DMP: even though funding does not match ambitions, a global stance is still needed

The current “review that is not a review”, now called Defence Modernisation Programme, is an abomination and an abject failure. There is no other honest way to describe the current farcical situation, with a government in denial scrambling for new cuts scarcely two years into a 5-years strategic plan crafted with the last SDSR, dated November 2015. The handling of the whole “National Security Strategy” is farcical, and the months spent denying the problem now look like nothing but concentrated dishonesty. Michael Fallon’s late change of heart is the coronation of the whole disaster: now that he is no longer in charge he is not just admitting that there is a serious cash problem, but pontificating on areas where to seek further “efficiencies”.

We are now officially into a new review, but the government is still trying to tell us that it is not a purely financial exercise. They insist on turning “cuts” into “modernisation”. 

The effective gravity of the problem is hard to gauge. The MOD is now saying that they have “line of sight” on about 90% of the efficiency target set by the SDSR 2015 (more than 7.4 billions) and they also say that the earlier target set by the SDSR 2010 is more or less achieved. A variety of other initiatives requiring other efficiencies added up to an official target of some 20 billion. In theory, if the MOD statements are to be trusted, most of that money has been found, but press reports continue to suggest that a minimum of 15 and a maximum of 30 billions are missing over the next ten years timeframe. This is nothing short of astonishing because, in the worst case, it pretty much means that the MOD is missing a whole financial year of budget. It is hard to even imagine how this can be, especially since the Equipment Budget, one of the biggest expenditure voices, is entering into years in which most of the expenditure is planned but not contractually committed. According to the Equipment Programme 2016, 48% of the Equipment Budget is not yet tied to contracts as of financial year 2017/18, which in theory means that there is a lot that could simply shift to the right or be cancelled before cuts to existing assets and manpower numbers need to be considered. Of course, a large proportion of money not yet contractually locked is nonetheless tied to programmes which the MOD absolutely does not want to drop, but even then there should be (and there is) a degree of flexibility that is hardly reconciled with stories of imminent collapse.

Not to mention that all Army programmes are late on start, so the MOD has been spending less than originally planned, and all three services are undermanned compared to requirement, which also should mean personnel costs are lower than expected. Unless the MOD is completely unable to calculate a budget, it is extremely hard, if not impossible, to reconcile the MOD’s affirmations on Efficiencies and on the state of the EP and the financial crisis as reported by the press: either said crisis is far smaller than the media estimate, or the MOD must be lying about having found the efficiencies requested. Alternatively, the Treasury has not respected its promise to let the MOD carry forward its underspend and has taken back the money or is trying to take it back now. 

For sure the MOD is very distant from meeting its civilian headcount reduction target; this is known. 

The terrifying cut options that Fallon was about to approve, according to the Times. Option 2 would seem to be the most "acceptable", but it still makes for horrifying reading. The new secretary reportedly refused to seriously consider any of these. 

Meanwhile, Fallon has written in the Telegraph to say that efficiencies can still be found by removing “duplication” in medical services, helicopters and other functions.

While medical services could perhaps be an area where to look for savings, finding genuine “efficiencies” in helicopters will be very complicated: there no longer are “duplicate fleets”. Puma is no duplication of Merlin. Puma is smaller, can quickly deploy via C-17. Merlin is for shipboard ops and ASW. Chinook has no duplicate. Wildcat neither. Apache neither. That leaves the Gazelle fleet, still used in a number of supporting roles at home and in BATUS. Gazelle could be replaced with H-135 or 145 to achieve commonality with the new training fleet, but this is a typical “spend now to save later” solution. Similarly, the armed forces could perhaps put under contract a more coherent and logistically common solution for training support and Brunei (currently done with a handful of Bell 212) and for Cyprus (4 Griffin helicopters for SAR and training support). But, again, it would take cash to do so.

Reducing the number of Army Air Corps bases is also something that is being looked at, long and hard. A specific strand of Defence Estate review dealing with this topic has been in the works for months and is (very) late on publishing. There is some appetite for closing down Wattisham, moving the Apache south to Middle Wallop or Boscombe Down. This might generate significant savings in the long run, but the upfront cost is massive. Efficiencies, when they aren’t just cuts under a different name, often require upfront expenditure, and that makes them hard to pursue when lack of cash in-year is the problem.

