So, here is a question, in pictures…

What Are The Strategic Threats To The UK?

Or

To Adress These Threats Do We Need More of These

Or, More of This

This isn’t a guns or butter question, it is about asking Defence to justify its £30-40 Billion budget on the basis of actual strategic threats rather than short term transitory ones.

Energy, food and water security, climate change mitigation, a vibrant and growing economy and a sustainable transport and connectivity infrastructure  are equally as important as defence.

Given  the very low level of direct military threat can we as a nation afford spending 4 or 5 hundred billion pounds over the next 10 years?

Here is an example, the Qatargas LNG plant at Milford Haven cost about a billion quid, how much are we planning to spend on F35′s, FRES, T26 and Trident Successor

If the Government ever got off its arse and formulated a long term strategic plan for the UK there would of course be a place for the defence, but I ask you this.

Is the defence budget too high?

I have been accused of being anti RAF Anti Navy but not yet anti Army, still the day is young..

Given that there is no credible, likely, short, or medium term threat of actual state invasion of the UK mainland, or any other member Nato we might realistically beable to help’s mainland. Jus because we are in Nato does not mean in land terms we can do any more good for some of our fellow members than our guarantees did Poland in 1939.

Just why do we keep an Army?

I mean it, I really mean it Why?

I can see a role for one but not the current one it clings to.

All of our wars since ‘The last unpleasantness with Germans’ (as my late father-in-aw always called it), have, including the Nameless isles been elective, (even if I was in favour of that one).

Korea, Gulf 1 and 2, Afghan: – We were not needed, (quiet at the back oh no weren‘t), It all would have happened anyway without us. I will ignore / not bother with the various Malaysian and African scraps of the imperial kind.

In short then we have been in the habit of sending our soldiers out around the world to fight and die; in cases where we felt able to, and justified in so doing. And mostly as part of a coalition.

But not just that.

We have sent proper armies, Divisions with heavy kit etc. In that we have been in the same league as the Americans for retaining that capability. Ok not in anything like the numbers but none the less we have tried to keep the ability to send a couple of armoured divisions worth of troops, (if not actual division structures), to the Middle East and beyond, and to try to support and supply them in fighting a ‘Hollywood style high concept war’. Only the French in Europe attempted anything like that capability. Even the Soviet Union would have struggled to do that.

However IMHO, It has frankly lead to little more than trouble and blood; some ‘prestige’ I am sure, but how much in Pounds Shillings and Pence, and real world influence?

More importantly; How has it contributed to our defence.

What would we lose if we ditched it the capability?

North Korea would have kept out of south Korea. Sadam would still have fallen. The US would have fought Afghanistan alone, but still would have fought it.

I genuinely struggle to see what intervention by large scale, heavy armoured forces that the UK has carried out have done us any good long term.

Before people start shouting ‘Special relationship’ the US is both suffering serious Relative economic decline; (in 1945 it was more than 90% of the world manufacturing economy, by 2011 less than 35%); A debt crises (but then aren’t we all), and more importantly a refocusing of its priorities, away from Europe.

It was special when it suited the US now it does not. I invite those who believe in it to consider how we got all that logistical support in Gulf 1 and 2 but not exactly a ringing endorsement of Suez or Northern Ireland….

Has the time come to stop trying to fool the world, (who increasingly aint fooled anyway), that WASAWPYK. (We Are Still A World Power You Know).

So the first challenge to the old order is this:- Construct me a scenario in which we:-

1) Would deploy support and supply unaided by allies a British armoured division abroad?

Or

2) Where a coalition of Heavy Land forces would not be sent because the UK could not contribute/ (in other words where our forces were necessary).

And

1) In either scenario why is it worth keeping it?

Our successful foreign interventions, like, Sierra Leone, and the Falklands have been with lighter forces in… Drum role ‘Strategic raid’ type scenarios.

But why!

Why mess with the current deployment of the army, or even the MRB plan?

We have had some successes, some tatty short lived glory and some benefit from doing it this way so why stop?

WELL….

If there is any of the HM armed forces that is long on fur coat and short in the Knicker dept it is the Army.

The RLC has never really been given the trucks the manpower etc to supply at distance large scale, forces we have been totally dependant on the US for G 1 and 2, and to a lesser degree in afghan. There were scandals! I say again Crimean type scandals, regard the supply of our forces in both conflicts, covered up in part by US largess. The tales of no bullets for officer’s side arms 3 magazines a man, body armour, etc etc. Much of our equipment is old (Bulldog for heavens sake is as old as I am)! And a lot of stuff is in desperate need or repair/upgrade. (The fact that FRES is a cluster fu*ck does not mean the idea is unsound). Many of our formations are in reality still at the Bedford and land rover scale of equipment. So Even if we can play big armoured formations we cannot play for long.

In short should we stop trying to play Goliath in high heals and padded jackets, and try and be a harder David….

MRB is an attempt at that but only an attempt, it is still wedded to some idea world power dom.

MY proposal is:-

First we need to take a serious axe to the upper ranks. Brigades need to be commanded by brigadiers beyond that there is not any reason for more than a handful major generals Lt generals and one 3 star in charge of the whole shebang. Up or out should be the norm, if you haven’t reach colonel by 40 sorry your out. We can lose 2^nd Lt and Lt colonel from the rank structure as well. Whole areas of power point warriors and Ponti’s need to go.

Second ditch the guards in all their donkey walloping and bearskin wearing glory. They can become a territorial unit, trained in crowd control and security, and paid for out of the police budget, and the tourism budget.

Thirdly Rock Ape’s and marines go to the army. TD is of the opinion that the RAF should run anything that flies because it makes no sense to have 3 air forces 2 tiny and one small. For a variety of reasons I disagree, but the same logic applies to Popski’s private armies of the RN and Airforce.

Fourthly The marines the Raf Parachute section, Para’s SAS SBS/artillery spotters/ Forward air controllers etc should all be part of an special forces command with it’s own home and expeditionary units. Ranger Battalions for stuff like amphibious and air assault. We should have a full battle group with special forces support ready to go at the drop of the hat, with special forces support

I have heard many arguments about the difference in roles between the paras and the marines I have considered them all researched their past current uses, and have come to this opinion…. They are self serving bollocks. In practice both units have been used interchangeably for decades and it implies marines are too stupid to jump out of aircraft or the paras too short to wade ashore from landing craft.

Thirdly we need to reorganise and equip to fight strategic raids and nothing higher.

Eg why do we have 5 nominal divisional structures in UK ? I propose a 2 division structure for the army. One home Division and one expeditionary Division.

The home division should be made up of 3 brigades North middle south (feel free to argue amongst yourselves for boundaries and sexier names). The brigades should be structured for training and support and made up primarily of reserves / territorial’s and units on rotation from the expeditionary Division, working up or down. It would also have a role similar to US national guard to help in times of emergencies. I am not the only one who was annoyed that during the last 2 cold snaps lots of perfectly capable if not equipped with snow plough and gritter equipment sat idly by… It should be commanded by a Lt General.

The Expeditionary Division should be made up of nearly ready to go/ ready to go units units having worked up in the ‘home division’ before transferring to expeditionary command. The brigades deployed to the Expeditionary division should be 1MRB (in heavy configuration) and 1 (in Light Ratel style- see below), and one special forces brigade as proposed.

Equipment wise we need to upgrade / replace, but I do not want to be too equipment specific. Arguing about FRES SV etc. Above all else we need to be able to supply and support these units on our own. Frankly this is where it really gets controversial.

There remain on the historical a number of recent conflicts of the all out war variety; where better trained, better lead, more technologically advanced armies have destroyed ‘heavier’ armed forces of the massed formation variety. The Chinese for all their bogey man status are struggling to create a more professional better equipped army, that is smaller…

One of my favourite conflicts was the ejection of the markedly superior Libyan forces from Chad by opposition forces using missile armed technical’s to engage armoured formations. The recent Libyan conflict became was really one sided and the rebels barely had a tank or 152 mm artillery piece to their name…

Many people I respect on this site have argued strongly in favour of heavy armour and heavy artillery.

Both are serious logistical drags.

IMHO we have reached the point where the rising APC reaches the falling tank. It should be perfectly feasible to move to a single heavy chassis sharing engines/transmissions/ tracks internal systems etc. Merkava style but in the 40- 50 ton bracket. (This is a bit blue sky thinking I know) but we cannot afford specialist vehicles in the penny packets we can afford to buy. We should get out of the separate heavy tank business. 155 mm artillery should go truck mounted we should loose the heavy tracked heavy artillery.

