David Cameron will no be remembered by the armed forces as the one who told them to ‘man up wet pants’

Perhaps the next time he is standing on an aircraft carrier waffling about the military covenant he might reflect on his oh so very clever witty retorts.

That said, it is politicians that are in charge so no matter how much they can be charged with oxygen theft the fact is, senior officers should not be indulging in politics. Despite both of the head of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force being selectively misquoted the political impact has been significant, calling for a review of the SDSR by all the usual suspects.

It is a very fine line to tread between defending your service and appearing to be talking out of school, I do not envy at all the position they find themselves in.

In the commons today David Cameron defended the SDSR and said that Libya vindicated its content, I know, I scratched my head about that one as well.

There is no doubt deficit reduction should be a major strategy and their is equally no doubt that the MoD have for decades been fundamentally unable to live within their means but calling the recent salami slicing SDSR ‘strategic’ is patently absurd.

If we look at the SDSR is says quite clearly what the defence planning assumptions are, this is what Future Force 2020 will be built around.

We should not forget that these are future assumptions but an interesting comparison nevertheless.

SDSR Defence Planning Assumptions

Now if I am not mistaken we have in excess of 10,000 personnel in Afghanistan which by any measure would be an enduring operation, planning assumption bust there

That would leave us with 1 non enduring complex intervention, Libya is complex and involves more than 2,000 personnel but given the time we have already been on the job it seems self evident that it is enduring.

So, hold on, that’s two enduring operations that the SDSR assumes in its baseline assumptions.

The fact that the previous defence planning assumptions, as defined in this governments predecessor, were comprehensively trashed should come as no surprise to anyone who observes that politicians are quite fond of writing cheques the armed forces are under funded to cash.

For all their empty rhetoric, this lot are no different.

Then,

Just when David Cameron thought he had sufficiently the armed forces sufficiently back in their box up pops the Chief of the General Staff and suggests his much cherished 2015 Afghanistan withdrawal timeline should be reviewed.

Get in…

The SDSR does need to be revisited but not to get some short term reprieve for one capability or another.

It needs a fundamental review of realistic defence assumptions, underpinned by some actual honest to goodness strategy and topped with the credible financial settlement.

Just injecting an extra few hundred million here and there will not all of a sudden make it all better it will just delay the next MoD crisis.

Will leave you with a bit of Kipling, from the Absent Minded Beggar

WHEN you’ve shouted “Rule Britannia,” when you’ve sung “God save the Queen,”

When you’ve finished killing Kruger with your mouth,

Will you kindly drop a shilling in my little tambourine

For a gentleman in khaki ordered South?

EDIT

One of the comments to this post raised the instance of David Cameron giving Gordon Brown a proper kicking by accusing him of not listening to the professionals.

From the Sun, March 2010

Meanwhile, Mr Cameron listed military figures and civil servants who had also attacked the PM for defence spending shortages.

He said: “Why do you think all these people, dedicated to defence of this country, are wrong?”

Enjoy the irony

“I will not take any risks with Britain’s defence”

Said David Cameron

“It has removed a capability and increases the risks. We have taken more risks.”

Said Ursula Brennan, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence.

The MoD news piece was clear on the benefits

The aircraft, the seventh C-17 acquired by the RAF, is capable of flying non-stop to Afghanistan and can carry up to 138 people, a Chinook helicopter, or up to three Warrior armoured vehicles.

Can we forgive the glaring error?

Not wishing to miss this about to be present at an extremely rare event, UK forces taking delivery of a piece of a new piece equipment that actually works, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, decided to pop in for a visit and photo opportunity.

Commenting on the aircraft he said;

“What I am looking at today is the investment that we’re making to make sure that we succeed in Afghanistan, and make sure we have got the very best airbridge between Britain and Afghanistan,”

“It’s a very, very efficient piece of equipment and it’s very good news that we are investing in this – evidence that we’re giving our Armed Forces the capability, the flexibility and the mobility that they need to do the job that we ask them to.”

I nearly spat my sherry out when I read that one.

Do politicians live in some sort of bubble where they actually believe the nonsense they spout, one wonders by the term ‘we’ who is it he is actually referring to?

Does he mean the UK, does he mean the RAF because surely he cannot mean the coalition government.

Have a look at the date of this press release from Boeing, surely by ‘we’ he doesn’t mean the previous profligate government.

Does he?

David Cameron

The leaked letter from Liam Fox, on the subject of Nimrod MRA4 said

Deletion of the Nimrod MR4 will limit our ability to deploy maritime forces rapidly into high-threat areas, increase the risk to the Deterrent, compromise maritime CT (counter terrorism), remove long range search and rescue, and delete one element of our Falklands reinforcement plan

Speaking on ITV1′s This Morning programme, on the subject of the leaked letter David Cameron said;

“His fears are unfounded because we are not going to take bad decisions”

That one turned out fine then.