The “serious debate on defence” dream

I remain convinced that the current handling of Defence policy in the UK is simply indefensible and needs to be dramatically reformed. British defence plans are largely unaccountable. The lack of details and the endless contradictions make it impossible to keep track of the department’s work. The EP document is a manifestation of this extreme vagueness: the graphics show us, more or less accurately, the consistence of the budgets for each equipment area but there is next to nothing in terms of detail about what programmes are included. We get told how much money is expended, but we only ever get extremely limited detail about what it buys.

The NAO Major Projects report is no longer produced, so even that source of information is gone, leaving behind only the Excel spreadsheets that the MOD publishes in July, showing the expenditure connected to the largest ongoing programmes. Some of the figures remain undisclosed; smaller but important programmes get no mention at all; acquisition profiles are not included and the entire spreadsheet only gives a vision of the financial year that has ended. In other words: in July this year (assuming there are no delays or changes) we’ll get a picture that will be current only to September 2017. What little we get to know is always a picture of a far gone past.

Written Answers are just as vague: MOD ministers regularly refuse to disclose dates and numbers. The latest written answers about WCSP and MRV-P, for example, deliberately do not include any indication of a target date for contract award. The Warrior CSP production contract; a Challenger 2 LEP candidate downselection; the order for JLTV for the Multi Role Vehicle Protected Group 1 and a choice between Eagle 6x6 and Bushmaster for the Group 2 requirement are (were?) all expected this year, but uncertainty rules supreme. Speaking at RUSI, Carter mentioned that the Army will have WCSP and CR2 LEP “sometimes in the next five years”. Is he talking of contract award? Delivery of first vehicle? IOC? FOC? He could have hardly been any more confusing. There is no way to keep track of the MOD’s actions.

The Defence Committee is powerless and the Defence chiefs are subject to such limitations when they speak to it that they are effectively forbidden from voicing any discomfort with government policy. This effectively means that the hearings are almost completely pointless.

There have been complaints recently about leaks to the newspapers being “damaging to morale”, and that is certainly true. But the sad truth is that leaks are currently the only instrument in the hands of the MOD to initiate a public debate. Chiefs aren’t allowed to voice their concerns openly in front of the committee and Parliament doesn’t get a vote on the defence plan. In France, in the US, and even in Italy Parliament does get a say and each financial year sees the publication of detailed documents that show how much money will be allocated to each programme and what said money will buy. France publishes a list of everything it plans to order in year, and another of everything it receives.

In the UK there is absolutely nothing remotely comparable.

It is my opinion that this absolutely needs to change. It is impossible to have a “serious debate” on Defence when no information is ever allowed to circulate. The Chief General Staff ended his much hyped RUSI speech urging experts to debate about defence. This is a very welcome call to arms, but the debate cannot be restricted to “give defence more money because Russia is a threat”. The debate cannot be restricted only to extremely general concepts: how can anyone comment on the validity of STRIKE, for example, when the Army tells us nothing about the concept? How do we make a case for “Information Manoeuvre” when we have been barely told that it will involve “77 Brigade, 1^st ISR Brigade and the two signal brigades” working together. Back in June last year, Fallon spoke to RUSI and said that Royal Signals and Intelligence Corps would “merge” as part of the Information Manoeuvre Strategy and that a second EW regiment (who knows with what kind of capability remit) would be formed. We were never given a further word about it.

One only needs to compare the british army SOLDIER magazine with Corps or Army-wide publications in the US or Australian or French armies. SOLDIER is gossip (no offence intended to those who produce the magazine, just stating facts), while journals elsewhere include very interesting discussions about tactics, force structure, proposals, critiques coming from inside the army. 

If the armed forces want a proper debate, they must start it themselves and provide us with some degrees of information. Security concerns are always and rightfully prominent, but it is just not credible to say that the British forces can never discuss anything in the open while other allied armies feel free to share their thinking. Surely there is something that is both releasable and meaningful. In absence of any relevant information, any debate ends up being a fantasy fleet exercise. Personally, I find it frustrating enough that I’ve largely ceased trying, because every discourse ultimately feels pointless and I’m finding it harder  and harder to take any statement or plan with any degree of confidence. There are only so many defence reviews that can be torn to bits within a year or two before all confidence in their worth is lost.

