The final part of the guest post series from Martin at Fantasy Fleets blog…
In this post I was attempting to take a top down approach to defence and foreign policy. Looking into the distance future to decide what policy decisions we could make today to improve our position in the world of 2050. We are not a massive country we must pick our battles and we really have to accept we cannot do everything.
Unfortunately we degenerated into the standard Army vs. Navy debate (not sure why no one ever stands up for the RAF). Few people seemed to disagree with my broader strategy or foreign policies but many people got bogged down with an Army of less than 100,000.
I realised my proposals on reforming the army away from divisions and brigades to instead 21 self-contained expeditionary units was controversial. I spent allot of time looking at this and I was sure that I would cop allot of quite possibly justified flack for it but no one seemed to care about that only that we kept numbers at the magic 100K level.
When we do not face a clear and present danger of a conventional threat we must find ways to justify defence expenditure to the public. Having the ability to deploy 10,000 troops in Afghanistan (7% of total) rather than 6,000 (4% of total) is not something either I or the public understand as a benefit. We must not forget that these extra 40,000 troops cost around £5 billion per year and keeping them in theatre an extra £2 billion per year (£70 billion over 10 years). That’s the cost of a high speed rail network running down both the East and West coast of the UK linking every major city in the country with each other.
If leaving the Army at 100,000 allowed us to conduct major independent deployments then I would consider scaling back on the naval expenditures I outlined but it doesn’t. It only allows us to make contributions to US lead coalitions. It may give us the second in command status but as we have seen over the past ten years this matters very little. I certainly can’t justify £7 billion per year to achieve this.
Several commentators were focused on the fact that 4 tanks were not enough to drive all the way to Bagdad. However these people are really not getting the entire debate. They are stuck in the nostalgic past or bitter present rather than looking at a realistic future. Even with 250 tanks we can’t drive all the way to Bagdad on our own. We simply cannot afford an army large enough to do this. In many circumstance on small scale deployments or even fighting insurgents a small amount of armour can be very useful. However the British Army seems to me the only one that does not realise this. They seem to feel forces either have to be light or heavy. After hearing some of the comments of its officers I am starting to understand why the army seems incapable of thinking out-side the box.
A force that relies on numbers of people alone highlights our weak position. The populations of the future super powers start at 200 million and rise to over a billion. How does a pissy little island with a population of 60 million make a difference in a world like that?
The answer is we play to our strengths. We use our safe geographic position” we are an island you know” to focus the largest part of our military forces on an area that relies not on numbers but on technology. We are able to concentrate our efforts on a naval force in a way that almost no other nation can match. It was said and not unwisely that “Armies fight Wars Navy’s win them”. By wars I am not talking about brining school’s to little girls in the mountains of Central Asia but real peer on peer conflicts by major powers trying to grab resources. Almost everyone seems to have in their mind that this simply cannot ever happen again. They point to the fact that the threat of nuclear weapons as with the Cuban Missile crisis negates this as a useful strategy. However if the past has told us anything it is that offensive and defensive technology will eventually balance out. The armour and guns of the battle ship were undefeatable until someone invented the aeroplane and the torpedo.
Missile defence has taken 30 years and billions of dollars to develop but it is now a reality. It’s not great but it’s getting better all the time. Meanwhile ICBM’s have reached a technological impasse. They have changed very little since the 1960’s. Yes things like stealth MIRV’s may help to keep them effective against current BMD systems using radar and missile based interceptors but what happens with BDM systems start deploying lasers and LIDAR or a range of other weapons and sensors. I am not talking Star Trek here but the world we are already moving into today. We have to understand that a world were nuclear weapons are defeat able will be a very different and more dangerous one than the world we live in today.
Many people asked why I was so against China. China is the natural peer enemy to look to. One way or another Russia is finished. Its population is dropping so quickly it really cannot represent the threat that it did with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It has all the natural resources it could ever require. China’s star is rising and un-like every other major rising super power it’s not a democracy. China is increasingly belligerent to its close neighbours in the South China Sea and it has one aim, to gain more and more resources to build its economy more and more. This would be fine if there were not so dammed many of them.
Just 200 million Chinese out of 1.3 billion have begun to reach the kind of per capita GDP of the average Mexican. That move was largely responsible for shifting oil prices from $10 a barrel in 1998 to $140 a barrel in 2008. What will happen when the other 1.1 billion Chinese decide they want to live like the average Mexican or worst still like me? Will they pay $400 – $500 a barrel for oil? Or will they do what the Germans did in the early part of the 20th Century and make a play to simply take what they need.
Other people asked me what we could ever hope to achieve against a force as great as China. My answer is that we could hope to deny them the use of the sea and the resources that can be brought from across it while at the same time building a coalition that can stand against them. The very same strategy we employed to defeat the French and Germans in the past. I am not war mongering here. I don’t want to fight China. However the only way to make China revert to peaceful means in a resource constrained world without the threat of nuclear weapons is to let them know they can be countered no mater were they turn. Large as it is China is still only 20% of the World. If they know the other 80% of us can and will stand against them then it becomes a simple equation for them to avoid military action. Today the USA along with a little help from NATO balances this equation. However the USA can no longer shoulder the burden on its own. We must do everything we can to help them.
As a small pissy island we have to think outside of the box when it comes to providing defence capabilities. Involving civilians and reservists in everything from Armoured Divisions and strategic lift to flying UCAV’s and providing sufficient satellite bandwidth can allow us to retain or in some circumstance enhance existing capabilities on a realistic budget.
We must demonstrate very clearly to the British people the benefit of our armed forces. Building something that can allow us to act independently should the government decide to do so or make a contribution to an international coalition while giving us the ability to influence allies and foes while enhancing our standing in the world is a way to do this. Maintaining a force which only allows us to subsidise the foreign policy of the USA does not.
I did not start out writing this article as a way to cut the Army in favour of the Navy. However I cannot see any other way to achieve the goals I outlined. While many people doubt the military effectiveness of carrier battle groups the one thing that is undeniable is their political statement. I think it is difficult for either current or ex-service personnel to understand that sometimes it’s not the very real and meaningful cooperation that goes on every day like counter terrorism or MCM that influences political leaders but big shinny pieces of metal with lots of fast pointy things on them. It should not be like that but there it is.
The key to achieving my strategy is to get India and Indonesia along with our current FPDA partners to form an alliance which does not include the USA but is every bit as close and effective a force as NATO is today.
I hear you all laughing but in the world of 2050 the defence budget of these players will likely far surpass the budget of NATO. We need to be the little lynch pin that holds together not just India and Indonesia or America and Europe but India, America, Europe and Indonesia together with the rest of the free world. Only this way can we truly matter in the world of 2050.
The only way I can see to do this on the budget we have is to send a large permanent fleet to the Far East and build an RAF and Army which can be supplemented by other European nations to act when needed. If anyone can come up with a better solution I look forward to reading it.
One way or another, the current run of disastrous campaigns will come to an end soon. We have to pick our heads up out of the mud of Afghanistan and look to the future in a way we have never done before. If we don’t we risk becoming the very thing we all seek to avoid, the Belgium of the 21st Century.
515 Comments
“not sure why no one ever stands up for the RAF”
I do!
An isolationist UKs armed forces would, in my mind, consist of little but a somewhat different RAF.
A few MPA, a few AWACS, a few fighter wings, about it really.
The problem is, I dont see a reason to expand that.
Anything the RAF can do outside the UK, generaly, others can do better/cheaper.
Good article.
“We are able to concentrate our efforts on a naval force in a way that almost no other nation can match.”
Agreed.
“We must demonstrate very clearly to the British people the benefit of our armed forces. Maintaining a force which only allows us to subsidise the foreign policy of the USA does not.”
Very much agreed.
For me the most frightening pier to pier conflict would be Brighton vs. Blackpool
Great series…
I’m there on the Maritime based strategy – we can either be great at one thing or increasingly mediocre at everything. I’m not quite on board with the need for a permanent far east fleet, but a global navy keeps a global reach.
Also, when we talk about a maritime based strategy this does include the need for an airforce (FAA) and an army (RMs) – sort out the ‘ownership’ / structure of these and then perhaps the RAF and Army will see their place in the strategy also.
Just to put my flag in the ground:
- All amphibious assault troops belong to the army. A small fleet protection / boarding party force would remain with the Navy.
- All strike / land recc a/c and UAVs belong to the RAF. Fleet air defence, MPA, ASW and ASuW stay with the RN.
Each force should focus on it’s roles rather than where they are based.
Does it make sense to have 3 branches of armed forces anymore? Maybe something like the US marines in command and control would work better for the smaller forces the UK is going to have. From what I see coming it appears that you all are heading to a force of about 200 combat aircraft across the board. I would hope that rather than sell your tanks, you would put them in storage and keep them ready. Training crews is much faster than building tanks, same with aircraft and ships.
Another point worth making, if a large conflict does break out, it is about impossible to build up a navy before the conflict is over. If you don’t have a large navy at the onset of hostilities you can forget it. On the other hand, an Army can be raised and trained in short time.
I’m sorry, but I imagine the Chinese would laugh at the thought of our Far East Fleet challenging them. You’d have to build a Navy the equivalent of that of the US to stand any chance of going toe to toe with them.
While BMD’s are getting better, we’re still talking about shooting down objects that travel at 5-7 km/s. That is never going to be an easy task, where the price of any failure can be measured in the millions of lives lost/severely affected.
A much better policy is to sit all the nations with a stake in the South China Sea down at a table and hammer out an agreement over the various rights, which is what will inevitable happen. It has to. The only other solution is outright nuclear war and even the Chinese don’t want that.
As time passes (you’re looking at the 2050 timeframe) oil is likely to become less, not more important. All across the world great leaps are being made in solving the oil endgame, with the preferred approach being to remove countries dependency on such resources.
I just think shifting our entire strategy to counter balance China is an incredible waste of resources. China is the least of our worries.
While I accept that trade etc is global, we are not really a global player on the same level as someone like the US. We still have a role to play in the world, albeit a reduced one.
I also have to take umbrage with the idea of big shiny toys influencing people, not the little stuff. That’s utter tosh. It’s the little stuff that makes all the difference. Italy now has more carriers (in the sense of ones that can launch attack aircraft) than we do, but their world influence is a fraction of ours.
There is an incredibly complex mix of things that go into diplomacy, and increasingly the threat posed by certain military toys are becoming an irrelevant part of that mix.
Phrank
If it could be made to work, I’m sure it would be a great help, but its caused problems every where its been implemented.
Not that three services doesnt cause problems of course, but the various services have cap badge rivalries within themselves, just as they have rivalries with other services.
Chris B
I suppose it defends how you define “Toe to Toe”
We could easily hold Diego Garcia, and use a large submarine fleet based there to blockade China in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
We could not do it against American Resistance, but we could do it without American support.
But you are right, thats a bonkers scenario.
The UK is nevergoing to be at war “1 on 1″ with China.
We’re very unlikely to be at war “1 on 1″ with anyone.
Theres a tiny chance of war with India over Diego Garcia, most easily solved by taking it back under British possession, and allowing both the US and India basing rights there
A more likely scenario of war against Argentina in the south atlantic, or perhaps Brazil in South Central
The Caribean islands are under effective US protection.
Spains unlikely to invade Gibralter.
Cyprus would turn into a three way war very quickly and I doubt anyone could find the Pitcairn Islands even if they wanted them.
That leaves us “sticking our noses” in other peoples wars.
Well, France and Germany have a military budget more than double that of Russia, add in italy and spain, and its three times it, add in Poland, Denmark, Norway, Greece and Turkey and 4x their budget.
So I have to agree Russia is effectivly contained.
Thats before one considers its complete lack of investment for three decades and its piss poor performance in Georgia and Chechnya.
That then brings us to South East Asia, where Chinas published military budget, is higher than the combined next 3 highest powers, Japan, India and South Korea, you have to add in Australia to match them, and you have to go very far afield to double Chinas budget.
Thats before adding in North Korea and Myanmar, both of whom have very large land armies, well positioned to keep South Korea busy, and harrass East India and Thailand / Vietnam.
North Koreas might be half trained half starved conscripts, but Myanmars are some of the most experienced in the world.
So, if a war in SE Asia happens, we have three choices, we can stand by, we can get involved on Chinas Side, or get involved on Everyone Elses side.
“I just think shifting our entire strategy to counter balance China is an incredible waste of resources. China is the least of our worries.”
I’m curious as to what you put at the top of the list?
“I also have to take umbrage with the idea of big shiny toys influencing people, not the little stuff. That’s utter tosh. It’s the little stuff that makes all the difference.”
Given Iraq is rapidly being absorbed into Iran, I question the “influence” of a couple of Brigades deployed for 10 years as well….
Germany and France may spend more than Russia, but how much does it cost, relatively speaking, to hire a russian soldier compared to a French one. I would also point out that German/Russian cooperation has been increasing rapidly over the last 5-10 years. It’s remarkable how their degree of cooperation, the recent world recession, and German desires to control markets across Europe mirror to a degree many of the conditions that sparked WW2…
Now I’m not suggesting that’s actually going to happen, but the situation in Europe is still uncertain and very much more in our interest than China is.
That’s before we start talking about “them islands” which, while not really facing much of a true threat, are certainly more likely to involve a war than our interactions with China are.
I would also say that we would be more likely to intervene in some UN/NATO operation in Africa (It’s all been kicking off in Southern Sudan again for example) than we would be an operation against the Chinese.
As for “blockading China”, again, their response would be rather hot. Can anybody remember the temperature off the top of their head at the centre of a nuclear blast? Vaporising, is all I remember from school.
“The People’s Liberation Army Navy” (PLAN) also owns close to 60 attack submarines and 40 odd Frigates. Now I can’t tell you much about the experience of their crews, the experience, knowledge and leadership of their officers, or the state of repair of their vessels, but I imgaine it’s a very safe bet that at least half of that equipment is usable and if that’s the case, then it’s more than enough to trash anything but the most temporary of blockades.
I would also be a little sceptical of just how quickly Iraq is slipping to Iran. They always knew, as did the West, that an “accomodation” would have to be found. You’re also missing the point that while those several brigades were present they had a lot of influence.
@ ChrisB – “I’m sorry, but I imagine the Chinese would laugh at the thought of our Far East Fleet challenging them. You’d have to build a Navy the equivalent of that of the US to stand any chance of going toe to toe with them.”
That is a straw-man.
1. Any UK involvement would be part of a coalition, the indian/pacific is not our pond after all.
2. Like it or not, this is the pacific century, this is where things will happen in the next fifty years, so if we wish to remain a ‘playa’ then we will be getting involved in pacific geo-politics.
I don’t see sending a large permanent fleet to the Far East as a budget option. A small permanent military office to handle liaison, administration and planning -located at a practical Far Eastern forward basing location- would be a whole lot cheaper to run.
If the South China Sea were to become our main focus of attention, I agree, a stronger navy across all aspects -ships, boats, aircraft and marines- would be desirable; plus the RAF assets needed to support the fleet -transport, refueling, MPA, etc. And the price of that would have to be the Army.
@ JEDBFTRX
It’s not a straw man. If you want to contribute alongside the US to a war against China, you would need a fleet comparable to the US fleet.
Our current fleet could perform certain tasks alongside the US, but if you want to have any major part in that sort of campaign you would need a much, much larger fleet; to the extent of spending almost the entire current budget on the Far East Fleet.
That would be ridiculous.
ChrisB
If Germany comes under Russian Dominium, then yes, we will have a serious problem.
But as a rule, when Germany wants something from the east, it takes it.
“I would also say that we would be more likely to intervene in some UN/NATO operation in Africa (It’s all been kicking off in Southern Sudan again for example) than we would be an operation against the Chinese.”
And you think we’re about to deploy another two combat Brigades as soon as we give up in Afghanistan?
Even thought the government has specificaly ruled out any serious fighting between 2015 and 2020?
“As for “blockading China”, again, their response would be rather hot. Can anybody remember the temperature off the top of their head at the centre of a nuclear blast? Vaporising, is all I remember from school.”
So whilst fighting a full scale war against South East Asia, they are going to go nuclear against the UK?
Doesnt exactly sound like a war winning strategy…
“The People’s Liberation Army Navy” (PLAN) also owns close to 60 attack submarines and 40 odd Frigates.”
And? I have no doubt they could defend the South China Sea quite well, but into the Indian Ocean?
Thats a long way for a diesel electric to travel, even if they can sneak through malacca when at war with Malaysia. Would a neutral Indonesia let them through Jakarta?
Surface ships wouldnt stand a chance of making the trip even once, so you can forget fuel replenishment at sea for the conventional submarines, they might be able to keep their nuclear subs supplied, for a while at least. Maybe once they break out, they can resupply in Myanmar, but they cant do any serious repair work there.
And of course, every vessel sent to hamper our blockade, is a vessel not stopping the American reinforcement of Japan.
Our current submarine fleet costs £200 million per submarine to run.
That’ll jump quite a bit as Astutes greater Capital Costs come into the equation, but even if it doubles, unlikely, a 10 Astute Fleet on Diego would cost less than £4bn, and would utterly dominate the Indian Ocean. Regardless of how many propeller driven diesels the Chinese build.
“You’re also missing the point that while those several brigades were present they had a lot of influence.”
And not a moment after they leave, they are forgotten.
BB
“I don’t see sending a large permanent fleet to the Far East as a budget option”
I suppose that depends how you define large and fleet.
I’d want 24/7 Airborne Radar, some Maritime Patrol, a fighter squadron, supporting AAR, 5 Submarines (at the most remember), and then some “presence” vessels, say 6 patrol ships, 3 bays and a supporting oiler/fooder.
Provide a bit of excess mooring, and living quarters, along with a large amount of stored supplies.
£3bn at the most, and you defend the worlds busiest shipping lanes.
With an option to double up the fast pointy assets and sever them to all except the US.
ChrisB
“It’s not a straw man. If you want to contribute alongside the US to a war against China, you would need a fleet comparable to the US fleet.”
So why dont we need a comparable army to contribute in Iraq and Afghanistan…..
“but if you want to have any major part in that sort of campaign you would need a much, much larger fleet; to the extent of spending almost the entire current budget on the Far East Fleet.”
See my above “Diego” fleet. Tack on the Carrier and escorts, not much chance of surving in the south china sea, but plenty to savage Chinas advance on Malaysia.
3bn might be a litle short for all that, Dom. You’d have to go out and buy much of it for starters. Then there is the cost of maintaining all that out east, plus things like transport, living allowances, schooling, health services, etc. All of it waiting for a still rather abstract and undefined future Far Eastern conflict.
Personally, I still see the need to focus our atention to the Middle East & Africa. A Far Eastern focus is still a big ‘if’.
BB
The upfront costs would be higher, although all three services, possibly not the RAF, are in dire need of a near complete refurbishment anyway.
Does it really matter if we spend £20bn on ships or on tanks?
At the earliest, its 5 years away before the US leaves, realisticaly, they’ll never go.
It might take a decade to get the army down to size through natural wastage.
@ DomJ
“And you think we’re about to deploy another two combat Brigades as soon as we give up in Afghanistan? Even thought the government has specificaly ruled out any serious fighting between 2015 and 2020?”
– If fighting in Southern Sudan were to escalate and spread over the borders, threatening somewhere like Kenya and potentially Somalia, with some sort of Pan-African religious conflict, do you really think a British Prime Minister – with the chance to do the right thing and win political capital as a “peacekeeper” in the process – wouldn’t intervene? You’d have to restrain the man from committing the entire force to such an opportunity.
Or what if violence in Zimbabwe spread and threatened multiple regions, leaving mass executions in it’s wake. What Prime Minister could afford to sit back and let a second Rwanda take place?
Or what if the religiously motivated violence in Northern Nigeria spreads south, threatening oil exports? Would the UN sit back and let that happen? I doubt it.
All of those scenarios are big “What If’s?”, but share the common trait of being distinctly more likely/plausable than a blockade of China leading to WW3.
“So whilst fighting a full scale war against South East Asia, they are going to go nuclear against the UK? Doesnt exactly sound like a war winning strategy…”
– Generally I would expect a British blockade of their main sea lanes to be met with a response against the UK and anyone else involved. When Germany attempted to blockade the UK in both world wars, surprisingly enough our response was to attack Germany in return.
“And? I have no doubt they could defend the South China Sea quite well, but into the Indian Ocean?
Thats a long way for a diesel electric to travel,”
– Not really. They wouldn’t be trying to dominate the Indian Ocean, just prise open this blockade. They also have nuclear submarines I should point out.
“Even if they can sneak through malacca when at war with Malaysia. Would a neutral Indonesia let them through Jakarta? Surface ships wouldnt stand a chance of making the trip even once, so you can forget fuel replenishment at sea for the conventional submarines, they might be able to keep their nuclear subs supplied, for a while at least. Maybe once they break out, they can resupply in Myanmar, but they cant do any serious repair work there.”
– Google Chinese Naval Bases in Pakistan. By the time you’ve built your Far East Fleet, the Chinese will have completed their plans to put naval bases in Pakistan.
“Our current submarine fleet costs £200 million per submarine to run. That’ll jump quite a bit as Astutes greater Capital Costs come into the equation, but even if it doubles, unlikely, a 10 Astute Fleet on Diego would cost less than £4bn.”
– And how much for the hardened base, capable of supporting Nuclear Submarines?
“… and would utterly dominate the Indian Ocean. Regardless of how many propeller driven diesels the Chinese build.”
– Until the Chinese take offence to a British blockade of their supply lines, and glass the base.
“So why dont we need a comparable army to contribute in Iraq and Afghanistan…..”
– Hell of a difference fighting Iraq and Afghanistan versus taking on the entire Chinese military.
Well done series, Martin. Congrats!
While I share and support most of it’s views, I cannot really see the rationale strategy-wise.
Containing China was always been the US task. And for them, it is still very easy to achieve. The sell equipment to official and inofficoal allies in WestPac, while they use a pro-democratic / proto-capitalist impetus in Myanmar and Vietnam to turn those countries. That India seeks to contain China as well plays well into Americas hands.
IMO the Chinese try to counter this by developing a direct energy supply through its satellites Iran and Pakistan, which will be enormously hard to tackle. The other direction of chinese expansion will clearly be Siberia. Russia is the only european empire which is still not (entirely) collapsed. Expect this to happen in the next 30 years, with indirect chinese intervention.
Realistically, the Indian or Pacific Oceans are not our domain. We have ties to many countries there, some of them have just fallen into the chinese sphere because of our disinterest or because of a very bad stance. Shouldn’t the DfID-budget be used to promote a positive view on the UK? In practice this would mean: elevate Sri Lanka to tiger nation status, ditto Myanmar. Don’t expect results in the short term. We need to shape a whole generations view on Britain, before we can expect results.
And yes, this may not be popular here, investing in heritage i.e. trooping the colour, HMS Victory or the RAF historic flight is a good investment. Maybe better than the whole Typhoon-fleet. The simple fact is, that Trooping the colour = british military to most civilian foreigners.
@ DomJ, ChrisB
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/china-submarines/
Don’t think we need to worry to much about a chinas submarine fleet. They appear to be at about 1970′s soviet level of development.
I don’t have the link but I’m sure it’s out there somewhere, to a story about an American Carrier battle group that got quite the surprise treat when a Chinese submarine surfaceed just behind them….
Well, here’s the Daily Mail’s version of the story, first thing that came up;
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-492804/The-uninvited-guest-Chinese-sub-pops-middle-U-S-Navy-exercise-leaving-military-chiefs-red-faced.html
@ ChrisB,
Conventional subs ‘sink’ US carriers all the time in RimPac exercises. ( western air independent types.) The only way the yanks stop it from happening is to cheat and use boundaries and set distances to stop their opponents from getting close enough to do it. I’d like to see a chinese sub do that to an aware enemy thats unleased its SSN’s and maritime patrol into the pacific.
The kind of noise they radiate to get any useful distance in a useful time is so great that you can track them from the other side of the pacific!
Not for a moment do I believe the USN didn’t know that Chinese submarine was there. A bit of apparent embarrassment and diplomatic bluster is worth the Chinese thinking their submarines (and more importantly their crews) are capable of such feats. Until recently the Chinese boats were getting to sea. As has been pointed out the Chinese SSNs bang like a base drum.
As for Western AIP SSKs, well that is an entirely different kettle of dolphins.
chrisb
yes an no.
Subs are very effective on the defence, especialy diesel electrics.
They get into position, switch their engines off, and wait for the enemy fleet to drive over them. its very difficult to spot a sub running on batteries thats stood still.
Only works if the enemy has to come to you.
You cant sneak into diego garcia.
Still dont get why china would nuke diego for blowing up an oil tanker, but not an indian armoured division liberating tibet?
Or a US carrier battlegroup (or three) annihiliting the chinese army in its transport assets?
*also germany bombed london after 12 straight nights of the raf bombing berlin.
It also occurs the malaysia would be stopping any china bound oil tankers…
With all the talk of submarine detection. Remember that in normal peace time cruising the sonar desks may not even be manned. If they were it would be passive only. Systems like 2087 and other low frequecy active systems can pick up SSKs doggo on the bottom at 40k yards. In a war time footing they will not have the power dialled down or anyone worrying about whales and dolphins.
What everyone is forgetting is that the UK could be supported by the Dominions/Kingdoms Still under Royal Rule(i.e. Australia, New Zealand & Canada). If we were to come under attack I doubt they would stand ideally by. It might require some hard, fast and clever politics, but they could be drawn into the “war”.
