Unless you have been on the moon in the last couple of days you will have not been able to move for reporting on General Sir David Richards (Chief of the Defence Staff) comments made during the Oxford Changing Character of War lecture at Oxford University’s Department of Politics and International Relations.
You can read the Telegraph reporting by clicking the image below.
A few comments on his comments;
One of my biggest concerns is the number of frigates and destroyers the Navy has.
and
You get to this ridiculous situation where in Operation Atalanta off the Somali coast, we have £1 billion destroyers trying to sort out pirates in a little dhow with RPGs costing $50, with an outboard motor $100. That can’t be good. We’ve got to sort it out.
Everyone in the ‘let’s have more navy with a generous helping of more Navy’ seems to take this as the General endorsing a larger Navy but does it?
We were using seventy odd million pound Typhoon’s in Libya against targets that in the UK would be worth more for the scrap metal.
Only this week we have seen reported by the MoD a new exhibition from Afghanistan at the Imperial War Museum whose centrepiece is an Taliban 250cc motorbike, no, really.
We use expensive equipment against inexpensive equipment because a) its all we have and b) it kind of works
However, commenting on the cost of equipment used in asymmetric operations, where the mismatch between us and the ‘enemy’ is huge, is fair enough, but it is the services that make the decisions and if that decision making process leads to prioritisation of high end and potentially inappropriate equipment for the vast majority of operations then it is the services that need to sort it out.
This goes to the core of the ‘this war, a war’ discussion, if we must be capable of waging war against militarily capable enemy, however rare, then the equipment must reflect this and if it ends up being used against pirates with outboards then that is the price you pay because in the real world, there is not enough cash for both.
It is about decisions on how to cut the cake and the people who make those decisions are those in uniform, over to you Sir David.
Next was his point about the ‘top brass shining their arses’ argument.
The irony is that if you want to retain influence, you actually need more officers and more [star] ranks
I made the point about the necessity of rank to support international collaboration in one of the very first posts on Think Defence.
You cannot deny his point, of course it is entirely valid but I would suggest that a sensible top to bottom ratio that is reflective of overall force size frees up funding that allows capabilities to maintained.
It is these capabilities that underpin real influence, not how many generals you have.
There is always the appointment v rank discussion to be had also.
Afghanistan next.
Despite a candid admission of the failing of the military aspect of the operation which is interesting because of the amount of time, money and blood spent so far;
This is not a model of how to conduct a counter insurgency operation
He went on to wrap the blame for the failing of the Afghanistan intervention around everyone;
All the military can do is buy space and time and opportunity for a political resolution of a problem. It is a great shame that we have not understood this. This is not a matter for military, diplomats, politicians. This is a matter of collectively failing to exploit the opportunity the military gained
Again, how can you disagree with that as a basic statement?
But, is this the General seeking to share the blame, make the point that a collective failing means just that or is he simply getting on the record the that post 2014, the inevitable backlash should be directed elsewhere?
Finally, he makes another point on resources.
I and the Chiefs of Staff agree that we can deliver the military capability required with the resources available.
Then what was he talking about?
Quick Update:
As one of our commenters just noted, seems like SDSR 2015 has just started!
Another Quick Update:
Our readers are a sharp bunch, one asking the question, how many has the billion pound Type 45 destroyer spent on anti piracy duties. The answer is of course, four fifths of the square root of nothing 
I agree the CDS was very unlikely advocating more funds to the RN, but more it reflects the internal arguments within the MOD. Seems that the next SDSR silly season has already started to me…
I would like someone to ask him for a breakdown of the number of days a type 45 has operated in either direct or associated support of Tf 465 (Op Atalanta). Or for that mater in DS or AS of the other 2 TGs 508/151.
Then compare this time with the standard time it takes to transit through the Op Area of Atalanta enroute the Gulf anyway and the number of days spent in the Gulf AOR.
Is that a round number, with nothing in the middle
@TD
I could not possibly comment.
Same old handbag.
We could look the how the army spends money on vehicles, where is fres?
Clearly sdsr time and stupid remarks to get points.
He doesn’t understand you could buy a lot of small ships like opv to tackle piracy, but they don’t hunt subs or do shoot down aircraft. Which isn’t something you can pluck out of thin air.