“Tough choices”

As cuts draw nearer, the usual rhetoric about tough choices and sacred cows resurfaces. From my somewhat privileged observation point outside of the UK I can say that:

1) The UK is extremely “good” at making tough choices when it comes to cutting defence. They are often extremely tough and they have dramatic and long-lasting effects. They tend to only make some kind of sense from a short-term perspective, however. Few other countries are able to demolish entire capabilities and spit in the face of years of efforts and investment as the UK does, and arguably none in the whole world ends up doing it so frequently.

2) The sacred cows rhetoric is too often used in the context of inter-service rivalry rather than in a rational assessment of capability. “Amphibious capability” and “airborne capability” are not sacred cows. The fetish for a disproportionate number of tiny infantry battalions is.

Ahead of this new review several commentators are calling for tough choices matching the severity of those contained in the infamous 1981 review chaired by John Nott. The Guardian in particular seems to have jumped on this train of thought advocating, for the most part in extremely vague and weak ways, for a UK that “focuses on Europe” and that “cannot afford to rule the waves anymore”.

There was some outrage when the new secretary of state for defence listed his priorities for defence and put developing a global strike capability based on the new aircraft carriers right behind Continuous At Sea Deterrence and ahead of the “capability to defend Europe”. I found that quite ridiculous, first of all because I'm not sure the order in which he told them has any real meaning. Also, they are concepts so vaguely defined that they can mean pretty much anything and its contrary, save for CASD which is (or should be, at least) unambiguous. The very fact that amphibious capability and LPDs are very much in danger of being cut means that "global carrier strike" means little. The two components are closely connected and removing one damages the whole irreparably.

Moreover, "Defence of Europe" can take several different directions.

There is a dangerous narrative doing the rounds about the navy being responsible for the Budget problem and for the army’s woes. The carriers are regularly described as the problem, regardless of how patently and demonstrably false this affirmation is.

First of all, before examining the strategic implications, let’s take note of this fact: the carriers by now are paid for. Soon enough the second ship will be delivered, and the 6 billions are gone at this point. If you want a programme costing over six billions and with most of the expenditure yet to take place you have to look at the voice “Armoured Cavalry 2025 - Ajax”.

The 6 billions for the carriers have been expended between 2008 and today, and there never was a year in which they were the biggest voice of expenditure in the budget. The acquisition of the 48 F-35B planned will cost some 9.1 billion spread on the financial years 2001 to 2026. Simple math confirms that no, the carriers did not break the budget, even if the ships cost and the F-35 costs are summed together. Note that the F-35 would still be there regardless of the carriers, as the RAF would have wanted it all the same to replace its older attack aircraft.

The carriers have contributed to forcing the Navy to accept a number of cuts to its escorts, that is definite, but the simple truth is that a navy of sole escorts is very different from a navy complete of carriers. The carriers fundamentally shape the role and capability of the Royal Navy. Having a few frigates more would not have the same effect.

It is also false that the Army is not getting money because of the Navy and of the F-35. The Land Equipment budget for 2016 – 2026 is 19.1 billion, versus 19 for Ships and 18 for Combat Air. It is true that the Air Force also gets money under “Air Support” and “Helicopters” budget, but that is valid for the Army as well (Apache and Wildcat for the Army Air Corps). Arguably, the Army is the primary user for many of the air support platforms as well (C-130, A400, C-17, Voyager). When it is said that the army is suffering the consequences of inflated Navy and Air Force programmes, fundamentally a lie is uttered.

The real elephant in the room is clearly the nuclear deterrent, which enormously inflates the “Submarines” budget, but as long as CASD remains the primary national defence tool there is little that can be done about its cost. The Navy has little to no actual control on it, and said control will become even more loose as the Top Budget Areas are restructured and  divided up differently. Effective from 1 april 2016 the MOD has established the Director General Nuclear Organisation. The effect of this further division of responsibility should become visible in the soon to be published Equipment Programme document (which details the financial year 16/17). DG Nuclear is a Front Line Command (FLC) equivalent post. Since April 2013 the equipment budget management has been delegated to the FLCs: RN, Army, RAF, Joint Forces Command, Strategic Programmes Directorate and now DG Nuclear. 

Strategic considerations; Europe and the unpleasant truth

The UK cannot and should not "defend Europe" from Russia. It can contribute to the defence of Europe, and the difference between the two affirmations is enormous.

