As chippy put downs go, that was pretty memorable.
David Cameron will no be remembered by the armed forces as the one who told them to ‘man up wet pants’
Perhaps the next time he is standing on an aircraft carrier waffling about the military covenant he might reflect on his oh so very clever witty retorts.
That said, it is politicians that are in charge so no matter how much they can be charged with oxygen theft the fact is, senior officers should not be indulging in politics. Despite both of the head of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force being selectively misquoted the political impact has been significant, calling for a review of the SDSR by all the usual suspects.
It is a very fine line to tread between defending your service and appearing to be talking out of school, I do not envy at all the position they find themselves in.
In the commons today David Cameron defended the SDSR and said that Libya vindicated its content, I know, I scratched my head about that one as well.
There is no doubt deficit reduction should be a major strategy and their is equally no doubt that the MoD have for decades been fundamentally unable to live within their means but calling the recent salami slicing SDSR ‘strategic’ is patently absurd.
If we look at the SDSR is says quite clearly what the defence planning assumptions are, this is what Future Force 2020 will be built around.
We should not forget that these are future assumptions but an interesting comparison nevertheless.
Now if I am not mistaken we have in excess of 10,000 personnel in Afghanistan which by any measure would be an enduring operation, planning assumption bust there
That would leave us with 1 non enduring complex intervention, Libya is complex and involves more than 2,000 personnel but given the time we have already been on the job it seems self evident that it is enduring.
So, hold on, that’s two enduring operations that the SDSR assumes in its baseline assumptions.
The fact that the previous defence planning assumptions, as defined in this governments predecessor, were comprehensively trashed should come as no surprise to anyone who observes that politicians are quite fond of writing cheques the armed forces are under funded to cash.
For all their empty rhetoric, this lot are no different.
Then,
Just when David Cameron thought he had sufficiently the armed forces sufficiently back in their box up pops the Chief of the General Staff and suggests his much cherished 2015 Afghanistan withdrawal timeline should be reviewed.
Get in…
The SDSR does need to be revisited but not to get some short term reprieve for one capability or another.
It needs a fundamental review of realistic defence assumptions, underpinned by some actual honest to goodness strategy and topped with the credible financial settlement.
Just injecting an extra few hundred million here and there will not all of a sudden make it all better it will just delay the next MoD crisis.
Will leave you with a bit of Kipling, from the Absent Minded Beggar
WHEN you’ve shouted “Rule Britannia,” when you’ve sung “God save the Queen,”
When you’ve finished killing Kruger with your mouth,
Will you kindly drop a shilling in my little tambourine
For a gentleman in khaki ordered South?
EDIT
One of the comments to this post raised the instance of David Cameron giving Gordon Brown a proper kicking by accusing him of not listening to the professionals.
From the Sun, March 2010
Meanwhile, Mr Cameron listed military figures and civil servants who had also attacked the PM for defence spending shortages.
He said: “Why do you think all these people, dedicated to defence of this country, are wrong?”
Good post TD,
Not much to say other than +1 on this:
“The SDSR does need to be revisited but not to get some short term reprieve for one capability or another.
It needs a fundamental review of realistic defence assumptions, underpinned by some actual honest to goodness strategy and topped with the credible financial settlement.”
How come good old Dave wasnt this snippy when Gen Dannet was laying into the last government, oh i forgot Dannet was HIS lapdog, still makes me laugh all the effort Dannet went thru for Dave and he ended up being screwed out his seat in the Lords LOL
TD been stewing about this all day. You seemed to have dissected this Governments argument brilliantly (as usual).
This is a gaff too far. It is unwarranted and without foundation. The Defence chiefs, for once are simply telling the truth. You have scaled us back to only be able to do what the SDSR states.
You have now asked us to do what us not covered in the SDSR and hence, as we always do, have risen to the task but if this goes on past a certain date, with what we now have available will nit permit us to continue without severely impacting other areas and inflicting undue hardships on our people and their families,
Seems very reasonable to me:
Give us more resources or cut our commitment! You can’t have both!
Much as I am loathe to defend “Dave”
Where were these voices 18 months ago?
The idea that the SDSR changed anything is bollocks.
It (partialy) recognised how weak we were.
I wonder what the UK’s armed forces would have looked like with the Sand Box wars.
And all this talk of stabilisation. If a Britsh Pm wanted a second term would he dare commit the UK to another A-stan/Iraq? I don’t think the US had any appetite for yet more stabilisation. Our European allies have never had the appetite for it. Yet without stabilization what is our army for?