[Damn editing]
Australia could provide a base for this “Far East Fleet”, so could Singapore. (AFAIK we still have very good relations with them).
Also the “hard,fast and clever politics” might be beyond what our politicos can manage. But then I Doubt they can even do up their laces.;)
And Talk of “Glassing” This and That? wouldn’t the normal response be to gasp in horror then retaliate in kind. China may be large but most of the population and industry is on the coast very easy for a couple of nuclear armed subs to sneak in and nuke everyone.
I know I know its an evil thought but all avenues must be considered.
I’m willing for an army less then 100k but i’m stuck on either 60k or 80k. I agrree we do need a larger navy but it needs to be well built as in i don’t trust anyone in the admiralty or MoD.:(
@ DomJ
China has something like 400 warheads. That’s more than enough to spread around.
In general,
It was a Carrier battle group on exercise. Even if they were only listening passively, that surprise appearance would negate the apparent loud clattering reported by others.
Either way, it doesn’t really matter. The whole argument is a non-sense; that you could blockade a country like China without it responding with its maximum effort. What country of that power would just sit on its hands an do f**k all to defend itself?
It’s just a stupid argument, at least in my opinion. It’s up there with the raid on Murmansk and blowing up Argentine dams.
Chris, it is as stupid as my manually loaded 40mm CTAI cannon mounted on a traversing mount on a Jackal :)
Keep plugging that dream. Eventually someone will pick it up.
I’m with those thinking that some Far Eastern Fleet is biting off more than we can afford to chew (mixed metaphor – sorry). However, I do like the concept of pre-positioning stocks and having bases available on all sides of Africa, which is I believe more of a likely military scenario than anything in the Pacific. Clearly, lots of our trade is with the Pacific, and we should not shirk on diplomatic efforts both directly and indirectly, but with the news today of the US cutting back its’ global military capabilities and concentrating on the Pacific, I think there is a strategic deal we could strike with the US. Here’s my outline:
1. Continued basing rights for US floaty boats and planes in Diego Garcia, to which the UK would commit some money to extending and making the base bi-national. Build proper sub facilities in Diego Garcia and Ascension, and use them frequently.
2. Divide the Indian Ocean into 3 zones, of which 2 a US lead and we cover the third. East of longitude 72 degrees east (i.e. of Diego Garcia) – US lead. North of the equator and east of 60 degrees – US lead, UK support (i.e. west Indian, Pakistani waters and the Gulf itself. All of southern Arabia waters, Red Sea, and the east African coast a UK lead.
3. As we are in the Med, except US visiting rights to the SBAs in Cyprus.
4. FI plus Ascension to be upgraded to offer US visiting and berthing rights, and the new airfield on St Helena also opened to then US when it comes on line.
That saves a US fleet, binds us tight to the US, and we watch out for each others’ interests as well as our own. Throw in joint training and liaison as well in those specific areas. It gives the UK strategic approaches to most of Africa, which we know, have an Anglosphere connection with many countries, and also a naval presence on some major trade routes. It gives the US staging posts in two areas key to them (eastern Med and central Indian Ocean), and sends the world a message. Throw in an annual 5-Eyes exercise and the Anglosphere looks to have got itself organised.
@James,
I Like it, unfortunately Akrotiri has only a tiny harbour on the mole not even big enough for an MCMV. The US already has a presence in the SBA areas, they operate a U2 from Akrotiri.
Hi James, agree with your thinking
About these two particularly:
“1. Continued basing rights for US floaty boats and planes in Diego Garcia, to which the UK would commit some money to extending and making the base bi-national. Build proper sub facilities in Diego Garcia and Ascension, and use them frequently.”
- as DG will revert back to us in a couple of years, make spending the money a consideration for the extension (remember: Cash & Carry carried a hefty price)
“2. Divide the Indian Ocean into 3 zones, of which 2 a US lead and we cover the third. East of longitude 72 degrees east (i.e. of Diego Garcia) – US lead. North of the equator and east of 60 degrees – US lead, UK support (i.e. west Indian, Pakistani waters and the Gulf itself. All of southern Arabia waters, Red Sea, and the east African coast a UK lead.”
- v good (except the Yemen/ Somalia gap should have special provisions, just in case it became contested)
- negotiate Simonstown basing rights, to add to the chain of pearls?
The US could just hand over the Atlantic to the RN in order to concentrate on the Pacific. Then have one carrier group for the north Atlantic/Mediterranean, and another for the South Atlantic/African coast. No messy far east deployments.
@ Jedi and Repulse, Thanks for you positive comments throughout the series.
@ Repulse I very much agree that a clearer definition between forces would help and involving them all in a grand strategy would ease inter service rivalry however I have little faith in the high echelons of the command structure in all three services to put the politicking aside. It’s not a new thing. It’s been going on for over 100 years. I think it’s so engrained in their psyche they well never been able to let it go.
@ Brian Black –
“A small permanent military office to handle liaison, administration and planning -located at a practical Far Eastern forward basing location- would be a whole lot cheaper to run”.
We already have this at Butterworth Airbase in Penang where a LT com and staff are permanently based as part of the FPDA.
@ Chris B
“While BMD’s are getting better, we’re still talking about shooting down objects that travel at 5-7 km/s. That is never going to be an easy task, where the price of any failure can be measured in the millions of lives lost/severely affected”.
With present technology yes it’s difficult however lasers travel at 300,000 Km/s. While it’s still a little sci-fi today let’s not forget actual naval vessels are being designed for an in some cases armed with energy weapons. The ICBM is still stuck in a 1960’s configuration and while it probably possible to improve a bit on its effectiveness BMD technology is moving in leaps and bounds. Eventually it will be able to counter ICBM’s with a very high degree of probability. While this probability error may be far too much for us to consider acceptable i.e. one or two warheads getting through the Chinese do not think the same way we do.
@ JS123 – I agree to a certain point that the army can be regenerated allot quicker than either a navy or air force. Especially if the skills are retained in some format.
@ Chris B – I am not looking to go toe to toe with China alone. I am looking to get involved in the geo politics of the Asia Pacific region. I also think even just a handful of our SSN’s would be enough to spoil anyone’s day. I take your point about the South China Sea but I think this is a symptom of the problem not the cause. I think China does have rights to a good part of the SCS. The USA should not operate carriers there. How would the US feel about a Chinese Carrier in the Caribbean? I ma far more concerned about what happens after the Chinese begin to look beyond the SCS and into the India Ocean. An area where we have substantial interest.
I very much hope oil becomes less important however the scale of finding a cheaper easier to use substitute for oil really does boggle the mind and I am yet to see even a theoretical technology that can do this on the scale required for the price we need.
@ Jedi
Like it or not, this is the pacific century, this is where things will happen in the next fifty years, so if we wish to remain a ‘playa’ then we will be getting involved in pacific geo-politics.
Very much agreed.
@ Chris B – The Far East Fleet I outlined is a pretty capable entity even by US fleet standards and well within our defence budget capabilities.
@ James – I agree with allot of what you say however it still leaves us as now entirely wed to US Grand Strategy. I seriously doubt they will be willing to give us a free hand in Africa.
I do not understand the fixation with China as a strategic issue. Sure it’s a big country making its presence felt for the first time, it’s foreign, and if you are old enough to know about the opium wars you would recall that it isn’t ‘on our side’. But putting aside ancient history an irrational fear of things foreign, I can’t see that we would ever be alone in a conflict of strategic significance with China.
I suspect the world has moved on from strategic interests being definable in military terms: guarding X against Y, or imagining if we wave our flag in someone else’s backyard they’ll give us something in return. Hypothesising strategic issues to justify a military posture is an exercise in frustration:
- The argument about protecting access to scarce resources is not compelling. Most of what you can think of by way of resources are available from more than one producer or in an open spot market, so if someone chooses not to deal with you, you would just buy it from somewhere else. Yes there are a few things that only come from one place, but (a) its surprising what you can live without (b) it can be purchased via an intermediary (c) if its a case of the producer will not sell it to anyone and its not (a) then its everyone’s problem, not something the UK has to solve by itself. The UK’s biggest resource concern is gas from Norway and electricity from France, neither of which are irreplaceable or would result in military action if they ceased.
- Global free trade with WTO rules pretty much takes the ability to trade off the table as a military issue.
- We’re an island you know – yes but not particularly one with a merchant navy of any size. The global fleet is international mostly non-British and more often than not carries mixed nationality cargoes. So any general attack on shipping is an international concern not solely the UK’s problem to sort out. Okay someone could target specifically sensitive UK bound shipping, but we would notice anyone building the means to undertake that at a strategic rather than opportunistic level.
- In the old days of course people were happy to steal other peoples’ territory. Back then it was pretty blatant – if you fancied a bit of somewhere and you thought you could get away with it, then you took it. Not so now. In an age of a global media, instant communications, the UN (for all its faults), etc, it would be pretty hard to get away with that. Democratic governments would fear retribution from their own electorate or other democratic governments, and even dictators want to look good internationally because they know their own position would be in doubt if the rest of the world was motivated to do something about it. Compared with the age of colonial empires, Nazi’s and Iron Curtains, the threat of conflict over the ownership of territory is decreasing.
- We need to be realistic about what military actions achieve and therefore what a military lead national strategy is worth to either side. It’s a deterrent up to a point and has transformational effect in some cases. But long term actions predictably fail without: political support at home, world opinion and media in your pocket, the availability of convincing overwhelming force, huge amounts of money, your troops being willing to suffer casualities and the tide of history generally being on your side.
None of this is to say that we don’t need a military, we certainly do; there are still people who would cause us and/or our friends problems, there are still places where territory is actively in dispute (including the FI), international situations we would want to prevail in, terrorism to contain, and missions our politicians will get us into (not to mention the non-shooting stuff). But this does not lend itself to any predisposed military posture. Our next military venture will be reactionary and circumstantial and very likely something we haven’t thought of yet. Contrary to having a nailed down strategy this requires the less satisfying preparation for the unknown – which means balanced flexible forces.
Well said Richard
Couldn’t agree more Richard. That post should be framed in a heavy iron frame and used to beat people with.
I keep wanting to answer “Germany” to every post.
“I can’t see that we would ever be alone in a conflict of strategic significance with China.”
Much the same was said about Germany, weeks before the worlds the most costly war, and years before its second most.
“Global free trade with WTO rules pretty much takes the ability to trade off the table as a military issue.”
And how many divisions does the WTO have?
The UK is a member of the worlds largest protected market.
Trade within the EU may be free, but into it is not, with tarifs on australian wine, pakistani bras ect, not to mention subsidies on internal agriculture.
The idea of free trade is fairly new.
The idea of free trade for client states is very new indeed.
Adam Smith might have wanted to buy American Corn, but he didnt extend that privillage to allowing Indians to buy anything but Lancashire Cotton.
Japans plan for the second world war, and Chinas plan for the third, is the creation of a closed empire from Hawaii to South Africa.
The Empire nation might have free world trade, but its satraps will buy what they are told.
“Compared with the age of colonial empires, Nazi’s and Iron Curtains, the threat of conflict over the ownership of territory is decreasing.”
That age was 70 years ago.
We had instant global communications then.
Hitler stood on the roof top and screamed “we will take their land by force for we are the chosen”.
*****************
“which means balanced flexible forces.”
Paid for how?
We cannot have a force that is balanced and flexible because we do not have the budget for it.
Seriously now, hand on heart, if this was 1990 and “options for change” had just been published, who on here would have said
120,000 men is not enough
120,000 men is the right amount
120,000 men is too many
Because the army your defending as “balanced” and useful is a mere 82,000.
Forgive me, I was a bit young when “Soldier Soldier” was on, but I dont remember any arguements except “These cuts are catastrophic and the army is unsustainable below these levels.”
Did I just miss the people who said thats 50% over what we need?
A light infantry company, a patrol boat, and a Cesna is a balanced force. But its a useless force as well.
Two points in the article got my attention. The Chinese state is currently authoritarian but by the time this strategy develops many people predict it will at least be moving towards democracy, if not completely democratic.
Secondly, the article states that a maritime strategy would focus on our strengths of small, high tech warships. However, if we go with a high end “Ferrari” fleet will we have enough hulls? Wouldn’t a hi-lo mix of escorts (and even carriers) be necessary?
@ RichardW – “We’re an island you know – yes but not particularly one with a merchant navy of any size. The global fleet is international mostly non-British and more often than not carries mixed nationality cargoes.”
The comment about our (lack of a) merchant navy rather misses the point about being an island nation ™.
The significance of being an island nation is that we do not have to overly concern ourselves with the possibility of a neighbour rolling tanks across the border on a Friday afternoon, as our continental neighbours do.
We are therefore less constrained by the need to position fixed heavy-formations to deter against the potential for immediate & catastrophic failure in the event of general warfare.
The probability may be low, but the impact is high, therefore resources deployed in response to the severity of the threat. We made the same calculation here:
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sites/default/files/resources/Factsheet2-National-Security-Risk-Assessment.pdf
We are an island you know!
“which means balanced flexible forces”
The two most famous buzzwords in one sentence. How does ‘flexible’ translate into force-structure and equipment? Isn’t ‘flexible’ another word for ‘interoperable’? Isn’t ‘balance’ an approach to make the forces interoperable?
To me, this is the core problem to solve.
We need interoperable forces. We need procurement that brings together various part of the defence puzzle. Instead we procure island solutions along service-borders not fitting together.
It’s pretty clear to me, that the navy is the natural connection point here. And it has already bought into this by procuring CVF in favour of RN-only assets. The RAF would need to concentrate on A400M instead on fast-jets to mirror this. The army would need to make itself less heavy with a little less or preferrably equal punch.
Gareth
Its a bit of a myth that democracies dont go to war.
Most parties in the world wars were at least a limited democracy.
The UK was for both, as was the UK, Germany was for both (Hitler had far less dictatorial power than Churchill), France was for both, Russia was for the first(!) as was the Ottoman empire.
Even the Japanese Empire, was a democracy, for both world wars.
Spain, with openly rigged elections, sat out the first world war, and Franco, the second.
Democratic China does not equal Peaceful China. It could be quite the opposite, as leaders facing elections, or even just protests, go for broke, blame foreigner and invade the falklands parcel islands.
The “Core” budget for the armed forces, is about £30bn
Spilt roughly 3:3:4 in favour of the army.
Change that split to 6:2:2 in favour of the navy, and you can double the navy, probably more as design costs are further split (Darings are only £650mn, its just they cost nearly £3bn to design, hell an additional carrier only costs another £650mn (although its airgroup, considerably more))
Jedi
Indeed, how are people still not getting this.
Chinese tanks can drive from Beijing to New Dehli, or Tehran, or Moscow, or Tel Aviv, or Berlin, or Harare or Lisbon, or Cape Town.
They cant drive to London, or Tokyo.
Conversly, the UK cant drive to Paris or Berlin
“In the old days of course people were happy to steal other peoples’ territory.”
You do know that China, India and Saudi-Arabia are buying arable land like hell as we speak? You do know there is an effect called ‘salinisation’, who drives this run? You do know part of the competition has moved from territory to EEZs and continental shelf issues?
Nobody apart from the US has both large military and naval fleets. Though if things carry on on the same trajectory China will soon be in that position too. Tiny Singapore and not much bigger Netherlands and Norway all have bigger merchant fleets than the UK. Japan with the world’s largest merchant fleet has trouble deploying its military fleet because of its constitution. Navies to defend merchant fleets really went out with WW2. It is odd though when you consider all this talk of Iran and those straits everybody turns to the USN. There has to be some sea power somewhere in the system. Just because we don’t have much of our own doesn’t mean we don’t need.
As for tanks across borders. Well I am fascinated by how the Scandinavian countries peaceful as they are and considering their geography still invest in and have the support of the people in doing so large home guard organisations. The same could be said of the Swiss too. Proportionally if the UK had a home guard manned to the same levels as the Norwegian home guard it would have 750,000 bods under arms. On an historical note back in the late 19th century early 20th century Lord Roberts campaign to promote rifle shooting for defence of the UK home islands met opposition from those in the navy lobby. The argument was a strong navy meant that the UK didn’t an armed populous. Fast forward today and British subjects can’t own their nation’s service rifle. The Territorial Army doesn’t defend any territory. The navy shrinks year by year. If I read correctly the subtext of a good number of posts over at ARRSE that mention the navy the senior service seems to be to many there unnecessary and a waste. Those who shout this message the loudest seem to forget that without US sea and diplomatic power they wouldn’t be able to deploy. And lastly the only home islands defence measure HMG seems to show concern for is keeping 72 Typhoons for air defence even though there is no real threat for them to counter and against a modern air attack (such as a mass cruise missile attack) they have little worth.
@ Dom – “A light infantry company, a patrol boat, and a Cesna is a balanced force. But its a useless force as well.”
Very much agreed.
Dom the Democratic Peace Theory says that democracies do not go to war with one another. I cannot remember the evidence for this off the top of my head but I don’t think there has ever been an instance, dependant on definitions of democracy I suppose. Overall though it seems to me a compelling theory.
surely to have a strong navy would achieve very little against china. the maximum range of an f-35c is only about 500 miles and they could not prevent china seizing any resources it wants from burma? or if they were really desperate russia. a strong navy could not be more than a hinderance to a aggressive china.
phil
it was very ‘no *true* scotsman’, in that the catagories for both democracy and war were altered to fit the theory.
DomJ
Nazi Germany a democracy? Are you sure?
john
yes, the reichstag was more in control of germany than the house of commons was of the uk.
And the kaiser was no more a dictator than the king was.
DJ
Sorry but I cannot let the democracy crack pass.
I universal suffrage of all classes / sexes / races, was a post ww1 event, pretty much across the board.
De facto universal representative democracy, secret ballot etc is largely a post WW2 event.
Remember blacks could not vote in USA until 1950′s.
Germany was emphatically not a democracy in ww1 the Kaiser himself described it as a war against democracy.
Whatever the technical constitutional situation; in reality Germany was a one party oppressive state when it entered WW2.
Russia in ww1 a democracy! It still had serfs for gods sake! (As did eastern Prussia).
DomJ
I thought Hitler burnt it down.
Like wise Herman Goering described the 1933 election as the last in German history.
On this one you are not just barking up the wrong tree; your just barking mate.
I’d support Richard’s assessment of China and point out that China has two major challenges ahead.
The first is that eventually the Chinese economy will run out of steam. It’s based on a model where growth is more important than profit. It doesn’t matter how much profit they make off of building iPhone’s, as long as they keep building them and thus keep the people in the factory employed. With rising wages at home and the growth of manufacturing in other low wage countries, that will put China’s long term growth plans in doubt.
The second is that China is closing in on something approaching democracy. The main catalyst for this is the multitude of “Weibo” sites (“Microblogging”; a kind of cross between Facebook and Twitter). The simple fact is that a combination of young to middle aged individuals, who have been exposed to the outside world, now have a platform from which to tell others about their experiences.
The ability of the Chinese state to control information is degrading by the day, and unfortunately for the Chinese state that’s a horse that has bolted and is not coming back. The best that the Chinese state can hope for is a kind of managed transition, a bit like we’re seeing in Egypt, where the central party will control most of the levers behind the scenes but gradually see it’s power eroded over the course of several decades.
That’s not to say though, as others have pointed out, that deomcracy will end Chinese ambitions, just curb them a little and make it more difficult to act without the agreement of the international community.
Realistcally I don’t see a benefit to the UK getting too heavily involved in Pacific politics. Other than the trade we have with China, our interests are much closer to home. As poorer countries develop their economies and their manufacturing bases, it’s likely that they will remove much of the incentive for UK trade with China.
As for the “We are an Island”, technically yes, but the reality of what it is to be an Island has changed a lot. We have a land bridge to the continent thanks to the channel tunnel, you can cross the English channel on any one of a large number of ferries, and it only takes 5 minutes more to fly from Stanstead to Amsterdam than it would for me to get a bus to Colchester.
It’s true that we do a lot of trading overseas, but the bulk of that is done with Europe. We export more goods (in value) to Holland and Belgium combined than we do to the US.
I just think that a very strongly Navy centric defence budget that sacrifices the other two services on the Admirals altar would be out of kilter with the reality of our defence needs and our recent defence experience.
It’s also a good point that’s been made several times that shutting the Straits of Hormuz for example is not a solely British problem. That would be a massive global problem, not least for Irans neighbours.
Which means the response would be global.
Just an interesting aside, here is the latest Iranian claims about their weapons, if you fancy a chuckle;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i__ORnXCd8&feature=g-u&context=G2f87c7aFUAAAAHgAHAA
China faces a demographic collapse too as the “one child per couple” policy (sensible at the time) has scuppered further population growth as those now wealthier single children are going on to only child themselves by choice due to expense and simple preference. The OPC policy isn’t as rigidly enforced in some places as it once was.
The other thing to consider is that word democracy has very much a different application in the Far East. Just as capitalism and free market are interpreted differently too. Take Japan for a long time the world’s second biggest economy. How many Japanese PM’s can you name of the top of you head? Or even their political parties? In the Far East politics has different relationship to commerce. This is how the Chinese manage to be both communist and free marketeers.
@ Chris B
BR once had an advert that made a great play of the fact that the London-Norwich train took as long to get to is destination as the London-NY Concorde flight did!
Not sure where this democratic Utopia is, but let’s all move to this fantasy land… A few quotes I particularly like:
“Naturally the common people don’t want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY.” ~ Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg Trials ~
“The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.” ~ Winston Churchill ~
It’s as easy as trying to find some WMD’s or creating a “security buffer”… The world is full of historical injustices, contested boundaries, religion and greed.
“in that the catagories for both democracy and war were altered to fit the theory.”
Where?
@chris.B
“with the reality of our defence needs and our recent defence experience.”
The recent defence experience is a poorly judged mess. Land wars of luxury in Asia can no longer be the way forward; they are simply unaffordable and destroy not only the morale of our forces but also our stance in the world.
“It’s also a good point that’s been made several times that shutting the Straits of Hormuz for example is not a solely British problem. That would be a massive global problem, not least for Irans neighbours.”
Errm, it would be a problem for the west and it’s allies in the region. If Iran wouldn’t export much of it’s crude to the far east and especially China, I think they would not be that bold.
@x
“This is how the Chinese manage to be both communist and free marketeers.”
The PRC has no free market. You cannot get access without building some sort of joint venture, and since the chinese partners are selected by the government, central or local. The chances to find yourself in bed with a state company are pretty high.
You also cannot simply buy a chinese company.
There is some sort of economy appeasement at work, especially in the US.
@ McZ
Land Wars have been our defence experience for many, many years now. The fact that the two most recent were fought in Asia is almost irrelevant. The next might be in Africa.
As for Iran, if they try and cut the Straits then everyone who gets resources from that region will be affected, not just the West. It would be left to the US to form the core of any operation no doubt, but it would have broad international support, as it would effect a hell of a lot of people.
The land wars fought during teh break up of teh empire and proxy anti communist campaigns were one thing. Iraq and Afghanistan were monumental mistakes of foreign policy. Wars of pure choice, look at how Iraq is beginning to unravel before our eyes. 24 hours was all it took from the last US border crossing to arrest warrants being issued for members of the Government by other members and bombings.
Afghnaistan will be just the same. Maybe if we did not have the capability to get involved to such an extent the world would be a safer place.
If we were forced to actually only act when it was in our National security interests.
I agree with most posters on the SOH issue, cannot see the Iranians pissing off the Chinese. Interestingly enough when talking about the Uk suppplying nice assets. The 4 UK MCMVs in Manama are critical to the US response plan, the only item in the entire UK military SOM that the US require and cannot replicate.
Perhaps I was little loose with the term free market. China does derive wealth from a free market, but one that is outside its borders. But middle class Chinese do have agency within their own borders to choose goods and services. Chinese buy Mercedes and Audis and Apples over domestic products. Or should that be they choose foreign designs over domestic designs? In the Chinese middle class there is a lot of cache in buying items that are both designed and built abroad. Lastly I did say “Just as capitalism and free market are interpreted differently too.” It is interesting to compare PRC with Taiwan. The latter is completely open and many of today’s Taiwanese mega-corporations went from family living room (not garage!) operations to entities owning multiple factory in very short order. And for every one that makes it there are dozens that don’t. Korea has completely different take on the free market/capitalist system with the chaebols.
So……..
My favourite story to do with China and build things, that is building fake things, concerns Jeep. Through their Chinese partner company Jeep were selling 6500 cars a year in 2002. Yet there appeared to be a lot more Jeeps being registered. After investigating this Jeep found out there were 8 (eight) other factories building fake Jeeps and producing 65,000 extra cars a year.
X They may be producing 65,000 Jeeps a year but in the hinterland they still use horses and carts. No electricty and hundreds of millions live on subsistence farms in basically 13th century conditions. That is a problem that will eventually have to be addressed.
@ APATS
Never said the Chinese didn’t have problems. And if the world goes tits up because of solar flares or the oil disappearing thanks to those 13th century farmers the Chinese will still be in front as the rest of the world turns to barbarism. Damn those inscrutable occidentals!!!
Though with China buying up African farm land and using modern intensive farming techniques the collapse of rural China might not be too catastrophic after all.
X Unless you are living in rural China of course!
@ Gareth Jones – I would certainly advocate a high low strategy. I was merely pointing out that naval power relies on technology more so than the army where man power is the main driver and that is an area where we have weaknesses being a small island without a massive population.
@ Richard W – There is that word again balanced. But what does a flexible balanced force look like. Surely a properly balanced force and budget would see roughly 1/3rd of all funding going to each of the services. That would give us an RN 100% larger, an RAF 50% bigger and an Army 50% smaller.