Whether the “defend Europe” priority truly needs to be a major force structure driver is actually debatable. If we seriously expect major, non-geographically limited russian action, arguably we should not be contemplating cuts at all.

If the Russian threat is geographically limited, presumably to the Baltic countries, the UK cannot afford to have its defence policy dragged too much towards an overland posture by something it might still not be able to prevent and that, sorry if it sounds cynical, is of little actual impact to the UK. We need to ask what is the actual danger to the UK from Russia's actions in Ukraine and, potentially, the Baltics? Cynical as it sounds, UK committment must be commensurate to threat and returns. What is the UK's substantial committment to the Baltics buying? What would an even greater focus gain?

The direct impact on the UK from Russian actions in either area is actually minimal. Obviously, the one enormous difference is that the Baltic countries are part of NATO, so an aggression against them would trigger Article 5 and require NATO action. If NATO failed to react appropriately, the credibility of Article 5 would be shattered forever. This indirect impact is the real concern, as it would put the whole of NATO, and all the defence assumptions it underpins, into question.

The collapse of Article 5 is to be avoided by preventing the start of hostilities. I think that, if we are realistic, we will all admit that if Russia ever attacked for real, rushing into war would be very, very complicated. Would the NATO countries  be willing and able to declare war on Russia over the Baltics? Especially if Russia managed to make the invasion start off as a “local uprising” as in Crimea and Ukraine? I very much struggle to imagine much enthusiasm in the public opinion, including a UK in which an alarmingly large share of the population seem to share Corbyn’s feeling that even the Falklands and Gibraltar should be given up. If they have so little care for fellow Britons, do we expect them to support a far more dangerous war in the Baltics? We are “lucky” that Georgia and Ukraine are not part of NATO. And we cannot be surprised that Russia attacked them before they could join. As much as US and NATO protested and deprecated Russia’s actions and regardless of how good and deep the relations with either country are, nobody was willing to enter an actual war for them. Within Europe there are those who think the EU is responsible for the Ukraine disaster because it “intruded into Russia’s backyard”. There was and is political opposition even to the economic sanctions against Russia, with some parties valuing trade with Russia more than Ukraine. As Italian, unfortunately, I know this all too well, as we have had some loud voices speaking exactly in these terms. If push came to shove there would be some serious thinking about how to react to a Baltic scenario as well. Realism hurts, but is desperately necessary.

The NATO forward presence in the Baltics is intended to prevent such a scenario by hopefully making it impossible for Russia to build up an “uprising scenario” or any other form of modern maskirovka while also putting NATO troops directly on the frontline. Any invasion would put British, American, German, French and other troops immediately at risk, and public opinion in the respective countries would find it much harder not to react. In the most brutal and direct terms possible: if the Russians advance, NATO soldiers will die and that will provide motivation for the fight to continue. And in turn, this awareness discourages Russia from trying in the first place.

It is a game of deterrence, and I hope no one believes that the forward-deployed battlegroups, with their handful of mix and match armored vehicles from multiple countries, could actually defend the Baltics through combat. They are nowhere near large and capable enough to do that. Their presence is meant to dissuade Russia from opening fire in the first place, not to provide effective defence against a serious attack. They are there to ensure that others would come after them.

Should NATO’s forward presence be reinforced? Should a much greater permanent presence of troops be a priority? No. An excessively cumbersome NATO presence would risk alienating local support in the long run, while worsening relations with Russia even further. It would also be difficult, if not impossible, to accumulate enough forces to make the Baltics “unassailable”. Russia is advantaged by geography and by good internal communications that would allow it to rapidly concentrate overwhelming force in the area, while the small Baltics states physically do not have territory to give up to gain time. 

“Defending Europe” does not require the UK switching its focus back to continental warfare. It would be extremely unwise to do so. Skewering any further the whole UK's defence posture towards a new British Army of the Rhine, or even of Poland or of the Baltics would be nothing short of stupid.

