BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Reality Check

Discussion & Talk

Factual

Justin Rowlatt presents a discussion series involving experts and people closely involved

Reality Check: Series 3

Reality Check: Series 3: Episode 2: Our military future?

Episode 2

Episode 2: Our military future?

Series 3

Our military future?

BBC Radio 4 - Reality Check, Series 3, Our military future?

Justin Rowlatt debates topical issues with experts and people at the sharp end.

Justin Rowlatt and guests debate the future of the British military, and explore whether it is time to have a radical rethink about the size and remit of the armed forces.

Justin Rowlatt is joined by experts on the government's defence policy - and those at the sharp end of it - to discuss whether it is time to radically rethink the British armed forces.

With the government's Strategic Defence Review under way against a background of public spending cuts, is now the time to consider a big reduction in the size and ambition of the British military? 

But what would a smaller defence force look like? What would it do? What would it mean for Britain's place on the world stage? And would it be a credible strategy, given present and expected future threats to global peace?

Justin Rowlatt discusses the future of the military with a panel of guests at the military thinktank, RUSI. 

He is joined by Professor Mary Kaldor from the London School of Economics; Professor Malcolm Chalmers of RUSI; Commodore Steven Jermy, recently retired from the Navy; Patrick Hennessey, former soldier and author of The Junior Officers' Reading Club; Freshta Raper, who escaped from Saddam Hussein's Iraq; and Sarah Lasenby, a peace activist from Oxford.

Producer: Ruth Alexander
Editor: Hugh Levinson.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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Reality Check

Series 3

Episode 2: Our military future?

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