapers for a day, but they quickly disappeared with virtually no serious discussion. Glover expressed concern most of all about the lack of expert analysis and “real concentrated rage.” “To most newspapers,” he wrote, “this was just another story. To the armed forces and, I would submit, for the country, these cuts are catastrophic.”
“This country has changed,” Glover concluded, “and so have its newspapers. We nod to the armed forces as they pass, we may even regret that they are being cut again, and then we cheerfully turn the next page.” Such apathy in Britain only increases the danger posed by the reduction of defense capabilities in the face of increasing military threats.
In our August issue, editor in chief Gerald Flurry drew attention to the responsibility of the media to warn the nation and its failure to do so in the years leading up to World War ii. He described the media’s silence at that time as “extremely repugnant and shameful.”
“This is how quintessentially passive Britain (and America) had become in the 1930s,” he wrote. “The media led the way. There should have been a massive changing and turning from such dangerous thinking after World War ii. But it is far worse today, and we are going to pay an unparalleled penalty for refusing to seek the truth! We should start the process by learning from history.”