Further to Dom’s point. It easy to point the finger at the current administration. But it was the last lot who overspent to the tune of £90billion. It was the last lot who sold gold for Euro’s; the former’s value has increased 4 fold, the latter only by 10%. And it was the last lot who opened up our borders to anybody……
Let’s not be too hasty on revisiting the SDSR. Might as well wait until the Euro zone implodes before we start trying to juggle the small change.
@ Brian re Europe
Would the Irish welcome British troops to stop German and French debt collectors running off with their fixture and fittings?
@DominicJ
“Much as I am loathe to defend “Dave”
Where were these voices 18 months ago?
The idea that the SDSR changed anything is bollocks.
It (partialy) recognised how weak we were.”
Agree that the service Chiefs need to act in support of each. The government divide and conquer tactic has worked very well.
I think the SDSR has been good, in as much as the prays have put it in writing what they expect the armed forces to do?
Clearly it can now be seen they do not have the resources to cope with SDSR scenarios and Libya is clearly outside of the SDSR’s brief!
They are being hung by their own petard!!!
I love it… Get out of that you bunch of useless twats!!!
Just heard Libya has cost us £250million pounds so far.
I note that the cost of Tommahawk is mentioned. But the more expensive StormShadow isn’t mentioned. I will put that down to the ignorance of the reporter.
Wow!! That is like 25 Bays for a year. The V-boats for a year. A whole Typhoon squadron for a year. Wow……..
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110622/wl_africa_afp/libyaconflictnatoitalydiplomacy
For those service chiefs who, to be blunt, would find it difficult *not* to trash the SDSR, another gift. Gioia del Colle may well become off limits to the RAF shortly. Another demonstration of the utility of aircraft carriers…if the 1500KM round trip and attendant transit time waste wasn’t enough
Would that be same Italy flying Harriers off a ship named after one of my favourite biscuits?
Totally agree TD maybe we say sorry sir no can do on the next op. One thing though we’ve been in lybia 3 months does an op not need to go past 6 months to be considered enduring.
X a sub launched tomahawk is significantly more expensive than storm shadow.
@ Mark
Yes it is; I sit corrected.
Still StormShadow isn’t a steal………
@ Mark
They also do different jobs mainly due to the warheads amongst other things. I don’t think it’s fair to compare them.
Classic British politicians, being caught out by their own words. Unbelievable.
@ Topman
It’s costs we are on about, not what they do.
@x: touche! It is indeed a bit ridiculous that a bankrupt country like Italy sports more capability than the RN.
@mark: ship launched Tomahawk is cheaper. Morever, Storm Shadow has less than half the range: it would be better compared to JASSM
x
Not sure if this was mentioned else were and it is off this topic. But mbda announced at Paris air show it’s developing a new naval missile for land attack and anti ship. It sorta splits into 3 for it’s final attack . One of the req was to hit a target at 300km in under 10min it uses tech from storm shadow and meteor
StormShadow has only the 10th range of TLAM.
The costs must be just AVCAT, bunkers, ordnance, and scran. At 10 sorties a day for Typhoon and Tornado they can’t possibly being using the all-in cost per hour. I bet TD is breaking the figures down now on his abacus…..
@ Mark
Now this interesting. I suppose it is response to all the interest into C-RAM systems.
Rupert we don’t have ship launch tomahawk and only the cost of a storm shadow that includes development costs is in the public domain As for range storm shadow is classified but granted not as long as tomahawk but the as topman say they do very different things.
X if tomahawk has 10 times the range of stormshadow the we’ve broken a number of missile treaties in buying tomahawk.
What ya’ll need is like a Colonel’s revolt; because the Generals & Admirals are too politicized, and invested. Officers who know they won’t make it to the top brass, but have the ‘brass ones’ to unite, and tell the politicians off, but are still eligible for their pensions… The services are dissolving beneath them, who are they going to lead anyhow?
@ Mark
I am not having a good night am I?
I have checked out the new missile. Aviation Week says,
“Although primarily intended as a ship-launched system, it could be fired from any platform currently using Exocet or Harpoon missiles.”
All very interesting.
I have to admit, I’m not sure trying to rope in the press was a good idea by the seniors, but surely they could have rung each other up, banded together and written a closed letter to Dave calling him out on Libya.