@ Dolliot3 – Don’t think the F35C is the issue. If things ever did kick off with China a naval blockade in the India Ocean would be our only response available to cut there oil principally. Worked pretty well against the Germans in 1917.
@ Chris B
Land Wars have been our defence experience for many, many years now. The fact that the two most recent were fought in Asia is almost irrelevant. The next might be in Africa.
Yeah but what gain did we get from those wars? A broken down Army, and heavily indebted economy and the closer friendship on an ally who will not even allow us access to the source code on a plane we are supposed to be jointly developing. Was it worth £100 billion?
@ Martin
Whether it was right or wrong is down to politicians and votes. How much would the US consider our friendship if we had contributed nothing? Would they have pitched in for Ellamy? Would they be taking a more aggressive stance with Las Malvinas?
The code issue with the F-35 is supposedly all about BAE. Basically the US does not trust BAE’s security with the code.
As for our heavily indebted economy, look no further than the bail outs of various banks. Those multiple big hits in a short time span are what left our government finances in tatters.
Ixion
“I universal suffrage of all classes / sexes / races, was a post ww1 event, pretty much across the board.”
So your arguement is no democracy has gone to war with another since 1960?
Not exactly a long time line to base a theory on is it?
But even that doesnt work, India and Pakistan have gone to war as Democracies.
As have most western powers in Iraq, Iraq again, Libya and Yugoslavia. You can argue they were “just wars” but *we* were not attacked in any of them, nor was there a treaty for common defence, (there was an attack and treaty in the case of Afghanistan)
“Germany was emphatically not a democracy in ww1 the Kaiser himself described it as a war against democracy.”
It had an elected legislature, not a very powerful one, but it existed.
“Whatever the technical constitutional situation; in reality Germany was a one party oppressive state when it entered WW2.”
But so was the “democratic” UK!
That doesnt prove that democracies go to war, but it does prove the rather selective nature of who gets to be called a democracy.
“Russia in ww1 a democracy! It still had serfs for gods sake! (As did eastern Prussia).”
But it had an elected parliament, the Duma, formed in 1905.
And the Russian serfs were free long before 1914, not sure about Prussian.
John
“I thought Hitler burnt it down.”
Nar, it was set on fire, but it existed from 1871-1945, with all males over 25 allowed to vote, admitadly, who exactly they were allowed to vote for got a bit squiffy.
Ixion
“Like wise Herman Goering described the 1933 election as the last in German history.”
Meh, the UK went 8 years without an election in the first world war, and 10 in the second.
Germany only went 12 years without an election in the second, and 6 in the first.
Not to mention, Hitlers power came from the enabling act, which the Reichstag passed and then renewed twice.
What could the House of Commons do to restrain Churchill? He didnt even bother with passing a tyrants law, especialy one that had to be renewed.
ChrisB
“As for the “We are an Island”, technically yes, but the reality of what it is to be an Island has changed a lot. We have a land bridge to the continent thanks to the channel tunnel, you can cross the English channel on any one of a large number of ferries, and it only takes 5 minutes more to fly from Stanstead to Amsterdam than it would for me to get a bus to Colchester.”
Are you argueing that Russia would try and drive an armoured division through the Channel Tunnel?
Sweet, we can wipe out the entire force with a couple of well placed shots, puncture the tunnel and drown the lot of them.
Yes, there are lots of ferries, but I dont think any are rated for carrying T-72s, and they can only stop at certain, easily defended ports.
“It’s true that we do a lot of trading overseas, but the bulk of that is done with Europe. We export more goods (in value) to Holland and Belgium combined than we do to the US.”
Not exactly, we “export” to belgium, who re-export to where ever, its a sneaky book keeping trick to make us look more involved in EUrope than we are.
But even if it was the case, the EU 27 have lost 0.3% of world GDP every year for the past 30, we should be reducing our trade with them, not growing it.
X
“The OPC policy isn’t as rigidly enforced in some places as it once was.”
In many areas, enforcement went as far as refusing to register the second child, or sometimes parents neglected to register the first child if it was a girl.
Phil
See above, Germany, a state where every male of 25 is allowed to vote, is labelled an absolute monarchy, because it made Woodrow feel better.
Chrisb
“Whether it was right or wrong is down to politicians and votes. How much would the US consider our friendship if we had contributed nothing? Would they have pitched in for Ellamy? Would they be taking a more aggressive stance with Las Malvinas?”
I’d say the price is much too high if this is the extent of the US reward, a none commitment on the Falklands and a refusal on technology.
The Iraq and Afghanistan wars cost £20bn and rising.
We could have built our own stealth fighter for less!
“As for our heavily indebted economy, look no further than the bail outs of various banks. Those multiple big hits in a short time span are what left our government finances in tatters.”
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/spending_chart_1990_2011UKb_11s1li011mcn_G0t
Not so much, the national debt increased every year from 2001.
The rate of increase spiked in 2008, but thats due to a loss of tax income from banks, rather than any bailout thereof.
@ ChrisB – “As for the “We are an Island”, technically yes, but the reality of what it is to be an Island has changed a lot. We have a land bridge to the continent thanks to the channel tunnel, you can cross the English channel on any one of a large number of ferries, and it only takes 5 minutes more to fly from Stanstead to Amsterdam than it would for me to get a bus to Colchester.”
All true, but none of it has any effect on the following calculation:
The significance of being an island nation is that we do not have to overly concern ourselves with the possibility of a neighbour rolling tanks across the border on a Friday afternoon, as our continental neighbours do.
We are therefore less constrained by the need to position fixed heavy-formations to deter against the potential for immediate & catastrophic failure in the event of general warfare.
The probability may be low, but the impact is high, therefore resources deployed in response to the severity of the threat. We made the same calculation here:
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sites/default/files/resources/Factsheet2-National-Security-Risk-Assessment.pdf
However, that said:
“I just think that a very strongly Navy centric defence budget that sacrifices the other two services on the Admirals altar would be out of kilter with the reality of our defence needs and our recent defence experience.”
I tend to agree, as I don’t believe the ambitions for power-projection in the SDSR would be achievable with and army of less than 82,000:
“A new set of Defence Planning Assumptions
The new Defence Planning Assumptions envisage that the Armed Forces in the future will be sized and
shaped to conduct:
• an enduring stabilisation operation at around brigade level (up to 6,500 personnel) with maritime
and air support as required, while also conducting:
• one non-enduring complex intervention (up to 2,000 personnel), and
• one non-enduring simple intervention (up to 1,000 personnel);
OR alternatively:
• three non-enduring operations if we were not already engaged in an enduring operation;
OR:
• for a limited time, and with sufficient warning, committing all our effort to a one-off intervention of
up to three brigades, with maritime and air support (around 30,000, two-thirds of the force
deployed to Iraq in 2003).”
The difference being that by the time we get to the 2015 SDSR, when it will be announced that the second carrier will be fitted with cats-n-traps and kept in service, that we will have achieved what I believe to be strategic Raiding.
A force that is more appropriately balanced towards the navy that has been allowed to date when fighting fifteen years of COIN wars on a £34b budget.
Dom. There is a large body of literature on the theory. Large and vast debates. I think if you read some of it you’d find some answers to your points. Not being rude but some of your ideas about it are from left field and not because youve discovered somethibg nobody else has; and others are nothing that hasn’t come up before.
It’s a theory, open to criticism of course. But you’ll find lots of people have been here before you and address probably all your points except the most obtuse about 1914 Germany being more of a democracy than 1914 Britain. A rather contrarian view.
Phil
I feel I must point out that I brought the theory into the conversation…
I have read a lot on it.
It relies entirely on selective discrimination as to what is and is not a democracy and a war.
The Kargil war, between two democracies doesnt disprove it, but Pakistan “wasnt really a democracy”.
Its rubbish, the result decided and then supporting evidence hunted out and conflicting evidence dismissed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_between_democracies
“except the most obtuse about 1914 Germany being more of a democracy than 1914 Britain. A rather contrarian view.”
But thats not what I said, I merely said that both were democracies.
But if you want to look at it that way, in Germany, all males over 25 could vote, in the UK, there were property requirements that saw some 5 million men excluded from the vote, who would have been able to vote in Germany.
There are many, many definitions of war and democracy. And the Democratic Peace Theory is not one homogenous theory, there are different positions and variances amongst theorists from different disciplines. It is almost certain that 1914 Britain matches more of those definitions than the German Empire. And there are plenty of people who grapple with the definitions of war and democracy and are not blind to the fact that the theory can be held hostage by those that would try to argue that it depends on your definitions. It’s been debated already quite a lot and the theory in all it’s manifestations is more complex than your criticisms of it.
@ Jedibeeftrix
True. That is why the French cling to their large army. And I dare say if the Germany national psyche hadn’t been damaged by the two world wars (plus US and UK parking significant portions of the armed service in FDR (backed by nuclear) and all feeding vast amounts into the Germany economy) then I dare say Germany would be clinging to the idea of a large field army too.
There are subtle psychological links between a nation’s general population (and its view of itself in the world) and the nation’s armed services. Do the Norwegians have a large for their size home guard? Who is going to invade them? Why do the Swiss think it perfectly acceptable for nearly adult male to keep an assault rifle at home just in case? etc. etc. etc. and so on.
Would MoD expenditure be questioned as much if the UK public saw the majority of it being spent purely to defend the home islands? As against expeditions to counter more existential threats in dusty hot lands far far away? Which one makes us safer? Is the answer to the defence question to loaded in favour of the latter over the former. Who knows……
If we were to wind the clock back a hundred years or so this blog we would be discussing at great length Dreadnoughts in the same we discuss F35 today. Seapower had been central to GB’s rise since the time of Elizabeth 1st. From a time when we were a minor power on the edge of Europe opposing the major powers of France and Spain. Substitute Germany for Spain and it could be argued we are much in a similar position today. To a time when the majority of the world’s merchant fleet was British or belonged to an ally; all of which enjoyed the protection of our navy. And consequently it was on this the wealth of the nation was built.
Over the 20th we stopped looking out to the world and inward towards Europe. Our seapower declined and naval matters has decline. And the Army, very much the second service, has taken the navy’s place as the defender of GB. Forced to field large armies in very much a Continental style the public’s familiarity and perceptions of the army changed as more and more passed through its ranks. You can also see a change in how the Army seems to regard itself too as it sat as the major force facing the massed bayonets of 3rd Shock Army. Germany’s internal border was our border. And as I said above you can see how the modern army (or really the army of the Cold War) regarded itself by have read through the posts on ARRSE. But a modern army can’t self deploy and its reach is only as far as its largest guns. And as I am getting fond of saying the British Army can only deploy because the United States Navy allows it to. During this period of European introspection our fortunes as a nation have declined. Decline is inevitable as other power rise. But one wonders if that decline would have occurred at a slower rate without the loss of considerable number of lives and treasure if we had kept away from European affairs……
I think that is why when mad men like me suggest we return to a focus on naval power many here can’t grasp it. Simply it is because it is beyond their cultural ken to do so. We only live in our times and cannot be blamed for that. They view the world through a prism where the Army is central to our security. Despite our geography. Despite our inability to be able to deploy even a brigade at will. Despite our position as a second tier power. Despite our small numbers. Despite the fact that it isn’t the soldiers now that cost us, but the costs carry on into retirement.
Much the same could be said about the RAF BoB myth. How many tons of stores did Gabby say it took to support the efforts in Italy? 8000 or so. About a seventh the weight of CVF. 8000t in shipping terms is a manageable load. By road it is a massive undertaking. All to support an air group about the fifth of that carried by a US CVN. And only doing half the sorties. But that is another story.
There are many sage comments here from ex-army personnel. And though I like to poke a stick at them occasionally I do concede they do know better than I when it comes to soldiering. But when it comes to what constitutes the national security interest I think my thoughts and ideas are equally valid (even if I do like once again to poke a stick for a reaction.) But I do think some here think there words on all defence matters carry much more weight because they ran around on the Queen’s shilling in a can’t-see-me suit during their twenties. Even though the processes and operations of that service have historically and as matter of pure purpose have nothing to do with strategic matters at all.
@ Martin
Balanced doesn’t mean 1/3 RN 1/3 RAF 1/3 RAC.
Balanced means balanced against what you are likely to need in the immediate foreseeable future, plus the retention of the core elements of everything that you expect to need in perpetuity.
The long term aspect is easy – you are are going to keep a bare minimum of everything for as long as they offer capabilities you don’t want to give up.
The immediate foreseeable requirement is going to be exactly that – those elements you expect to actually use in the foreseeable future.
@x : seconded. We don’t spend enough on defence, but there is a lot of waste there too on relics of empire
@ X – “But when it comes to what constitutes the national security interest I think my thoughts and ideas are equally valid”
Agreed, and with the post more generally.
Richard
“Balanced means balanced against what you are likely to need in the immediate foreseeable future, plus the retention of the core elements of everything that you expect to need in perpetuity.”
I’d argue thats a specialised force.
We dont have a balanced force, we have one specialised to meet a preconceived box of threats.
(in reality, we have whats left after 50 years of Salami Slicing and botched review in 97)
“The long term aspect is easy – you are are going to keep a bare minimum of everything for as long as they offer capabilities you don’t want to give up.”
But what do 36 infantry battallions offer that 18 doesnt?
Are there 36 specialisms we dont wish to give up?
********
I note that once again, now “We are an island” has been clarified, the “big army” crowd have gone suspiciously silent on the matter.
Not silent. Just wryly smiling from the sidelines.
Don’t be shy, share your wisdom…………..
@ X –
think that is why when mad men like me suggest we return to a focus on naval power many here can’t grasp it. Simply it is because it is beyond their cultural ken to do so.
Well said
@ Richard W – I thought your point was we can’t see what’s likely to happen so we must have a balanced force able to respond to everything. Surely and even split of 33% to each service achieves this better than the current 62,21,17. Tomorrow we might have to enforce a blockade, we might have to bomb some-one until they become democratic or conduct a long term COIN engagement as part of a coalition. Any of these operations are just as likely as each other surely we need the best operating capabilities in each of the three services to achieve this.
It really seems incredible to me that every time someone advocate’s a balanced force that has to mean the Army getting the lion share of the budget. Can any-one explain to me how this can be considered balanced. I am not saying it’s wrong but when we are now left with a fleet that cannot deploy a single aircraft we can hardly talk of balance.
Just a point in case the British Army other than in numbers has every capability the US Army does. However neither the RAF or the RN can match their US counterpart in terms of total number of capabilities and many of these missing capabilities prohibit us for conducting independent operations. Is that a balanced force?
@ Dom J
But what do 36 infantry battalions offer that 18 doesn’t?
Are there 36 specialisms we don’t wish to give up?
Very good point. Again it must be a question of capabilities. Somehow our defence planning has been prepared to sacrifice capabilities to maintain simple numbers which is really stupid when you consider the one thing all our allies have is numbers but only one of them has many of the capabilities we have given up or failed to develop.
I can’t today sadly. Maybe this evening. I was just rattling the cage! And I’ve never been shy with my opinion. Sadly for those that know me.
As for balanced, clearly we needs new fangled piece of jargon do people aren’t straight jacketed by the need to see balanced as equal weightings. To me it implies more a refined force. I shall ponder. Try and make RUSI jealous.
Sorry! iPhone typing there!
“To me it implies more a refined force. I shall ponder. Try and make RUSI jealous.”
I shall look forward to it.
From reading this post I definitely think I have a better grasp of the UK’s Grand Military Strategy:
1. Be big enough to defeat Argentina
2. Be big enough to be useful to the US so that they don’t abandon us.
Anything bigger is too scary and might make people mad at us.
@Phil, I think what you are really referring to is a balance in capabilities rather than forces. The question is what are the capabilities we are trying to balance… The fact is we have prioritised large scale land warfare capabilities for the past 50 years above the rest, hence we do not have a balance…
Couple of things,
I think of “balance” meaning “the ability of all services to carry out a variety of tasks within their selected domain”. So a Navy that can deploy submarines, can hunt submarines, can protect surface vessels from attack, can deliver aid when needed, can attack enemy surface vessels etc.
Not neccessarily a perfect sharing of the budget, just providing each service with adequate punch to do many of the tasks expected of it.
As for the “we are an Island” I fear many missed the point I was trying to get at. In the early 1800′s being an island meant any enemy had to put together a sizable naval force, beat us in a pitched battle, link up with it’s transports and then transfer a large land army across the sea, at the mercy of the wind and tide to a degree.
How times have changed.
An enemy force based in France could – with a sufficiently sized and equipped air force – clear the Royal Navy from the seas and the RAF from the skies, counduct an extensive campaign against land targets in the UK, and then fly large numbers of men and equipment across the channel. Theoretically they could do all of that without ever having to dip a toe in the water.
The Channel is not the defence it once was.
Now obviously that’s an extreme example, but the notion that you could rip up the other two services and pour all of the money into the Navy, thus meeting all of the UK’s defence requirements just like that is silly.
Then we get into the realms of whether we are indeed an Island, given our international responsibilities. If Borneo were invaded by it’s neighbours (excl.China) would it not fall on us to respond? What about Kenya?
Certainly the Navy would be at the forefront of the operation, but ultimately men in green (or brown) would have to go ashore and close with the enemy, then keep the peace afterwards.
ChrisB
Your France example is possible, but it has a huge glaring problem.
Firstly, no one has suggested losing the RAF
But farm more importantly
Secondly, how does France pay for this vast airforce with which is can transport and supply 100,000 men and accompanying armour?
Anyone trying to invade the UK needs not only a vast land army with which to defend their own land borders, but would also need a vast navy/airforce with which to control the channel.
Because we dont have land borders to defend, we can increase the defences in the sea and the air. That means anyone trying to invade us has to pitch their “standard” airforce and navy against our “enhanced” airforce and navy.
The channel is not insurmountable, but its not none existant either, and the assets required to defeat the channel are simply NOT the assets required to defend the capital.
150 Typhoons to defend the UK, supported by 36/72/108 Seaphoons nominaly carrier based, but also able to defend the UK from land bases, or carrier.
France has plans for 300 Rafales, but we had plans for 250 Typhoons, Germany is going down to 140 Typhoons.
“Then we get into the realms of whether we are indeed an Island, given our international responsibilities. If Borneo were invaded by it’s neighbours (excl.China) would it not fall on us to respond? What about Kenya?”
And how do you get to Borneo or Kenya? By ship of course.
“but ultimately men in green (or brown) would have to go ashore and close with the enemy, then keep the peace afterwards.”
But no one is suggesting doing away with the scary blokes and bayonet charges.
Simply pointing out that we dont need a large amoured force to defend the border we dont have.
Borneo is not a country, it is an Island and why would we want to send troops 5,000 miles to interfere between Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. The 5 powers agreement does not even cover the part of Malaysia on Borneo. Kenya as part of the Commonwealth, yes but as part of a Commonwealth response and why do we need a 100,000 plus soldiers to respond to that?
Noone wants to rip up UK any services merely realign to a position where we can supply greater maritime and air assets and less boots on the ground.
On your extreme France scenario how would having an army of 200,000 alter it? (unless they have all been kept back in the UK whilst the scenario developed and even then if they have no air cover they are just target practice). Whilst having good AAW and sub assets in the channel seems to alter it considerably.
Dom J I read Chris B,s France thing as France already having been conquered (or surrendered anyway).
@ DomJ
Your spectacular ability to miss the point leaves me impressed. I didn’t believe it was possible.
@ APATS
We still have certain agreements etc in place relating to places like Brunei.
As for Kenya, you don’t need 100,000 soldiers for that one theatre. But when you start counting all our other committments, plus rotations etc, it soon becomes clear why you need the force size that we have. If I was to suggest that we could scythe the Navy down to eight or nine ships because that’s how many standing tasks the Navy performs, that would understandbly be silly. It would ignore things like rest and maintenance, which is why we need more ships than we actually have tasks for them to perform.
Yet nobody questions this? I don’t understand then why people question the need for the army to have such a sizable force, a force that has been heavily engaged for the last twenty years.
You – like Dom – are also missing the point about the Channel. People keep talking about “we are an Island you know” as if a major shift towards the Navy would negate any potential threats, because Navies float on water and we’re surrounded by water.
That’s not the case. In the unlikely event that someone chose to invade the UK they could do it without touching water for an extended period time.
Just saying that we’re an island therefore we should unbalance our forces in favour of the Navy is very poor logic in my opinion.
And if indeed we did double the size of the Navy at the expense of the other services, what then? With the plethora of NATO and UN committments we already have, our ability to deploy any kind of land based force would be severley restricted. We’d be lucky if we could muster a spare brigade for a one off deal.
@ Chris B had a quick look for the Armys standing commitments online but could not find them. Off the top of my head they have a standing commitment down South. They have a Battalion based in Cyrpus, The forces in Germany are being withdrawn with new homes actively being pursued. They have training teams in Kenya and are part of the tri service team in Sierra Leone. We also have a Battalion in Brunei. Gib is the Gib Regiment now I believe.
So if we upgrade the FI to a Battalion we have precisely 3 peacetime commitments. Training etc is different as all 3 services need to do this and do not claim it as a standing commitment.
Now I do not for a minute want to reduce the army to 9 battalions to support 3 commitments.
However I believe that rather than a broadsword or a broad headed spear we should re balance the defence budget so that we can deploy a smaller sharper point pushed in by far better support assets, Carrier Air power, TLAM, fully developed Typhoon, Attack Helicopters, Transport Helicopters, UAVs for recon and support. AAR to allow us to operate. Now if this rebalancing means the point being pushed is only able to conjure a brigade level force for enduring ops and a short division for a one off effort I say that is fair enough.
That is all we need!
Those British Army standing commitments in full:
British Peace Support Team Eastern Africa (one company)
British Army Training Unit Kenya (one company, plus 3 x Battalions per year for 6 week rotations)
International Military Assistance Team Sierra Leone (one company)
British Army Brunei (one Battalion plus an Air Corps flight)
British Army Training Unit Suffield (one armoured Regiment for 8 months of the year)
Sovereign Bases Cyprus (two Battalions)
Falkland Islands (one company)
Various UN operations (individuals)
Task Force Helmand: quite a lot. See list from MoD website:
• 20th Armoured Brigade Headquarters and Signal Squadron (200) • Elements of 19th Light Brigade Headquarters and Signal Squadron (209) • Headquarters 101 Logistic Brigade • 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards • The Queen’s Royal Hussars • Elements of 5th Regiment Royal Artillery • Elements of 16th Regiment Royal Artillery • Elements of 26th Regiment Royal Artillery • Elements of 39th Regiment Royal Artillery • Elements of 40th Regiment Royal Artillery • Elements of 47th Regiment Royal Artillery • Elements of 25 Engineer Regiment • 35 Engineer Regiment • Elements of 38 Engineer Regiment • Elements of 71 Engineer Regiment (Volunteers) • Elements of 12 (Air Support) Engineer Group • Elements of 170 (Infrastructure Support) Engineer Group • Elements of 1st (United Kingdom) Armoured Division Headquarters and Signal Regiment • Elements of 10th Signal Regiment • Elements of 14th Signal Regiment (Electronic Warfare) • Elements of 21st Signal Regiment (Air Support) • Elements of 22nd Signal Regiment • 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland • 1st Battalion The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment • 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment • 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment • 2nd Battalion The Rifles • 5th Battalion The Rifles • Elements of 1 Regiment Army Air Corps • Elements of 3 Regiment Army Air Corps • Elements of 4 Regiment Army Air Corps • Elements of 9 Regiment Army Air Corps • Elements of Joint Helicopter Support Squadron • Elements of Allied Rapid Reaction Corps Support Battalion • 1 Logistic Support Regiment The Royal Logistic Corps • Elements of 6 Regiment The Royal Logistic Corps • Elements of 7 Regiment The Royal Logistic Corps • Elements of 8 Regiment The Royal Logistic Corps • Elements of 9 Regiment The Royal Logistic Corps • Elements of 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment The Royal Logistic Corps • Elements of 17 Port and Maritime Regiment The Royal Logistic Corps • Elements of 23 Pioneer Regiment The Royal Logistic Corps • Elements of 29 Regiment The Royal Logistic Corps • 1 Medical Regiment • Elements of 201 Field Hospital (Volunteers) • Elements of 208 Field Hospital (Volunteers) • 3 Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers • Elements of 19 Light Brigade Combat Service Support Battalion • Elements of 101 Force Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers • Elements of 104 Force Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers • 110 Provost Company Royal Military Police • Elements of 173 Provost Company Royal Military Police • Elements of Special Investigation Branch United Kingdom • Elements of 1st Military Working Dog Regiment • Elements of 1 Military Intelligence Brigade • Elements of 15 Psychological Operations Group • Elements of 88 Postal and Courier Regiment (Volunteers), The Royal Logistic Corps • Elements of 148 Expeditionary Force Institute Squadron (Volunteers), The Royal Logistic Corps • Elements of 156 Transport Regiment (Volunteers), The Royal Logistic Corps • Elements of 159 Supply Regiment (Volunteers), The Royal Logistic Corps • Elements of 162 Postal Courier and Movement Regiment (Volunteers), The Royal Logistic Corps • Elements of 166 Supply Regiment (Volunteers), The Royal Logistic Corps
re above poorly formatted list. “Elements of” in military speak is formed troops or squadrons / companies. Anything smaller is “individuals from”. Anything larger gets its’ proper name e.g. 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards.