Next up RAF saying the army spends too much on bullets?
By his logic RAF should have more drones, after all its only cave men we fight.
Next time the army meets a better army they should think, “where’s my Intel?” He’ll soon find out the RAF would have liked to spent billions on such craft, but drones can’t compete.
“Everyone in the ‘let’s have more navy with a generous helping of more Navy’ seems to take this as the General endorsing a larger Navy” – Er, build more tanks!
After 2 COIN wars, peacekeeping in the Balkans, and Sierra Leone the Army decides to restructure itself around 3 heavy brigades.
And then CDS questions chasing pirates with billion pound destroyers.
Further CDS seems to ignore the naval build up in the east, Russian moves in the Arctic, etc. etc.
Rhubarb, custard, with sprinkles on top.
That is all I have to say.
I did a quick look at what was said over at Thin Pinstriped Line, which has a look at the SDSR argument.
http://thinpinstripedline.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/a-most-interesting-interjection-indeed.html
@ X
“After 2 COIN wars, peacekeeping in the Balkans, and Sierra Leone the Army decides to restructure itself around 3 heavy brigades.”
You seem to be overlooking the heavily tank orientated dust up that took place in the middle. And the one that came a little bit before all of these.
@ Sir Humphrey
Just had a look at your blog.
The RN has always had hi-tech vessels. Even the pre-WW2 sloops were hi-tech for their day.
Back in the age of sail the RN fielded state of the art ships.
The RN’s job is to sink the naval ships of other nations not chase skiffs full of blokes with rusty AKs.
Piracy is an ROE problem not a platform problem. The Army prominence was a 20th fluke. The Soviets aren’t going to come through the Fulda Gap. And if Uncle Sam isn’t too interested (lets face it Obama isn’t our biggest fan and prefers to roll over to those states opposed to Western values) in smoothing the Army’s way in theatre it might as well sit in Aldershot and Catterick and sing Kumbaya because they aren’t going anywhere. Our only option then to influence anybody will be to send men out in grey ships.
I wish hadn’t put sprinkles on that rhubarb and custard now. It might be time to deploy the gooseberry. Or the kumquat.
Richards is a smart guy, he knows exactly what he is saying. The armed forces are designed to achieve HMG’s policy objectives for defence and security. His point is that the defence toolbox is one size fits all and this may not be the optimum approach.
@ x
“The RN has always had hi-tech vessels. Even the pre-WW2 sloops were hi-tech for their day.” Good joke (or under informed) in his ‘The Age of Battles’ Weighley states the RN had inferior ships to France, of course greater seatime meant the RN operated them better. There’s probably a lesson here.
@ Paul R
“Next time the army meets a better army they should think, “where’s my Intel?” He’ll soon find out the RAF would have liked to spent billions on such craft, but drones can’t compete.”
Intel? you’ll be referring to Recon next. However, the RAF doesn’t provide any int to the Army, it does provide information that is then processed with basic int and information from other sources and agencies to meet the commander’s EEIs. The RFC did a good job in WW1 in this space but’s its gone downhill all the way since the RAF was formed and had other priorities. Still AAC and RA’s UAVs are taking up slack and of course the Army has other sources and agencies as well.
Good job there is a £1.4b budget line for mchp then, eh?
The General is indeed setting out his stall for the next SDSR.
The current state of play concerning the lack of ships, old aircraft and an army of 80,000 men reflects two inescapable realities.
1. We’re broke
2. We don’t need an Army in Germany any more
No one doubts (I hope) the need to radically prune public expenditure to rebalance the budget. We won’t get fully back on track until 2020. By that time, we should be able to afford some new, shiny stuff.
As I’ve suggested elsewhere, a large part of the decision to cut the size of the Army is that we have nowhere to put the returning BAOR. So cutting the Army in the short-term kills two birds: costs and infrastructure requirements. It’s far easier to cut completely and then rebuild organically over time. Therefore, the General is making it clear that this retrenchment can only be a short-term solution. He fully expects normality to be restored after 2020. We need an Army of 100K, we need a Navy of 30 ships minimum and we need as many combat aircraft as we can afford after that.