One major thing what’s wrong with a Ratel style APC based on the MAN Chassis is?

It would fit the UK road and rail loading gauges, be self deployable, logistically cheap (relatively), give it GPMG and 40 mm grenade with anti armour missile capability, and use it in largish numbers….. Forget boxer etc.

This is not about flying armour everywhere but is about reducing the amount of logistics needed by each vehicle when it gets there.

The Air angle of this needs to be looked at. I remain of the view that the AAC are the right people to run Army transport helicopters and inter theatre transport, not the RAF where it remains very much a 2^nd class part of the service. 3 air brigades 1 home 1 foreign (organised as above with units moving in and out of each as maintenance etc requires) and one for the special forces.

As for numbers all this would at a rough estimate reduce the Army to approx 55,000 regulars and 20,000 TA (I am prepared to see those numbers as approximations and they may vary somewhat either way.

The whole point is to cut the army to fit it’s logistical cloth, and to recognise that we cannot take on comers any more.

A harder David.

But not in terms of having some small units of top notch kit which we don’t train with properly or can support properly

The idea is what we have we can use and use fully. Such an army would be easier to move abroad and use in the way we have actually used it/had to use it in the last 60 successfully.

And by the way the reduction in numbers and dead wood should fee up some cash for proper pay rises for the fighting soldiers.

This is part 1 of 4 (I think). In which I pose some questions and propose some views on the defence of the UK.

• What are we defending?
• Who are we defending against?
• How can we defend it?
• What are our defence forces for?

Without wishing to start my own SDR I would suggest that questions like what are we defending, against whom and why are simply not being asked enough.  I am not trying to find answers for all the immediate crises and threats, merely trying to look into the middle distance to try and thing beyond current equipment limitations, without getting into nuclear powered hover ships territory, and not limited to addressing the threat from Iran because the threat may come from Brazil or Bohemia in 10 years time.

There is huge inertia within the defence community.

Equipment wise: – On a par with the Army officers who argued in the 1930’s that there was still a place on the battlefield for the ’well bred cavalry horse’. The navy sticking with sail long after the practical marine steam engine was in use.

Strategy Tactics and force structure: – There is an assumption by many commentators both professional and amateur, that; we have always had a policy / presence, because it has always been done this way, with this type of kit, then that is how it should be done.

The concept of defence itself; against whom? – Witness almost the requirement for bereavement counselling, for our armed forces when the Russians went home. Some middling/senior members of our armed forces simply refused to accept it for some years.

The IMHO quite ridiculous clinging to some sort post colonial role.

We must lose the historical baggage, the technical baggage, and the top heavy nature of our armed forces to be much much lighter on our feet, as the world changes.

Question 1- What are we defending?

What follows is ‘stating the bleedin obvious’

I take it that we are defending the following:-

Within UK itself

• The territorial integrity of the UK (including the Islands that shall not be named); from foreign state control / invasion.
• The freedom of action within the territories of the UK for the Democratically elected govt of UK from foreign influence.
• The safety and security of the citizens of the UK whilst in it’s territories from foreign state attack.
• The safety and security of the citizens of the UK whilst in it’s territories from foreign none state actors- Terrorists in other words.
• UK based non state actors home grown terrorists.
• The fellow travellers of the above serious organised crime

Outside the UK

• Protection of UK citizens abroad from physical attack.
• Protection of UK economic interests from physical attack, be it by actual action or status or presence.
• Promotion of status of UK both economically and politically.
• ‘Keeping the British end up’ in Nato/UN with the US etc

Some of those are sweeping statements and enclose several concepts you can perhaps add some more.

‘Inside the UK’

Lets start with the first 3 points together.

“We are an Island you know”

Eschewing all the Dark blue shaded historical bullshit what does it (if anything) mean?

It means unlike all the other western nations (excluding places like Ireland and Iceland), We simply have (since the Act of union) only faced only 2 realistic existential threats of invasion, each lead by Napoleon and Hitler. To this day we simply do not have a realistic short or medium term threat of state power lead, cross border invasion. No one is going to role up at Calais at the head of 20 armoured divisions for the foreseeable future. The Third shock Army has gone and it aint coming back, no matter how fondly the Armoured fighting vehicle crowd remember the time when it was.

The only state threat to the HMG ‘s writ and the safety of it’s citizens is Chinese electronic attack. We need to defend against this. (Leaving aside the idea mooted on the radio this week that the US elects some religious nutter as president who wants to Nuke the UK because Harry Potter’s Wizardry offends his Christian beliefs).

The forth point is a real threat that the various state and non state sponsored terrorist organisations can launch Mumbai or other style attacks these are accounted by almost all serious analysts as the most likely threat of actual attack. We need to defend against this.

The last to threats are for the security services and the police to deal with.

‘Outside the UK’

We need to defend against / promote all of these to the best of our ability.

Question 2 – Who are we defending against?

Really this is a good question, and it is one that is simply not asked enough.

Lets ignore the 20 divisions at Calais scenario.

Lets concentrate on the foreign threats to our foreign interests.

I do not intend to detail the lists of potential threats but they are obvious and out there.

Various countries / people who are in charge of big parts of some countries are really not very nice, and are pissed off at us, for various reasons both real and imagined.

They have very different capabilities and aims, these change so have to be flexibly dealt with. But these capabilities should not be underestimated.

Question 3 How can we defend against attack?

We can defend against it by: -

1) Maintaining Financially successful economic policy to support economic stability

2) Maintaining a successful economic policy to pay for armed forces

3) Maintaining armed forces operating by land sea and air appropriate to our real status in the world, and our real economic interests and, foreign commitments.

Let’s address the first two, I invite those who obsess about F35 CVF and FRES, to ponder this: The Euro crises could finish European defence spending for a generation, in effect driving the whole continent’s military equipment into the 2^nd rate category, cutting manpower and capabilities, without a shot being fired.

Point three is what the next three posts will address in a force specific way.

Question 4  – What are our defence forces for?

Within living memory, (just) We have been not just a world power but THE world power. For a hundred years no one challenged in a serious way the Pax Britannica. An empire whose military power was built in part on:-

‘Whatever happens we have got

The Maxim Gun and they have not’.

Or as the great Military Philosopher Capt E Blackadder said:-

‘If you saw someone in a skirt you shot him and took his country’

This power has gone, Gone, GONE.

I have said it before on this site and I will say it again.

There is amongst some of the posters on this site a layer of post colonialist, almost racist self delusion that somehow:-

1) Much of the world gives a stuff about what we think

2) We have some capability plus button that allows us to ‘ Punch above our weight’ etc etc, simply because we are British and Johnny foreigner ‘don’t like it up em’; or will run at the first whiff of grapeshot’.

3) Johnny Foreigner cant buy / use good kit and won’t fight when he gets it.

4) ‘We are a world power you know.’

We have just had / are still having 2 disastrous elective foreign adventureistic wars (more on Libya later); based in part on attempting at being as TD put it ’All fur coat and no Knickers’ world power . These wars have been/ are going to be disastrous for UK defence.

We have to stop doing this!

We have UK govt policies on everything going on everywhere this means we have to have people in the foreign office working on everything going on everywhere. Like wise some power point warrior will no doubt be shining his arse on a seat working out the military options for say UK intervention in Somalia / North Korea etc.

We once gained a world wide power and a world wide set of commitments as a result. However Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

Some of those commitments remain even though the world is no longer pink. Unfortunately so do some of the attitudes. But But But! Cry the rosy colonial glow crowd (and I quote):-

“We are not bloody Belgium you know!”

Well IMHO its about time we got our heads round the fact that we sort of are.

Future far away foreign adventures (insofar as we should get involved in any) will be as part of alliances and not just Nato US etc. TD’s forward presence ideas rely on local alliances just as much.

Questions to be asked:

Why do we have to have a policy on North Korea? They do not give a stuff what we think and we will not be intervening there?

Why do we have a policy on Palestine.? I am sure the leaders of the middle east are all very polite and all that but save as we are part of the EC, or mate of the US they really don’t care. The Israeli’s in particular have an attitude of -

‘We are better mates with the US than you are, so jog on pal’.

These are two examples there are many more.

Also the technological cat is out of the bag.

