Talk:Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)

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Contents

[edit] Amendment of origins

Having boosted the section on the origins of the MoD, there will probably be room for improvement on my edit. Three sections for improvement could well be: discussion of the formation of an united defence ministry before 1946, the effectiveness of pre-1940 defence co-ordination, and the balance of power between the MoD and the service ministries between 1946 and 1964.Hyuey 18.53, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

This page was moved in February 2005, so that the former page could disambiguate between the British Ministry of Defence and the Sinaporean Ministry of Defence. This is a clear case of primary diambiguation and should be moved back. Jooler 15:48, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation and sign your vote with ~~~~
  • Oppose, since "Ministry of Defence" is far too generic. It may be used for translating most similar names of ministries of defence of other countries, and may even be the official English translation in many cases (see [1]). Uppland 21:08, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. -- Necrothesp 10:14, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Proteus (Talk) 10:22, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Far too generic. Countries having a "Ministry of Defence" include Singapore, New Zealand, India, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Brunei, Hungary, France, Greece, and Denmark, and this is just from the first two pages of google hits for "Ministry of Defence". srs 17:30, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose: too generic. Can also refer to the Norwegian Ministry of Defence. Jonathunder 19:11, 2005 May 1 (UTC)
  • Support. Primary disambiguation material, definitely. James F. (talk) 01:44, 2 May 2005 (UTC) Changing my mind. Should instead be at British Ministry of Defence - paranthetic disambiguation is ugly. James F. (talk) 21:04, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Maccoinnich 23:44, May 2, 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. Ministry of Defence is a very widely used title/translation. As such I would consider it highly biassed if Wikipedia's article under this heading referred only the British ministry. Rje 01:46, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Cal T 20:31, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose - looks fine as it is Brookie:The grass on the hill 09:17, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Noisy | Talk 10:08, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. International spelling tends to be defense and thus it should be used for disambiguation page; defence is primarily restricted in scope to Commonwealth countries, of which United Kingdom is the most likely search target. DmitryKo 19:06, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
    • See my comment below. Uppland 19:51, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
    • Not to put too fine a point on it, the claim is utter nonsense. See my points below also. India, Australia, Jamaica, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Zimbabwe, Barbados, Tanzania, Bermuda, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Egypt, nearly every country that has English as a major language spells the word "defence". --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:24, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Neutral. There are arguments for both. I would rather that Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom) were moved to the unambiguous British Ministry of Defence, which is a common form of the organisation's name used when it is necessary to specify a nationality. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:15, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Too general. -- Chris j wood 19:23, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Voting over, see decision below

[edit] Discussion

Oppose since "Ministry of Defence" is far too generic. It may be used for translating most similar names of ministries of defence of other countries, and may even be the official English translation in many cases (see [2]). Uppland 21:08, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • Translations are irrelevant. This is English Wikipedia. Jooler 21:54, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Um, that may actually be why translations are relevant, because there tends to be complaints from some people on the English Wikipedia when translatable foreign terms are left untranslated. -- Uppland 22:06, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)


I think saying that "Ministry of Defense' refering to the UK is a primary usage is systemically biased towards native English speakers. Non-native speakers wouldn't necessarily immediately think of the UK when they hear 'Ministry of Defense', they would probably think of their own, or a neighboring country's. This is the sort of thing that Combating systemic bias is trying to work towards fixing. Lachatdelarue (talk) 15:12, 2 May 2005 (UTC)


The primary target of search for Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department. Defence is strictly a Commonwealth English term, while Defense is generic for both International English and U.S. English, so it's likely to be used for other Defense Ministries of the world (see searsh results). A link to disambiguation page at the start of the page will help anyone searching for Norwegian Ministry of Defence and the likes. DmitryKo 19:06, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