@James But ref my point I only missed 1 Battalion in Cyprus as I stated, peace time commitments was what i was discussing as these are tru “standing commitments” and training is something we all do.
However thanks for the list.
@ APATS
Presuming we ignore Afghanistan and Germany;
Northern Ireland – around 1,500-3,000
Cyprus – Two Infantry Battalions,
Falklands – Company group with attached Engineers,
Gibraltar – Handled by the Gibraltar Regiment,
Belize – A small training unit,
Brunei – A battalion of the Gurkhas,
Kenya – A training unit (not sure how big)
Canada – BATUS,
Balkans – Estimated at about 850 personnel,
UN – Around a battalion strength, spread across Sierra Leone, Georgia, Ethiopia and Liberia,
Plus whatever our commitment is to that Joint NATO Rapid Reaction thingy.
Somalia is likely to end up with a UN intervention at some point. Apparently the African Union lot isn’t coping all that well, despite some early gains. South Sudan could be next, and what’s his face with the Hitler tache…. Mugabe, can’t have many years left in him.
@ Chris B, precisely and the NI troops are based there in Barracks not on ops though they remain available if required. So lets take South Sudan or Somalia, it would have to be a UN led op with a proper mandate. So we choose to contribute, ok I am offering my slimmed down very sharp spear backed up by stae of the Art ISTAR, AAR, UAV, CAS, Carrier Air Power, amphibous entry if required, TLAM if you want. For 6 months, what I am not offering and what the Uk should never offe rup again is a perpetual force of 3 to 6k worth of targets on the ground in the aftermath. There are plenty of countries with troops to do that which cannot match what we could offer. A battalion max on rotation as part of any peace keeping force.
@ APATS,
you do not seem to acknowledge that the long term political gains are more to be gained by providing follow on forces in addition to effects forces. If we turn up, kick in the door and sort the place out, but then hand over to the Italians or the Jordanians, then guess which countries get to influence the future political development?
James, Is influencing the future political development of countries worth hundreds of British lives and hundreds of millions of pounds (potentially). What influence does that buy you? Maliki is working out really well isn’t he? What is wrong with letting the Italians or Jordanians keep the peace under a UN mandate, they are hardly going to poison the country agaianst the evil Brits. We need to appreciate that we no longer have an Empire, we must work with other countries and expect them to shoulder their fair share. What long term Political gains have we got from getting hundreds killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. You want to spend the defence Budget on being able to provide “follow on forces” on a rotational basis in the hope of gaining political influence in South Sudan whilst hoping that not too many body bags arrive at Brize. I prefer to spend it on forces that would have withdrawn and reset able to use their mobility, technology and global reach to defend UK interests or act in support of NATO or the UN where required.
@ APATS – “Now if this rebalancing means the point being pushed is only able to conjure a brigade level force for enduring ops and a short division for a one off effort I say that is fair enough.”
Well said.
Actually South Sudan has some half decent oil reserves, that are piped to the coast and picked up in the red sea, independent of the SOH. That’s worth an intervention if you can get your hands on it.
Kenya can provide you with port and aviation facilities that give you quick access to the Arabian Penninsula and the Indian Ocean.
Even unassuming countries can provide benefits that aren’t immediately obvious.
@ APATS,
having forces large enough to do serious things also means you have forces large enough to rotate through lesser missions when nothing existential is on the cards. Having a force only large enough to contribute to a door kicking operation once in a while, and no desire to take part in the lesser missions means that you rapidly lose capability across the board.
I have to say, I am rapidly falling out of affection for this blog. Yours is a good question, so please don’t personalise my discontent, but there are some serious wing nuts banging off stupid ideas like invading Murmansk or blockading China, or putting big guns on MICVs. I’m wondering whether the effort is worthwhile. I’m never sure whether I’m in discussion with a roomful of adults or children, or some kit spotters with thick spectacles. Maybe all three.
I never said we would not support an intervention, merely we would not be the mugs that stay behind tying down thousands of soldiers to act as targets for the lunatic fringe.
James,
Whilst I outline my ideas in broad terms. To offer a smaller force but one with every bell, whistle and support available from across the tri service environment I have not looked at numbers etc.
I merely believe that we could and should concentrate on offering something different. It will be interesting to see if there is a change in public perception post the withdrawal of troops from Germany. When we have armour and artillery actually based in the UK in larger numbers (I presume).
Maybe I am an idealist but to be honest I am fed up with us being the Political make weight in a lot of enduring US ops and having to provide troops in numbers larger than our continental neighbours who have larger armies.
With the US turning east we must look at European defence capability as a balance across Europe. With us able to field a full capability spectrum on a European level whilst retaining the ability if required by the UK alone to stretch to a unilateral intervention at possibly 2 Brigades level (maybe a short division?).
Why in 2025 should the EU not be able to intervene in Kenya or South Sudan and say ok we have the abilty to put a divion plus battle group on the ground.
Centred around a German armoured brigade supported by French and Italian mech brigades. Uk input will be 16 AAB and 3 Cdo brigade along with an almost regimental detachment of AH. all Eu countries to supply transport helos. We will also supply UAVs, AAR, 1 carrier Battle group each from ourselves and the French. Dutch, Spanish, RN, italian and French Amphibs, French and UK SSNs.
That is how I would like to see our capabilities develop.
I know how fickle our “Allies” can be but we can no longer afford to retain the capability to field an armoured division and if we did it unfortunately comes at the expense of being able to transport it, protect it during transportation, resupply it and prove it with air support and ISTAR.
With the US effectively ending their claim to be able to fight to major land wars on 2 continents at the same time is maybe time for us to deriously look at what we want to be able to do,
1. Unilaterally.
2. Offer to a coalition at different overall levels.
@ APATS,
how on earth do you sketch out a scenario in 2025 and then get incredibly prescriptive about what we would or would not supply? A total fucking nonsense. That’s 3 elections from now in the UK, 4 elections in France and Germany, Lord knows what for the other Euro nations you mention, and in between now and then we’ve got the financial crisis that is going to engulf all countries.
There’s two simple facts that all of the aircraft and floaty little boat spotters on this blog don’t appear to appreciate: it is the Army that has the ability to maintain Britain’s place in the world through sustained presence, and that jets and ships are massively over-expensive compared with the effect they can momentarily deliver. I don’t underrate the Royal Navy, except the grey old men who run it want to concentrate in their doddery on spastic little ships and not submarines. The grey old Biggles want-to-bes of the RAF are just stupid.
James, Very simple as the lead times on procurement already tell us what we will have to utilise in 2025. Swearing is nether big nor clever. 2025 is not exactly very far beyond future force 2020.
Posters write entire fantasy force blogs and you blow up at my 2025 scenario. I notice that you do not identify any part of my force composition as pure fantasy. That is because with the possible exception of UAVs, and barring Major scrap yard programmes in the next 13 years everything I have listed will be possible.
I hate to lower myself to insults but the reply to your rant would be that the “little red coated has beens must remember that we are no longer an Empire and that we have neither the capability or requirement to keep thousands of troops stationed in countries that most people in the UK cannot find on a map getting their buts blown up by some extremists and being flown back in body bags” and P.S the Soviet shock army is not coming back.
Britains place in the world through sustained presence? We need to get over the whole Empire or world policeman thing. It is neither our job nor in a lot of cases in our interests.
I would like to add that the piece in inverted commas in my last post would be an answer to James previous rants and does not represent my actual views.
@ All politicians – We have a separate obligation to Brunei not under the FPDA. The Sultan even pays us £40 million per year to permanently station a battalion of Gurkhas there.
@ Chris B – I think you are missing the point about the island. I accept your point about the Channel being no barrier to a massive determined enemy but any enemy of this scale would have to come from very far away to attack Europe. Meaning they need sea lanes to do so.
@ James – No one is suggesting we cut the Army until after we are out of Helmand so the point still stands how to justify its size based on peace time deployments. America has now come out and said they will no longer be conducting nation building. If the USA is not going to do it then we certainly are not.
On another point does anyone know why we have to have Army units deployed in Cyprus? I understand the need for an RAF base but I really can’t see why we need Army units deployed in another EU country.
@ James
“I have to say, I am rapidly falling out of affection for this blog. Yours is a good question, so please don’t personalise my discontent, but there are some serious wing nuts banging off stupid ideas like invading Murmansk or blockading China, or putting big guns on MICVs. I’m wondering whether the effort is worthwhile. I’m never sure whether I’m in discussion with a roomful of adults or children, or some kit spotters with thick spectacles. Maybe all three”.
The name of this blog is think defence. It’s supposed to be about coming out with new ideas and hopefully testing them through constructive criticism. You constantly criticise ideas without formulating why they are necessarily bad. You are so blindsided by the wars we have fought and let’s face it lost in the past 10 years that you are unable to see we desperately need change at every level of the MOD.
@ James
“how on earth do you sketch out a scenario in 2025 and then get incredibly prescriptive about what we would or would not supply? A total fucking nonsense”.
Very constructive there. Just so I understand you don’t think we can plan for eventualities in 13 years’ time when the average piece of kit we build takes 15 years + to develop.
@ Martin
“I think you are missing the point about the island. I accept your point about the Channel being no barrier to a massive determined enemy but any enemy of this scale would have to come from very far away to attack Europe. Meaning they need sea lanes to do so.”
– First, not neccessarily. There are any number of hypothetical scenarios that could see a European (or at least bordering Europe) based force find itself in such a position, scenarios which are all just as unlikely as really any existential threat.
Secondly, if we’re talking threats via sea lanes, again, the world has changed. In 1801, to challenge such a force away from British shores you would have had to stop such a threat with a Naval force. There was no alternative.
Now an MPA can fly several hundreds of miles, scanning thousands upon thousands of square miles of sea, both on the surface and under it. Such aircraft can launch missiles, drop depth charges or torpedoes etc.
That’s why I find the “we are an Island” argument a little tiresome. The suggestion is that because we are surrounded by water then by default only a solution that sits on or under that water can protect it. That’s simply not true in the modern world anymore.
@ APATS
“Britains place in the world through sustained presence? We need to get over the whole Empire or world policeman thing. It is neither our job nor in a lot of cases in our interests.”
– If that’s the case then we have no need of anything but a defence force. Any EU/UN/NATO intervention would be likely to fit the world policemen attribute, so we need not bother involving ourselves in those operations.
All we would need would be a bulk territorial army and a small regular core (90/10 balance), some patrol vessels for the Navy that could handle North Sea and North Atlantic operations, a highly capable air-to-air fighter wing, some helicopters for internal transport and some MPA to keep a watch out.
The rest of the money could be spent on other things, like energy diversity/security.
If we want to engage with the global community though then it has to be done properly, or we’re just wasting our time. Assuming that France or Germany will pick up the slack on the land while we’re doing the relatively safer jobs of stand off attack will not work. It’s tough enough to get them to commit forces anyway, without going down the “you go in, we’ll cover you…” route.
I think that Germany and Poland would object to having to provide the bulk balance of the land forces to a British or French initiated operation simply on the principle of “well you have land borders and we don’t”.
I imagine their response would be “well you’re the one that’s so keen to get involved, why don’t you go in and WE will cover YOU!”.
Or the diplomatic equivalent of. You don’t start a fight and then expect everyone else to get their hands dirty on your behalf, trust me.
I can understand the need for follow on forces, but even with the pre SDSR numbers the army struggled (and ultimately failed) to control a city the size of Basra. Unless we are planning to increase the size of the army significantly and remove other capabilities then this is a non starter. Anything larger than a Sierra Leone scenario will be done in partnership with other countries – the question is how could we help contribute the most whilst still balancing (and maximising) our capabilities. The answer is not large troop numbers, but transport, surveillance, air support, special forces and training. Once we’ve agreed that, we can talk about the forces required to fufil the role (and their colours)…
I also feel that regional forces should provide the bulk of the feet on the ground presence in any stability force. For example, should not the African Union be the main presence in any operations in Africa? Arab League in the middle east? We should focus our efforts on ensuring that this force is effective by providing the expertise and capabilities they do not have.
@ APATS, TD and others
sorry fellers for the “robust” posting and the language: a combination of some entirely unrelated (to this blog) irritation and 1/4 bottle of malt while being up way too late.
To be clear, and also more constructive, I passionately believe that many people in life generally do not understand, and consequently misappreciate how damn difficult it is to have lasting effects on events on the ground in foreign climes unless you put in enough soldiers. It is very easy for everyone to look at kit, when the real effects being delivered are by people.
Re the 2025 scenario, my objection – coarsely expressed – was to the very fine detail of the proposed reaction. From experience, if you go to HQ LAND and ask them to project force availability for something even 7 months out (i.e. beyond one roulement from today) they’ll give you an idea based on a forecast, but what actually would be available in 7 months time could well be very different. To forecast 13 years ahead is not going to be accurate, particularly if it involves other nations. You need to see the horse trading and dirty deals being done at troop contributing conferences.
James
“I passionately believe that many people in life generally do not understand, and consequently misappreciate how damn difficult it is to have lasting effects on events on the ground in foreign climes unless you put in enough soldiers”.
I totally agree with this statement however the fact remains that not even in our wildest dreams could we have an army large enough to do this. Even if we could find the £40 billion budget (250,000 men) to pay for it the Army toiles to recruit enough volunteers to sustain the force at 100,000 let alone 150% increase. If we accept we cannot do these things on our own but only as part of a broader coalition then we have to ask what we should contribute. Our forces have a limited ability to replace many aspects of the USA inside a coalition operation. With more refinement a slightly larger budget and thinking outside the box we could probably replace the USA in a medium sized operation such as Kosovo as a coalition enabler. Not every peace keeping operation will start with an open invitation. There may always be a need for forced entry. Out of the world’s 190 + militaries how many can do that at present? Probably only one. Almost every one of those nations can contribute some form of stabilisation force especially in their own region. Surely we should concentrate our efforts and limited resources on doing things that others cannot. Again it’s a matter of debate about what colour of uniforms or pieces of kit we need to fulfil the role but in my mind it’s the only way forward for us. It’s either that or through in the towel like Germany.
Repulse
I also feel that regional forces should provide the bulk of the feet on the ground presence in any stability force. For example, should not the African Union be the main presence in any operations in Africa? Arab League in the middle east? We should focus our efforts on ensuring that this force is effective by providing the expertise and capabilities they do not have.
I agree on this statement. I think if regional countries are not willing to commit it’s a sure sign that we should not be getting involved. Helping regional forces to solve a problem wins us allies. Taking action against their will loses us allies. I think some of the recent conflicts Libya in particular shows that these countries are increasingly willing and able to commit if intervention is really required.
All this banging on about Empire and Soviet Shock Armies (which I am sure would have been quite shocking) is a bit of a straw man. Nobody here, on any side of any debate, pretends there is a large group of armies sitting the other side of a border just waiting for half a chance to get us and drive to Paris. And nobody here is advocating a large army to police an Empire that’s been dead for 60 years in political terms and long, long before in real terms.
Our interests are wide, our interests are varied, our interests are global – nobody disputes this on this blog. We need the forces to effect influence over our interests. And therefore we need a force as wide ranging in capabilities as our interests, with the caveat that we look to coalitions to provide true mass.
Personally, and I have said it millions of times on here, the SDSR force structure can accomplish this, just.
Some here bang on about the Army getting more money and is bigger therefore it is unbalanced and this is horrendous and intolerable. Fact is, it costs a lot more in men and treasure and kit to influence events on the ground and to get an equivalent relative effect to sea and air operations. The army will always be bigger, the army was even bigger than the RN and RAF in 1939 when the lions share of resources was going to the RAF. It is a law. To keep the Straights of Hormuz open using only sea and air assets would require relatively small air and sea committable. If you wanted to use land forces to screen the coasts – you need to deploy a considerably larger chunk of soldiers.
Some here need to think beyond numbers and budgets. Any army must be bigger than its air and sea components because, as I have said, it takes more men and kit to make an effect.
Our current ratio of Army, RAF and RN is almost exactly the same as the ratio of US Army, USN and USAF when taking into account reserve forces too. There is a reason why every first world military has similar manning ratio’s – sea and air forces just do not need the same density of resources or manpower to achieve desired capabilities and as weapons become even more effective this becomes more and more the case. The reality on the ground, in the mud and rain and in densely populated areas is not becoming the case. It still takes the same number of men to properly defend a sector as it did in 1914 – it does not need the same number of modern combat aircraft to get the same effect as a squadron of Camels or a squadron of Fairey Battles.
This is a fact and must be accepted or no serious discussion is possible.
Balanced does NOT mean equal weightings in money and men. That’s an inherently simplistic view.
@ Phil – I actually fully support the idea that the Army will always have a bigger budget than either of the other two services. I even support the notion that while being involved in two protracted and very messy ground campaigns it was correct to prioritise Army expenditure over the other two services.
However what I really hate is the constant mention of balanced forces banded around all the time. Especially when the mention of balance often used here means 100,000 men in the Army no matter the cost to the other services.
I think everyone on here is in agreement that we cannot do everything on our own any more. So by definition any force we can possibly come up with will be unbalanced.
There is a fine balance we have to achieve between numbers and capability and in recent years this balance has rightly so gone towards numbers. However with not only us but every other western nation including the USA firmly opposed to ever attempting a nation building exercise such as Afghanistan or Iraq again I think the pendulum must swing back more towards capabilities and both the RAF and RN position improved relative to the Army. A 50, 25, 25 budget split is probably the best type of balance we can look toward.
According to wiki USAF 330k us navy 320k us army 562k. That would put a uk regular army of less than 60k. Sdsr requirement are for 6500 on sustained deployment so 32500 total and two non enduring committements totalling 3000 personnel even allowing these to have 9000 committed so a perminant 3000 avaiable. That’s 41000 people at maximum effort. Yet it has ground forces for uk army marines and ta totalling 120k. Do we need nearly 80k ground force for hq or maintaining 4 battalion strength overseas garrisons.
I said including reserves.
You can’t split the Active US Army from its Reserve Component and National Guard component. Likewise the other services.
The number crunching again – tedious. Its about capabilities – 6500 is not a figure for the sake of it, its the estimate of men that would be required to deliver a certain capability. They are not an ends in themselves.
Re this balance thing, I’d prefer to start with (after the Government have confirmed strategic goals and policy for the next 10 years), the ensuing commitments and build from there in both force numbers and equipment. Depending on what the Government finally agree, that could see some very differently shaped forces.
There’s also a truism that equipment costs are often wildly different between land, maritime and air environments. Being simplistic, we may as a nation decide our strategic efforts should result in a 60:20:20 split of effort between the land/maritime/air environments. Those figures are illustrative, BTW, not my view. But the cost of equipment to support each environment properly may be 50:50:40, so we are 40% over budget if we want to do all properly. Back to the drawing board, and after several rounds of haggling we get to a split of equipment budget that is 40:35:25, but that only allows a real effort of 35:50:15, quite some distance from our initial strategic priorities. At which point ruddy BAE Systems comes in with yet another enormous cost overrun, and we are 35:65:15, so 15% overspent again and the strategic priorities compromised yet again. And then some lunatic MP from Kirkcaldy wants to keep his constituents employed by building boats we can’t afford, so the equipment budget is again skewed to be 30:65:30. At which point a mad mullah launches some atrocity which can only be responded to with an air campaign, so our effort is changed to 25:60:55.
Infuriating.
“I think everyone on here is in agreement that we cannot do everything on our own any more.”
Why are you treating this as some sort of new paradigm?
It has ALWAYS been the case that we could not do everything on our own throughout the states entire existence.
“A 50, 25, 25 budget split is probably the best type of balance we can look toward.”
So we’re back to splitting budgets again.
We need to deliver certain capabilities. An Army needs more resources and men to deliver a capability on average. Talking about budget splits is putting the cart before the horse.
Talk about what capabilities you want, then the numbers follow naturally from that.
“Infuriating.”
And entirely the point. Defence exists in a social context. It is not an objective system, no human system arguably can be.
So sitting on here and simply talking about raw numbers and budgets and capabilities is only half the story. And therein lies probably the biggest reason for any discrepancies between ACTUAL force structure and the RATIONAL force structure.
You cannot design defence out of the social, economic and political context. It is not in a vacuum.
So building fantasy fleets can be a useful thought exercise if done within reason, but they will never be the final solution because that fantasy MUST change as it is implemented as it passes through the various social filters.
Yeah so why shouldn’t the uk military have a similar balance to the US in regular to reserves. I’m not arguing about capability the army judged 6500 as the number required I’m just saying thats whats you need to support according to sdsr for a sustained uk land force. I don’t how that’s tetious it what the requirement is not a division or anything else.
@ Phil – I want a decent fixed wing carrier capability, deep strike and SEAD capability along with all neccessary C4 ISTAR capability to conduct an operation the size of Kosovo without the need for US involvement. I don’t ever want to send 10,000 soldiers to a theatre for a decade under ANY circumstance. So how would you lsit the budgte to achieve that.
“Yeah so why shouldn’t the uk military have a similar balance to the US in regular to reserves.”
Well that is the question now isn’t it. And it’s being looked at by MoD and we’re moving toward a similar reserve, regular ratio as them.
“I don’t ever want to send 10,000 soldiers to a theatre for a decade under ANY circumstance. So how would you lsit the budgte to achieve that.”
And this is my problem with these fantasy fleets. They design a force that is supposed to operate in a world that the author WISHES existed. Not how the world does exist. It is therefore just an exercise in imagination, not idea generation.
The armed forces will be used as the Government sees fit. Like it or not, if you don’t we have elections. There is absolutely no point in wanting to design an armed forces to wag the government dog.
@ Martin,
conducting an operation the size of Kosovo does not stop when you have achieved some initial success. It goes on and on and on, because b*stard civvies (like us all now) need a different sort of end state than pushing off for tea and medals, and that takes time. Maybe a decade.
Yes it is and I think it needs to be the biggest mind set change neede within the military. I personnelly don’t think sdsr is too far away from being a gd template. I would like the second carrier and amphibs readiness increased as well much more airborne Istar in the form of an mpa/shadow/diamond/low threat Uav and communication upgrades. I’d also like to see two disaster relief task groups centred on maybe the bay class or jshv type ships with a dedacated csar helicopter to provide influence in two locations. Id also like to see a wheeled apc either vbci or striker in the ta. And a slight increase in a400m number and add aar capability. And to pay for it all put more soldiers from the regulars into the ta cancel fres. Scale back a330 to 8 a/c total. And finally remove the nuclear detterant and replace the nuclear ssns with 16-18 aip submarines.
@ James – “having forces large enough to do serious things also means you have forces large enough to rotate through lesser missions when nothing existential is on the cards. Having a force only large enough to contribute to a door kicking operation once in a while, and no desire to take part in the lesser missions means that you rapidly lose capability across the board.”
Very much agreed James, which is why I am very content with the current plans for a regular army 82,000 strong.
It should permit:
“A new set of Defence Planning Assumptions
The new Defence Planning Assumptions envisage that the Armed Forces in the future will be sized and
shaped to conduct:
• an enduring stabilisation operation at around brigade level (up to 6,500 personnel) with maritime
and air support as required, while also conducting:
• one non-enduring complex intervention (up to 2,000 personnel), and
• one non-enduring simple intervention (up to 1,000 personnel);
OR alternatively:
• three non-enduring operations if we were not already engaged in an enduring operation;
OR:
• for a limited time, and with sufficient warning, committing all our effort to a one-off intervention of
up to three brigades, with maritime and air support (around 30,000, two-thirds of the force
deployed to Iraq in 2003).”
@ James – “There’s two simple facts that all of the aircraft and floaty little boat spotters on this blog don’t appear to appreciate: it is the Army that has the ability to maintain Britain’s place in the world through sustained presence, and that jets and ships are massively over-expensive compared with the effect they can momentarily deliver.”
But here is the thing some people here (perhaps you?) don’t get James; on a budget of £34b we cannot have an army capable of keeping two brigades (plus) in the field on and ongoing basis, in addition to keeping a little something in the cupboard for a rainy day.
Not if we want to maintain a level of technology/training parity to work with the US and lead other coalitions.
To do so would see both the RAF and NAVY reduced to rubber-dub-dub and biggles in his sopwith, because it would require at least eight brigades to roll through the theatre and a little combined commando brigade of two para battalions and two marine commandos.
@ James – “conducting an operation the size of Kosovo does not stop when you have achieved some initial success. It goes on and on and on, because b*stard civvies (like us all now) need a different sort of end state than pushing off for tea and medals, and that takes time. Maybe a decade.”
For sure.
But isn’t it a good thing that that FF2020 is capable of all the fine ambitions above, and capable of doing those with 82,000 regulars.
Let no one be foolish enough to think that the SDSR did not ALWAYS intend to see the army reduced to 82,000, and that the 95,000 figure was ALWAYS a fiction to make the review less contentious given the need to see Afghan through.
“It goes on and on and on, because b*stard civvies (like us all now) need a different sort of end state than pushing off for tea and medals, and that takes time. Maybe a decade.”
What civies?
In the last generation there have been two popular wars.
The Falklands and Iraq in 91.
Both were in, out and home for tea, medals and victory parades.
The army big long lasting campaigns, because thats how it justifies its existance nowadays, dont try and claim “the people” do.
“because thats how it justifies its existance nowadays”
Riiiiight.
Somebody better tell the Queen that Army Generals are cutting about doing their own thing with her Army to justify themselves.
Drivel.
@ DomJ
so, after May 1982, we pulled all our forces out of the Falklands? Or do we still have 1500 men and women there (fighting strength about 150 and a boat, but that’s another matter) nearly 30 years later?