For example:-

Modern civilian technology is advancing at an ever increasing rate. There is an old joke amongst Astro – Physicists is that what with the advances in technology, and the time dilating effects of relativity, there is no point in attempting a manned mission to Alpha Centuri; as it will be passed on the way there by the first scheduled passenger services!

A lot of modern civilian technologies are frankly superior than what would have been regarded as super secret high tech only a decade ago, and they are changing the world. Kenyan tribal cattle herders now carry satellite phones. Such countries are never going to bother with national land line systems or terrestrial TV systems they are old technology.

The idea that the west can embargo / control high-tech weapons technology over anything but a short period is fantasy, it’s done a bang up job stopping the Iranians Nuclear program!

Look at what the rebels did with Google earth in Libya. Check out your local Maplins Just think:-

• GPS Blue Tooth Phone, so you know where you are and what direction you are heading. Check
• Decent high resolution digital camera to ID target. Check
• £200 model helicopter check

£1000 or so plus a few hundred computer nerd hours getting it all to talk to one another, = A serious over the horizon targeting capability for an anti ship missile, Fire control drone or recon RPV

Could T45 spot it? Could it even target it? Who cares! Blow £70 grand an send 70 of them and wait for the T45 to run out of missiles. It is just one example (ok I know it will not be quite as simple as that), but technologically tricks like this will only get easier and cheaper and the results more capable. A real example is the IED arms race in Afghan and attempts to jam RPV control signals by the Taliban.

So the west can embargo from BAE, Ericsson, etc.  

Who cares clever nasty people will buy it from Argos!

From the point of view of conventional weapons suppliers they are increasingly out of the loop anyway. There has been talk of a global frigate or even a Colonial sloop. Something for sending to ‘strange sounding places with far away names‘. When I banged on about the possible threats to a CVF battle group from so called third world countries I got derided, I would refer those heavy on derision to the recent news from Syria…. 

When and if we venture in defence of our interests out of the North Atlantic and the Med we had better go mob handed and loaded for bear or very carefully and cleverly and with the permission of the local big wigs. 

In other word TD’s forward presence ideas.

IMHO these are a real attempt to deal with declining military and economic power and to maintain ‘bang per buck’ (not in the technical equipment sense more in the influence sense), and whilst TD may not agree with everything I say I tend to find myself agree with most of what he writes…

Pt 2, 3, and 4 to follow.　

The survey can be found here

http://www.rusi.org/news/rss/ref:N4EB171FEE2471/

The survey puts forward ten propositions, or loaded self fulfilling questions depending on your perspective.

I know these kinds of things have their place and it’s hard to know them for doing it but if you asked a butcher if the UK should eat more meat and if they should be involved in setting food strategy then surely you would arrive at the same kind of survey results.

What I find most puzzling though is in the ten propositions which are pretty broad the inclusion of something very equipment specific, proposition 9;

The need for a carrier strike capability has become more apparent since last year’s Strategic Defence and Security Review.

Why not ask about armoured vehicles or future UCAV’s for example?

Am I alone in thinking that RUSI are pushing a particular agenda or have equipment programmes now become a substitute for strategy, or, equipment choices now dictate strategic thought instead of the other way around?

The survey also fails to recognise the importance of financial security in actual security, instead treating the lack of cash for defence as something separate, distant or someone else’s problem, when in fact they are intimately connected and ets not forget those doing the responding may well have been intimately involved in the fantasy fleets methodology of defence equipment planning that has been self evident for the last several decades.

This is an inward looking survey that unsurprisingly comes up with a predictable set of results, an interesting read though.

The diagram below illustrates the near monopoly China has on their extraction.

These are vital to modern electronics and defence electronics are no different in that respect to those found in the latest iPhone. Despite strenuous efforts to find alternatives they are sill essential.

A couple of years ago China, that now produces 90% of world supply, started to reduce export quotas. After a diplomatic dispute with Japan, China stopped embargoed exports all together. In 2010, a ban on exports to the USA was implemented.

In May this year prices rose dramatically when China reduced production, triggering fears of a massive price increase for consumer electronics, cerium oxide jumped 475 per cent in just five months for example, some are now at $120,000 per tonne.

In a spot of rare strategic good news, earlier this month, a significant deposit of rare earth minerals have been discovered in seabed mud in the Pacific, especially around Hawaii

A map published with the study shows rare earth element deposits in the Pacific Ocean less than two metres deep

The British journal Nature Geoscience has reported that a team of scientists led by Yasuhiro Kato, an associate professor of earth science at the University of Tokyo, found the minerals in sea mud at 78 locations.

“The deposits have a heavy concentration of rare earths. Just one square kilometre (0.4 square mile) of deposits will be able to provide one-fifth of the current global annual consumption,”

The minerals were found at depths of 3,500 to 6,000 metres (11,500-20,000 ft) below the ocean surface and extracting the elements from the mud was easy — almost all of them came out after being mixed with solutions of hydrochloric or sulphuric acid that are considered dilute (roughly five times the concentration of acid in your stomach). Much of it is found in the accessible surface layer of mud.

We all accept that future conflicts will be over water, minerals and food but at least for rare earths, that might have just been staved off for some time and shows how rapidly strategic circumstances can change

This isn’t an exhaustive list but concentrates on resources, energy, food and trade.

The Conservative party, to their credit, highlighted the issue a number of times pre-election, even though they indulged in a spot of scaremongering. In October 2009 the Shadow Energy Minister, Greg Clark MP, delivered a speech on the issue titled Keeping Britain’s Lights on. For maximum showbiz effect, it started with the lights off and raised the spectre of rolling blackouts. There was also a strong inference that we were at the mercy of the Kremlin, all they had to do was turn off the taps and old ladies in bobble hats would be dropping like flies.

In 2009, in the grip of an extremely cold winter, several large industrial users faced restrictions in supply as domestic users were prioritised. These large users had signed up for interruptible tariffs in return for discount pricing so could not really complain, you pays your money and you take your chances. This however, did not stop the bandwagon jumpers (i.e. press and opposition politicians) seizing upon the issue, evoking the famous phrase ‘keeping the lights on’ yet again.

The Conservative Party’s pre election strategy paper, A Resilient Nation, devoted a paragraph to the issue of energy security, stating;

The danger that the country now faces of a real risk of the lights going out – inadequate power to keep the economy going – was entirely predictable even before Tony Blair spoke and yet his government did virtually nothing.  Taken together, the lack of resilience in the UK’s stretched power generation, strained energy transmission, insecurity of energy supply and lack of emergency storage is nothing short of alarming. Forming a coherent energy policy, joining domestic with overseas factors, security with long term climate change goals and private sector investment with government policies on resilience of systems will be an urgent Conservative priority on entering office and is an example of an approach that can be applied to other essential sectors

In a supporting Annexe, the paper makes it clear that the armed forces will play a part in addressing the issue of energy security

Reflect energy security concerns in the tasking of the Armed Forces. The MoD should have regard to energy security in the tasking of our Armed Forces, for example the Royal Navy in the security of the sea lanes and the safety of maritime traffic

Beyond this rather bland statement about keeping the sea lanes open how realistically can we shape the armed forces to meet our very real energy and material security issues?

What would their role be, what configuration and equipment would be needed, is it actually the job of the military to contribute to energy security?

Starting with the issues…

Energy

The UK demand for energy is only ever going to go one way, up. Even if a collection of overly restrictive ‘green’ policies succeeds in driving heavy industry offshore, which it seems is increasingly the case, population growth will drive demand for gas and electricity up.

Energy resilience is perhaps one of the most pressing and important issues the UK faces, certainly more important than the threat from Islamic terrorism.

Whatever your feelings on nuclear, global warming, the oil industry or renewable energy, the fact is, today, the UK is a net energy importer and baring some surprise technological development is likely to remain so. With the future of nuclear being made more uncertain in the aftermath of Fukushima this will create a double impact for the UK.

First, it is likely that demand from Japan for Middle East LNG will increase placing our divertable supply contracts under competitive economic pressure.

Secondly, the issue in Japan (and now Germany)will inevitably delay any build out of UK nucelar generation capacity,

Combined with faster than expected reduction in UK oil and gas extraction, wasted investments in renewables such as wind that have hoovered up all the energy investment funds and other factors point to a pressing energy problem for the UK.

