A little over a week after the Paris attacks, British Prime Minister David Cameron is due in parliament Monday to announce his new five-year national security strategy. Unsurprisingly, with Paris looming large that plan is expected to include extremely aggressive plans for boots on the ground in British cities.
Under the new plan, thousands of British combat troops are expected to be kept at the ready to swarm into the streets of British cities as “rapid response units” designed to fight against an ongoing Paris-style terrorist attack.
The announcement comes amid British police complaining that they lack the massive amounts of firepower needed to cope with a full-scale ISIS attack by themselves, and Defense Secretary Michael Fallon is promising a “bigger and stronger defense for Britain.”
Britain already had contingencies allowing them to call up 5,000 troops as “military-police” under previous laws, but this new plan is expected to more than double the amount of troops at the ready. With Paris so recent, it is likely to face little objection.
The Paris attack is paying off, boot on the streets and you be the judge.
Nobody's yet asked me to be a judge, although I'm a lawyer and spent most of my career as a court official! But "paying off" means that what has occurred is what was intended. The tightening of security was foreseeable but I doubt if it was the primary purpose of the attacks. What has happened though, and it probably also wasn't the primary purpose of the attacks, is that the EU has been greatly strengthened. Police co-operation is to be reinforced and nobody is even anti-EU politicians have stopped talking about leaving the EU! Putin + refugees + ISIS have created the "de facto solidarity" that Robert Schuman talked about in his famous Declaration of 9 May 1950.
The British police are generally weak in the "special" police forces common elsewhere in Europe, so it's not surprising that Cameron is talking about troops. Also, Britain doesn't have a "national" police force, also unusual in Europe. Outside of London, few forces would be able to deal with Paris-style attacks.
This is just how they have planned it! People had better wake UPPPPPPPPPPP!