We had less than 50 military people in the Gulf region before 1991, plus the Armilla patrol boat. Since 1991, force levels have not dropped below 500 at any one time, and for quite a few years exceeded 10,000.
The civvies I was referring to tend to be those who have just come through a civil war and need time and protection while a fragile democracy is helped to grow, a la Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Iraq, Afgha… etc etc etc.
James
“If we turn up, kick in the door and sort the place out, but then hand over to the Italians or the Jordanians, then guess which countries get to influence the future political development?”
Iran and Pakistan?
India?
China?
These all have far more influence in Iraq, and will have far more influence in Afghanistan a week after we’re out the door.
The Iraq and Afghanistan adventures have cost AT least £2bn per year.
What do we have to how for them?
“Yours is a good question, so please don’t personalise my discontent, but there are some serious wing nuts banging off stupid ideas like invading Murmansk or blockading China, ”
As opposed to you, who still blindly repeats that the British army is world leading, that if only we put every penny into the army, we could rule the world. Despite it being pointed out, dozens of times, every penny of the budget into the army would maintain a 30,000 strong Armoured Division and not a damned thing else!
If the US cant control Afghanistan with 100,000 men and allied support, what on earth do you think the UK is going to do with a third of the manpower?
And you call us fantasists!
“There’s two simple facts that all of the aircraft and floaty little boat spotters on this blog don’t appear to appreciate: it is the Army that has the ability to maintain Britain’s place in the world through sustained presence, ”
You’ve said that before.
Offer some proof to back that statement up and us “armchair generals” might take you seriously.
Because I can not see what a sustained deployment of 30,000 gets us.
ChrisB
“That’s why I find the “we are an Island” argument a little tiresome. The suggestion is that because we are surrounded by water then by default only a solution that sits on or under that water can protect it. That’s simply not true in the modern world anymore.”
Your missing the point.
The UK doesnt need a Navy to defend the sea. Thats not the arguement
The UK doesnt need *anything* to defend the sea.
Bit of AWACS, bit of MPA, some fighters, and the UK is an impregnable fortress for 1% of GDP.
No one else can argue that. France has no choice, it needs a large land army to defend its three land borders.
Frances Minimal defence force needs to defend those land borders.
Being an island gives us CHOICES.
We can choose,
To operate a minimal defence force, which would be RAF dominated, nothing else and simply spend massivly less than anyone else
To operate a minimal defence force, RAF dominated, and also operate an aggressive force, would be Navy dominated
To operate a minimal defence force, RAF dominated, and also operate some sort of bastardised copy of a European land army
Or we can try and combine the last two, and end up with a basicaly useless army and navy.
Being an island, gives us choices.
France, Germany, Spain, Italy, their first priority has to be defending their borders against invasion by their neighbours and that eats up a vast amount of money.
“I imagine their response would be “well you’re the one that’s so keen to get involved, why don’t you go in and WE will cover YOU!”.”
Because they cant.
I dont get whats so hard to understand here.
SOMEONE has to storm the beach.
Right? We’re all agreed here? It wont be stormed by act of God or Magical Crab People?
Please please tell me thats not contentious?
Ok? We’re agreed.
Who should storm the beach?
Poland?
Germany?
With what should they storm the beach?
Should they divert spending from their border defences? Thats madness.
Should they spend their 3% on border defences AND another 2% on an invasion fleet?
Why would they be any more happy to provide the first wave than the second?
Surely they will say, “hey, the UK only spends 1% of gdp on national defence, they’re not pulling their weight”?
“Or the diplomatic equivalent of. You don’t start a fight and then expect everyone else to get their hands dirty on your behalf, trust me.”
I dont start fights, but on the few times someone else has, I’ve made it my business to leave them a broken bleeding wreck in 30 seconds, and then run for it.
Which is a bit like a strategic raid really.
Repulse
Exactly.
James
“.
To be clear, and also more constructive, I passionately believe that many people in life generally do not understand, and consequently misappreciate how damn difficult it is to have lasting effects on events on the ground in foreign climes unless you put in enough soldiers. It is very easy for everyone to look at kit, when the real effects being delivered are by people.”
No, you misunderstand.
We do know how difficult it is to have lasting effects. So difficult as to be unaffordable.
I’ve given up on lasting change and gone down to frie fighting.
To effect lasting change to a single small city, it would require the entire defence capability of the UK for a decade.
The price is too high, the public wont pay for it and they certainly dont want it.
Phil
“And this is my problem with these fantasy fleets. They design a force that is supposed to operate in a world that the author WISHES existed. Not how the world does exist. It is therefore just an exercise in imagination, not idea generation. ”
Yes Phil, we know, your wish is more important and more realistic than ours…
“Yes Phil, we know, your wish is more important and more realistic than ours…”
If I did have a wish, it would be based on a realistic appraisal of what Government policy and intentions are and might reasonably be.
I would not invent a strategic context and Government policy that I liked the sound of and which agreed with my political views and then design a force to operate within this work of fiction.
Analyse what is likely to be the short term, medium term and long term situation and likely Government policies (that are not divorced from its actual rhetoric or reality) and then work out how to achieve the capabilities likely to then be needed.
Saying that I don’t want to ever do another Afghan, or I don’t agree we should be doing such and such an operation, and then designing a force around such foundation-less assumptions is nothing more than a work of creative writing.
The military posture is a footnote in an otherwise very long, very complex debate about strategic realities, interests and likely Government policies. It is not central to the debate, but it is far sexier and far easier to do, but ultimately the footnote remains meaningless without the wider discussion or at least an acceptance that the reality of the contemporary British outlook of the world needs to be adhered to.
@James, the Falklands is not what we are talking about here. It was just under defended prior to 82 that’s all and more importantly it is an UK dependency. Nor does it justify a full time sized army of the scale you seem to wish.
Fact is, keeping the peace is one thing after a conflict is fine in principle but it quickly becomes an occupation if the force is mainly from a small number of countries that do not understand the local traditions and political / religious beliefs. I am all for having the capability to contribute to these types of operations but not at the scale we have and taking a much more appropriate level of the burden when it comes to boots on the ground.
Therefore, we can get the ratio of professional to reserve army forces much more inline with what are needs actually are and spend the money on getting the RN and to a lesser extent RAF back in balance after years of underfunding.
Phil
“Saying that I don’t want to ever do another Afghan, or I don’t agree we should be doing such and such an operation, and then designing a force around such foundation-less assumptions is nothing more than a work of creative writing.”
Except its not me saying it.
Afghanistans been a joke for several years now, back in 2010, Chatham House hosted an event, where the strongest commitment to Afghanistan like operations was, “we cant pull out, we’ll look stupid”.
The arguements already been settled, no politician of any note thinks Afghanistan has been anything but a complete and total cluster fuck.
Your side has already lost.
All that “saving” the army achieves is ensuring that the rest of the defence establishment is dragged down with it.
THERE IS NO POLITICAL WILL FOR AFGHANISTAN LIKE CAMPAIGNS
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/10/evening-with-defence.html
It was a spectator event, not chatham house.
Dom Afghan was one example, it was not my point in itself.
And yes, the Spectator – of course.
Oh and I add that there never has been the political will to fight long, expensive, tiresome, difficult wars.
But, these things, they have a habit of happening anyway.
Libya shows we still have EVERY intention of sticking our fingers into foreign pies. We were just VERY lucky it didn’t go a different way.
Good God I just read your link……………
Just a quick point on comparing UK to US figures
The UK has a vastly different approach to manning and contractor support, PFI’s etc.
Look at the crew for a comparable USN vessel compared to an RN vessel
Whatever Phil, you win, the world trembles at the thought of ten thousand British infantrymen who have to beg for ammo from the americans and such a force gives us unparraleled influence throughout the world.
“Whatever Phil, you win, the world trembles at the thought of ten thousand British infantrymen who have to beg for ammo from the americans and such a force gives us unparraleled influence throughout the world.”
Did you read anything I wrote?
@ DiminicJ
“As opposed to you, who still blindly repeats that the British army is world leading, that if only we put every penny into the army, we could rule the world.”
OK, tell me where I have said that. Anywhere. Just once. You may find I have referred to Britain’s place in the world, which is a little different from ruling the world and of course is a debatable topic as to what that place could or should be.
@ Repulse, it was the Falklands we were talking about, as DominicJ specifically raised it, and of course was wrong. I’m also not sure from where you gain an idea as to what size of military force I believe the defence of the islands requires.
I have to say though that you and I would probably agree to disagree on the relative balance of forces. In my opinion, the Army has been grossly underfunded for decades, with the last decade being the worst. Spastic little boats with no planes to fly off them, and the selection of hundreds of fighter planes that are 500% overkill for any likely task the UK will ever commit to, all at the expense of the one service that has bled itself dry in mission after mission since the end of the Cold War.
Field Marshall Phil, you havent written anything.
Perhaps you should start with why Field Marshall Inge, a real Field Marshall was wrong?
Remember, that guy who said the British Army had fallen below a size worthy of a field marshall….
Back when the army was 50% bigger than it is now?
I keep posing questions and yopu keep ignoring them.
“Seriously now, hand on heart, if this was 1990 and “options for change” had just been published, who on here would have said
120,000 men is not enough
120,000 men is the right amount
120,000 men is too many
Because the army your defending as “balanced” and useful is a mere 82,000.
Forgive me, I was a bit young when “Soldier Soldier” was on, but I dont remember any arguements except “These cuts are catastrophic and the army is unsustainable below these levels.”
Did I just miss the people who said thats 50% over what we need?”
I’m still waiting for a response to that, but its easier to just claim that because I’m not in the army, I just dont understand….
James
The entire armed forces budget would fund an army one third of what the Americans have deployed to Afghanistan.
Please explain what influence that garners the UK, and why that influence is worth £40bn per year.
@james. At the danger of going off topic. When you say at the expense of the army, what projects are you thinking of that got chopped?
“I’m still waiting for a response to that, but its easier to just claim that because I’m not in the army, I just dont understand….”
Dom your questions are schizophrenic and irrelevant.
What have they got to do with my point about designing fantasy fleets for fantasy worlds is an exercise in fiction and creative writing? And my other point that the military posture is entirely subordinate to the political, strategic and economic posture and that it is indeed, probably one of the easiest parts of the problem.
Designing an armed forces to achieve x, y and z is relatively easy. You have the RATIONAL force. But then that RATIONAL force is subjected in its generation to the full force of the real world context which means it moves away from the ideal. The hard part about designing the RATIONAL force is actually working out how armed force is likely to be used by an actor – you cannot do it the other way around, design a RATIONAL force and then shoe horn it into an imaginary world.
So you think the “soldier soldier” reforms were too generous, that the army was much much too big through the 90′s and 00′s?
Because YOU ARE DEFENDING A SMALLER ONE claiming its the right size.
“Because YOU ARE DEFENDING A SMALLER ONE claiming its the right size.”
Dom I’m not talking about the Army here! And if I was, why don’t you read the bit about the difference between the rational force and the actual force. In fact I think I shall insert another model, the ideal force.
RATIONAL FORCE: That force which is sufficient to achieve the likely and realistic objectives of an actor with regard and consideration to the political, economic, and strategic situation and constraints, both domestic and international.
IDEAL FORCE: The RATIONAL FORCE but which is unconstrained by resource limitations.
ACTUAL FORCE: The result of the actual implementation of the RATIONAL FORCE which can differ from the RATIONAL FORCE by virtue of events, political considerations, further economic considerations, constrained policy choices and public attitude.
A bigger Army would be the IDEAL force. The SDSR model would be the RATIONAL force. Whatever we actually get will be the ACTUAL force which will differ from both other models.
Phil, your arguement is always “that army is too small to do anything” in response to any suggestion that primary focus is shifted from the army to the navy.
“A bigger Army would be the IDEAL force”
Would it?
Why?
You and James can say it all you want, but neither of you is yet to come and explain why it would be an advantage to swap the current armed forces for a single 30,000 enduring deployment.
Nor have you clarified your position on earlier reforms.
If today you believe that 95/82k is the right amount, what did you believe 10 years ago and if thats changed why?
From my perspective, and I could be wrong, it has nothing to do with defence of the UK and everything to do with grabbing as much of the defence budget as possible.
See, my position is different, I dont defend the Navy come what may.
Currently constitued, the Navy is a waste of money that should be abolished.
The current navy serves no military purpose.
The difference is however, with politicaly acceptable spending, the Navy *could* serve a purpose, whereas the army cannot.
Even if it had every penny of the defence budget thrown at it, the British Army would be incapable of independant action in any meaningful capacity.
“Good God I just read your link……………”
Laugh at Dr North all you like, 4 years after he suggested the Super Tuccano for Afghanistan, guess what the US is buying for Afghanistan?
The Super Tuccano.
“Phil, your arguement is always “that army is too small to do anything” in response to any suggestion that primary focus is shifted from the army to the navy.”
I don’t recall ever arguing this.
“Would it?
Why?”
Bigger is after all better and its a theoretical model, the IDEAL force, a force that is unconstrained by resources. Such a thing cannot exist. It is simply a model, a tool.
“You and James can say it all you want, but neither of you is yet to come and explain why it would be an advantage to swap the current armed forces for a single 30,000 enduring deployment.”
Why do we have to argue for that? I never have. We both agree that ground operations are decisive, we both I think agree that requires mass. Why do I have to choose between what we have now and something you have made up and really, makes no sense.
“If today you believe that 95/82k is the right amount, what did you believe 10 years ago and if thats changed why?”
Something called a recession and debt crisis old boy.
I don’t think you’re grasping what I am trying to say in these posts.
“The current navy serves no military purpose.”
You’ve been at the sherry again.
“Even if it had every penny of the defence budget thrown at it, the British Army would be incapable of independant action in any meaningful capacity.”
And that’s different from our entire history how? So because the Army is not capable of independent action we should just get rid of it? So we could have won the war without the Army in 1914 and 1939 right? We shouldn’t have wasted our money on it at all I suppose. And news to you, we pretty much didn’t – we spent most of it on the RN in 1914 and most of it on the RAF and RN in 1939 and both times ground forces became completely central to defeating Germany.
You are arguing for a force that would exist nicely in a world that does not exist.
“Laugh at Dr North all you like, 4 years after he suggested the Super Tuccano for Afghanistan, guess what the US is buying for Afghanistan?
The Super Tuccano.”
Whoopdeedoo.
It was more the infantile title of the “debate”.
Phil
“Saying that I don’t want to ever do another Afghan, or I don’t agree we should be doing such and such an operation, and then designing a force around such foundation-less assumptions is nothing more than a work of creative writing”.
Wars like Afghanistan and Iraq are wars of choice. All be it not our choice but we could just as easily have said no. What would have been the consequence of saying to the USA sorry but we disagree with your actions not going to stop you and feel free to use Diego Garcia to bomb whoever you like but we are not going to put boots on the ground. Would we have lost anything? Would the outcomes of the battles have been any different? We certainly could have saved allot of money and at least 300+ British lives. We would probably not have had the 7/7 bombings either.
It’s very easy to avoid these conflicts just say NO.
“If I did have a wish, it would be based on a realistic appraisal of what Government policy and intentions are and might reasonably be”.
Our strategy if it can be called that post 1991 is all about fire fighting. From Kosovo to Libya no one saw any of these things coming. How do we build a force around strategic assumptions when we don’t know what we will face. Surely all we can do is try to have as many capabilities as possible maintained in times of peace to face whatever the future may bring.
Its military strategy 101 to attack an enemy where they are weakest and have no capability to defend or counter you. Maintaining the greatest number possible of capabilities makes it more difficult for an enemy to exploit our weaknesses.
Dom J
You and James can say it all you want, but neither of you is yet to come and explain why it would be an advantage to swap the current armed forces for a single 30,000 enduring deployment.
I would very much like to hear the answer to that question.
@ Topman,
FRES and MRAV are 2 particular projects that should by now have replaced about 6,000 vehicles. Cancellation and delay has forced stopgap measures like WLIP and WCSP, both also delayed from planned ISDs. The money for those programmes has disappeared into the £38 Bn black hole.
Other capabilities have also been delayed. Land C4ISTAR programmes are running on average 7 years late and are constantly descaled to save money. Other elements such as Sentinel (a Joint capability) are taken out of service early, leaving a capability gap in Land Deep Attack that is greater than in Air component Deep Strike (and the two are not the same).
More critically, money flowed into the equipment budget at the expense of the operating budget, so whole Battalions were lost when there is direct evidence of overstretch that could have been mitigated by the retention of manpower.
Basically, a lunatic set of procurement policies, stupid politicians with their eyes on big ticket programmes, and a poorly managed set of programmes with cost growth have removed most of the planned replacement of land equipment. We’ll end up with some of the most inefficiently procured fast jets and some floaty little boats which won’t be able to do much, and an Army trundling around in 2020 in vehicles designed in the 1960s.
The point is we didn’t say no. And with Libya we continue to not say no. We indeed have choices, my point is we show no signs of taking other choices.
I just don’t get the 30,000 man question.
James
“Conducting an operation the size of Kosovo does not stop when you have achieved some initial success. It goes on and on and on, because b*stard civvies (like us all now) need a different sort of end state than pushing off for tea and medals, and that takes time. Maybe a decade”.
James that’s true but for operation such as Kosovo or Sierra Leone or anything other than Iraq and Afghanistan we are not talking about an enduring reinforced brigade deployment by the UK. Your point also about others not being happy to do the peace keeping once we kick in the door is not valid either.
We supplied almost all the forces for the initial entry into Kosovo. Luckily we did not have to fight our way in in the end but it came close. Even the USA would not commit substantial land forces. In the after math 47 counties have supplied peace keepers. Today we are listed as having 4 personnel in Kosovo while Germany maintains 1023.
Only the USA, UK, Poland and Australia would commit force to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. By August 2006 there were 21 countries not including the USA contributing peace keepers to Iraq.
In the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 only the UK, Australia and the USA contributed ground forces. Today under ISAF there are 42 different countries contributing to stabilisation operations.
Your point about other’s not being prepared to go in after we kick in the door does not really hold up under any of these our most recent major deployments. Can you demonstrate a post-colonial coalition war that proves your point?
@ james. Thanks for that. Small point i think sentinal is staying now. Not been officially yet. @phil good point same thoughts as me i see nothing that changes our enterance to wars of choice. Nor nothing in the future, more of the same that we have been involved in.
@ Phil – We did say no with Libya. Other than some special forces we did not deploy ground forces. Nor do I believe would we have under any circumstance.
I agree about Sentinal being scrapped. Stupid decision but lets not rememebr one that was taken in part by the fact the RAF and RN had to swallow the bulk of the cuts.
As for FRES I think we can blame the fact on the Army top brass wanting a vehicle thats lighter than air that can with stand a Nuclear blast just as much as budgetary constraints caused by the other two services sucking up the funds. We should also not foget that allot of what your call floaty little boats are being procured not to fight Jutland but to provide the Army with air cover in operations. Or James does the British Amry no longer require air superiority to conduct operations.
Wall guys, it has yet again descended into tri service rivalry and I feel a little bit guilty.
What I was trying to get at was not the end of one service vis another at all but how in the brave new world the UK retains the abilty to act decisvely alone when it is required by our own interests and best as part of a coalition.
The US is turning its interests towards the east, that is a fact. at the moment, look at even Libya, the USN and USAF act as the enabler for European ground forces to operate. Unless we can drive to tehe border any country with a half decent airforce and some SSKs can deny theatre entry to European forces.
What happens when the USn and USAF is not available as thir assets are employed elsewhere, Pacific maybe.
well us europeans can get together and we can say, Germany i have an armoured div, France I have one too, Italy I have a mech division, UK we have an armoured division various other countries pipe up with brigades. Thats great until the OIC asks, who has the escorts and anphibs to get us there, who has AAR and and ISTAR? Who provides UAV coverage, SEAD, TLAm strikes and intel assets, sat coverage? The answer is well the US has always done that for us.
We could between ourselves and France have the abilty to act as the enabler for European forces that the US is at the moment.
That does not mean the end of the Army but it may mean the end of the abilty to deploy a continous rotation of follow on forces. A price worth paying? Yes in my opinion.
The thing with Libya is there we had nothing to send. Which stayed our hand. But. My point is, we have very rarely set out to fight a long, painful, complex, expensive and difficult war, but events cascade, spiral and evolve. We show no signs of saying the initial no in future. And that has implications.
There’s no inter service rivalry on my part. It’s others that try to force the rivalry in. Cause conflict where none exists on my part.
Agreed Phil, perhaps the biggest problem that exsists in actually obtaining the correct force mix is the inability of the Politicians to decide what they want to do. Always ready to fight the last war should be the armed forces motto!
Phil
In Libya we weren’t allowed to sent ground forces it would have stopped being a un action had we done. We had marines avaiable if required did we not. Even sending a dozen advisors caused an up roar in parliament the new political reality.
Things change Mark. Iraq is testament to that. And the RM were training for HERRICK and were then on HERRICK bar one Commando.
If Libya had required ground troops Turkey had a nech brigade and extras ready to go. they showed a massive interest in the Op and were the largest supplier of nval assets bar none, they also supplied the deployed SF boarding capability. It does not always have to be UK and US assets.
I agree phil they’ve gone from wanting to committee ground forces as police men to not wanting too.
APAS I agree.
Most country have ground forces most countries dont have the means to support ground forces with air and sea assets the future UK niche in coalition of the willing. Western ground forces are becoming increasing unacceptable in most countries in the mid east.
Phil
“The thing with Libya is there we had nothing to send. Which stayed our hand. But. My point is, we have very rarely set out to fight a long, painful, complex, expensive and difficult war, but events cascade, spiral and evolve. We show no signs of saying the initial no in future. And that has implications”.
Agreed Phil but we can always just pull out. Afghanistan is the prime example. The total cost of this nation building exercise is likely to be in the $1 trillion + dollar region. Even if we succeeded in turning Afghanistan into a nice liberal stable democracy it would not be worth $1 trillion and we have never had any chance of doing that.
Imagine how more better and stable the world would be if we spent that $1 trillion dollars on energy research or vaccine for Aids and Malaria.
Would us pulling out along with the USA in 2003 have made any difference to us staying to 2014. We only went in to blow the F**k out of Al Qaeda in revenge for September 11 and we did that pretty well in a few months with a handful of special forces and air attacks. Why did we have to get bogged down in nation building. Did we owe the people of Afghanistan anything? Will the country look any different in 2030 because of the blood and treasure we have spent or will it still be the mess it has always been. It’s not the first time we have tried to sort the place out. Hopefully it will be the last. The main argument seems to be that a stable Afghanistan equals a stable Pakistan however our operations seem to have done more to de stabilise Pakistan than anything else.
phil
the world wars saw 40% of gdp pumped into defence.
We ‘might’ get 3% in the future.
Nobody is nation building in Afghan. It’s a false fact that gets used to beat opponents with. Building capacity and economic development is a tactic which is part of a strategy to ensure Afghan does not harbour terrorists again. It’s written in black and white in the recent US Defence Guidance for example.
So Dom how does that fact alter the key role ground forces played in WWII
Phil, UK ground forces contributed to the downfall of Germany after 6 years of complete war budgets and the introduction of US and allied forces and even then we would not have won without Russian intervention. If anything WW2 proved that even with the total economic effort geared to war UK ground forces cannot decisively alter a european land campaign.
phil
we cannot have an effective land army under current budgets.
You want to increase the budget by a factor of 10, you can have as big a land army as you want.
3% gets us national defence via the raf, forced entry via a vastly expanded navy, and extremely limited short term ground intervention from a much reduced army.
Half and halfing the army and navy gives, nothing useful, nor does ‘big army.
“we cannot have an effective land army under current budgets.”
Well I guess we just don’t agree.
Hi APATS,
RE “perhaps the biggest problem that exsists in actually obtaining the correct force mix is the inability of the Politicians to decide what they want to do.”
-a new strategy is not only a matter of concepts; It is a matter of how forces and resources are allocated by mission
Following the same thought, RE “Who provides UAV coverage, SEAD, TLAm strikes and intel assets, sat coverage? The answer is well the US has always done that for us.
We could between ourselves and France have the abilty to act as the enabler for European forces that the US is at the moment.”
- while I agree (add air & sealift), it would also nicely set limits for what is a reasonable (as for size and challenge; not for the politics)intervention
- inadvertently the force structure would then (have to) be improved, even at the cost of the total size of forces
phil
i’m aware you disagree, but you havent explained why you can do with 30,000 men that which america cant do with three times that.
Dom J therin is the question, which scenario NEEDS the UK to deploy 30,000 troops in a non coalition scenario to safe guard Uk interests. Not a war of choice but one of neccesity.
Can we not find some middle path between non stop Rambo intervention & the CND hide under a rock, retreat from the World & hope nobody sees us?
Imposing a Western liberal democracy in a fully functioning state, is beyond our abilities, but using a local faction & backing it up with our air/naval/specialforcespower might be a way to go.
“but you havent explained why you can do with 30,000 men that which america cant do with three times that.”
Why do I need to? How about instead of answering your points I demand you defend an arbitrary size of the Navy, or whatever?
You just are not getting it.
Numbers come second to policy.
I do not see evidence that UK policy has changed.
The military posture is secondary to the political edifice.
You are arguing about a military posture I have not advocated whilst I am trying to argue about the context of a military posture.
I don’t think I have been that bad at explaining my ideas.
Ok fine, explain what a sustained commitment of 10,000 gets us…..
I was giving you 30k to be nice….