Currently, gas for power generation contributes to both base load and peak loads. Gas is currently sourced from dwindling North Sea fields, pipeline delivered gas from continental Europe (Norway and Russia) and ship delivered Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from the USA and Middle East (mostly Qatar)

In 2006 Qatar overtook Indonesia as the world’s largest exporter of LNG and its North Field reserve is the largest in the world with an equivalent capacity of 150 years UK peak demand. The Qatargas II supply chain is a quite staggering project, the South Hook LNG terminal in Milford Haven, 14 new LNG tankers, 30 wells, 2 onshore processing facilities and the supporting infrastructure. It is the largest LNG terminal in Europe and can satisfy 20% of the UK’s demand alone.

The agreement with Qatargas is for a 20 year, non divertable supply. Within the terms of the agreement, supply cannot be diverted elsewhere if they pay more.

Nearby is the Dragon LNG terminal, similar to South Hook although smaller, there are other large terminals on Teesside and the Isle of Grain.

In addition to Qatar, the UK imports LNG from, Kuwait, Algeria and Trinidad.

Major gas pipelines include the Langeled and Vesterled routes from Norway, the IUK pipeline to Belgium and BBL pipeline to the Netherlands. These pipelines link the UK to the wider European gas infrastructure and at the height of the Russian supply crisis even allowed the UK to export gas into Europe.

Unless new and extractable UK reserves are found it is likely that by 2030 the UK will be a total gas importer

Shale gas, underground coal gasification and thorium nuclear generators remain intriguing prospects and may yet reduce our dependence on imported energy but it would seem prudent to base our future medium term plans around imported LNG and pipelines from Europe i.e. Russian/Norwegian gas. In May this year the UK imported more gas in the form og ship delivered LNG than it did via the pipeline(s) from Norway and the extensive investment in terminal capacity means the UK is now a route to Europe.

LNG requires timely distribution because of evaporation, the natural gas is compressed to form a liquid and although modern LNG carriers have onboard boil off regasification plants, a significant volume is still lost (although some of this is used to power the ship, a neat trick)

Transmission, generation and storage capabilities have seen variance in investment but many projects are in the pipeline so to speak and the realisation that renewables are going to have to take a back seat to gas and nuclear generation means that even a government in denial must at some point snap out of their ‘green’ trance and start generating more than hot air and wishful thinking.

The recent outspoken criticism of the Renewable Obligation Certificate and carbon reduction targets from the chairman of Aggreko, the temporary power group, must serve as yet another wakeup call to this delinquent government. Robert Soames went on to say;

“The idea that CCS [carbon capture and storage] is going to be able to contribute significantly to power generation inside of 15 or 20 years is bonkers. People who are not engineers seem to have an unrealistic view of what’s going to be possible”

He also accused politicians of “holding hands and singing Kumbaya to the great green God” but warned the reality is it will be many decades before renewable energy can plug the gap left by traditional sources of power.

Whatever happens with the domestic market it is likely that we will increasingly rely on gas imports, delivered to the UK in LNG tankers or via pipelines from Europe, the security of those supplies must be a high priority for the whole of government.

With three major pipelines and at least 4 large scale LNG terminals in operation it would seem the reception infrastructure is in place. Storage is currently carried out by using mainly natural underground geological features or exhausted gas fields but additional investment in this area should be an obvious means of increasing resilience to supply fluctuation.

Short, medium and long term storage facilities are characterised by the speed of filling and the speed of supply into the grid, a careful blend of all three is needed.

So the UK, with some caveats on storage, has a reasonable gas infrastructure which is actually a testament to those involved, working on despite the attention renewables have obtained recently.

However, just because we have the infrastructure, does not secure supply.

A similar set of complex issues also surrounds oil and refined products, with UK production falling off more rapidly than predicted and the demand for imported products rising.

So it should be clear that the UK faces an uncertain energy future, if current government policies do not address the wishful thinking on renewable energy and start acting in the interests of this country there exists, despite the scaremongering, a real threat to continuity of supply, especially if storage is not addressed and the supplies from the Middle East are disrupted.

Maritime Trade

The UK is most definitely island, a large coastline in excess of 10,000 miles and over 600 ports but despite this, the vast majority of maritime port traffic is concentrated in a very small number, about 50.

The increasing tonnage of UK registered merchant shipping has happened despite a decreasing tonnage of Royal Navy ships and it is because of the Tonnage Tax and Seafarers Earnings Deduction make it tax efficient to register in the UK.

The global shipping insurance industry is largely based in London, Lloyds and many other P&I Clubs contribute a significant amount to the UK economy. Shipping agents and brokers also form a large sector.

We should also not ignore the maritime leisure sector; it is huge and supports many jobs.

Food

The UK was at its highest food self sufficiency since the 19^th century in 1980, at the height of industrial food production.

This has steadily declined from 80% to about 60% now.

This increases to nearly 75% for food that can be grown in the UK but this can be misleading because these self sufficiency percentages are calculated as the farm gate value of raw food for production divided by the value of raw food for consumption, it is therefore an economic indicator, not a measure of food security.

The story of our food security is a complex one, whilst we might import over £30 billion per year, in the same period we export just under half that. In terms of diversity, after the UK, the largest suppliers are the Netherlands (6.2%), Spain (5.1%), France (3.5%), Germany (2.7%) and Ireland (2.5%)

The source for individual produce is intriguing; Saudi Arabia supplies a significant quantity of the UK’s tomatoes for example. Africa provides about 14% of the UK’s fruit and vegetables imports, with 47% of that coming from South Africa.

These ratios also fail to take into account the nature of goods imported to actually process the food we grow ourselves, fertiliser, fuel, pesticides, animal feed, food processing equipment and farm machinery for example.

The figures underling all these statistics are also sometimes called into question because they rely on farm surveys and collection techniques that might not always be wholly accurate.

What is obvious though is that as a nation we rely on the global food market, like almost all other industrial countries.

Lots of stats at DEFRA, for those interested and they also publish an excellent summary called the Food Statistics Pocket Book, download here

Threats

The first important thing to recognise is that the world trading system is hugely resilient; it has to be to be commercially viable.

Importers and exporters have a vested interest in making sure they can trade, it is this point that is often completely misunderstood by those seeking to scaremonger and generate a reason for continuing investment in security or military solutions.

Commercial organisations invest in resilience, supply diversity and recovery capabilities because it makes economic sense to do so, in many ways, corporates have a more mature view of strategy issues than governments, which are largely based on the political horizon. The non divertable 20 year contracts with Qatar are a great example, the private sector investing $13billion (including £1billion for South Hook at Milford Haven)

However, there are limits to what business can do and these limits are often exceeded at points of concentration; a port, a distribution point or choke point. The physical movement of gas, oil or food relies on port facilities, ships, airports, aircraft and pipelines.

Looking at the nature of UK trade it is clear that the scaremongering about maritime security if often overstated.

Although the vast majority (95%) of imports and exports by volume travel by ship this is much less by value, also, 65-70% of both imports and exports by volume are between the UK and Europe where it might be argued the greatest threat is accident, bad weather and the odd WWII sea mine.

The security threats to shipping in the North Sea are self evidently different than those in the Gulf of Aden.

If we consider the amount of shipping movements between the UK and North America those percentages rise even higher, again, minimal security threats exist against this traffic.

Food imports are also overwhelmingly from Europe, excepting certain types of produce although as noted above, food production relies on imported products including oil and gas powered electricity production.

The threat to the UK therefore, is to a small percentage of shipping that originates outside Europe and North America, about 20% by volume.

The naval lobby, a group that is obviously seeking funding for the Royal Navy is preference to the other services, often exaggerate both the percentages and threats, seeking to confuse the lame minded politicians who take on face value a load of convincing statistics without any understanding of what lies behind them.

It is a fallacy to think that all the UK’s import of gas comes through the Suez Canal and Straits of Hormuz, this is simply not the case, despite that argument or inference constantly popping up. It is equally untrue to suggest that the UK is any more vulnerable to disruption to the global trading system than France, Germany, Norway or Spain. We are linked to the rest of Europe by a network of sea routes, diverse shipping providers and of course the Channel Tunnel which carried about 15 million tonnes of freight cargo last year, in an emergency, all routes could be significantly increased.

However, LNG supplies from Qatar are a particular concern. LNG ships have to transit the Straits of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandab, and the Suez Canal, all potentially hazardous locations. Because of the volatile nature of LNG extended transits via the Cape will result in higher losses and increased cost so these should concern us all.