Half-tracked STRIKE brigades, even if their vehicles were stored in Germany, where the army intends to maintain its Controlled Humidity Storage facility, would not change the equation. Even assuming they could truly drive all the way to the Baltics along European roads, they still wouldn’t shift the balance. 
I'd rather invest further in the ability to move heavy armour by road and train. The British Army's fleet of Heavy Equipment Transporters is a precious asset, but with just 89 transporters and 3 recovery vehicles there are obvious limits to what can be moved around. British HETs have been transporting allied armoured vehicles and loads as well. Notably, some 30 HETs have been loaned to the US Army as the american HET does not comply with european regulations. 

The supporters of the mythical “tough decision”, however, seem to advocate for a repeat of the retreat from East of Suez to preserve the army and focus on the European theatre. Supposedly this is not just the wise choice but also the cheap one.

The actual harsh truth is that it is neither wise nor cheap.

The British Army is not in good shape. It is very small; it is short of supports; it is incredibly weak in terms of air defence and most of its brigades are not deployable but are mere bags containing a variable number of small, light role, non-mechanized infantry battalions plus three small cavalry regiments mounted on Jackal. The British Army is nowhere near ready for an actual fight with Russia and, size-wise especially, it will never truly be. The Guardian can happily subscribe to the Russia-produced story that what the heavily mechanized, artillery rich Russian army is very afraid of the tiny light role infantry battalions on foot that make up most of the british army, but I hope that most people can recognize deliberate trolling for what it is.

Fortunately, the British Army does not need to take on Russian forces on its own.

Obsolescence of major equipment, weakness in Fires, ground based air defence in need of rebuilding and a dog’s breakfast mix of countless small vehicle fleets procured under UOR all add up to a gigantic capability gap that it would take many billions to close. The 19 billion ten-year equipment budget would merely begin to improve the outlook, even assuming everything (finally) worked out. And keep in mind that it is, de-facto, not known exactly what is included in those 19 billions, what is partially included and what is left for later. Even before new programmes begin to appear (new artillery, land precision strike, long range rockets for GMLRS, air and missile defence, new ground based sensors, a Desert Hawk III replacement etcetera) we don’t know when WCSP will deliver, or when CR2 LEP will go ahead and whether it will be enough to make Challenger 2 competitive again.

The UK is not equipped to be a continental power. The British Army in many ways compares horribly poorly to Poland’s army. And this is, to a degree, normal. It is not the UK’s task to be a continental power and the guardian of East Europe. It should continue to contribute, certainly, but trying to buy influence in Europe with the land forces the UK has is, if not impossible, a job that will take many years and many more billion pounds than the UK can expend.

Cutting back capabilities such as the (existing and paid for) amphibious force with its shipping; or the carriers; or the F-35 purchase, would merely mean turning billions of pounds and years of efforts and investment into nothing but waste. New weaknesses will be created where there are not, for little to no effective gain at all.

What the UK has always added to Europe's military capability and to the “European side of NATO” is the willingness and ability to intervene far from home. An Europe-centric garrison, even if it was to revolve around a new "british army of the Baltic" would not be in the UK nor EU's interest if it came at the expense of other capabilities.

The UK was never primarily defined in Europe by its MBTs apart perhaps when Chieftain's 120mm appeared in a 105mm NATO. BAOR was of course a valued contribution, and there was a period in which it made sense to focus on it and GIUK gap above all else, but those times are over.

Today’s unique UK strengths include strategic air mobility; air breathing ISTAR which is second only to the US’s; the Royal Fleet Auxiliary which has more capability on its own than the support vessels of the other major European navies put together; SSNs and their expert and excellently trained crews; Tomahawk which only has a European paragon in France’s Scalp Navale; amphibious capability which in Europe few players have; a vast Chinook fleet; Apache; and combat engineering. P-8 Poseidon and Carrier Strike will soon enough be part of this list. In good part, the strength’s of today’s UK have come out of the never realized review of 1998, but this does not make them any less relevant. Whether by design or by incident, many of those capabilities remain unique in Europe or make up a huge percentage of Europe’s entire potential capability in the sector.

It would be absurd to throw away existing strengths to try and become a continental power on the cheap. Also because, quite simply, the budget would never suffice anyway.

Years ago, before starting this blog; before Russia invaded Georgia, I was a commentator on blogs owned by others. More than once I warned that the Cold War had never ended from a russian prospective but only from a western one. Back then, any remark of this kind was invariably met with the typical 90s and early 00s story that Soviet equipment was never good anyway and Russia would never be a threat again.