Why there’s 10,000 in Afghan right now Dom.
Phil, exactly 10,000 300 plus caualties 10 billion pounds,warming the seats for whoever the Afgans decide will be in charge the minute we leave, Brilliant use of the defence budget.
No wait Afghanistan will be different, yeh like Iraq is, look at the complete absence of personal gain, bombings, arrests that have followed the US withdrawal from Iraq; a counntry far more “stable” than Afghanistan.
“Phil, exactly 10,000 300 plus caualties 10 billion pounds,warming the seats for whoever the Afgans decide will be in charge the minute we leave, Brilliant use of the defence budget.”
Well again, we have to agree to disagree because that effort at an argument isn’t going to convince me things are going tits up.
iraq, Maliki? Afghanistan British Empre 3 times, soviets, success rate nil. whats the difference?
An awful lot is different. As you must well know.
Can I just say, reading all that back and forth was the most hilarious two hours I think I’ve had on this blog. Mint stuff.
Dom, you’re insane.
I accept that people have different opinions and ideas and people disagree on sizes and structures, but you’re beyond that. You’re a raving loon.
First it was Murmansk, then blockading China, now you’re trying to arbitrarily box people into an army that sustains 30,000 abroad and has no navy or air force.
Who said anything about sustaining 30,000 men in a theatre on a permanent basis? Nobody? Who advocated the dissolution of the RAF and Navy in order to support the Army? Nobody.
You’re putting up a completely arbitrary number that you’ve plucked out of thin air and then asking people to justify it, even though it’s your number, not theirs.
In general,
People seem rather confident that because Germany has large land borders and retains a sizable land force that they will be willing to deploy it anytime and anywhere we request them to.
Here’s the thing. My neighbour has a massive widescreen TV. I have a set of weights. Theoretically we could do an exchange system, where I let her use my weights to build up some strength and she lets me watch the NFL on her TV.
But that doesn’t happen. Why?
Because she has no interest in weightlifting and she has no interest in letting me sit around in her living room from 1:30am to 4:30am every Sunday/Monday for four months of the year.
Relying on her to provide me with something only works if we are interested in the same things and think alike.
Thus relying on Germany to provide you with the required mass for your campaign only works when they are prepared to pitch in. And guess what, they’re never prepared to pitch in to the land campaigns, not initially at least.
So you’ve got all these shiny toys to play with, but nobody else will play, so what do you do now?
I also see Afghanistan coming up a lot. Let’s review that a little;
2001 – Initial operations clear out the Taliban, pushing militant organisations across the border into Pakistan. Britain deploys a battalion on rotation, largely peacefully.
2006 – Five years later, the fighting begins to pick up and we increase our deployment. However due to the concurrent operations in Iraq the size of force we can deploy is limited and many units end up breaching the harmony guidelines in order to compensate for the lack of manpower to cover the two operations. Casualties ensue as the fighting intensifies. It’s acknowledged that mistakes were made in the strategy used at the time (“Platoon houses”). From early 2006-mid 2007 the deployment essentially involves a reinforced battalion with support elements.
April 2007 – Herrick expands to include three battalions plus elements of armoured corps and recce, plus support.
October 2007 – Herrick expands further. Now four main battalions plus support.
October 2009 – With Iraq winding down, the army is finally able to focus efforts on Herrick, as the deployed force raises to around six battalions plus support.
From this point on the army is starting to achieve the required mass needed and is able to bring its area of operations under control. As we’re now seeing, things are starting to settle down a little, relatively speaking of course.
The problem was not the army, it was the over stretch. Once the force levels achieved that desired and needed (October ’09) things have improved significantly over the ensuing two years.
Two years.
This is the problem I have. People talk about 10 years of struggle etc. The first five were relatively quiet and had a very small deployment. Then for three years there was furious fighting due to a lack of mass, and now over the last two years the required mass is being achieved and the tide is turning.
Bin Laden has now been found, which is more of an iconic gesture than anything, but a lot of the fighting is shifting back over the border into Pakistans tribal regions. Pakistan is now also allowing western forces to help it provide training.
Is it a perfect situation? No.
But is it getting much better now that Afghanistan is the focus? Yes.
The operation still has a few more years to run, in which there is time for a lot to be achieved.
The Afghan army and police can be trained to take over and provide long term stability. The talk coming out of the country is that these forces have improved significantly.
Will they be perfect? Will Afghanistan be left as a model democracy for the rest of the world to emulate? Not a chance.
Will it be sufficient to keep terrorist elements at bay/pre-occupied fighting a civil struggle than plotting against us? Probably, yes.
Islamic groups across the world are already encouraging would be Martyrs to DIY the job, as opposed to travelling abroad and receiving training, because providing that training is making the Jihadist leaders and their networks extremely vulnerable to detection.
That is what an Army that can deploy 8-10,000 men to a theatre can do.
. “If anything WW2 proved that even with the total economic effort geared to war UK ground forces cannot decisively alter a european land campaign.”
I’d say that the Army’s struggles in Flanders in the 16th Century proved that point. It’s no great epiphany that as a country we lack the mass to do precisely as we’d like. It’s been known for nearly five hundred years. But that hasn’t stopped ground forces having such utility.
And how did the USSR help to defeat the Germans? At sea? Or in land combat?
chris
erm, you seem to have missed the 100,000 plus american force thats doing the actual heavy lifting in afghanistan….
We’re just tagging along on their coat tails.
Why 30k?
But thats what the entire budget buys, and its pitiful, but people have deluded themselves into believing we dont even need that!
The americans cant do it with 3x the manpower and a trillion dollars in aid.
As for germany, i can only repeat.
Germany has to pay for a large land army, it will not fund a naval task force on top of that.
The UK does not have to pay for a large land army, it can bank the cash, buy a unique naval task force, or it can buy a bog standard army.
As for russia.
Western europe has 5x the defence of russia.
Not really seeing how russia can win clearly on every front….
Dom,
You know as well as I do that the ISAF force is split into various areas of responsibility. “Tagging onto their coat tails” is a rather disingenuous way of describing what is happening. Not least the fact that without our forces, that would be another 9,000 men that the Colonials would have to rustle up from somewhere to hold that particular area.
Nobody has suggested investing the entire defence budget into the Army. People defending the Army’s position are merely trying to point out that the current force levels are already taking the piss a little, without being cut further.
If you knock the army down to 60,000 then it reaches a level at which the Governments current plans are likely to be unsustainable.
And you don’t have to repeat about Germany. We know that Germany has to pay for a large land army. That’s wonderful.
But if your own army can’t do the job (because of size), you have to somehow persuade the Germans to deploy there’s.
You’re advoctaing cutting the army down to the bare minimum, building an ultra mint Naval Task Force, and then expecting the Germans to pick up the land component side of future operations because they have a land army.
What happens to your master plan when Germany says no? What happens when Her Majesty’s Government decides it would quite like to intervene in some situation in Lesotho in order to boost the Commonwealth of Nations, only to find that France and Germany don’t fancy getting involved as it happens, and that none of the Commonwealth countries do either.
Oh dear.
And then the next NATO op comes up. The Colonials agree to pitch in some shiny assets but no ground forces. So we turn to Europe for the bulk of the land force and they decide that actually, this time, they quite fancy dragging their heels on the matter and lean towards not getting involved at all.
Bye bye defence planning assumptions.
Well said Chris B. There’s bugger all point in hoping that Euro-neighbours will help out because experience tells us that they won’t. Especially France, Germany and Italy. They might, but probably not. And certainly not for the FI.
@ Chris B
“Thus relying on Germany to provide you with the required mass for your campaign only works when they are prepared to pitch in. And guess what, they’re never prepared to pitch in to the land campaigns, not initially at least”.
Agreed so surely we should concentrate on initial entry rather than sustained deployment.
“That is what an Army that can deploy 8-10,000 men to a theatre can do”.
No that’s what an Army with the ability to deploy over 100,000 men can do. So the question still remains on weather the extra expenditure for us to deploy 10,000 rather than 6,000 is worth it.
“Will they be perfect? Will Afghanistan be left as a model democracy for the rest of the world to emulate? Not a chance”.
So was it worth spending $ 1 trillion + to achieve what we are able to achieve.
“Islamic groups across the world are already encouraging would be Martyrs to DIY the job, as opposed to travelling abroad and receiving training, because providing that training is making the Jihadist leaders and their networks extremely vulnerable to detection”.
Surely this makes us less safe then. DIY marters like the ones on 7/7 are far more dangerous.
Chris B
“Nobody has suggested investing the entire defence budget into the Army. People defending the Army’s position are merely trying to point out that the current force levels are already taking the piss a little, without being cut further”.
Yeah but the Army now sucks up 2/3rds of the budget. So how do you expect to make things better without an increase in the budget which there is zero chance of getting?
Our budget is sufficient for a mediocre sized army and small navy or a top rate navy and small Army. It’s a choice that has to be made.
James
“Well said Chris B. There’s bugger all point in hoping that Euro-neighbours will help out because experience tells us that they won’t. Especially France, Germany and Italy. They might, but probably not. And certainly not for the FI”.
What experience would that be then. Other than FI which was a purely British affair and one we did not request other nations to participate in except for some Intelligence which the French helped us with greatly. All three of these nations have participated in
Bosnia
Kosovo
Afghanistan
Iraq
All bar Germany played key roles in Libya
So again other than the little Englander Daily Mail skewed view of the world not really seeing anything that backs your point up there.
Indeed we could probably learn something from these countries being a little less hasty to invade other people and put our forces in harm’s way.
Unless countries are willing to pull their weight NATO is dead. It’s in terminal decline anyway as it’s primary reason for being is no longer there; also the US is looking west whilst the rest of Europe want a EU defence force.
A quick question, would Afghanistan be in a better place if we had just recruited / armed / trained the local warlords and invested the money in making people’s lives better? Our military involvement could have been helping to hold Kabul, SF to hunt terrorists and the high end stuff? Politicians take advice from the military on how to perform an operation, they do not dream up how many ground troops to send.
We seem to be forgetting the lessons of history.
Yes, you need a large army in a full out war when you are fighting for your life, but that is exceptional and noone here believes it is a possibility in the foreseeable future. Plus, if needed with the right mixture of reserves this can be done relatively easily and quickly when compared to generating high end capabilities.
To stabilize a country (in a democratic way) the population needs to be on board. If you don’t have that you are on a loser and it’s only a matter of time before you fail regardless of how powerful a nation you are… If the people (and regional partners) are on board give them the support and confidence to take control themselves.
@ChrisB: On the Lesotho
@James: The question is how big a force would be required to retake the Falklands again – probably two Brigades? Now look at how big the army (regular and reserve) needs to be to support that type of operation plus what the other services would need. I am confident that you would agree that the RN and RAF are too small under the FF2020, not the army.
Beyond the extreme cases where we would be defending / retaking UK territory where if needed reserves could be quickly mobilized, I can’t honestly see a likely scenario in the foreseeable that would require 10,000 troops or more on the ground – let alone on an enduring basis.
Bloody Android… ChrisB, I meant to say that if noone wants to get involved in a Lesotho conflict then you hage to ask why we are trying to get involved – unless of course you are there is a legitimate side in Lesotho you are supporting with modest sized rapid reaction forces plus training / support / high end stuff…
chris
which is exactly my point
the army can provide 1/3rd of the US involvement, 1/10th or 1/20th.
It cannot act alone in an enduring operation in any circumstance and no one has yet provided an example of how we won influence.
British petroleum, malvinas islands, france is ourclosest ally……
The british army cannot do the job on its own, all this is an arguement about is how much support you want to give the us or eu or common wealth.
Your arguement is nonesensical, a 10,000 strong enduring deployment is just as reliant on someone else as a 5000 or a 30,000
thats my point, it isnt complicated!
That does not stand for the navy, which could be capable of getting the job done on its own.
@ dom j i don’t think you can say that the navy would always be able to operate on it’s own nor that the army would always need help. It all depends on the type of op.
topman
worlds 2nd biggest navy or 20th biggest army.
I think its pretty clear which can act alone more often.
A big navy cant run an enduring land op on its own, but we cant do that alone ever anyway.
true, but like i said it depends on what sort of ops you get involved in. If the gov wants in on land ops then a large navy isn’t much use.
@ Martin
“Agreed so surely we should concentrate on initial entry rather than sustained deployment.”
– Which would require what? A decent sized land army, furnished with tanks, artillery, logistics, etc. The SDSR talks of 30,000 men. That would be half the entire army if they were knocked down to 60,000.
“No that’s what an Army with the ability to deploy over 100,000 men can do.”
– The army might have 100,000 men, but you can’t deploy all of them at once.
“So the question still remains on weather the extra expenditure for us to deploy 10,000 rather than 6,000 is worth it.”
– Those extra 4,000 men can make a heck of a difference.
“So was it worth spending $ 1 trillion + to achieve what we are able to achieve.”
– If it achieves what we want to achieve, then yes would be the answer.
“Surely this makes us less safe then. DIY marters like the ones on 7/7 are far more dangerous”
– No, they’re not. Grass Roots Terrorists without any training are less dangerous. They frequently lack any understanding of pre-operational surveillance, counter-surveillance, secure communication, weapons handling, explosives handling and many of the other things needed for a successful attack.
Take as an example three would be terrorists in the US who moved their guns from one location to another in a vehicle registered to one of their home addresses, which was pulled over for having a broken tail light. The guns (M-16) were in the boot. A search of the mans house turned up a hand written diary detailing all of the groups potential plans and the initial discussions they’d had about targets, along with names and contact details to a few people they thought my be interested in helping them, none of which was encrypted.
The 7/7 bombers were in a different league altogether compared to grass roots terrorists c.2012.
“Yeah but the Army now sucks up 2/3rds of the budget. So how do you expect to make things better without an increase in the budget which there is zero chance of getting?”
– We don’t need an increase in the budget. We just need people to stop using the idea of cutting the Army as a cash cow to fund super weapons.
“Our budget is sufficient for a mediocre sized army and small navy or a top rate navy and small Army. It’s a choice that has to be made.”
– We have arguably one of the better navies in the world today. Our “mediocre” army could give a lot of “better armies” (on paper) a run for their money. Quality still counts for something.
“What experience would that be then. Other than FI which was a purely British affair and one we did not request other nations to participate in except for some Intelligence which the French helped us with greatly. All three of these nations have participated in”
– What was the French and German land contribution to the most recent large dust up in Iraq c.2003? And with the political climate the way it is right now, would you say those countries are more or less keen than before to contribute to a British led operation? What about Poland? They have a big land army which they need to keep active, how eager have they been to pour in division sized elements to recent dust ups?
Sorry, hadn’t seen the most recent comments;
@Repulse
“Bloody Android…”
– That’ll teach ya. Buy a proper phone, with real buttons, the kind of phone you can knock people out with (Sagem Myx-3; now of a 9 year vintage)
“I meant to say that if noone wants to get involved in a Lesotho conflict then you hage to ask why we are trying to get involved”
– I did rather pick Lesotho out of the hat, but it’s a member of the Commonwealth. If the government decides it would like to boost the Commonwealth for example and choses a hypothetical burning conflict in Lesotho to show how much it cares, then relying on France or Germany to provide you with muscle for a conflict intended to boost an economic union of which they are not a part sounds a bit iffy to me.
@DomJ
“the army can provide 1/3rd of the US involvement, 1/10th or 1/20th. It cannot act alone in an enduring operation in any circumstance…”
– That rather depends on how big the enduring operation is and what the circumstances are behind it. The common problem that both Iraq and Afghanistan have shared is Iran. Afghanistan has been dually hampered thanks to Pakistan.
That means there is a rather unnatural flow of decent quality bomb components and trained bombmakers flowing into both theatres. The hypothetical Lesotho example above might be containable (is that a real word?) using a purely British force of 6-10,000. The size of the force will depend on the job, but the bigger the force then a) the more jobs it can do and b) the bigger share of the smaller jobs it can do.
“… and no one has yet provided an example of how we won influence.”
– Afghanistan not really about influence as much as it is about fighting the brains behind various terrorist networks. We are also now starting to work a lot closer with Pakistan, providing training to help them fight their domestic war against various insurgent groups. The same Pakistan that China would love to be best mates with.
“Your arguement is nonesensical, a 10,000 strong enduring deployment is just as reliant on someone else as a 5000 or a 30,000″
– That depends on where it is, what force level is required and what level of support is required.
“That does not stand for the navy, which could be capable of getting the job done on its own.”
– Really. Quite a bold statement. A few weeks ago the Navy couldn’t fend off a few Argentine planes without Carrier support, now they’re taking on the world single handedly.
Chris
i’ve never said the navy couldnt beat the argentine airforce, i’ve pointed out, repeatedly, that a single t45 could wipe it out.
With three carriers, 30 submarines ect, we’d be second to the us, but stronger than a combined 3/4/5.
Hang on when has the army every had 10000 in Afghanistan. The maximum the regular army has had in Afghanistan is about 6500-7000. Ta navy and airforce has provided the rest. And that been generally for 18 out of 24 months when the marines go the army numbers go down to about 4000. Things in Helmand only started going better when the US marine surged 30000 troops and lots of a/c into the area which allowed the uk to concentrate on a much much smaller area.
Dom.
The Government has no intention whatsoever of building the second largest navy in the world. Not even a particle of evidence to support such a thought.
Your entire argument is baseless, it is NOT going to happen, there is no intention of it happening, no official publication, consultation, policy paper, official minutes even come a million miles close to possibly thinking about maybe doing something like that.
It’s tedious in the extreme to hear the constant calls to trim the talons of the service that has had the most utility since 1945. It is even more tedious to have every debate descend into inter-service mud-slinging and Dom pretending people hold positions that they don’t. And even more repetitive and boring are the attempts to cost a force when nobody here actually knows what it really costs and then basing an entire argument on some perverted accounting basis, like Dom stating that £38 billion pounds can only pay for a 30,000 man. And the autistic logic that we are an island and therefore have to spend more on floaty things doesn’t count for much of a depth of argument.
And it is a logic that finally died in the mud and blood of Flanders (again I add) amongst official circles.
Nobody here has grappled with the real question, and it is this:
What evidence is there that Government and foreign policy sees any need for a much larger Navy or has any desire to concentrate on a Maritime Policy?
Show me some evidence that the Government wants to move in the direction that some here imagine it to and I might listen.
Everything else is besides the point. Sorry.
2 questions.
Does anyone have any proof that the Army consumes 2/3rds of the defence budget? Apart from people (Army 95K / RN & RM36K / RAF 41K) the Army’s take is smaller – the equipment budget is in this decade hugely swallowed up by the floaty little boats and the aircraft. My figures are from 2003, but in essence the campaigns and procurement we were involved in then are the same as today. In 2003, the Army’s cost in terms of personnel and equipment was 33.5% of the total, the RAF 29%, the RN’s 24%, Joint 4.5%, and MoD PE plus MoD Civil Service 9%. Costs of wars were paid by the Treasury. Those 2003 figures for the Army include £16Bn annualised over 20 years for FRES, which the Army is not now getting in anything like the same quantities because the floaty little boats and aircraft got too expensive.
In a long list of campaigns since the end of the 2nd World War, which of the 3 services has found itself essential to all of them apart from the Cod War? Does history not suggest that campaigning and fighting tends to happen on land, where people live, and not at sea? Should we use history and geography to try to inform decisions about future forces?
Chris B
How can you maintain that an extra 4,000 men make a meaningful difference in a conflict the size of Afghanistan. It’s around 3% of the total force.
“So was it worth spending $ 1 trillion + to achieve what we are able to achieve.”
– If it achieves what we want to achieve, then yes would be the answer.
What do we want to achieve in Afghanistan? Whatever it was we have clearly failed. $1 trillion even on a success is a bitter pill to swallow. It’s a f**king disaster for a failure.
Again going back to my point would it have not been better to spend this money else where. Energy research, medical innovation, things that could have helped all peoples of the world.
“What was the French and German land contribution to the most recent large dust up in Iraq c.2003? And with the political climate the way it is right now, would you say those countries are more or less keen than before to contribute to a British led operation? What about Poland? They have a big land army which they need to keep active, how eager have they been to pour in division sized elements to recent dust ups”?
Neither Germany or France agreed with our position on Iraq. In the long run they have been proven right. They have however supplied follow on forces for peace keeping. The point that has been made right the way through here is that we are best to focus our forces on initial entry rather than enduring peace keeping operations for the simple fact that allot of countries will contribute to the later while arguable only the USA has the capability to do the former. Weather that means a large Army, Navy or Air force is up for debate. However I can’t believe that any current or recently former Army personnel can believe we should try to attempt something like Afghanistan again.
Everyone keeps making the joke about blowing the h**l out of the enemy and home in time for medals. However I seriously believe we have no legal or moral right to commit our forces to an operation which is anything else unless in place of a direct threat to the UK or NATO allies.
Army 95k navy/rm 29k airforce 35k is now the numbers from sdar. Army’s had plenty of money 1b on fres no vehicles 5 b apache forgot funds to train crews 500% overkill for any mission they’ve currently undertaken. 1.5b watchkeeper 1b lynx helicopters. 1b 8 chinooks no cockpit 1b warrior upgrade. Lost count on how many billion for a radio. Not to mention panther vehicles diggers logistic vehicles and supporting 5 divisional hqs that never leave the uk and several other brigade hqs that never leave the uk all in the last 10 years. I get tired listening to the army bang on about no money its been as pathetic as the other services when it come to wasting a lot of money.
“How can you maintain that an extra 4,000 men make a meaningful difference in a conflict the size of Afghanistan. It’s around 3% of the total force.”
Because they are in one of the most difficult parts of the country.
4,000 men sprinkled around Afghan would accomplish nothing. 4,000 applied in a decisive area in enough density DO accomplish a lot.
It’s really dead simple stuff.
Concentration of force. Massing of effect.
“Again going back to my point would it have not been better to spend this money else where. Energy research, medical innovation, things that could have helped all peoples of the world.”
Why have people forgotten what this war is all about? It is about defending the United Kingdom. Thousands of westerners have been killed by terrorists using Afghanistan as their base.
Is it so hard to understand that we have gone after their base of operations?
If we hadn’t everyone would be banging on, its just fire fighting, we need to go after the source, this is pointless its just like Vietnam we won’t bite the bullet.
We bite the bullet. We go in. For once there is a coherent plan amongst many nations to stop Afghanistan becoming a base of operations for an enemy of western civilisation and *whiny voice* oh no its really hard, not everything is going exactly as we want it when we want it, oh its costing so much money, and people are getting killed, and why wasn’t it all done yesterday ad naseum*.
We are there to DEFEND the UK.
To DEFEND the western world.
It is a CLEAR and PRECISE effort to defend British interests.
It’s that simple. It’s that clear cut. And if it were 12 September 2001 today, not a bastard on here would be arguing otherwise.
But because things haven’t gone to plan it’s all doomed isn’t it. Things have gotten difficult, the enemy has proved resilient and adaptable and aggressive, best we pack our bags and go home boys the fuzzies are putting up more of a fight than the people who read the papers back home would like.
james
the mod publishes accounts.
Volume 2 08/09 provided army/navy/airforce and a more detailed breakdown for the rn and raf.
More recent years just provided a three
way split, and some not even that.
Phil
this website, and this specific thread does not exist to predict what the mod should do.
But my prediction of a 60,000 army is much closer to the truth than yours of a 100,000
Mark,
Nice list! The odd one out is the WR upgrade (saves money in my books?)
If the Watchkeeper figure is right, one can ask
1. how can it cost so much to bring a two-thirds off-the-shelf product into service
2. and take so long
3. how can it constantly be declared a success
Except for having the Apaches sitting in the hangar for the first two years, I am quite happy that we have that capability. But why would we need to make Block3 investment when the capability is overkill for all (now) foreseeable scenarios already
- countries that are panning to have Hornets in service to 2030 are stocking up with spares now, when it is still in production (rather than paying double when all parts become custom pieces, only made to order)
“this website, and this specific thread does not exist to predict what the mod should do”
That’s why I called it fiction Dom.
Don’t you listen?
As for your 60,000 figure – I am sure on Planet Dom (which even people who agree with your conclusions I suspect do not inhabit) you are entirely correct.
Acc
Not arguing capability or any just highlight the army has had money to acquire. The idea the big bad navy took all th money is nonsense. The only surface vessels acquired has in the last decade has been type 45 and the rivers which are loaned. The carrier budget has not been currently fully spent and has only increased due to government decision to delay the construction.
Watchkeeper don’t know. We hired the Hermes 450 for afghan it’s a petty we didn’t just start off buying the 450 and upgraded and developed it as we went like the us did with predator. This is were I would spend Uav money not on a male with France that essentially does the same thing.
@ Phil
“Nobody here has grappled with the real question, and it is this:
What evidence is there that Government and foreign policy sees any need for a much larger Navy or has any desire to concentrate on a Maritime Policy?
Show me some evidence that the Government wants to move in the direction that some here imagine it to and I might listen.
Everything else is besides the point. Sorry”
I don’t give two s**ts what this government does or does not want to do. They lost all credibility the day the published SDSR. This article was all about what could be done given the political will. The main point of the article was to try and demonstrate that we are not as f**ked as people (mostly our own people) keep making out. We can have real impact on the world stage and continue to do so for the next 40 years.
Since 1991 we have been in a constant state of fire fighting with little attempt to join things in a grand strategy. We desperately need to take a step back and look at what we are doing and why and try to once again come up with a common British foreign and defence policy that puts our interest first rather than desperately trying to cling on for a hope of influencing US policy.
phil
and you provide evidence the government wants to repeat afghanistan….