Straits of Hormuz; About 15 million barrels of oil per day flow through the Straits of Hormuz, and its 2 mile wide shipping channel, between Iran and Oman. Volume through the Straits has declined in recent years as pipeline build outs continue but it is still the world’s most vital chokepoint. On average 13 tankers per day pass through the straits on their Eastbound route, with a corresponding empty traffic going the other way. It should be noted that more than 75% of export traffic through the Straits is destined for Asian markets. If the Straits were closed the existing pipeline routes would have to cope but these already carry a significant volume. The East West Pipeline pair from the East of Saudi Arabia to Yanbu on the Red Sea is rated at just under 5 million barrels of oil per day and 0.3 million barrels per day of liquid gas. The Habshan-Fujairah pipeline is about to commission and this will transport oil from Abu Dhabi to another of the seven emirates of the UAE, Fujairah, on the East shores of the Strait. At about 1.5 million barrels per day capacity this will provide a greater level of security for the oil trading nations on the South coast of the Persian Gulf. With Iraq returning to some semblance of normality it is quite possible that existing and new pipelines would see greater utilisation, especially through Turkey. As can be seen from the map below a network of gas pipelines also exist in the area although there would need to be significant investment in compression and storage facilities if Qatar LNG were to be transported in this manner.

Oil and Gas Infrastructue Persian Gulf

Bab el-Mandab; The Bab el-Mandab is a chokepoint between the horn of Africa and the Middle East, and a strategic link between the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean. It is located between Yemen, Djibouti, and Eritrea, and connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. Most exports from the Persian Gulf that transit the Suez Canal and SUMED pipeline also pass through the Bab el-Mandab. About 1.8 million barrels per day of oil is moved through the area on its way to Suez and the SUMED pipeline, most destined for the USA and Europe. If it were effectively closed it would place greater pressure on the Saudi East West pipeline. As piracy in the area continues to rise, security is an increasing concern. Because there are currently no effective diversion routes for LNG products close of the Bab el-Mandab would result in LNG tankers having to go around Africa.

Bab el Mandeb

Suez Canal; The Suez Canal is accompanied by the SUMED pipeline which runs parallel to it. It connects the Red Sea and Gulf of Suez in the Eastern Mediterranean with a length of nearly 120 miles. LNG represents about 11% of tonnage and 5% of ships but this is growing especially for Belgian, Italian and UK bound traffic. Because the canal cannot handle the very largest tankers they unload their liquid cargo which is then transited by the 2.3 million barrel per day SUMED pipeline and loaded again at the other end. Closure of the Suez canal and/or SUMED pipeline would require a 6,000 mile, 15 day diversion. This extra journey time would reduce throughput by tying up a finite number of tankers and ultimately drive up costs.

Royal Navy Suez Canal

When looking at realistic threats to these three vital chokepoints it is important to consider that the UK is not alone in having a strategic interest.

Traffic is two way and concerns not only the consumer countries but also those producing the oil, gas or other products.

If there were a disruption to any one or all three, the UK would not stand alone in efforts to resolve the situation.

There is also a difference between vulnerability to disruption and likelihood of it happening.

If Suez were closed, commercial shipping would simply go around the long way, yes this would add time and cost but in what circumstances would this happen anyway.

Who is going to block the canal and who is going to keep it blocked?

About 1,500 vessels per month pass through the Suez and provide Egypt with in excess of $5 billion foreign currency revenue per year. Along with energy and tourism it is the largest source of income for the country so any political party that decides to deny itself the two largest revenue sources, for tourism would surely follow any any disruption to the Suez, plus the likely suspension of foreign inward development investment is not likely to last long as it finds itself unable to pay its own people.

A more credible scenario is that of terrorism, either attacking the fabric of the canal or ships in transit.

As mentioned above, it is not in Egypt’s interests to allow canal traffic to be reduced and if shipping owners thought there a realistic threats they would carry the additional risk until it became more economic to re-route, at which point Egypt would have to do something. A scuttled or sunk ship at certain points would be a serious impediment to traffic but due to the vast size of the canal it is actually not that vulnerable to sustained denial with such pin prick attacks. Unless multiple attacks succeeded it is not likely that any damage would be enduring. That said, the threat of maritime terrorism remains credible and an attack would cause oil price fluctuations if not the closure of the canal.

The Bab el-Mandab is a different prospect, Yemen remains a fragile state and unlike Egypt, has no skin in the game when it comes to revenues from the area. Although it is a much larger geographic area and therefore harder to deny it would be feasible to create the conditions where commercial shipping owners decide the long way around is the preferred option, although I am sure Egypt, having just lost all its SUMED and Suez Canal revenue might have something to say about the matter. Disruption would not be allowed to continue indefinitely.

The Straits of Hormuz is an intriguing prospect because the most likely suspect, Iran that is, getting up to mischief bymaking threats or actually carrying out real interdiction of shipping would be playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship.

Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE and Saudi Arabia would all be drawn into any conflict, as would the Western nations in support, China might even get its sleeves rolled up because 75% of traffic through the straits is Eastbound and given that much of Iran’s foreign income generation activity also relies on the Straits any action would necessarily have to be short term.

Because of their economic mismanagement Iran has to import food and even petroleum products, they rely on a small number of refineries and in reality, if they attempted to shut the Straits they would suffer a very serious reprisal and any disruption would be over in 2 weeks, move along here, nothing to see, oh, except the Iranian economy in tatters.

It would not be sensible for Iran to carry out its sabre rattling threats because in reality the sabre rattling occurs in front of a mirror.

Logic does not always come into it though so we should never discount the actions of Iran, they remain a threat (hence pipeline building)

A much more likely threat is that to individual Gulf nations and facilities but again, this risks a wider conflagration and ignores the continuing efforts of everyone in the region to negate the strategic importance of the Straits by busily building pipelines. In fact, with sufficient investment in pipelines it is possible that the most vulnerable nation to blocking the Straits of Hormuz would be Iran itself.

Perhaps we should threaten them with closing the Straits!

Non Military Solutions

The sooner the UK government realises that the ‘power projection’ is not necessarily always the best solution for UK security the better.

The problem is that despite the best intentions and fine words of this government, when it comes to budgets its business as usual.

It might come as a surprise to read this on a defence blog and military capabilities are about much more than securing energy supplies and fresh strawberries, but we should also consider the wide angle.

With oil prices so high, oil fields in UK waters that were once considered uneconomic to exploit will now become viable. It is certainly in the national interest to use public funding to increase exploration and technology development because oil should be considered a strategic concern. Perhaps the recent Scottish political climate is clouding the investment issue, if devolution leads to independence then which nation would reap the benefits of ‘British’ investment.

Why are we not investing public money in exploration around the Falkland Islands?

There is little doubt that the UK has not used its North Sea windfall wisely, with what is left and the prospects of more fields, the nation needs to take a longer term view and realise the market is not always the answer.

Greater cooperative investment in infrastructure in the Gulf region should also not be ruled out, especially in conjunction with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Oman, our traditional and historic allies in the region.

Security around our ports and pipelines should be increased but this is a civil matter, apart from specialist capabilities like mine countermeasures. Our police are now armed and high competent, is there any reason why an armed coastal security force, scaled and equipped for the most likely threats of terrorism and smuggling, is not possible?

The South Hook LNG terminal cost just under a billion pounds, or about the same cost as money wasted on FRES and associated projects (with nothing to show for it) so far, less than half the cost of delaying CVF the first time or one twentieth of the cost of our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq so far.

Puts things into perspective doesn’t it.

Military Solutions

Despite my belief that non military spending should be prioritised over military spending or at least food and energy security not used as all encompassing arguments for yet more military expenditure, there is an absolute need for military capabilities to integrate into the resilience and security matrix.

It is in the national interest to do so.

If we accept that sometimes military solutions are the answer to an unpleasant question we need to indulge in a spot of critical thinking, how best to apply our military and diplomatic levers to ensure continuity of supply into the medium and long term of these most essential of resources.

It is at this point that thoughts of matter maritime comes into the picture, it is hard not to think that a naval solution is the answer because, well, we are talking about ships after all but all three services must be considered equally.

Being dispassionate, given a finite budget and some radical joined up thinking/doing, investing in expeditionary military forces does not provide a good return on investment when considering energy and food security.

Investing in these things does not protect shipping against the most likely threats because their high cost means few numbers and only limited effectiveness but we cannot ignore the security aspects of maritime trade and it is here where the all three services have to properly justify themselves.