Even after the events in Georgia the situation did not change. It took Ukraine to truly generate a reaction.

Now I see a real risk that the UK will go from one extreme to the other. Russia must not become an hysteria that bends the UK’s defences and foreign policy entirely out of shape.  

Russia's threat, while absolutely significant, does not require nor suggest the UK should be throwing away every bit of effort expended since at least 1998 to become a country engaged globally in a globalized world in favor of garrisoning an hostile Europe seeking gains from Brexit.

The UK has chosen to leave the European Union. It will not leave Europe, for obvious reasons. But Global Britain needs to be a concept which is actively pursued, not an empty slogan. With the capabilities it possesses, the UK is better positioned to be an expeditionary player than a garrison entrenched in East Europe. This does not make the UK’s forces any less valuable to NATO or the EU. If the UK sacrifices its expeditionary capabilities to revert to an “European garrison” ala review of 1981, France’s military weight within the EU will massively increase as they will be the only major player with worldwide reach. There is no guarantee that the UK would even be able to conserve its current “rank” (let alone improve it) if it cut back on expeditionary capabilities to keep the army at 82k personnel. Sending a squadron of open-topped Jackals in the frozen north-east Europe so the crews can get frostbite is hardly going to impress anyone. I say this with the utmost respect for the crews out there riding Jackals and Coyotes, let me make this clear. I just can’t take the idea seriously, though.

Remainers should not be under the illusion that cutting back on the navy in favor of the army will gain the UK any advantage in Brexit negotiations. The government, moreover, should not be under the impression that they can cut defence at will and still expect Europe to be awed by the british armed forces and overtly attach to them a great value. General Camporini had tough comments to offer about the UK’s armed forces and their role in Europe pre and post Brexit and he is unlikely to be the only one thinking in those terms. In fact, the the last thing the UK should do is to offer even further unilateral promises and reassurances and commitments before securing any kind of return. Unilaterally and unconditionally committing to “manning trenches” in the East Europa is the perfect way to enable the EU to snub the british armed forces value and still get them to pay the cost of defending the union. 

Ultimately, in this day and age, the UK cannot and should not pretend that the world begins at Gibraltar and ends near Kaliningrad. The UK spent a good twenty years rebuilding its forces to an expeditionary model and is now on the verge of having the second most powerful naval task force in the world.

The “tough choice” it needs to make is arguably to stop salami-slicing capability from all three services and accept that its efforts have to be prioritized on some sectors rather than others. The strengths are at sea and in the air? Build on them. They are paid for. They are valuable.

Middle East commitments build security, buy the UK a market (including for its defence industry) and play into Europe’s security no less than a battlegroup in the Baltic. The “defence of Europe” does not encompass only the continent: it stretches out to Africa and Middle East.

The UK also needs to continue its return East of Suez, not because it can more realistically take on China than it can on Russia, but because it needs to be seen as a player in the Indian Ocean and beyond. France and even Italy, which is basing its new defence strategy on the concept of “enlarged Mediterranean” and on the acquisition of expeditionary capabilities such as AEW and new, larger ships, have understood that they need to buy relevance beyond Suez. The UK’s powerful naval group and its air force cannot defeat China, obviously, but are more than valuable enough to contribute to build security and can buy the UK influence in the area.

The UK’s natural role in Europe is as guardian of the GIUK gap and ASW expert. The new NATO command for the Atlantic should see the UK in very first line for obvious reasons of geography, direct interest (nobody else has as much to lose from a potential Russian break out into the Atlantic as the UK), expertise and equipment (P-8 incoming, Merlin, SSNs, Type 23 and, in the future, Type 26). The Type 31 frigate is the odd one out: the ship would be much more useful if it was ASW capable. “GP frigates”, as I’ve said more than once, are a terribly poor investment as far as I’m concerned.

The Arctic?

MOD officials recently went on record saying that the next fight will be in the frozen north, but does the UK have any sort of strategy, or even clear ambitions in the arctic?

China has now published a programmatic document outlining its approach to the Arctic, including the stated intention of beginning to exploit the natural resources to be found in the area, as well as the new navigable routes that are increasingly becoming viable with the retreat of the ice.

The Arctic Shipping Routes, if they became truly viable, would significantly shorten the travel times to China, Korea and Japan, reducing shipping costs. The UK is in a good position to benefit from such a development. 