One thing else that is bothering me, why are they still hammering “command centres” (some bloke on the news just had his private country retreat/command centre caved in with a few family members inside and no soldiers).
Why aren’t they focusing on using RAPTOR to try and get some info for the Johnny Rebs while going after their artillery and supplies at the front? Surely if they can get the Rebels into Tripoli they wont need to bomb command centres and other targets of the like?
You know what the UN should ban? “Compounds”
All these evil bods have them……
@ X*
Most of the compounds that NATO is talking about are like the houses in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Basically we are trying to put pressure on him by killing his generals and friends who have influence and to get them we are targeting their homes which we then call “military compounds” or “command centres”.
*the other day you gave me an idea which was of a way to explain why i think what we are doing with the military and the way we are using it will lead to a real honest to god mess. The idea, a way to explain it in language that they understand, evaporated cause i didn’t write it down right away and cause i got angry again about a related issue. Honestly, i do not spend most of my time angry, normally i am a relaxed, even easy going kind of bloke. I really wish i had wrote it down when i thought of it.
@ Mike (Civ)
Dude I was joking…………
This from 2010 MP Cameron to PM Brown:
“Why do you think all these people, dedicated to defence of this country, are wrong?”
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2887719/David-Cameron-fury-at-Labour-MPs-top-brass-Gordon-Brown-jibe.html
Clearly he now knows best and is not interested in listening to peoples expertise anymore.
Wstr, like it, am going to add that to the post
ChrisB
The plan, in my understanding, is for enough of the Gadafists to defect to the rebels that the Gadafist government collapses.
What better way to encourage defection than blowing up the homes of those who dont defect?
Regarding Tomahawk/Stormshadow Range
Both are of virtualy identical dimensions, and weights, carry the same weight warhead, have roughly comparable wingspans.
However, the Stormshadow travels at double the speed and has a 3x more powerful engine.
Since drag is something to do with the square of the speed (thats why a car at 30 kills and one at 20 kocks you over), rather than the speed, its not surprising that the Stormshadow has such a short range.
That said, I believe the more optimistic ranges for Tomawhawk are after being tossbombed from a great height and staying as high as possible as long as possible.
@ Dom
To me that sounds suspiciously like the WW2 terror campaigns all over again, and is relying on those officials and generals being sufficiently miffed that you blew up one of their mansions.
Of course it doesn’t help when intelligence identifies some blokes farm as a command centre either.
I think if it was me I’d want to focus on helping the Rebels reach Tripoli. That government will sooner collapse when they realise that the rebels are coming to get them….
It strikes me that the the SDSR is in fact a strategic OFFENSE review. The Defence Planning Assumptions look an awful lot like military interventions of choice. What if we actually need to defend ourselves (Nimrod??) how do you put a limit on that?
DomJ
“Since drag is something to do with the square of the speed (thats why a car at 30 kills and one at 20 kocks you over), rather than the speed, its not surprising that the Stormshadow has such a short range.”
Sorry but I think your confusing drag with kinetic energy for the car thing.
Without getting to technical As for drag while it does depend on dynamic pressure the drag will not increase proportionally as the speed squares due to a thing called reynolds number of the flow. Drag is much more dependant on skin friction coefficient which itself has more to do with the shape and AoA of the body in air.
To us on the outside we simply have no real idea of the effective operational ranges of these systems.
Re Political Generals.
English Generals has always been political, from Marlborough outright lying to the Dutch Electors to lead their army into Austria in the 18th Century, To Wellington briefing MP’s and writing letters to the Ministry in support for his peninsula campaign, to Montgomery constantly insisting to Churchill that “everything is going to plan”.
The difference in the 20th century is that during times of peace the Generals (and admirals and air marshalls) have to become PR experts.
This is just an extension of that, managing our expectations, so that we accept an early draw down in Afgan, or cessation in Libya without meeting all the objectives . . .
I think we should cut the Service chiefs some slack here. They are dealing with a man who not only thinks it is rational to slash defence spending in the middle of a war, but thinks it is a really really good idea to start another one.
Perhaps behind the scenes the Service chiefs have heard that he is about to start bombing Syria!
“That said, it is politicians that are in charge so no matter how much they can be charged with oxygen theft the fact is, senior officers should not be indulging in politics. Despite both of the head of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force being selectively misquoted the political impact has been significant, calling for a review of the SDSR by all the usual suspects.”