"International English" usually equals British spelling: At least the following countries (from the first few pages of Google hits, and excluding major Commonwealth countries such as India) have official websites using Ministry of Defence:
There are probably many more, and even restricting ourselves to Commonwealth countries, I don't see the point of giving priority to the UK MoD. I have voted for primary disambiguation in cases like Lancaster and Middlesex, where the English place obviously has historic priority, but the Ministry of Defence has, according to the article here, only been called that since 1964. -- Uppland 19:51, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
Google seems to treat defense as a subset of defence so the search results are not really indicative. And I'm not going to browse the government sites of all the UN member states in order to collect statistics on the usage of defence.
The UK ministry is the only genuiune among the ones you listed (others being a mere translation from native dialect), and there are no articles for Commonwealth ministries that may share the same name. DmitryKo 08:39, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
  • It's utter nonsense to describe the spelling defense as international in any way. It's almost, but not quite, strictly a US spelling. In Canada the English name of the defence force is Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces [15]. The Jamaican equivalent is the Jamaica Defence Force [16]. The Australian equivalent is the Department of Defence [17]. The New Zealand name is New Zealand Defence Force [18]. In South Africa the force is the Department of Defence [19]. The Indian Ministry of Defence [20] and Pakistan's Defence Division [21] (though the Pakistan website sometimes spells the word defense). Nearly every country I can think of where English is a major language spells the word "defence". As well as Pakistan's occasional spelling of "defense", Israel's IDF website [22] does use the spelling "Israel Defense Forces". But Canada, Ireland [23], India, outh Africa, New Zealand, Jamaica and Australia spell it with a C.--Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:57, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
Read what I said above. Commonwealth countries use British English spelling, international day-to-day use tends to be US English one. DmitryKo 12:41, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Decision

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it to be moved. violet/riga (t) 18:16, 6 May 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Linkage

Nearly 6 months after this page was moved from Ministry of Defence and Special:Whatlinkshere/Ministry_of_Defence shows that this is still a good case for primary topic diambiguation at Ministry of Defence Jooler 01:02, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

This set of redirect changes (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=JoanneB&offset=200509291940&limit=170) (170 modifications) - 6 months after this page was moved this - clearly demonstrates that Ministry of Defence is still a good case for primary topic diambiguation. Jooler 21:58, 29 September 2005
Once again another 6 months later and we STILL have a vast number of linkages to Ministry of Defence intending to refer to the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (Special:Whatlinkshere/Ministry_of_Defence) - which clearly demonstrates that Ministry of Defence should use primary topic disambiguation and refer to the UK MoD. Jooler 21:33, 7 April 2006 (

DEFENSE BUDGET

There's a lengthy section on the MoD's property portfolio but no discussion of the Defense budget, I think someone who's knowledgeable about that should add that info. 12.199.96.253 20:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

DefenCe budget. TheMongoose 13:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ministry of Attack?

The Ministry of Defence has been criticised for military intervention seen as offensive rather than defensive, and critics suggest it would be more appropriate to call the ministry the Ministry of Attack, claiming the present name is an example of double speak.[1] The Ministry of Defence however claims current military intervention is justified under the rationale of Preemptive war, which argues offensive policies are a form of defence.

I believe this text is simply argumentative and politically motivated. In addition the quoted reference is not consistent with the section. I believe the section should be removed. Any thoughts?--Aled D (talk) 17:03, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Concur, and removing. - BillCJ (talk) 18:25, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't see why this can be put here but the DoD can't be changed to the DoA. America has started more wars than us, so if their's doesn't change, neither does ours. 213.78.183.91 (talk) 15:11, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

....hold on please. I feel it should stay: 1) It is properly sourced and presents a valid criticism - criticism which certain users may not like cannot be labeled "argumentative and politically motivated" and then arbitrarily removed. The language used is as objective as possible without removing the meaning from the criticism 2) in response to (User:213.78.183.91): the fact that your observation is not on the DoD page is a problem with the DoD page NOT this page. Chendy (talk) 11:37, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Firstly the name Ministry of Defence is a proprietary name of the organisation defined by the Act of Parliament.
Secondly the one source brought to back this up is clearly unreliable and lacking in authority.
Thirdly, the Ministry can hardly be blamed for executing the policy of the elected Government.
Fourthly, because attack is the best form of defence, and no country has ever survived by maintaining a defensive posture, it doesn't matter what the name of the organisation is; it will have the capabilities required of it by law to perform the role in the Government that it does.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 11:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)