The UK needs to think about what it wants to get in the Arctic and how it might get it. What is the position of the UK on the exploitation of the untapped natural resources to be found in the frozen north? There are well known concerns about the preservation of the natural environment, but does the UK think said concerns should entirely prevent future exploitation? China clearly expects to tap into those natural resources and so does Russia, which has been working for years on turning its arctic coast into a massive military base and defensive bastion. Obviously they are not doing that to protect polar bears from hunters. What is the UK's position on the matter? 

The UK has no direct way to directly claim territory in the Arctic, and whatever it wants to obtain from the frozen north must reflect this. Clearly any UK access to the area and its resources depends on cooperation with allies which have a legitimate claim to arctic territory. Norway, which is a historic and natural partner, including for GIUK gap defense, is an obvious candidate.
Bilateral agreements and common strategies and goals are needed. 

China’s plan for a “polar silk road” is potentially enormously significant for the UK’s economy. The arctic routes to Asia are much shorter, and quicker, cheaper navigations could, in the future, encourage a massive growth in traffic. The UK is excellently positioned to benefit from such a development .

Russia, advantaged by geography, is already putting up a true Anti Access Area Denial bubble extending over much of the Arctic, to ensure it starts from a dominant position.

The UK needs to engage with its allies, beginning with Norway and Canada, to shape a common policy for the Arctic, to ensure that it can benefit from future developments in the area and avoid strategic shocks.

Where does that leave the Army?

The UK should continue to aim for Division-sized effects, because that is the ambition level appropriate for a regional power with worldwide reach. It should be well within the UK’s possibilities. The Division should be the ambition, but not at all costs. If it can’t be done because the government is not prepared to fund defence in line with ambitions, then strong brigades must be the alternative.

The Army should not try at all costs to be a continental power that can take on Russia. What the UK needs from its army is a capable land element that can deploy effectively within a larger allied force and complement other tools of british policy and power projection. It is more important to field a flexible, capable force, than a larger but obsolescent force tormented by the current plethora of capability gaps and vulnerabilities.

Like in the Air and Sea domains, the UK should strive to field an enablers-rich land force that can act as leader and take aboard the contributions of other countries.

In order to modernize, the Army needs to become a lot more rational in its approaches. In twenty years of constant rethinks, cancellations, delays and mistakes it has gone around in circles, returning to the starting point again and again, losing something along the way with each lap. With the exception of Royal Engineers vehicles, the British Army’s last “combat” vehicle purchase that didn’t happen through UOR was the Panther. And after purchasing it, it tried to use it as a patrol vehicle, which was not what it had been procured for, and ended up hating it.

Then, only partially excused by the urgency imposed by ongoing combat operations, it only ever managed to procure vehicles through UORs. Now it has a multitude of small fleets requiring multiple different logistic lines.

Its main acquisition programmes have literally gone in circles: again Boxer (or at least a heavy 8x8) is on the list of wishes, as it was in the 90s (in the Boxer case we are literally talking of the same vehicle). The Warrior capability sustainment programme is years late. Challenger 2 CSP, eventually downgraded to a simpler Life Extension Programme, has long been in the same limbo. Artillery modernization programmes are more or less motionless by as much as a decade plus.

Still, the Army continues to start more programmes than it can manage and fund. In the SDSR 2010 the focus was put on modernizing the armoured brigades: a noble target that was the one bit of common sense in the whole of Army 2020. WCSP finally began; the huge Ajax contract was signed in September 2014.

In November 2015 the priorities were turned on their heads and wheels returned to the front of the queue, with MIV being the new must-have. Results so far: WCSP downsized by two battalions; one armoured brigade to be converted to Strike; ABSV removed from the programme in 2016; CR2 numbers slashed once more. 3 years later, WCSP production contract is still not coming, the FV432 replacement remains a question mark, CR2 LEP does not truly satisfy anyone and marches to an unknown timeframes and Ajax is being tentatively squeezed into a new role for which many, beginning with me, do not think it is adequate.

Is it too much to ask the Army to at least focus on one thing at once? Can it start one modernization process and, just this once, bring it to conclusion? The armoured brigades were the focus. Serious money was assigned to the projects needed to modernize them. Bring the job to conclusion.

