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@hladik
No... I wouldn't actually advocate that position... I speak as a man with a brother currently at Sandhurst... (although I would advocate some pretty hefty budget cuts) but I'm proving that WiganWill's point was totally valid, and that your love of the market is mindbendingly flawed.
By your logic, ANY public or government subsidised service could (and should?) be replaced by market-driven enterprise. Because the market always makes things better no?
Private defense contractors exist.
Why don't we let them 'do' our defense for us in lieu of that giant great Army my taxes pay for?
*Logic fail?
*EDIT: Actually, with a moment's pause for thought, I really cannot envisage a situation where a troops-on-the-ground Army would 'save' me from imminent danger. We live in the future. No one is going to invade the UK with massed ranks of uniformed bodies. So yes, in many ways we don't need the Armed Forces to continue in their current incarnation (assuming we are looking to save money for UK taxpayers and have no far-reaching foreign policy desires that involve 'keeping the peace' in oil rich countries).
The UN? Yes please.
Some missles and a couple of UK Battalions for show purposes? * Probably. *
Trident? Hell no.
Huge, cumbersome, oil burning tanks that we abandon in Iraq because the market dictates that it is cheaper to leave them there and build new ones than bother to fly them home? Er....