A few other gems

“But as the prime minister, I can absolutely guarantee you we will have well-funded, strong armed forces to defend our country”

“You are the noblest end of public service”

“It’s time for us to rewrite the military covenant to make sure we are doing everything we can”

“We have got tanks that can roll into Russia, we have got too many aeroplanes ready for a dogfight with the Soviet Union air force – but we haven’t got enough helicopters in Afghanistan”

Remind me Prime Minister, how many Chinooks have we ordered

“I am passionately pro-defence, passionately pro our armed forces. I will not take any risks with Britain’s defence”

Liam Fox might not actually agree with that and said so in the House of Commons, speaking on Nimrod

“I recognise this means taking a calculated risk on the capability Nimrod provides.”

More from David Cameron

“While our troops are right now at war in Afghanistan, risking their lives, they must get every penny piece of funding and equipment they need and I will make sure that they do”

Yes, by making many of their comrades redundant, cancelling programmes and stripping out capabilities that just might keep them alive in the future.

Lets examine the Coalition Governments balanced scorecard so far

• Reducing the planned purchase of 22 Chinooks to 12
• Delaying Trident for political reasons that will cost billions
• Cancelling Nimrod MRA4
• Reducing armour and artillery, if reports are to be believed, to the bone
• Reducing surface vessels
• Reducing Tornado
• Withdrawn Harrier GR9′s
• Withdrawing Sentinel
• Slashing allowances and expenses
• Setting up the armed forces for a post Afghanistan change in terms and conditions of service
• Implementing a 2 year pay freeze
• Reducing pensions
• Reducing service personnel by 17,000
• Reducing the MoD Civil Service by 25,000 which will likely result in more work for service personnel
• Removing the External Reference group from reporting on the Military Covenant
• Trying to convince everyone that the SDSR was a considered and balanced review (thats my favourite joke of the year)

And all this before Planning Round 11 kicks in.

The next time anyone says the Conservative Party is ‘strong on defence’ I am going to vomit.

A day like today, it’s not a day for soundbites: we can leave those at home.

deliver for our national interest while protecting our national sovereignty

What a steaming pile of shite

By pushing Trident into the MoD’s Core Budget the tofu munching, yoghurt knitting class (that would be the Conservatives and Liberal Democrat’s) have effectively pushed us closer to nuclear disarmament than any beardy weirdy managed to do in decades of CND peace camps and marches.

We are safer having an independent nuclear deterrent in an unsafe and uncertain world, we simply don’t know what the world will look like in 40 years’ time – David Cameron

Given the emphatic position of the Conservatives on trident prior to the Election was an under the table deal on Trident part of the real coalition agreement, it is looking increasingly like it. We can sound tough on trident to keep the Conservative right onside but by the skulduggery of shifting it into the core budget we will kill it off by other means.

Party politics has trumped national security

I must be living in some form of alternative universe, when the former leader of a political party that was once committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament said this;

I say to you, Nick – get real. Get real about the danger we face if we have North Korea, Iran and other countries with nuclear weapons and we give up ours – Gordon Brown

Come back Gordon, all is forgiven!

Strange days we are living in.

Perhaps we should ask the team to look into the footwear of MP’s and the cabinet.

Quite clearly they are not wearing the correct footwear, instead of the expected elegant brogues they seem to be wearing these.

Amid the continuing confusion over withdrawal dates and strategies in Afghanistan we have the Prime Minister, Secretary of State for Defence, Foreign Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister chipping in with contradictory comments.

Whilst they are sweating over the canapes in the White House or subsidised drinks in the House of Commons they should spare a thought for those doing the real sweating and try and get their act together.

Then we have the Prime Minister dropping his trousers and bending over for the US President

In the final act of buffonery, we have the Deputy Prime Minister, a Minister of the Crown, standing at the Despatch Box trying to score a cheap political point against Jack Straw by declaring the Iraq War illegal.

Come to think of it, am I being unfair to clowns?

We will have a look in more depth in a later post but for now, and in the interest of accuracy and fairness it is presented below in it’s basic form. with thanks to Chatham House.

Rt Hon David Cameron MP, Leader of the Conservative Party

‘It’s good to be back at Chatham House. Two and a half years ago Pauline Neville-Jones and I were here to launch the report from the Conservative Party policy group on national security. Today we’re here to explain how we would apply those ideas in government. It’s our plan for a world where there’s no neat split between domestic and foreign policy.

A world where droughts in the Arabian Gulf peninsula can spark terrorism and civil war where an outbreak of flu in Mexico can trigger a pandemic which races across the whole world and where cyber attacks aren’t just threatening companies but whole countries too.

This is the world we are in today.

