These simple reasons, without going on and on with other observations, in my opinion underline one absolute truth. Be State on State war, be Counterinsurgency, be it disaster relief, in the next 50 years you’ll need the aircraft carriers. Many times.
India is building two. China wants them. Russia dreams 6 battlegroups of aircrat carriers (and 4 Mistral assault ships as well). France would like to have another. USA are absolutely committed to no less than 10, and possibly 11 at least. Japan built new flat-top ships that could be used as little carriers. Spain and Australia have landing ships with skyjumps capable to take F35B and Harriers. Italy has the Cavour and the Garibaldi.
They aren’t stupid. Whatever happens, you’ll need aircraft carriers. Also because 70% of the population of the world lives within a few hundred miles from the shore of the oceans.

The carriers are what you truly need. Far more than Trident, to be sincere. But, anyway, i’m astonished that the Queen Elisabeth class is not marked as cornerstone of the whole strategy by both parties. Why the whole world considers them indispensable and Britain (an ISLAND, never forget it) doesn’t…? I think it’s absurd.
Build both, i say. Fit catapults on them and buy F35C, that’s more powerful, has a far greater range and potentially costs less, even. Or, at least, will cost less to maintain, lacking the vertical-lift system and its mechanical complexity.
Lease a bunch of Hawkeye from the US and you’ll be interoperable with both US and France. You can train crews in collaboration with them.
The Cerberus radar suites of the Sea King choppers can be moved onto Merlin helos and used either to support of land forces (as in Afghanistan is already happening) or on board Type 45. Sending radar data from the helo to the Type 45, the chances of the missile system of the ship to intercept sea-skimming missiles is far greater.
And 8 Astute submarines are needed, too.

As to the army, an immediate cut could be Rapier. It is not needed, and was it needed… well. Sincerely. Enemy planes would just fly higher than its missiles can reach, and it would be useless all the same. It is outdated. The army can do without it until CAMM comes into service.
The Regiments based on Rapier, ideally, could be re-roled to much needed light infantry. There would still be savings, not having to train people on radars and missile, no mainteinance and such. The overall number of soldiers wouldn’t change, either. And maybe it would be possible to find someone willing to buy at least part of the systems.

Typhoons. 160 are more than enough, considering the difficulty of moving them to the effective battlefield.
Oman might be a market, since it wishes to buy up to 24 fighters. Romania was planning 40 or so, too.
An agreement could be reached to sell off Tranche 1 fighters of the RAF, which should keep the Tranche 2 and 3 and make them full swing-role fighters, capable to attack surface targets of any kind as well as enemy planes.
The SPEAR program should be scrapped, for now.
The MANTIS drone should be continued, instead. It would be far better than the Reaper, and thanks to the two engines instead of one, far more reliable too. (Predator drones are often lost because of engine failure, it already happened with a RAF one too)
The METEOR missile should be acquired in smaller numbers, if possible.
The TARANIS drone should continue its development… and possibly be made capable to take off from the carriers of the navy too. After all, it’s improbable to need it to bomb Berlin anymore.
3 Rivet Joint spy planes should be acquired as soon as possible.

This is what comes to my mind for the moment, after long thinking. What’s sure, is that, whatever the future holds, we need a forcible-entry capability.
Aircraft carriers and a Brigade of Royal Marine Commandos with is ships. The Ocean will need to be replaced around 2018/2020… she should be replaced by TWO Mistral-like ships, i believe.
And up to then, it would be awesome to retain the youngest of the Invincible-class ships and use it as commando helo-ship.
I know there’s no money… but it is what the nation realistically needs. Otherwise, it happens to be left without a single LPH for months, or years even, when Ocean is in refit.

It was a crime to scrap plans for a sister for Ocean. She proved invaluable in the years, and costed a ridiculous 250 millions. Build two would have been a true bargain. Not for the navy, but for the Nation.

China’s rumoured ‘Assassin’s Mace’ strategy supports this – first incapacitating as well as pummeling the enemy.

On the other hand, there is a danger in speaking of this as though it is a known pattern, rather than just one more hypothesis about something we really cannot know with confidence. Preparing for an infinitely complex enemy attack could open up opportunities for a deceptively simple one, where the uniformed conventional forces strike without warning.

Actually, I take a different view.

Firstly, I think airpower is capable of engaging across all spectrums of the conflict, or avoiding some, because it is unique. Think Col John Warden’s five rings as a place to see where I am coming from on this. Airpower can “jump” from one center of gravity to another, virtually independent of what the other CoGs are doing.

Second, airpower has now moved into a role that before was unthinkable—a primary fire. Airpower is now capable of being the primary fire with other forces in a supporting role. Think Gulf War I as the first example of this never-before-seen capability. Doughet thought of this, envisioned it, but due to technology, intelligence and weapons effects, was never realized until recently. After a relentless air campaign, ground units were in a supporting role to “mop up” after the primary fire decimated the enemy.

Thirdly, cyberspace. Air forces are heavily reliant upon information systems, even more so that any other branch of service, not only for net connectivity for aircraft tasking before and during flight, but also because of the munitions they may employ that will be “network enabled.” Post launch, those weapons are on a network and controlled to the target pre-designated or adjusted in flight to another target all-together, or perhaps even destructed on the way.

However, having said that, all services have a role to play in this environment, and with the NSA gobbling up most of the “warfighting” bytes and budget for this effort, they would naturally be the ones to be the train-and-equip for cyber-war. This won’t happen, of course, because of their famous levels of secrecy and obfuscation.

My vote, a new and independent “space & cyber” command that serve as focal for addressing all technological and legal challenges that come with this medium of war.

But that’s just me. . .