Personally, I think our greatest contribution to the collective security in the area and thus by definition, a significant contribution to energy security at home, should be in developing local capacity and capabilities, training and working in local security partnerships for example.

This goes against the ‘strong navy’ mindset, where a strong navy is defined by expeditionary strike and amphibious capabilities. An alternative vision of a strong navy might see a different structure, better suited to preventing conflict than applying force after intelligence and diplomacy failures.

Currently we have the forward basing of a number of Royal Navy mines countermeasures vessels, as I have mentioned before, this is a capability area in which the UK excels.

This is exactly what I am talking about, we are already doing it albeit at a small scale, I want a greater priority given to this kind of activity

Given the interests of the producer nations is to make sure that they can continue to make money out of the oil, gas and shipping traffic it is hard to envisage a scenario where host nation support would be anything but forthcoming with open arms.

The justification for an expeditionary force, usually maritime and centred on CVF is more often than not preceded with a collection statistics about imported goods, history, the maritime industry, energy, and food security. These are usually impressive; 95% of our imported good comes by sea, without food imports we would be starving within 90 days, thousands of jobs relaying on the maritime industry and other equally convincing statements that immediately make you think, isn’t it obvious, we need a strong navy.

The deep and fundamental flaw with this argument though is that it fails to make a link between the ‘we are a maritime nation’ position on the left and the strong navy on the right.

There is a void in the middle; advocates just assume that everyone ‘gets it’

There is no doubt in my mind that the UK is a maritime nation, there is no doubt in my mind that an effective and relevant Royal Navy can make a key contribution to UK security and interests but I start from a sceptical position when it comes to making a causal link between this protective role and the expeditionary strike role as personified by CVF.

The other fundamental problem is, no one ever questions the underlying statistics and as we know, statistics can tell you anything.

I know I get a hammering for being anti Navy, as if they are some sort of religion but this could not be further from the truth, just because I don’t agree with the prevailing priorities and aspirations of CVF advocates does not all of a sudden make me anti navy.

The first and obvious source of information for how a Royal Navy can protect the British way of life is of course the Royal Navy website. Some time ago they published a very well written report on the important of maritime trade (click here to read in full)

The campaigning group Save the Royal Navy also looks at this subject in its 2009 article, 10 Reasons Why…

The Phoenix Think Tank looks at the issues here

This is where things get interesting because a strong Royal Navy can be defined in many ways.

On the one hand, we have the Royal Navy’s vision of a force centred on 2 strike carriers, surrounded by a surface combatant force, a number of submarines and associated logistic and secondary capabilities.

But I fail to see how this force as constituted in the real world, not the fantasy world, actually contributes to real world modern security threats.

The Royal Navy suffers particularly from what I call ‘tradition drag’ because of its historic pre-eminence in the world naval rankings but this is 2011 and the UK no longer dominates world trade. This constant reference to the Royal Navy’s position in the world is incredibly damaging and snuffs out any constructive debate of what it should look like.

If we are too concerned with ‘measuring up’ to other powers as some abstract concept we take our eyes off what is actually needed.

There is a lot of talk about being a first rank naval power but frankly, being rank 1 or 7 is irrelevant and shows the level of debate.

What is important is that the Royal Navy and other services are relevant to the needs of UK defence and security, rank has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

We shouldn’t care whether the Royal Navy is ranked 1^st or 71^st as long as it is relevant to the national need and the same goes equally for the other two services.

Yes, we are an island

Yes, the UK maritime industry is huge

Yes, the vast majority of trade sails rather than fly’s

Yes, the UK must not become ‘sea blind’

Yes, we are an island!

But all three services have to make credible and convincing cases for every last pound note, because if we are talking about real security and resilience, there are many more cost effective means of spending the public’s hard earned cash.

If there were a large scale security threat around those three choke points mentioned above it would be a global issue and the obvious argument is that the UK would have to contribute its fair share to any coalition force involved but by investing a greater relative share of our national budget into developing local security, diplomacy, obtaining timely intelligence and influence in the area we might not get to that point.

There is also a strong argument for investing funds that might have been earmarked for military capabilities in energy and food resilience, given that energy and food are fundamentally important to the prosperity and survival of the United Kingdom.

Do we invest in continual maintenance or foot the repair bill?

The Future Of series of posts makes a key assumption; defence budgets are unlikely to see a significant and sustained increase short of some major strategic shock.

Is this a sound bedrock for any future planning, probably not, but it serves its purpose and stops any thoughts of laser beam wearing sharks.

However, it is probably worth looking again at the underlying strategy that shapes foreign policy and in turn shapes the armed forces, so here are my ramblings on the subject of strategy, as usual, one view amongst many, not right or wrong.

There is much criticism of the lack of a grand strategy that guides the decisions of successive British governments and various interesting proposals to install some sort of council of wise elders to guide the inexperienced politicians, hedge against short term crisis management and provide breathing space for ‘thinking’ but as alluring as this might be it fails completely because if you have been elected by the people then you are not going to want, nor is it desirable, to be told, however gently, what you should be doing by some old farts who used to be important (unfair but probably realistic)

Politicians are elected to govern and there is quite enough power vested in the unelected ‘great and good’ as it is.

The role of a sovereign Parliament is to hold the government to account and it to this institution, however flawed, that we should look.

The people, through their Parliament, need to reassert their power.

Simply putting yet more unelected layers of influence into an already over complex government mechanism is counter productive. Even the much vaunted National Security Council and new Anglo US arrangements simply complicate matters.

Its composition and appointment process would inevitably be politicised and there is a real danger of groupthink setting in. Where Grand Strategy did work, the Victorian or Cold War eras, there were very clear enemies and/or objectives.

The world is a much more complex and nuanced place but strategy should still be very simple.

That is not to say there is no room for discussion, debate and free thinking on matters of grand strategy, far from it. This is why we have the House of Lords, RUSI, Chatham House, select committees galore, the Defence Academy, think tanks (various), the media and of course, the new media!

If there is to be some sort of higher level guiding, revising of proposal and tempering of rash decisions, surely this is role of the upper chamber and MP’s.

We Are All Doomed

No we fu##^&g well are not, there is a depressing and pervasive view that Great Britain isn’t that great anymore (I am guilty of this sometimes)

But this could not be further from the truth, look at our history, look at our contribution to world affairs and look at our potential, still, you will see plenty to puff your chest out about and think positive thoughts about.

This country needs to rediscover a bit of flair, a bit of self confidence and stop thinking of a million reasons not to do something.

Great Britain bought the world football, Darwin, railways and the X Factor, let’s not forget for a small island off the coast of Europe we have a lot going for us.

Where Values and Interests Clash, or Me Me Me

A grand strategy is where our liberal values of peace, love and functional democracies tend to hit the buffers because whilst it is obvious that Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Zimbabwe can do just about what they please no matter what we say, the same is not so true of others.

We all get a nice warm feeling about promoting democracy and gender equivalence but don’t care enough if it gets difficult or clashes with our national interest, we should stop hiding behind an ethical foreign policy (stop laughing at the back) and just be open and honest.

Instead of trying and failing to be a force for good in the world we should stop, realise that the world doesn’t give a toss what we think and knuckle down to putting the interests of the UK first, second and seventieth.

Grandstanding and posing is for amateurs and whilst we basking in the saintly glow from, for example, Sir Bob and Bono, the Chinese are busy pulling the rug from under our feet.

The ‘ends’ are therefore pretty simple, security and prosperity for the UK.

The Special Relationship

Like some clingy girlfriend (heard that on the radio this morning) the UK is constantly trying to show how important we are to the US and however we might reposition it as an essential relationship there are still elements of a complete lack of reality around the discussions. It is trendy to berate the UK/US relationship and anti Americanism is often simply jealousy dressed up as analysis the bare facts of the matter is that the US always acts in her best interests,

And why bloody well not, let’s not be deluding ourselves that we would be any different, good luck to them I say.

However, the UK does gain a lot from our relationship with the US in trade, military and intelligence matters, of that there can be no doubt but going forward we have to recognise that hanging on to the US coat tails and hoping for crumbs from the table, all whilst the US looks East, is a game of diminishing returns.

Our interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have been of questionable strategic value and unless we somehow try and ingratiate ourselves with the US by assisting them in Asia then the relationship will become increasingly one sided. Libya has laid bare the military power of Europe and from a US perspective, being world policeman and getting bugger all thanks whilst European nations vow to fight the last American must be wearing rather thin and you cannot blame the US for going cool on us.