Oh wait, you cant….
@ DominicJ
the MoD annual accounts for 2010/11 show a split in costs that has the Army consuming 16% of the entire Defence budget, and 24% of the total DE&S budget, or a further 10% of the total budget. So the Army costs about 26% of the MoD’s annual budget. Not 2/3rds as someone alleged.
For that 26% you get the best Army in the world, man for man.
@ Mark,
Your figure for Watchkeeper is wrong by a factor of 2. Half the amount you state. Your figures for FRES, Apache and WR seem completely off – a total of £507M spent to date on FRES and WR. £5Bn on 67 AH-64? £4.1 bn through life, according to the NAO, which is still another 18 years to come (£2.2 Bn to date, the rest yet to be spent).
“And you provide evidence the government wants to repeat afghanistan….”
Shall we take a walk.
Theresa May, Nov 2010 in a speech to RUSI:
“The presence of our military forces in Afghanistan reflects this basic principle: they are in Afghanistan to stop the return and resurgence of Al-Qaeda.”
” That is because our security fundamentally depends on the work of our Pakistani counter parts and the work we do with them. Most threats to the UK continue to come from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.”
“AQAP now has a very substantial operational capability in Yemen and this is increasing.
But they have also shown the ability to project a threat far beyond the borders of Yemen.”
“Just across the Red Sea from Yemen, the Al-Qaeda linked extremist group Al Shabaab, in Somalia, has developed links to Al-Qaeda and, we assess, to AQAP. It thrives in a failed state. It has aspirations beyond Somali borders. We know that people from this country have already gone to Somalia to fight. It seems highly likely, given experience elsewhere, that if left to their own devices we would eventually see British extremists, trained and hardened on the streets of Mogadishu, returning to the UK and seeking to commit mass murder on the streets of London.”
“In North Africa, we see continued activity from another Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb. They have raised millions of pounds by kidnapping people from Europe and holding them to ransom. They are using that money to buy weapons. We do not believe the group yet has the capability to carry out a terrorist attack on British soil but I don’t doubt that would be their aspiration.”
So you see, we have an eye on several regions of the world. We intend to remain globally engaged.
CDS Lecture, Dec 2011
“The UK will require other carefully chosen alliances over the coming decade through which to influence the strategic landscape and help determine the outcome of fast moving crises. Already our collaboration with countries in the Gulf and Africa has delivered results in the region, for surprisingly little cost. Perhaps we should be focussing our defence relationships on these regions rather than competing for influence, with many others, in for example, China or India? The Foreign Office and MOD are working on a new Defence Engagement methodology to help us answer some of these questions.
This strategic evaluation of our alliances will have to include a proper review of not just the Arab world and Africa but also of Russia and other countries. Where do they sit amongst our interests? Indeed are we really certain what those interests are? To help us I have argued that we need a strategic handrail to guide our interactions and focus our efforts.”
“While we were essentially able to rely on Arab partners and the NTC in Libya and can assist for example AMISOM’s vital mission in Somalia indirectly, it would be foolhardy indeed and against all the lessons of history to imagine that we will never deploy combat troops again. When our vital national interests are threatened or the case for a humanitarian intervention becomes overwhelming, we cannot rely on others always to fight our battles.
In sum, the ingredients to every campaign will always be the same but the formula one uses to mix them will depend on the unique circumstances confronting us on the day. Air, land and sea components will have to be balanced in different theatres in different ways just as will the blend of diplomatic and economic activity.”
Hammond, Dec 2011, RUSI
“So the action in Libya was necessary, legal and right.”
The rhetoric from those at the top is still very global, very aware of threats and from what Hammond says, we still believe interventionism is necessary, legal and right.
The evidence shows we have not changed our tune and have no intention of changing our tine. At all.
@ James
“In a long list of campaigns since the end of the 2nd World War, which of the 3 services has found itself essential to all of them apart from the Cold War? Does history not suggest that campaigning and fighting tends to happen on land, where people live, and not at sea? Should we use history and geography to try to inform decisions about future forces”?
I would say the Army was pretty essential in the cold war. No one doubts the need for an Army James or that war takes place on land predominately. However if we are to go to war with someone we need air superiority and we need control of the sea. Our current force structure does not allow us to generate either without the massive contribution of one single country (the USA). How can we advocate a defence budget that long term does not allow us to act alone or with others other than the USA.
If this is to be the case then surely we should simply scale back and have a costal defence force, Air defence fighter force with MPA and a home guard style army.
Surely you must agree with this.
James apache was 4.1b development and production only training and support is extra . And watchkeeper is currently sitting at 17m pounds per air vehicle an not in service about 1b and likely to rise.
Phil
Why have people forgotten what this war is all about? It is about defending the United Kingdom. Thousands of westerners have been killed by terrorists using Afghanistan as their base.
Is it so hard to understand that we have gone after their base of operations?
Sorry Phil but that is nonsense. There base of operations if the even have one was Florida where they learned to fly. Attacking Afghanistan was the right thing to do but that operation was all but over in 2002. It’s the post 2006 nation building exercise that I am in disagreement with. Lets make Afghanistan a nice place so terrorist can train here. All they have done is move to the half dozen or so failed states happy to support them. So again is it worth $1 tillion to build a nation in Afghanistan. Especially when we have caused massive political instability in Pakistan which is supposedly the country we are trying to stabilize through our actions.
Better 2 well equipped brigades and the shipping to move one (without to much stress,) than 5 sparsely equipped MRB (whatever they are…)
I just hope the war in Somalia will be a good one. If there is such a thing.
“Sorry Phil but that is nonsense.”
Sorry your post is nonsensical. The Afghan operation was not over in 2002. The whole kicking down the door and pissing off again doesn’t happen in the real world.
Falklands: still there.
1995 FRY bombings: stayed there another 5 years.
Kosovo: EU nations, still there.
Gulf War: stayed there a decade, went back, spent another decade there.
All the wishful thinking in the world is not going to make an operation like Afghanistan easy.
Fantasies of going in, kicking ass and taking names, and coming home to a ticker tape parade thankfully are not fantasies entertained in Government.
We are NOT nation building in Afghan. We are building capacity and strengthening a friendly central power. It is in black and bloody white in enormous numbers of primary documents, the latest of which is the US defence guidance publication.
“Achieving our core goal of
disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al-QaKida and preventing Afghanistan from ever
being a safe haven again will be central to this effort”
There it is. Where does it say “nation building” and building little schools for little Afghan kids?
And any instability in Pakistan is a Pakistani issue. And they knew it. And we know it. Theresa May said it publicly in the speech I quoted above.
“Better 2 well equipped brigades and the shipping to move one (without to much stress”
The forces used to invade Iraq didn’t walk there did they.
@ Martin,
re “Cold War”, I actually typed “Cod War”, but my spellcheck (which I don’t know how to turn off) thought it knew better. Unfortunately, it completely changed the sense of my post.
(In case this doesn’t get through unaltered, I mean the fishy sort of war in which even the Icelanders can defeat this great maritime nation. After all, we only deployed 22 frigates, 7 supply ships, and nine tug boats in the 1976 Cod War. And still lost).
@ James – “Spastic little boats with no planes to fly off them…. all at the expense of the one service that has bled itself dry in mission after mission since the end of the Cold War.”
James, if that is what I am a supporter of, and Phil has me on a watchlist for similar crimes (not sure if he was joking), then it seems strange that you don’t take the time to respond to any of my posts.
Is it because this carrier ‘fanboi’ is to moderate to launch any of you fruity invective against?
Is it perhaps time to admit that all the services have their fanboi’s here at TD with yourself in the vanguard against those “spastic little ships?
@ Martin – “Wars like Afghanistan and Iraq are wars of choice. All be it not our choice but we could just as easily have said no. What would have been the consequence of saying to the USA sorry but we disagree with your actions not going to stop you and feel free to use Diego Garcia to bomb whoever you like but we are not going to put boots on the ground.”
YES!
Anyone who wants to find out exactly how small the British Army can get, and the other services to a lesser extent, has only to keep on cheering as the Army is committed to one protracted and nasty COIN war after another………….. until the day when this statistic is reversed:
http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Europe/0710ch_yougov_survey.pdf
“The UK should remain a great power, with substantial armed forces and our own seat at the United Nations Security Council as one of the ‘big five’ permanent members: YouGov 49% GB 62%”
“The UK should accept that it is no longer a great power, cut its defence budget significantly, and in due course give up its seat on the United Nations Security Council: YouGov41% GB 22%”
“Don’t know: YouGov 10% GB 15%”
On the day that those statistics are reversed, and the electorate is no longer willing to see the country as a Great Power willing to project power for the greater ‘good’*, then you will see the Defence budget decimated!
Meeting the NATO commitment will at that point become optional, reconfiguring the entire army to sustain power-projection will become antithetical to a cost-effective self-defence force, assets that allow HMF to dominate a theatre of war will be an irrelevance.
The big-army boys here will RAPIDLY watch it become 60,000 blue-helmets, and believe me, I won’t be happy with that either!
* enlightened self-interest in Hague parlance
My position on the armed forces comes from me thinking about the evidence. I hold no particular instinctive stock for any one service, I comment more about the Army because it is what I know the most about. You might notice that I rarely comment on technical posts or threads about equipment because that isn’t a particular interest of mine.
I don’t share James’s view on the navy or air force, I like a nice, shiny ship as much as the next man, but when I think seriously about the armed forces, and what they are meant to do, and how history and the evidence shows us how that has been done in the past and might need to be done in the future, I come down to my argument for a certain posture – which pretty much conforms to the SDSR model – I know, very boring. I also suspect that the SDSR model did not come about by accident though.
I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I often worry I am too easily persuaded. But nobody on here has come close to persuading me that the path of interventionism we have trod, and the matrix of interests we have defended since the end of the Cold War or September 11 is changing. So I just see no point in fantasy fleets that are completely divorced from those realities – fine, interesting to read people’s opinions as ever, but it cannot in my mind be a serious discussion about UK defence because the author ignores reality, or does not address reality – that makes it a work of fiction.
I equally disagree with Chris B model of a larger army but understand where he is coming from with his assumptions and his analysis of government policy and intentions.
The BIG question as ever is political. The military posture is completely and utterly and ruthlessly subordinated to it. It is a footnote, the easiest piece of the puzzle to put together since we have elaborate models and assumptions in each service on how to achieve certain capabilities, for example we know we need x number of ships to maintain y number of tasking and we know we have z number of tasking.
The military posture is about 15% of the story.
“YES!”
I completely disagree that Afghanistan was a war of choice. And if I had asked people on September 12 2001 if it was, judging from the column inches devoted to the atrocity and the fear and the shock and the rage, very, very few would have said we had much choice but to intervene.
As for Iraq, I very rarely comment on it because I have limited understanding of it. It is such a controversial war that it is far too early to know what was right about it and what was wrong about it in a wider sense. Clearly the post war handling didn’t go too well but it will be some time before the dust settles enough to truly know why.
Afghan is much more clear cut.
@ Jedibeeftrix,
I’m sorry if I have not specifically commented on your own views. Like everyone, I dip in and out depending on real life commitments, and I had not noted any particular questions you posed to me. As much as my comments are worth, I do think (and did think, even back in 2000 in a public debate at the Joint Staff Course) that RN carriers are an unaffordable way of achieving a sub-optimal capability, that submarines achieve a greater strategic effect in both peace and war. Given an unlimited budget, of course let’s have lots, but we don’t have an unlimited budget. all of that was before the current Government decided un-planed carriers are a useful spending commitment, and certainly before the inevitable delays and final cancellation by the US of F-35 B and C, which is going to make us look pretty foolish. We’ll have to nip round to Carrefour and place an option on some Rafales.
Carrier launched manned planes are rapidly losing utility in comparison to alternative methods of achieving strategic aims.
phil
saying afghanistan is great, and repeating it, are two very different kettles of fish.
The dead and maimed of afghanistan mean no politician is going to say anything but ‘rah rah rah we won and it was worth it’
but we aint doing it again.
phil
9/11 was avenged by christmas.
Bush wanted to bring christ to the heathens and Blair The Guardian.
Do you not realise how few wars historicaly end with a ten year occupation?
Do you know how long the worlds shortest war was even?
James
i’m not a carrier junkie.
Stick an airborne radar on a v22 fly it off a destroyer.
I’m the sites biggest proponant of arsenal ships :)
sharkey and the ptt put in moderation to silence me after i pointed out how bombs a jet had to drop to cost less than a cruise missile….
Hi x,
RE ” 2 well equipped brigades” TICK
RE ” and the shipping to move one (without to much stress,)” – with some warning, TICK
RE ” than 5 sparsely equipped MRB”, we have them, TICK
- it might turn out that we will have 4 (and how many TA?)
RE “(whatever they are…)”
- on this one I agree, and as it has taken so long to dream up what they exactly are, they may turn out to be a mirage… Try to google for a comprehensive description, and nothing comes up since the days of General Jackson?
Hi James,
RE ” final cancellation by the US of F-35 B and C, which is going to make us look pretty foolish. We’ll have to nip round to Carrefour and place an option on some Rafales.
Carrier launched manned planes are rapidly losing utility in comparison to alternative methods of achieving strategic aims.”
- I wonder if you realise how rapidly the USN/USMC strike/fighter fleet is aging? That alone makes is practically impossible to cancel the “C” – but not the “B”
- alternative means are steadily gaining, but despite a ten-year long debate around utility of (big) carriers, the Obama policy seems to instruct maintaining the numbers; In his early days in the office, the missile defence was moved mainly onto those floaty things (USA pays for them, if they are needed in the Pacific, they can move quickly)…Any surprise that an other “capital asset” which the carrier force taken together, as a capability, is seen in the same light = stretching the money, while reposturing for Two Wars to One and a Half
“those floaty things” not being a carrier reference, rather just using the terminology coined by James
“phil
saying afghanistan is great, and repeating it, are two very different kettles of fish.
The dead and maimed of afghanistan mean no politician is going to say anything but ‘rah rah rah we won and it was worth it’
but we aint doing it again.”
Dom I’m bored of the, “answer Doms question, Dom makes a statement and asks a question, answer Doms question, Dom makes a statement and asks another question and so on and on game”.
@James
“re “Cold War”, I actually typed “Cod War”, but my spellcheck (which I don’t know how to turn off) thought it knew better. Unfortunately, it completely changed the sense of my post.
(In case this doesn’t get through unaltered, I mean the fishy sort of war in which even the Icelanders can defeat this great maritime nation. After all, we only deployed 22 frigates, 7 supply ships, and nine tug boats in the 1976 Cod War. And still lost).”
- “War”? “Defeat”? Not exactly. Your anti-RN rhetoric (e.g. “spastic little boats”) is reaching new heights of surrealism.
- Having to comply with restrictive ROE and the use of proportional force applicable to maritime constabulary duties like fishery protection, UN-mandated boarding operations and anti-piracy patrols can be a real bugger sometimes, can’t it? Especially when you have the capability to blow the blighters out of the water on first sight (as would happen in a real “war”). I suppose it’s a bit like the UN peace-keeping forces who had to stand and watch while innocent civilians were herded off to internment caps or worse in the Balkans. So let’s have no more of this ridiculous sniping which does you no credit at all. For all that, happy New Year to you and everyone else on this forum.
- One question for you, please. Reportedly, the 106,000-strong British Army (Apr 2011 DASA statistics – http://www.dasa.mod.uk/modintranet/UKDS/UKDS2011/c2/table206.php) has been struggling to maintain 6,000 regulars in Afghanistan on top of standing commitements elsewhere whenever the 8,000-strong Royal Marines (same source) haven’t provided the spearhead. How many regulars do you believe the Army should be comfortable with keeping deployed on a long-term basis?
“One question for you, please. Reportedly, the 106,000-strong British Army”
The Army is comfortable keeping what we have in Afghan out there fine. It was not comfortable trying to generate two medium enduring operations which lasted years. Now that Iraq has long since ended and the generation cycle settled down there’s no large problem since the Army is primarily geared to providing the Afghan contingent now. I can’t remember the name of the operation now.
@Phil
It’s Operation HERRICK and we are currently engaged in the 15th deployment phase – HERRICK XV – October 2011-April 2012.
Not HERRICK. The operation to put the Army onto an Afghan footing. Operation Totalise or something like that.
@ Dunservin,
no comment on the personal bravery of those in the RN, but rather that of the sort of thinking in Whitehall that continues to believe that the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier (which to my mind is a spastic little boat) is a good use for the nation’s treasure and credibility.
As far as ROE are concerned, I’m fully aware of how they can make platforms impotent, and also that the platform’s CO (whether a Captain commanding a frigate or a Cpl commanding a Warrior) will often look on with rage as his Government has forbidden him to do what he can.
Note to all, if anyone is interested. “Floaty little boat”, “Tonka Toy” and “Biggles” are all affectionate terms used with no offence on the Joint Staff Course by all 3 services. It’s not meant to be offensive, merely a reminder to all that there are no wonder weapons, capabilities or any single service that has all of the answers.
Ref Phil:
“The rhetoric from those at the top is still very global, very aware of threats and from what Hammond says, we still believe interventionism is necessary, legal and right.
The evidence shows we have not changed our tune and have no intention of changing our tine. At all.”
Yes, very interesting quotes, and I know it pisses of our lord and master, TD, BUT that level of political rhetoric is NOT backed up by the cash it requires. TD likes to think about acting efficiently with the money we have, or less; once again I say that the politicians need to rein in their “ambitions” or fund defence properly.
Also ref: “The Army is comfortable keeping what we have in Afghan out there fine.”
Personally I wonder about this. In the last edition of C & S that I picked up in a book store over here is an article on Royal Scots Dragoon Guards D Squadron providing the Warthog group for Herrick 14. This regiment, is nominally a Challenger 2 regiment, with 3 squadrons of CH2 and 1 of Scimitar (the fabled “medium” armour fandangle).
However the article details that for Herrick while D squadron provided the troops for the Warthog group, and I think B deployed with their Scimitars, (and A remained in Germany as “battle casualty replacement and support) the C Squadron deployed in a “boots for holding ground” Light Infantry unit.
Seriously, am I the only one who reads that and says WTF ? For a start how can a squadron of 4 man tank crews make up even an Company of infantry ? Secondly, and I totally get that soldiers are soldiers, and ours are particularly flexible, AND that we have decided there is no need for CH2 in the current theater BUT come on, we are “comfortable” in this deployment because we can use pre-deployment training to turn professional tankers into so called “light infantry” ? Does not seem right to me……
@ Jed,
as someone who was in the SCOTS DG, I can happily confirm that all who wear the grey beret will:
1. Be fully aware of the incongruous nature of what you outline;
2. Do their damnedest to be excellent in the role they are given, and cheerful while they are at it;
3. Being canny Scotsmen, actually be excellent in the role.
But your wider point is well-taken and understood.
I’m very sure the “dismounted” role was BRF.
I used to peer at the H14 matrix and I don’t remember any SDG mentioned as being any of the CF companies.
And also other armoured regiments have provided a dismounted squadron for the BRF. Like the QDG.
@ ACC re Shipping
Really? Gosh you must have a very different idea to what a brigade is and how much a ship can lift than I do.
@ Phil – “when I think seriously about the armed forces, and what they are meant to do, and how history and the evidence shows us how that has been done in the past and might need to be done in the future, I come down to my argument for a certain posture – which pretty much conforms to the SDSR model – I know, very boring. I also suspect that the SDSR model did not come about by accident though.”
You are not alone, pretty much identical to my own view.
@ James – “As much as my comments are worth, I do think (and did think, even back in 2000 in a public debate at the Joint Staff Course) that RN carriers are an unaffordable way of achieving a sub-optimal capability, that submarines achieve a greater strategic effect in both peace and war.”
Thank you James, I understand the PoV, and do accept that there are other perfectly rational military means to achieve a given strategic effect.
And yes, they do require that nine brigade army and as a consequence no carriers and independent Marine brigade. That is an option.
My objection lies in my response to Martin above (see “YES!), in that I believe while it is militarily effective it is a political disaster. As Phil (i think) noted military posture is utterly subordinated to political will, and that is predicated on public tolerance.
We are dangerously close to becoming ‘continental’ (lots of people would say this is a good thing), in the public’s lack of appetite for elective warfare, and if that happens then the need (and cost) for power projection disappears in a blink (in a defence review).
“We are dangerously close to becoming ‘continental’ (lots of people would say this is a good thing), in the public’s lack of appetite for elective warfare, and if that happens then the need (and cost) for power projection disappears in a blink (in a defence review).”
I disagree. One can turn ones nose up at interventionism, fine, such is the democratic process, but we still have interests that we would need to project power to defend.
And my God, dare I ever say, those little peat bogs we have down south are a good example of that.
The other point is, our interests are generally perpetual, generally speaking. They exist and are concerns for a lot longer than a military planning cycle or any one government. Just because one day we might decide to can our power projection ability doesn’t mean we won’t try and get it back again shortly afterwards.
“Really? Gosh you must have a very different idea to what a brigade is and how much a ship can lift than I do”
I wonder how much it cost for us to hire Stargate SG1 from the yanks to teleport 3 brigades to Iraq in 2003?
Have you been at Cissy’s damson wine again Godfrey?
“BUT that level of political rhetoric is NOT backed up by the cash it requires”
This is where my ACTUAL force model comes in. Which is a result of negotiations, compromise, conflicting agenda’s and interests, resource scarcity, culture, power struggles and real world events.
That and the fact we’re broke.
Been very busy last few days, first chance I have had to look at this properly.
As usual for all this “We should stuff…..”, full marks to Martin for putting this up, but we have rather ended up in usual
1) We must spend more money
2) We must keep full spectrum capability
OR
3)WE must spend more money on the Army and hang the others
4) we must spend more money on the Navy and hang the others
5) We must spend more money on the RAF and hang the others.
(delete according to posters pref)
Chuck in the WASAWPYK dreamers, who seem to believe that oil flows from the gulf only because the RN permits it, and that any country we have ever done business with looks to GB to defend it, stir: and let the row begin…
And I see Nellie and Dumbo are in the room….
I may have missed it but has anyone who has posted done so with an eye to the real defence budget and what it will be in 3-5 years time?
“Have you been at Cissy’s damson wine again Godfrey?”
My point is some bang on saying we can’t move the Army yet time after time Brigades mysteriously appear in places all over the world. I can only conclude that since we don’t have any ships to move a brigade, and can’t move it by air, and rail is sooooo twee and unspeakably vulnerable to the Partisans we must be teleporting brigades around the globe.
Not to mention the 4 Astute’s we’ll have to pay Russia to use its railways which I imagine they will fiendishly use against us in our invasion of Murmansk. When we’re not holding Amadinnerjacket’s Private Shitter hostage with a Pocket Division. Of course.
I am more wondering if we can weaponize Phil.
“I am more wondering if we can weaponize Phil.”
That’s the most bizarre thing said on here today.
@ Phil
We move the Army by air and sea because the US with their considerable air, sea, diplomatic, and economic power allows us to move the Army. Nothing to with RN. Nothing to do with the RAF. Go and read up on GW1 and see how long it took to move 1st Armoured to the Gulf. Who kept the Straits safe? Who’s diplomatic power allowed stuff to transit the Suez?
HMG spends over £700 billion a year. Are we really saying there is no room for required defence spending in there?
TD gets angry if you say an extra billion for defence would sort the problem. So many figures get bandied about, it is difficult to see the real picture. My stab at it is this. The 1998 SDR was the last time we tried to have a global,credible,balanced force at the lowest cost. Gordon underfunded it by about £3 billion a year. Now the coalition has knocked defence down by £4 billion a year to fund the dictators Mercedes fund known as DfID.
So UK defence needs to be boosted by £7 billion a year to be credible. Or less than 1% of government spending.
Can we not cut spending on DfID, benefit tourists, pc non jobs, overpaying doctors,lawyers & council bosses to find that 1%?
@ Phil
Shhhhhh! Stop posting. You are now a top secret defence project. You can’t even admit to yourself you exist……..
“Can we not cut spending on DfID, benefit tourists, pc non jobs, overpaying doctors,lawyers & council bosses to find that 1%?”
Of course. In theory. But, there’s a lot of problems with that.
Not least that MoD has been one of the worst departments when it comes to looking after its money.
“Go and read up on GW1 and see how long it took to move 1st Armoured to the Gulf”
Off the top of my head 7 Bde was in theatre and operational within a month of getting the official nod.
“Who kept the Straits safe? Who’s diplomatic power allowed stuff to transit the Suez?”
Our ally’s perchance?
There’s nothing new or earth shattering to what you are saying here.
We move our forces freely because we consciously have an alliance with the greatest maritime power the earth has ever seen. Seems a good idea to me. It’s not an accident – all those Special Relationship types might bleat on about it but we’ve never been particularly natural allies with the US until the 70s at least.
So you are saying that the British Army is just the US Army’s Ghurkas?
In GW2 UK convoys were escortedfrom the STROG into theatre, HMS Westminster covered the STROG transit working with USS Donald Cook to double up where possible on UK/US convoys. there was a real worry that a terrorist with a speed boat full of explosives could take out a ship in the STROg and there were a few hairy moments.
The convoys were then handed over to other assets Cumberland for the RN did the next leg. The Malta channel was a worry and of course Suez.
“So you are saying that the British Army is just the US Army’s Ghurkas?”
Shall I start calling you Dom?
APATS thank you very interesting.