Before the Libyan adventure began I would expect Dave asked the MoD ‘Can you do it and for how long?’. What are they likely to have said? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was insensibly optimistic without mentioning the need to juggle funding and priorities if it went on too long.
A cynical thought – I can’t see a downside for the MoD. If they say we can do it and do it quickly, trebles all round. If they say we can do it and it drags on they leverage the funding and priorities issues, trebles all round. If they say we can do it and fail slate the Government for not giving them the toys they wanted, trebles all round.
Dave being prepared to put his foot down is good even if it looks silly. The politicians are in charge. It is a pity the MoD persist with making everything about money. The Top Brass don’t seem to give a fig for cost effectiveness and capabilities or that the politicians haven’t got a credible strategy mapped out. They just want money and to continue wasting it. Politicians don’t want to flesh out a strategy because it is politically unpleasant due to Europe being at the heart of it rather than British interests alone.
Is there an arena where MPs and MoD types can talk freely and publicly? They seem only able to do one of those at a time. This is an opportunity for the MoD to demand better (rather than a rote ‘more’) of politicians and for the politicians to demand more honesty from the MoD. Parliament has treated the MoD like a quango for too long. Neither side looks interested in fixing this.
You are right Gareth, I have just been reading something about the OUVS vehicle project which was split up into small and large categories.
The team in charge were not interested at all in achieving commonality between the two, going to the extent of warning bidders specifically that unsolicited responses on commonality would be ignored!
There is no doubt in my mind that for nearly £40b a year we get extremely poor value for money, which has nothing to do with the amount of money and everything to do with how we spend it
When I was in the Army, no soldier could publicly criticise his Commanding Officer without being fired. Period.
It was bad for discipline, bad for morale and frustrated completion of the mission at hand. Of course, we all criticised bad leadership privately among our peers, but we said nothing to our superiors or to those we commanded. A stony silence when asked to give feedback was usually enough to get bad leaders identified as such and replaced.
Like it or not, David Cameron is the Commanding Officer, just as Churchill was Field Marshal Montgomery’s war-time boss. Can you imagine us winning the war if Churchill had to contend with such disloyalty? In other words, it is totally unacceptable for any military commander to criticise political policy: that is the job of MPs elected by voters. I have no time for military leaders who play politics. They are not there to make policy, but to execute it via whatever means are placed at their disposal.
That said, I think David Cameron has proved to be more damaging to the British Army than any post war threat including the Taliban. Indeed, the Forces were an easy target for a government hell bent on cutting the deficit. He knows nothing about defence and doesn’t care about defence. He cares about getting re-elected. The SDSR was never about defining future capabilities and resourcing them adequately, it was simply a means of justifying massive cuts in the defence budget. This is obvious to anyone who knows anything about defence. It is a shame that Cameron hasn’t got the balls to admit it.
Desperate time times call for desperate measures, so fair enough. But to then commit us to a new campaign in Libya was an act of foolish hypocrisy. Cameron has totally destroyed the Services’ respect and confidence in him as tier leader. He has proved that he is no better than the his predecessors, who he so roundly condemned before the election. (Perhaps this is what voters thought at the time, which is why the Conservatives didn’t get a majority?)
I accept that the Country drowning in debt. But why can’t Cameron and Co simply have the honesty to say: ‘Look, we’d love to help out in Libya, but we don’t have the resources and cannot afford to raise them.’ Meanwhile, we’re capitulating in Afghanistan having achieved precisely nothing. There is no other way to say that the 375 servicemen and women who lost their lives did so in vain. Is Britain genuinely safer than it was before we deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq? I doubt it.
I am afraid that Cameron is a weak and barely competent leader. I think he is now living on borrowed time. The only thing that can sustain his administration is that Ed Milliband and Ed Balls are unelectable. What a sorry state of affairs.
Yes Cameron doesn’t care about defence but that’s simply a consequence if the fact that the public don’t care about defence. Yes they respect the personnel and will turn out for Armed Forces Day and contribute to Help for Heroes and the Poppy Day Appeal but as a vote changing issue it simply doesn’t register. The last time I looked at the most important issue question on a poll defence was down at about 2%, so politicians know they can use the defence budget as a soft target for cuts knowing there’s little electoral risk for them. If you were to ask 100 people if they’d rather money was spent on the A&E unit at their hospital or on Harriers for the Navy I think they’d all put their backyard ahead of the nation.
Sad but true.