All nations have special relationships and we are no different, our relationship with the Commonwealth might be called special, we sign agreements with Brazil and France, have cross border intuitions with Ireland, integrate Dutch amphibious forces with the Royal Marines and of course there is our relationship with the EU. The US has many so called special relationships with Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia and even Mexico.

We need a more realistic appraisal of where our interests lie and if that means we get closer with nation A or B then fair enough but this constant pandering to the US has to end.

The Lure of the Sea

Many people think the most sensible proposition for the UK is the so called strategic raiding or maritime centric approach. This is where I think the wisdom of the crowd is wrong but it is an appealing and in some aspects, logical choice.

Predictably, these arguments seem to have crystalised on a service centric basis;

If you wear light blue and sip Pimms, isn’t it obvious, without air power, sailors and soldiers lives are at risk, airpower can deliver strategic affect and we should have all the money.

Dark blue and the odd tot of grog; strategic raiding is the answer; after all, we are an island you know and would starve if the sea lanes were not kept clear, the future character of conflict document is wrong and we should have all the money.

Green, don’t raise the port decanter off the table; Afghanistan is the only game in town, COIN is the future and the future character of conflict document is good but not quite right, carriers are no good in a desert and we should have all the money.

None of these arguments hold up to critical analysis but it is Strategic Raiding that seems to have gained a lot of traction.

Gunboat diplomacy on steroids, which is what it is, is strategic thinking devoid of any real thought for the aftermath.

Supporters simply swish the consequences of our actions away with bold statement that after we have knocked the doors down and stirred up a hornets nest, other people (there is a whiff in some quarters of other people being brown), will pick up the pieces and provide the mass for ongoing stabilisation operations where it gets messy and difficult.

The bold assumption, that having a big raiding stick, usually centred on big flat boats with things that fly, provides a credible deterrent and can coerce or influence the actions of those ashore.

Sorry, yet more delusion, did Sadam decide not to bother invading Kuwait because of the USN in the Gulf, did Slobodan change course once the carriers were in the Adriatic, did the West Side Boys give up their hostages in Sierra Leone because we had Sea Harrier, did Mohamed Aidid give up when faced with overwhelming force sitting offshore, did the Taleban decide to give up Osama because of the F18?

No is the simple answer, it took the application of significant and sustained combined arms forces to achieve anything, if at all, in these situations and every one of them was as a result of failures in diplomacy or intelligence.

Extended strategic raiding, if I can call it that, defines almost anything but Afghanistan and the years after the initial invasion of Iraq as strategic raiding so with most of these theories, its all in the eye of the beholder.

The whole ‘we are an island’ argument is anachronistic and assumes that the UK is any more vulnerable to disruptions in the free flow of goods and raw materials than any other European nation. Is Holland more vulnerable to disruptions to the Suez Canal than we are, is France any more dependent on Middle East oil than we are?

Barring a few details, of course they aren’t.

If we are really serious about maritime security and isolation from food and fuel supplies then we should invest in port infrastructure, multiple pipelines, supplier diversity, gas storage, shale gas exploration, offshore renewable energy, sensible agriculture/fishing policies and cross channel security arrangements.

I am not sure why strategic raiding seems such a popular proposition and maybe it is me that is barking bad but not only does it seem like warmed over ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ fantasy where, after using our high technology sensors and rapid reaction capabilities, we launch from afar, kill the bad guys in a hail of effects based trickery, who will have conveniently decided to pit their weakness against our strengths, build a couple of schools in compensation for explosively destroying their country and be home in time for tea and medals. The aftermath, thats for others, we can crack on with shining our carriers and let others do the hard yards of building security.

Not sure the real world bad guys will be so obliging or predictable.

It also has the added bonus of requiring lots of expensive toys, industry and the chiefs will be over the moon because they can measure up to the French and USA instead of actually doing their jobs of securing the UK’s interests.

Strategic Raiding is the latest in a long list of military fashions and allows the service chiefs to keep their big ticket items; the answer is Typhoon, FRES and CVF, now, about that question.

Whilst I do not think a maritime centric strategy is right for the UK I don’t think we should be maintaining large ground forces to engage in extended COIN operations either.

We do not have the manpower and cannot afford it anyway.

The answer therefore (at least in my muddled thinking) is forward engagement and multi dimensional partnerships that build security, provide intelligence and opportunities for early intervention that might not always be military in character.

It isn’t very glamorous or exciting, its hard work, not cheap and the results might be ambiguous at best but I can’t see any other option that is realistic.

Trends and Mystic Meg

Looking into the future is a thankless task, no one ever remembers when you were right but if events turn out to be even slightly different to your predictions then everyone thinks you are an idiot.

In all our thinking we must recognise the nature of uncertainty but equally recognise that to hedge against every eventuality is the same as paying for asteroid insurance for your kitchen.

There are trends and patterns we can make reasonable and educated guesses about, an invasion through the Fulda Gap by the Russians is pretty unlikely for example. Glib maybe, but the point is a serious one.

The National Security Strategy actually made that point quite forcefully and elevated the risk cyber attacks and terrorism but the attacks on so called Cold War Relics TM masks a basic ignorance of the utility of Cold War Relics TM in all spectrum’s of military operations. Challenger 2 might no longer face the Red Army but they are still damned useful today, maybe not as many of them should be supported, but that is the point.

Where the SDSR went off the rails is that it consistently failed to actually take on notice of the National Security Strategy and descended into a lastminute.com orgy of cost cutting where horse trading, back scratching and back stabbing seemed to take precedence over anything else.

In its haste, politicians failed to control the uniformed grown ups and the end result was a series of incoherent salami slices, something that the government vehemently claimed would not happen.

As an aside, whilst everyone is looking East I think we also need to shift our gaze to Africa.

A Practical Notion

Having impressive big sticks is fine but using them generally means something has gone wrong somewhere else, usually an intelligence or diplomatic failure.

Instead of concentrating on creating capabilities for increasingly unlikely scenarios we should be shifting resources to a greater engagement with regional partners. Because of the increasing disparity between personnel numbers and personnel affordability it is obvious that we can no longer provide the bulk of land forces for extended expeditionary campaigns and do so is wasteful of such a precious resource anyway.

The proposed Multi Role Brigade is designed to provide such an enduring force package but a Brigade scale is really too small to be operational useful in this type of operation and I suspect the structure is designed to preserve as many senior officer posts and regiments as possible, regardless of the utility.

Resources should be concentrated on intelligence, diplomacy, building regional stability, partnering, civil affairs and languages for example, in order to making best use of our strengths.

That is not to say we disarm and turn into a nation of knife wielding social workers, far from it, but it does mean a greater emphasis on certain capabilities than others.

Instead of desperately trying to have both width and depth in a full range of military capabilities a re-appraisal is desperately overdue.

The woeful SDSR which over promised and under delivered needs to be neatly placed in the round filing cabinet, with all the other rubbish.

The TD approach sits on a number of principles

Principle 1 – Stomach in tits out

The UK needs to reassert its sovereignty and rediscover its self confidence whilst recognising practical limitations.

Although I am verging onto political ground here, this would mean a full repatriation of powers from Brussels and a reaffirmation of the primacy in law making of Parliament.

Principle 2 – We love you Simon Cowell

The UK has an enormous well spring of both perceived and actual capability in the military, diplomatic, academic, cultural, overseas development, sporting and industrial domains from which to draw, all of which can contribute to security.

We need to stand back, look at what we have and start to pull them together into a coherent approach. How popular is cricket in the UK and South East Asia but do we see the security value in exploiting this common passion, no, but we should be.

When was the last time Simon Cowell was invited to National Security Council, a flippant example perhaps but UK popular culture is hugely influential and should be viewed as a key thread in our security tapestry. I am not advocating sending Simon Cowell to Libya or Afghanistan but culture is important, hold on, that might not be a bad idea. Helmand’s Got Talent, the Taleban would give up in an instant!

People look at our hubris in Iraq and say we don’t really know about COIN, the US student has become the master. But look at Northern Ireland and then look at Basrah and Helmand, we have simply not applied the lessons we so painfully learned in Belfast and Londonderry to warmer and less rainy climes. Before the trendy words like comprehensive approach were even being talked about that is exactly what we did, combining military force with all the levers of state.

We suffer from stovepiped budgets and a lack of properly joined up thinking, let alone joined up doing, as the recent issue of funding for the BBC World Service or flogging off RFA Largs Bay amply demonstrate.

