Short-war assumptions hide maintenance, losses, and endurance

Procurement built around short wars of choice lets planners assume unusually high equipment availability. That assumption reduces the number of platforms purchased because it discounts routine maintenance, combat losses, and the need to sustain operations after the opening days. It also presumes that Britain can choose when a war begins and bring every required asset to readiness beforehand. Duffy's 1980 speech shows planners reconsidering whether a European war would necessarily become nuclear or end quickly. A force sized for near-perfect availability becomes brittle when an opponent controls the timing or a conventional war endures.