But here in Britain we still look at this changed world through the lens of institutions which fundamentally haven’t changed since the end of the Cold War. So we’ve got a defence department which isn’t equipped to deliver homeland security, a development department which has been giving more money to the world’s fastest growing economy than to war-torn, poverty stricken, drought-hit Yemen and a Foreign Office which, despite our historic links with the region and the threads which run through our present problems, has simply not paid enough attention to the Gulf states. We can’t go on like this.

So today we’re setting out in detail our plans for a proper national security approach. Let me be clear. This isn’t some re-branding exercise, a nod towards new thinking, an attempt to paper over the cracks while time slips away.

I’m talking about one of the most radical departures in security policy we’ve seen in decades, doing away with the disconnected policies of the present and putting in place a new, connected approach for the future.

Machinery

Part of that is about new machinery of government. We were the first Party to call for a National Security Council. We were the first Party to suggest a Security Minister. And we’re the only Party that’s said we need a full-time National Security Adviser.

Over the past few years, there’s been some movement towards a more joined-up system. But it’s not gone anything like far or fast enough. So with these plans, we will set up a new, streamlined and decisive National Security Council, which will meet from day one of a Conservative Government and serve as a de facto War Cabinet for the duration of our Afghanistan campaign.

The Council will have its own staff, its own subcommittees, a full-time national security adviser, and the power to develop cross-departmental budgets for national security. It will be responsible for all decisions on national security, oversee a long-overdue Strategic Defence and Security Review and plan ahead for the future problems we might face.

Method

But this isn’t just about machinery – or even mainly about machinery. This is about a method, a way of doing things. Take the way we handle threats from abroad. For a start, we need to do much better at stopping wars from ever starting and that means really focussing on the causes of conflicts and then joining all that together to make sure that DfID and the Foreign Office deliver a really tight, tied-up, progressive approach.

We’ve also got to think through much more carefully whether Britain should get involved in a foreign conflict, and if so, how to cope with the consequences. And then if we do intervene and send troops to fight in a foreign country, there should be a proper reconstruction force ready and waiting to deliver a stabilisation strategy as soon as the fighting stops.

The same thinking also applies to the way we handle threats here in Britain. So there’s not much point having tougher laws to deport people who are a threat to Britain if at the same time we don’t have a proper border police force to stop unwanted people from coming in.

There’s not much point saying that the military need to be more closely involved in emergency planning if the police and fire services don’t know exactly how many soldiers they can count on when the time comes. And, as Pauline and Sayeeda Warsi have argued so powerfully throughout the past few years, if we’re serious about stopping extremism, we’ve got to make sure that our anti-terrorism legislation doesn’t clamp down on those freedoms we’re trying to defend.

But it’s not just about the people and the places which are a threat to us. It’s also about thinking about the kinds of things that could go wrong. We need to plan for pandemics, energy crises and water stoppages. And in particular for what I believe is a growing cyber threat. We know that there are hundreds of thousands of cyber-attacks and crimes against British businesses every year. Against government and the public sector, there may be many more. As technology and computers and the internet become bigger and bigger parts of our lives, the effect of cyber warfare will become more pronounced.

You only have to look at the so-called ‘Clickskrieg’ against Estonia in 2007 – which crippled the government and the banking sector and almost brought the entire country to a halt – for a sign of how serious a major attack could be. I want Britain to be prepared and proactive and ready to deal with all kinds of cyber attacks. So today we’re announcing plans for a new Cyber Threat and Assessment Centre to provide exactly that.

Trust

New machinery, new methods, a new way of thinking about national security. But there’s also another key ingredient of a successful national security strategy.

Trust.

We have to take people with us and make sure that people trust the system. But over the last few years, this has gone badly wrong. It’s hard to overestimate the damage that second dossier did to our political system. It’s made people suspicious of something they should frankly always be able to rely on:

Let me be clear: The Prime Minister will determine whether intelligence assessments should or should not be published. Political advisers will not be permitted to change intelligence assessments, and any publication of an assessment should only be done by the Joint Intelligence Committee, with the express clearance and approval of the JIC. And we will end the culture of spin by making sure that decisions about national security are taken formally, not on the sofa but round a table, and with all the right people sitting round the table

In the end though, there’s only so much you can do to create a water-tight system. So ultimately, the important thing is about the people you hire. And if you hire responsible people, people you really trust who want to lift politics up not stoop down to its lowest level, then you have your best guarantee against dodgy dossiers.

Conclusion

So the changes I have set out today will fix a lot of the problems we have seen in recent years.

A failure to weigh carefully the consequences of intervention and to plan for the aftermath. A failure to equip our forces properly when we send them into harm’s way. A failure to harness all the disparate resources of the government so they pull together rather than pull against each other.

Above all, a failure to tackle domestic and foreign security issues in the round.

It’s a big cultural change, and it will start on the first day of a Conservative government.’

Rt Hon David Cameron MP, Leader of the Conservative Party

15 January 2010

www.chathamhouse.org.uk