We just have to hope that between now and 2020 we don’t face a threat that exposes us. It’s like saying let’s hope no one attacks us. As it is, the hiatus in military spending is going to force us to embark on a number of important programmes beyond 2025 including a new armoured vehicle fleet, a Tornado replacement, and more ships.
The situation in Israel right now is very serious. If Israel decided to launch a full-on assault of Gaza, this could be a catalyst for Iran to attack it. Unlikely, perhaps, but the Middle East is cauldron of unsettled differences just waiting to boil over.
He could have talked about the use of PFI/PPP. It would have been far more interesting…….
Maybe privatise pirate hunting …… but inhouse you still gain the at sea experience / training which must be worth something. Oh and get us our Voyagers back, they weren’t allowed to venture into contested space
@ Obsvr
I never joke about ships and I am far from under informed.
French ships were always better built but they certainly weren’t on another plane in a technological sense. Would you say for example that British gunnery technologically was behind the French and Spanish, many of whose guns were still using match and touch holes? Even in the days of sail ships were systems. Perhaps the USS Consitution, but in any age there are always one off exceptions. Perhaps you should also consider the prominence of Portsmouth dockyard one of the first true factories and indeed the size of the fleet operated at the time.
As for the time of steam and steel in the first half of the 20th century. Lack of funds and corporate inertia were big problems. Example of the former lack of powered mounts. An example of the latter jointing compounds in pipework. But qualitative terms there was little to separate the of all the major powers prior to WW2. Again you could point to the German use of large diesels in surface ships and again I will point to you there are always examples of technological especially in very small fleet like that of Nazi Germany. And we mustn’t forget that during the period the RN pioneered things such as shipborne aviation from not only carriers but conventional surface combatants. The Royal Navy in 1939 wasn’t at its best, but in no way was it an anachronism as say the Tsarist fleet in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 or the Spanish fleet in the American-Spanish War. A bit of a curates egg maybe but the RN has never been a primitive offshore police force of the type CDS is advocating.
“the General is making it clear that this retrenchment can only be a short-term solution. He fully expects normality to be restored after 2020. We need an Army of 100K, we need a Navy of 30 ships minimum and we need as many combat aircraft as we can afford after that.”
Sadly Monty, i am 99.99% sure that a post-2020 normality does not include any real uplift in manning.
It probably only marks a return to ‘normal’ procurement rather than the emergency measures we are mired in now.
The army will remain at 82,000, just as the Navy will remain at ~29,000 and the RAF at ~32,000.
Paul R,
“He doesn’t understand you could buy a lot of small ships like opv to tackle piracy, but they don’t hunt subs or do shoot down aircraft.”
The preamble to his ‘£1 billion destroyers’ comment in the previous paragraph of the article clearly states his concern is for the number of frigates and destroyers – didn’t mention OPVs.
My inference is that if he doesn’t like chasing pirates in £1bn destroyers, then he would prefer to do it with a larger frigate fleet; otherwise, wouldn’t he have said “One of my biggest concerns is the excessive number of destroyers the navy has, and its lack of an OPV”?
At a stretch, one might infer the meaning to his comments that we should have purchased half a dozen more destroyers to go chasing after pirates with so that the ships didn’t cost 1 billion quid a pop.
He seems to be making quite reasonable points, and not to be suggesting that we shouldn’t have Type 45 ships or 70 million quid Typhoons on the inventory as some folks are suggesting; though the way he makes his point on ships is of course rollocks, as APATS points out the Type 45s have to transit the piraty area to get to and from the Gulf – which is probably one of the hot-spots where their operational presence is most appropriate.
———
TD, you’ve conjoined two lines from two paragraphs in the article into one comment, though the seperation in the article might suggest that he had said something else about ships or Op Atlanta between the two lines.
x, I have to raise my objection to your continued use of “rhubarb” as a derogatory term.
Rhubarb is a damn fine vegetable, and rhubarb crumble and custard is the greatest pudding ever devised. Rhubarb does not deserve your obvious contempt!
@ Brian Black
Don’t make me reach for the kumquat…
Rhubarb, like the banana, is a herb not a vegetable.
@BB
Is the reference not to the famous TV characters Rhubarb and Custard?