This principle therefore seeks to coordinate these disparate strands.

Merging the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ministry of Defence, Department for International Development and elements of the security services into a single entity would be a significant organisational challenge but it would demonstrate intent, show that they are many facets of a single gem and by making them answerable to parliament, including their budget, deliver clear and unambiguous objectives to which they could all align.

Of course there will be much rustling of the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph but I simply don’t care for the has beens, wannabes and vested interests who would challenge such a merge.

The goal is to unify those three squabbling children into an effective force for the UK’s security and prosperity, generally speaking; that means other nations security and prosperity as well but we have to start being selfish.

Principle 3 – Break glass in case of fire

Regenerating capabilities from a small core is much easier than starting from scratch so as a hedge against uncertainty it would seem prudent to retain the full spectrum of capabilities, even at a relatively modest scale. This approach might not be wholly efficient in that it maintains forces and equipment for less likely contingencies but much like an insurance policy, it provides some measure of assurance.

We should therefore retain a hard central core of capabilities, in all domains but with graduating levels of readiness. There is a role for reserve forces in this approach, closely integrated with regular forces as a guardian of skills and capabilities. Reserve forces simply do not have the capacity to do this on their own and it is fallacy to think otherwise but they can play a large part in capability retention and continued development.

This principle also means the retention of a nuclear deterrent, form and function to be defined. It might have little relevance to the vast majority of operations but it serves a few of purposes, first, it is an insurance against the asteroid mentioned above, second, it infers a certain influence, third, it stops anyone indulging in a spot of nuclear blackmail and finally, it contributes to technology independence.

There are many arguments for and against nuclear weapons but the one that matters isn’t logical, it’s an emotional one.

Emotion trumps logic every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

The deterrent should stay.

Principle 4 – No man is an Island, not even an island

This means alliances, special relationships and partnerships.

NATO, the Commonwealth, Five Powers, European partnerships, the United Nations and numerous bilateral arrangements must all play their part, the more the merrier, there is nothing wrong with having lots of mates.

Our security capabilities must not only serve the UK’s interests but the collective interests of our international and regional partners, we must become a better neighbour but also recognise that our contribution to collective security must still be effective and worthwhile.

In capability terms, this would mean developing out from the central core a number of ‘capability plus’ functions that deliver a powerful contribution to multinational coalitions in response to collective security threats. This does not mean fooling ourselves that we can do everything or be a mini me USA and some of our existing capabilities would be scaled back into the core, but it would make sense to build on areas that we are already strong in.

Instead of the current situation, where we have the illusion of being a full spectrum military power but scratch the surface and you see a different story, the fur coat and no knickers illusion, we would clearly state that we are no longer such a power but in these certain areas, we are better than most. In other words, for capability x or y, the UK becomes the go to partner, in yet more words, useful, or in other other words, not a burden that the USA have along so as not to upset us.

When we talk about regional engagement and developing regional security we must actually mean it, put the resources behind it and keep on going.  It will be difficult and there will be setbacks but it is the only approach that is feasible in the long term.

The classic inkspot theory is sound, but all the spots do not need to be wholly filled with British ink. This is where engagement with regional partners is important, instead of the ‘kick the doors down and engage reverse gear’ notion of strategic raiding, leaving others to shoulder 100% of the aftermath of our explosive entry, engaging with partners on an enduring basis means our limited resources are used to maximum effect.

Instead of providing the bulk of the manpower for stabilisation operations we can still provide elements of the theatre entry force (if that is needed) and stay engaged for the medium to long term, sharing the burden with others rather than abandoning them which will result in zero long term security benefit.

Principle 4 – Change you can believe in!

There is a fundamental disconnect between the illusion of ‘no strategic shrinkage’ and the impact of the SDSR, or David Cameron maintaining that we are a full spectrum military power right after the service chiefs have unanimously said we aren’t.

We need a strategic review of defence and security that has some credibility, one that actually takes those much heralded tough decisions instead of the weak kneed approach taken by every single review of recent times.

If we cast our minds back to the Haldane, Childers or Cardwell and Esher reforms these had credibility, whatever the outcome. They recognised there was a problem, had no truck with the happy clappy self delusion of the service chiefs or politicians and set about making effective changes with gusto. Crucially, these reports and reforms were not headed by insiders.

This is what we need, desperately.

Turkey’s don’t vote for Christmas the very last group of people we should be inviting to the reform campfire is those on the inside already.

Defence reviews have an unhappy past and certain familiar ring;

1981 (The Nott Review)

We have a choice. Either we can continue to pretend that there is no problem, that we can wish away the threat or imagine that the United Kingdom can somehow sustain, replace and enhance its operational effectiveness without a fresh look at how we perform our tasks. I see my task as a simple one, and no amount of special pleading from one part of our defence establishment or another will divert me from it. It is to form a defence view—not a single Service view—of how we can conduct our tasks within the Alliance in the defence of freedom and democracy.

1998 (George Robertson)

The Review is radical, reflecting a changing world, in which the confrontation of the Cold War has been replaced by a complex mixture of uncertainty and instability. These problems pose a real threat to our security, whether in the Balkans, the Middle East or in some troubles pot yet to ignite.

2010 (Dr Liam Fox)

It will be a chance to have a clean break from the legacy and mindset of the Cold War and should be viewed as an opportunity for fresh thinking and change. Make no mistake; we need a step change not tinkering.

The grudging, finger nail scraping road to Future Force 2020 has been a slow but steady one, each time this decline is covered by a smokescreen of strategic thinking but it doesn’t fool anyone. The service chiefs refuse to give up on their parochial interests and vanity projects, vested industrial interests continue their vice like grip on budgets and successive governments have laboured under champagne tastes for foreign interventions and international grandstanding on a brown ale budget.

Nothing significant or radical ever actually happens; gold plated equipment cock ups and over stretched and under resourced forces being asked to do ever more.

Adaptable Britain is a piss poor joke, dreamt up by people who should really know better but don’t.

It maintains the fur coat, but throws the knickers out of the window, as soon as we have to do a spot of flashing; our exposed and unimpressive fanny is there for all to see.

There is a delusional fallacy that strategy should only be shaped by threats/objectives and not resources; this is usually mentioned by politicians on the eve of yet another review that reduces defence spending.

Here is what Dr Fox said on the eve of SDSR

Now, we could start with the money. And lots of Defence Reviews, since the war, have started with the size of the pot, then you see what you can buy from it. The trouble with that is that you end up with unintended consequences in foreign policy

Strategy should always be about resources, as the good doctor now knows only too well.

This is the point where I introduce, yet again, my favourite act of my favourite film.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The service chiefs are the fat kid and the treasury is Santa.

Even now, the MoD is banking on jam tomorrow, wishing for more in the 2015 review, if I were a betting man I would wager the MoD’s hand is going to be full of brown stuff and not folding stuff.

The MoD has to achieve some measure of financial credibility but equally, the politicians have to allow it to do so, so that means a credible, joined up review that faces up to reality.

A new review must look at the wider picture, clearly define roles and requirements and if sacred cows need to be culled, burned and buried, then let’s get at it.

For once in modern history, the forces need a credible defence review that has an equally credible financial underpinning.

Did I say it needs to be credible?

Summary

Start with a hard-nosed and realistic assessment of resources, threats and opportunities, realise the only thing important is the national interest and that advancing it is difficult.

Be pragmatic about partnerships but understand they are essential.

Wise up about being a full spectrum military power at scale.

Harness our considerable soft power resource; actually join up the dots rather than just talking about it.

Merge the MoD, FCO and DFiD

Maintain a core set of full spectrum military capabilities at varying readiness levels as a strategic hedge and to enable the UK to mount a small scale expeditionary operation with limited goals without assistance.

Surround the core with two sets of additional ‘capability plus’ areas.

The first would be an extensive mentoring, defence diplomacy, training and assistance force that can work with regional partners to help them to build their own security, provide intelligence and opportunities for early intervention.  This would integrate with a wider national capability set that includes and integrates diplomatic, developmental assistance, disaster relief, academia, culture, sport and industry that is focussed on national interests.

The second would be a selected number of enhanced contributory capabilities that allow us to function as an effective and influential partner in coalition operations. The composition and nature of these would be open for debate but the goal is to become the ‘go to guy’ for capability x or y

Have a credible and radical review, reorganise and implement it without mercy or influence from vested interests.

Put the kettle on.