So:
1. We can move brigades. I don’t really think they are teleported (fooled you).
2. We escorted the shipping in convoys.
I am bewildered as to how this was accomplished without the Near East Fleet of 2 CVF and 5 Type 57s and a Type 26 but we managed to pull it off.
nah! i was 7 armd wksp, although in canada at time of balloon going up, timescale was roughly park on the rugby pitch for 6 weeks in packet order, take ARRV’s up to hamburg to load on ships, come back as doors not wide enough! go up 2nd time load vehicles.
deploy and wait for vehicles which i think came about 6-8 weeks later, obviously we were on the bus, off the bus in BATUS, but in daily telephone contact with parent unit, from park up on the pitch to picking up trucks in the sunny port was around 14ish weeks, then getting it ready was another 6ish weeks. which is when the training could take place.
@ Phil
Are you saying you couldn’t cut it as a Ghurka? Or that you don’t like bhat? Or both?
Who doesn’t like bhat?
“nah! i was 7 armd wksp, although in canada at time of balloon going up, timescale was roughly park on the rugby pitch for 6 weeks in packet order, take ARRV’s up to hamburg to load on ships, come back as doors not wide enough! go up 2nd time load vehicles.”
I have lost Cordingley’s book (gutted) but he gives the date 7X became operational, I was sure it was in November around the time of the decision to reinforce with 4X. Alas I cannot be sure.
“Are you saying you couldn’t cut it as a Ghurka?”
Probably not. They made me curry a few times. Horrible! And one chased me around with a headless chicken squirting blood at me. Never forgiven them.
@ X,
I like bhat, and as I’m on my own this evening, it doesn’t matter if it’s a windy sort. Thank you for the reminder. Now, 2 onions, a handful of red lentils, 2 diced red chilis, some cubed beef….
@ Phil
I am now lost for words. :) ;)
@ Phil,
it’s one of those “where were you when Kennedy got shot” memories. Except in my case, I wasn’t born when Kennedy got shot, but you get my point. In my case, it was on the post-ENDEX move back from Regt Trg in the Harz to Herford. CO called an O Group in RHQ for 8 pm, after ENDEX. That’s when I knew it was serious. 2 weeks later, out sandy side but the wagons took another 5 weeks to get there.
Shame on you Phil! The Nepalese curry house just up from haymarket station is one of my favourites!
http://www.thekhukuri.co.uk
yeh James, got a phone call onboard from CINCFLEET asked who in CINCFLEET to be told it was CINCFLEET and those 2 Disel generators that had just been taken out should be put back in as the maintenace period was cancelled and we were sailing in 7 days.
@ APATS
Taste was okay. But they just chopped the chicken up, literally diced it with a Kukri and ate it, bones and all. And the odd fly.
Hi x,
First wave, 2nd, 3rd… I invite you to count
- men (not including crews)
- helos (1st wave, the weakest point,but you can add other helo capable vessels to the fleet to up the available number, even if they then operate in a different role like replenishment), landing craft, even hovercraft
- and linear meters giving the capacity for both armoured and other kinds of vehicles on:
1. 1 (plus another, hence the warning notice)Albion, Lusty and 3 Bays
2. All the Points
UK brigades, in standard size, are piddly small. And 3 Commando is extra light
The on ration strength of 3Cdo is about 4800. 3 x Bays (ea 700 troops overload) is 2100. Ocean in overload about 800. One LPD about 400 bods in overload. So that is about 3000 troops. And though I grant all the Points (4 in MoD use) would give you huge cargo lift enough stores for 2 months they have no trooping. Can be done isn’t the same as done without too much stress.
why i have always said we should maintain at least enough amphibs to shift 3Cdo (even if in overload), and enough other shipping (points plus) to move a follow on brigade.
Given a constrained defence budget, if it came to it would you either have a set of amphibious ships, or a pair of carriers? Either / or, not both.
3 x Makin Islands with 3 x largish LSD for the outsize stuff.
James, amphibs everytime
Can you lot stop bickering now and go and read about Bailey bridges FFS :)
@ James, do not think it is a relative question but if that was the option, carriers every time.
@ APATS
Yes carriers. But theme of the thread is “don’t worry the Americans have some” whether it be aircraft carriers, AAR, dollars, extra boots, etc. etc.
Actually the correct answer is both carriers and amhphibs…. :)
X agreed but even given the US switch to nthe East some posters would prefer to match cental european powers with an un deployable division than become an enabler for a European force.
@ TD,
Bailey bridges, I love them. Even helped build one once, and I’m not a sapper but was part of a group of available muscle to lift and shift.
I have no idea which company if any owns the design rights to Bailey Bridges, but DFID should really talk with them. Strike a strategic partnership, or if the design rights are free, contract with several light engineering firms for a 50 bridges a year deal, flat packed, delivery to a C17 at Brize Norton and assembly within 72 hours in Africa or Asia.
Bridges are an amazingly effective way of bringing development and transport to undeveloped parts of the world.
@ APATS,
sorry, carriers were not the right answer. There’s nothing at all a carrier can do that cannot be achieved with other assets e.g. a submarine for deep strike, a T45 for air defence, and a converted ferry for C2, all for less than the cost of a carrier, not forgetting the additional costs of the boats to protect the carrier and the planes that fly off it.
Amphibious ships on the other hand can actually do something that carriers cannot, that is transport thousands of troops, their vehicles and stores to a hostile shore and land them. They need as much protecting as carriers, but that’s not a relative problem.
Janes, that is why, Russia, China, Brazil etc all want a carier or 2. I could explain why they want one but you would no doubt counter wiith your 2000 SO2 SO1 staff coure experience,
@ APATS,
go on then, try to convince me. I am genuinely open-minded, but you will have to put up with some awkward questions, and I have to declare, I’ve got a calculator and am not afraid to use it for various costings. ;)
We’re also going to have to talk in holistic terms, spanning the entire spectrum of operations, sustainability in both financial and logistic senses, and at some point going to have to enter into a deeply weird discussion on whether deep strike is best done from carrier aviation or other means, and draw some circles on a map as to where that carrier-based deep strike may be launched from, supported with AAR, and how long it takes to move the assets into place to allow that CNN Breaking News moment.
But I am completely open-minded.
@ APATS,
tangential to my last, but possibly related. I spent some time at NAS Fallon in Nevada, where I worked alongside a USMC F-18 aviator who had been on the air staff in Naples when Kosovo was going on. He had huge time for the Brits (and a little for NATO), but that did not include being a fan of massaging any non-US aircraft into the combined air plan. He therefore represents a slice of US military opinion that finds it difficult to incorporate little tagging along allies into US plans. Do-able, but without enthusiasm.
James
How are the amphibs going to land their cargo of men and material “on a hostile” shore without air support ? Are we ALWAYS going to be in range of a friendly airfield or three ?
As for carriers can’t do anything subs or other assets can’t do better – well there is one thing I am afraid, PERSISTENCE.
We don’t have enough SSN and they don’t carry enough Tomahawks (which is not always the right weapon for every job). Carriers are flexible, in that they are just flat bits of deck to fly things from. However I accept if there is no budget for a proper air wing, then they become sub-optimal ASW helo carriers, or “Commando” carriers (LPH).
I accept your comments about sustainability and logistics, the need to replenish your carrier. However that is no different than the need to deliver fuel and weapons to a possibly previously unused (by RAF / NATO) in a “friendly” country. Similarly if the bad guys have any air force, said base will need the same air defence cover from fighters and SAM’s as a carrier does.
I am no carrier junky, although I have operated on RN vessels which have been integrated parts of USN Carrier Striking Groups, twice in fact. So my contention is that your statement:
“There’s nothing at all a carrier can do that cannot be achieved with other assets e.g. a submarine for deep strike, a T45 for air defence, and a converted ferry for C2″ is just plain wrong, there is plenty are carrier with a SUITABLE AIR GROUP can do that neither an Tomahawk equipped Astute, nor a T45 can do.
Is it safe to pitch in now?
@ Martin,
“How can you maintain that an extra 4,000 men make a meaningful difference in a conflict the size of Afghanistan. It’s around 3% of the total force.”
–
Here’s a phone.
I want you to call the senior commander in Afghanistan and I want you tell him that not only are you removing the 4,000 extra bodies but you’re taking the original contingent with them, as our contribution is “insignificant”.
And you need to tell him those men and women are not coming back.
So if he wants that area of operations covered, if he want’s the artillery support, if he wants the air support, emergency medical facilities, engineer support, comms hub, supply hub, etc, etc, then he’s going to have to find the men himself.
What do you think his reaction will be to that, knowing that he now has to draw 8-10,000 personnel and their equipment from across the theatre and redeploy them to Helmand, leaving him short elsewhere?
Do you believe he will just thank us for what we’ve done so far and tell us not to worry because really, what we were doing was insignificant, so it wont make a big difference. Or do you think he’ll be livid that he now has to strip away large numbers of personnel and equipment from other areas and then redeploy them all to cover us?
An interesting thought exercise I think.
“What do we want to achieve in Afghanistan? Whatever it was we have clearly failed. $1 trillion even on a success is a bitter pill to swallow. It’s a f**king disaster for a failure.
Again going back to my point would it have not been better to spend this money else where. Energy research, medical innovation, things that could have helped all peoples of the world”
–
Would energy research and medical innovation stop people from seeking to blow themselves up in our backyard? The west has done more in the fields of medical research and energy research than the Islamic world has over the last 100 years. Yet surprisingly enough people still want to blow us up.
As was brought up earlier, by Phil I believe, the key is not really Afghanistan now it’s the Tribal zones in Northern Pakistan. The people that live there want to create an Islamic Caliphate to rival the medieval ones. And they have their eyes firmly set on Pakistan.
Our operations in Afghanistan are designed to deny those areas to those people, forcing them to operate from a smaller “box” in Pakistan, with the ISAF on one side and Pakistani counter insurgency forces on the other.
“Winning” doesn’t necessarily mean killing all of these people, just stopping them from threatening the Pakistani government to a degree, while also making it very difficult for them build networks and train foreigners who are then expected to return to their countries and commit serious acts of terror.
So far, looking at the wider picture, this has actually gone rather well. Not spectacular, but good.
As for door kicking. You need a sizable force to kick the door in to start with. A single undersized brigade with no support is a waste of time. And the follow on? You’ve said repeatedly that you don’t believe we should be doing the messy clean up jobs, so what makes you think that the Germans and French would be any more willing.
By that I mean that not only do they have to commit whatever it is they commit now, but they also need to commit additional forces in order to cover our lack of deployment. And not only that, but they have to start doing it in the hottest areas of the deployment, places like Helmand.
All this assuming that, despite the fact that apparently our politicians will have lost the resolve to get involved, their governments will have shown a greater willingness to get involved.
Remarkable amount of optimism going on there.
@ Mark,
“Army’s had plenty of money; 1b on fres no vehicles 5 b apache forgot funds to train crews 500% overkill for any mission they’ve currently undertaken. 1.5b watchkeeper 1b lynx helicopters. 1b 8 chinooks no cockpit 1b warrior upgrade. Lost count on how many billion for a radio. Not to mention panther vehicles diggers logistic vehicles and supporting 5 divisional hqs that never leave the uk and several other brigade hqs that never leave the uk all in the last 10 years.”
–
Is an Apache overkill? Looking at it in Cold money terms, how much does it cost to train a soldier? How much does it cost to fly his coffin back to the UK on an otherwise empty C-17? If using a Hellfire saves money then far from being overkill it becomes cost efficient. And who’s to say that the man hit by the Hellfire would not have gone on to kill multiple British soldiers, pushing the cost analysis even further in our favour.
On a less bean counting note, what’s the point of having Apache and not using it? You have a tool there that can contribute, that can make a difference and help soldiers on the ground win firefights. But you’d rather what, just leave them back in the UK, because it might be considered a bit much to be firing anti-tank missiles at men protected only by linen and an unshakeable faith in Allah?
As for the rest of that kit, what’s the grand sum of those numbers you put up? £10.5b? For all of those projects, assuming the numbers aren’t a bit off which I think some are. Well that figure can be doubled and you’re still not looking at the cost of Typhoon to date. It’s less than the combined figure spent for 6x T45 Destroyers and, to date, zero aircraft carriers.
I’d say the Army could buck its ideas up with things like FRES, but in the stakes of how much money they’re draining from the equipment budget they’re positively amateurs when compared to the other two.
@ General,
I think the idea that we would never engage in another Afghanistan is very tenuous. Remember that Afghanistan started as a quick whizz bang operation with a very small committment of troops for the next five years, that then gradually built from there.
A politician could easily blag that kind of intervention elsewhere, hitting up Somalia or Yemen, followed by a small contingent as part of a multi-national UN mission, that then picks up many years down the line after most people have forgotten that it ever took place.
Look no further than Libya. That was an in and out job, with no real ground deployment beyond a few ninjas. On the face of it Libya would appear to be a model success. But as I wrote in my article on it, that’s just the start. Libya is better placed that Afghanistan and Iraq to go on and become a more settled state, but it’s by no means guaranteed.
What started as a fairly simple bombing operation could descend into chaos five years from now and result in heavy ground fighting, in a similar manner that the “Strategic Raid” on Afghanistan did (though I’m quietly optimistic that it wont, and if it does go tits up that it’ll be easier to control).
The important thing now is that we carve into the minds of future military leaders the mistakes of Iraq and Afghanistan, while reminding them of the successes of places like Oman.
In addition, while political rhetoric is not always backed by funding, rhetoric is usually a good sign of intent, in as much as, if politicians are talking tough about global engagement and interventions etc, then even if they’re not funding the services to properly handle these things it still means they have ambitions of putting the Armed forces in harms way.
I also feel Iraq is a poor example of elective wars. Was there an need for the UK to get involved? Probably not. Personally, from the evidence I’ve seen and heard, I’d quite fancy seeing Bush and Blair indicted for war crimes.
But that does not change the fact that Blair and his cabinet (and that fucking snake Campbell), somewhere in their own minds had convinced themselves that intervening in Iraq would build stronger ties with the US. They had convinced themselves that getting involved in Iraq was in the British interest.
Thus governments – as I finally accepted all those weeks ago before rewriting the final draft of my own Fantasy Fleets article (*cough* still waiting James *cough*) – will always find reasons to get involved in wars that we in the public outwardly can’t see the sense in.
@ X
“I am more wondering if we can weaponize Phil”
–
Give me 10 years and £5 billion and I’ll turn Phil into a holistically created, joint asset, interoperable with all of our allies and capable of delivering precision effects across a broad spectrum of warfighting domains.
He’ll also come with a BV.
@ Jed, re carriers ability to do stuff “with a suitable air group”, that’s the problem. Carrier on its’ own is useless, suitable air group on its’ own is useless, put the 2 together and you have “some” capability, and a whacking great bill. Given the craven nature of DE&S to capitulate to the titans of the UK and US defence industries, to mismanage programmes, and to fail to see the bleeding obvious, the whacking great bill is going to be unaffordable, and grow from there.
I’m spending tonight’s asleep thinking time on wondering whether an integrated satellite network (or even airship) and combined deep strike / air defence submarine concept is going to be too exciting for TD. It’s not going to be cheap, but then neither are T45s.
@ James – “Given a constrained defence budget, if it came to it would you either have a set of amphibious ships, or a pair of carriers? Either / or, not both.”
The correct answer is both.
Given that we face a constrained budget the answer is to cut elsewhere.
That constrained budget is going to pay for all the army ambitions i have quoted so many times in this thread, and it is going to pay for that second carrier.
What is left after that, a few more cheap-as-chips amphibs!
@ ChrisB – “I think the idea that we would never engage in another Afghanistan is very tenuous”
Sure we are, but we will no longer subsume the entirety of our army capability in doing so.
There will be a commitment of one MRB plus enablers, with the possibility of a second intervention brigade (read 16AAB or 3Cdo) for the opening days of war (read six months).
That DCDC paper i likewise keep on quoting makes it very clear that HMG has no interest in future in having zero strategic flexibility as a result of 10,000 squaddies sat somewhere dusty for well over a decade.
However one might wish to change the question, James asked a very pointed one.
For my money, the amphib fleet has delivered far greater utility to UK operations and at far less cost when taken in the round over the last 3 or 4 decades, in fact, carrier strike has been essential only once in the last 40 odd years and given a replay of the same situation today I am not sure they would be essential down there either.
Jedi, the DCDC paper is good in itself but it is often a set of wishful thinking about what the authors would like to happen, not necessarily what will happen. Are you sure its 10,000 men for a decade?
Chrisb would a hellfire fired from a lynx or Uav do the same job? Everyone seems to be critics of fastjets as overkill yet a 60m(uk version) pound anti tank helicopter is perfectly ok to shoot guys with an rpg on the back of a pick up truck because it’s an army asset.
And yep the navy spent 6b on type45 and so far about 3.5b on the carriers. No other surface vessels I’m aware of in the last 10 years. Typhoons prob had about 10b spent on it over the ladt 10 years too after all its been goings since about 1988. I would read the nao report on armoured vehicles to see how much the army wasted on that. 2.5b so far on bowman how much on the hq ones or the new logistics vehicles. Not to mention the 5.8b per year were spending on afghan will hundreds of uors. The idea that 2 boat who real spend has only strayed about 3 years ago would have cured the armies problems in 2003 is laughable. They’ve all had the budget theyve all spent there share how they saw fit.
Mark, UOR spend or costs of operations do not come out of core budgets as well you know
TD
Are you saying fastjet air support is not essential in modern military operations? I’ll bin carrier air tomorrow if you can guarantee fastjet availabilty to uk forces for the next 40 years from land bases in all operations which in my view is required for independent uk operations.
Hi APATS,
“that is why, Russia, China, Brazil etc all want a carier or 2. ”
-China, India and Russia have all declared for 3 during this decade
- that probably means that the first two will have them, and Russia will bring their only one back after a multi-year refit
“Carriers vs Amphibs” – has to be carriers as a significant amphibious capability can be taken up from commercial vessels and air defence / strike cannot.
Can STUFT put troops and stores ashore onto a beach? Or do they tend to need ports and MHE?
And can they support helicopters and where exactly are we going to get these ships from
@ TD –
Jed answers this to my purposes:
“How are the amphibs going to land their cargo of men and material “on a hostile” shore without air support ? Are we ALWAYS going to be in range of a friendly airfield or three ?”
If you have sovereign capability you maximise the political leverage it can achieve and minimise the costs incurred in achieving that leverage.
re: troops numbers
i am conflating afgan and iraq.
@ Chris BAE
You say that now. I bet it will be 15 years and 10 billion.
JBT said “If you have sovereign capability you maximise the political leverage it can achieve and minimise the costs incurred in achieving that leverage.”
Exactly. I think we all agree here that we can no longer do everything. But anything we can do to at least win back some level of independence should be done.
Further I am not saying the British Army is a poor performer. I want the specialist shipping to leverage the Army’s talent.
This “we always get there” view of things is a bit lob sided. It reminds me of that film “The Mouse that Roared” where the soldiers of Grand Fenwick catch a bus to the port in France and passage to the USA in a tramp steamer……
@ James
http://www.movcon.org.uk/History/Documents/DID/D-MCHS%200290.10.htm#Part%207
There’s not much point having all this freedom of manoeuvre if one doesnt have the mass or endurance to effect a decision when the time comes. Hoping that the enemy will roll over after a good kicking is not bourn out by the historical facts.
Has the regular army deployed more than 2 manoeuvre brigades in recent time and Is there a reason why the force required for an endurance mission could not be found in the majority from the reserve forces.
Yes.
GW1 really was a 3 Bde job once you count the reserve forces.
Kosovo was 4X, 5X and 3Cdo
Iraq 7X, 16X, 3 Cdo
No reason why it couldn’t come from a reserve force but not as it stands now. And you’d need 6 month notice at least. Better a year. These are timescales used by the US who have enormous readiness resources.
@ James – “Hoping that the enemy will roll over after a good kicking is not bourn out by the historical facts.”
What are the implications of your putative army that can persist in depth on the other two services?
Shrinking down to seven brigades, as both Phil and I proclaim ourselves to be content with, will still allow:
“A new set of Defence Planning Assumptions
The new Defence Planning Assumptions envisage that the Armed Forces in the future will be sized and
shaped to conduct:
• an enduring stabilisation operation at around brigade level (up to 6,500 personnel) with maritime
and air support as required, while also conducting:
• one non-enduring complex intervention (up to 2,000 personnel), and
• one non-enduring simple intervention (up to 1,000 personnel);
OR alternatively:
• three non-enduring operations if we were not already engaged in an enduring operation;
OR:
• for a limited time, and with sufficient warning, committing all our effort to a one-off intervention of
up to three brigades, with maritime and air support (around 30,000, two-thirds of the force
deployed to Iraq in 2003).”
Is this not enough?
I ask because if one brigade persistance in-theatre isn’t enough then we are looking at two.
Even if we change the rotation schedule from 4:1 (24m/6m) to 3:1 (24m/8m), that will still demand eight large brigades.
And since it won’t be acceptable to completely turn run HMF as a one-event uber COIN force it will no doubt require a specialist light-infantry brigade composed of the remnants of 16AAB and 3Cdo. A commando brigade if you will.
Now, will you please explain to me what impact expanding the army brigades by nearly 50% (7 to 9) would have on the army and the airforce given the cuts that we needed in both even under the seven brigade army?
It would in my opinion be a very foolish move.
[edit for correction]
“Now, will you please explain to me what impact expanding the army brigades by nearly 50% (7 to 9) would have on the [[navy]] and the airforce given the cuts that we needed in both even under the seven brigade army?”
Phil nearly sure 3cdo is in the RN not the army.
Theatre entry could be mainly carried out by the regular. Time between regulars deploying for initial op and the first roulemount is generally longer than 6 months is it not.
@ Phil
I would say GW1 was 3 brigade job if you look at how the artillery (excluding divisional assets) was deployed and used.
Saying that GW1 seems to have put the Army under a lot of strain materially. I get the impression that equipment wise BAOR must have been operating close to the edge during the late 80s.
It put the Army under strain because we took all the newest most effective kit and took a lot more than 1 Br Division would normally have had. For example the Armoured Infantry Bns had their AT Coy re-equipped with WARRIOR.
It’s 6 or 7 months. Which gives about four months to train and call up the reservists. Not easy with no warning and no prior mobilisation training. Your entry force is looking at being a once a year shot.
@ JEDIBFTRX
“… in having zero strategic flexibility as a result of 10,000 squaddies sat somewhere dusty for well over a decade,”
–
Why does this represent zero flexibility? An army that could sustain such levels for a long term deployment could also spare a Brigade for a short, sharp flare up.
The more men you have, the more concurrent tasks you can handle, like the SDSR’s requirement to handle one enduring op at 6,500 while also being able to conduct minor operations on the side.
A smaller army (of the size proposed by some) will be lucky if it can deploy the original 6,500, let alone additional forces to other deployments as a reaction to rapidly changin geo-politcal events.
If anything it is the small army that becomes strategically inflexible.
@ Mark
“Chrisb would a hellfire fired from a lynx or Uav do the same job? Everyone seems to be critics of fastjets as overkill yet a 60m(uk version) pound anti tank helicopter is perfectly ok to shoot guys with an rpg on the back of a pick up truck because it’s an army asset.”
–
Like I say, you want to just leave the Apaches back in Blighty twidling their thumbs when they could be contributing?
Or maybe you dump Apache… and then a future campaign comes up where you need helicopters or UAV’s to provide close support against an enemy armed with AA assets. Loses start to mount up and suddenly those well armoured, close support orientated Apaches look very nice indeed.
Except now you don’t have them and Joe public wants to know why that is, and why you’re using Lynx’s in an environment where the enemy has heavy machine guns and RPG’s, and has figured out that they can shoot back successfully at your helicopters now.
“And yep the navy spent 6b on type45 and so far about 3.5b on the carriers. No other surface vessels I’m aware of in the last 10 years.”
–
Carrier costs will be likely closer to £6.5bn. Plus the Type 23 uprgade for Artisan radars. Tack on another £8bn at least for the Submarines. Plus the cost of all the refits being conducted on RN vessels (if you’re counting Warrior CSP then refits are fair game).
“The idea that 2 boat who real spend has only strayed about 3 years ago would have cured the armies problems in 2003 is laughable. They’ve all had the budget theyve all spent there share how they saw fit.”
–
That doesn’t change the fact that the RN and RAF are spending more on equipment programs than the Army.
@ X
“@ Chris BAE. You say that now. I bet it will be 15 years and 10 billion.”
–
Measures have been put in place to ensure the weaponised Phil unit program will come in on time and on budget, thanks to refined processes building on years of industry experience that will maximise efficiency, productivity, technological pull through from past projects and the use of some off the shelf components to reduce risk in critical pinch point areas.
Unfortunately I am lazy and will undoubtedly be declared unfit for purpose.
Chrisb
The comment was made way back that the army had been starved of funds over the LAST decade to by boats. I was point out the army in the last decade has had as much money as any one else. I’m not say don’t have don’t use but it’s what they bought. You can’t have your cake and eat it. The army has equipment program’s over the Coming decade as well. It it wants it could offer to place more personnel or equipment with the ta to free up funds.
@ Chris BAE
Fine. Just to let you know I have sold tranche 3 of our Phil buy to the Saudis. Hope you have a large “contingency fund” to ease the wheels or tracks or whatever the design concept now how has….
@ Phil
Shhhh! I have already told you you are now classified project. Stop talking about yourself on the interwebs…