:-/
@ Opinion 3
No it is more about me not swearing like a 3-badge AB at the sillier (
) things on Think Defence’s blag, getting me banned, and thus depriving you all of my whit and intellect which would greatly impoverish your lives. I don’t want any suicides or worse existential crisis on my hands thank you very much. Honestly I do it all for you. 
Has anybody seen my kumquat? No? Oh well…..
x
“thus depriving you all of my whit ” well at least the half of it
You wait until I have found my kumquat.
@Jedibeeftrix
‘It probably only marks a return to ‘normal’ procurement rather than the emergency measures we are mired in now.
The army will remain at 82,000, just as the Navy will remain at ~29,000 and the RAF at ~32,000′.
Yeah exactly, even if we see a bit more money and a shift in priorities the real clincher is manpower, and it’s really hard to foresee any increase on the horizon.
Unless of course the world situation rapidly deteriorates, then all bets are off!
Potatoes, carrots and rhubarb are all herbaceous crops, x. Rhubarb is horticulturally a vegetable as it is a herbaceous plant cultivated for food and the edible part is not the seed or spore bearing part of the plant.
The RHS agrees with me that rhubarb is a vegetable… in America rhubarb is a fruit for regulatory purposes, but wtf do they know.
I agree with the General, I also find it ridiculous that we spend thousands of pounds on body armour for a soldier to defeat a 7.62 bullet that cost 10 p to make and we waste several million on an armoured vehicle designed to defeat an IED that costs less than $100 dollars to make. Surely our soldiers should be able to defeat an enemy using the same amount of money that is used against them. After all we are only asking them to risk their lives for Queen and Country, what right do they have to ask for such expensive kit to do the job?
@ Challenger
“The army will remain at 82,000, just as the Navy will remain at ~29,000 and the RAF at ~32,000′.
Yeah exactly, even if we see a bit more money and a shift in priorities the real clincher is manpower, and it’s really hard to foresee any increase on the horizon.
Unless of course the world situation rapidly deteriorates, then all bets are off!”
Its deteriorating pretty fast now and we are cutting so I ma not sure how bad it would have to get for us to ever increase number’s again. With trident replacement and lost of other goodies like JCA left out of uncle Phil’s magic budget I think it will be more like post 2030 until we get any new shiny toys. By then we will have to hope the ship’s, planes and tanks will drive themselves because the three people left in the armed forces will be busy organising Gay and Lesbian celebration events or some other vital national security task.
Potato and tomato are the same family but one is a vegetable and one is a fruit it just depends which part you eat. I’m always surprised when I see little green tomatoes on my spud plants.
Oddly nightshade is also a similar family as the above. What a strange world we live in?
The above, however, may be a load of celery, which I use as a derogatory term because Intel decided to launch that utterly pointless CPU with much the same name! – In an attempt to be unbiased, AMD followed suit with their Durex range of CPUs
@TD et al,
“It is about decisions on how to cut the cake and the people who make those decisions are those in uniform, over to you Sir David.”
You are probably quite right, TD, in stating that it is a matter of determining priorities and arranging spending within a limited budget, rather than necessarily receiving larger funds. However, I feel that Sir David is certainly right when he asserts, “If you reduce your Armed Forces, there is going to be a give – something gives.”
I think that here he might very well be suggesting the need for a greater global sum to be spent on defence and therefore manoeuvring for position prior to the next SDSR in 2015. However, he and other defence chiefs might have another factor in mind and that is the fact that in 2015 foreign aid to India will cease altogether (and probably that to other nations too). Huge amounts of money will be involved. Might not the CGS here be anticipating such savings and making a subtle early move in a campaign to ensure that at least some of the money saved goes on increased spending on defence?
Some hopes, you might say.
@Martin
“I agree with the General, I also find it ridiculous that we spend thousands of pounds on body armour for a soldier to defeat a 7.62 bullet that cost 10 p” It is X’s role to do the whit (sic).
@X
Wasn’t there a lot of fence sitting in Rhubarb and Custard ….. doesn’t sound like us does it?
@ x
“A bit of a curates egg maybe but the RN has never been a primitive offshore police force of the type CDS is advocating.’
Ah a strawman. The CDS is not advocating any such thing, as I said he’s making the point that the defence toolbox is one size fits all. Nor does the anti-piracy role need OPVs, using a RFA with suitable embarked elements seems to have worked OK. This might be a model worthy of further thought – STUFT might be a starting point.
It’s also useful to remember that the CDS ceased being buggins turn between RN, Army and RAF many years ago, when it became ‘best person for the job’, the fact that there haven’t been too many admirals may indicate something about talent.
martin, do you WANT your body armour to cost 10p?
I want to introduce you to my new line of cheap body armour. It’s called cardboard and is a massive improvement over the old paper mache line. It incorporates the new spaced armour concept while retaining light weight and cost.
@ Observer
Was that not what they gave the guys in Bosnia. They use to call them body warmers.
@Obsvr
“…It’s also useful to remember that the CDS ceased being buggins turn between RN, Army and RAF many years ago, when it became ‘best person for the job’, the fact that there haven’t been too many admirals may indicate something about talent.”
- There haven’t been any RM officers either and they are part of the Naval Service. Your ‘analysis’ doesn’t say much for their calibre so don’t you think there might be some more political reason, other than pure talent, for the selection of CDS these days?
“there might be some more political reason, other than pure talent, for the selection of CDS these days?” – isn’t it a stepping stone to a safe Tory seat?
>I made the point about the necessity of rank to support international collaboration in one of the very first posts on Think Defence.
Which one is that? I’ve tried searching for the terms, but nothing suitable floated up so far.
For the record, I’m on the side that you should have a senior officer count that’s proportionate with the number of units you actually have. Rank bloating is living on borrowed time and as people realize more and more of your so-called generals have less and less command time to justify their rank, your influence will die more horribly than if you maintain quality, IMHO.
@Obsvr – Politicians appoint people in order to keep them on side and avoid embarrassment to the Party; if the thing most likely to harm the Party is a land war, we get Generals; in other circumstances we would get Admirals; in others again Air Marshals…which is not to say that those appointed are not competent, or indeed able to rise above inter-service rivalry in the overall interests of the Defence of the Realm; but those qualities have nothing to do with why they got the job.
@ Obsvr
CDS doesn’t know what he is advocating that is the trouble.
@ Opinion 3 re fencing sitting
Yes there was wasn’t there? And a lot of fiddling in sheds to produce machines that didn’t work very well to solve problems that were short term.
“CDS doesn’t know what he is advocating that is the trouble.”
Yes that’s right he’s risen to the top of his profession over decades because he’s simple to the point that he cannot understand what he’s saying.
You might construct a case to say he is engaged in some Machiavellian machinations, but no, he’s just too stupid to make sense of his speech.
What-evah
Obsvr said “It’s also useful to remember that the CDS ceased being buggins turn between RN, Army and RAF many years ago, when it became ‘best person for the job’, the fact that there haven’t been too many admirals may indicate something about talent.”
I could comment on that but won’t for offending my green friends here. If you have got beyond 25 and still think promotion is always gained by those who work hard and have flair then your view of the world is a bit naive and one-dimensional. Rather like that of few army officers above the rank of colonel with who in the past I have to dealt. I could also speculate on which type of personality the likes of the modern politician would like to work with on a day to day basis.
@ Phil
Well as I have said Philip to you before the Army to you is never wrong is it? That is basically your position on such. The country is in the midst of a political crisis because of the quality of leaders society is producing. If you think the Army is different from us all and some ways better you are not as clever as you think are. And it shows that for all your experience in life that you haven’t learned much. Then again I don’t think you need to learn anything do you? I don’t comment on your comments please don’t comment on mine so the tone of the blog continues to remain civil.
“If you think the Army is different from us all and some ways better you are not as clever as you think are.”
Nice strawman. Of course, the difference is in your view everyone is always wrong, or could be wrong, its post-modernism ad absurdum which is just as destructive to discourse.
“I don’t comment on your comments please don’t comment on mine so the tone of the blog continues to remain civil.”
If you don’t want comments on your thoughts then write them in your diary not on the world wide web. If you don’t like my thoughts then just ignore them. No skin off my nose.
interesting read from lindley-french on the implications of the Richard’s speech:
http://lindleyfrench.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/britains-new-defence-covenant.html