If STRIKE is unaffordable; if MIV cannot be procured at the moment, then it should be shelved. In the meanwhile perhaps the Army can explain what it wants to do, for real, and we can have that “serious debate” about it. Because as of now STRIKE seems just a solution in search of a problem. 

Through stubbornness of its own and political meddling the army has also never properly restructured its regiments and when faced with cuts to the budget has ended up disproportionately damaging the supporting elements, so much that now it is heading for just 4 “complete” brigades out of 11. 16 Air Assault is a two-battlegroups force; two armoured and two strike brigades will be the only other units for which there will be Signals, Artillery, Engineer and Logistic units. And even then, the armoured brigades will miss an important piece: a cavalry formation for reconnaissance and screening.

The army needs to modernize and re-balance its structure even more than it needs to modernize its equipment.

Real elephant in the room for me remains 1st Division and its load of "fake brigades" without CS and CSS. As useful as it still can be in a variety of roles (infantry is never useless), in its current form it cannot possibly be considered a wise and rational use of manpower and resources.

Rationalizing structures and inventory also brings efficiencies. Some big, some small, some neutral. CBRN mission, currently split between FALCON Sqn RTR and 27 Sqn RAF Regiment after the complete disaster that was the disbandment of the Joint CBRN regiment in the SDSR 2010 needs sorting out with a new joint solution.

Medical services across the three services and field hospitals should be reconsidered in a joint way: most of the field hospitals are reserve ones and jointery is already noticeable, so there probably aren’t big savings to be found, but with how much everything else has sized down there still seems to be a disproportion. The field hospitals do a sterling job, but if I was the one looking for efficiencies I would want to look into the medical services. On this one, I side with Fallon.

DFID might want to make greater use of them, and should help pay for them to help pull defence out of trouble.

I also suggest looking into a unified, single Police service. Again, jointery is already well developed in the police domain already but it still seems absurd to me that there is a RAF Police, Royal Navy Police, RMP, MOD Police. Again, probably small savings to be found, but then again RFA Largs Bay was sold to Australia to save a paltry 12 million per year and Albion could be lost to save 20 million or so per year, regardless of the completely disproportionate consequences. Any small saving that can be obtained in less damaging ways is a saving that must be harvested first.

A big "spend-to-save" measure could be pursued in the Army if the large JLTV purchase was made in one go rather than parcelled over uncountable years. The FMS request calls for over 2700 vehicles but the expectation is that the army would initially order 750 at best. I’d recommend going with the big order from the start instead, with the aim of replacing Panther and Husky right away, as well as replacing out-of-the-wire unprotected Land Rovers as currently planned. I’d also withdraw from service the RWMIK, replacing them with Jackals which would cease to play “cavalry” in favor of working as fire support and mobility platforms in the infantry, until they can be replaced as well.

JLTV assessment is ongoing, as are track trials for MRV-P Group 2 with Eagle and Bushmaster 

The fragmented multitude of fleets the army has to support. MRV-P must bring about a massive inventory rationalisation if it has to be a success. 

Instead of suggesting improbable and unwise mergers of PARAs and Marines the MOD could take note of the fact that they possess a precious C-17 fleet plus Puma, plus 50 Apache plus the largest Chinook fleet outside of the US. Seriously, if the British Army doesn’t invest on its air assault force while having all these paid-for resources, who else should?

What if STRIKE, at least initially, was delivered, accepting the limitations of the case, of course, with a combination of Mastiff-mounted infantry plus Marines, with the capability to go in from the sea, and of Mastiff-mounted infantry and PARAs on Chinooks and aircraft? Mastiff has defects and limitations, but is it really so indispensable to replace it with MIV? I think there are far more pressing urgencies. And instead of pushing the rhetoric of the “sacred cows” for Marines and PARAs, I think every effort should be made to beef up both 16 AA and 3 Cdo to expand their capabilities.

The really radical thing to do in this review is squeezing the maximum value out of what is already available. If you can’t afford to be a hero in every sector, do at least try to be one where you can.

Interesting words

A written answer of interest was given yesterday in Parliament, which provides a bit more detail on the Core Defence Budget and, crucially, on what fits into it. It is worth reading into it, and point out a few things.

17 Dec 2012 : Column 611W

Mr Jim Murphy: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the statement of 14 May 2012, Official Report, columns 261-4, on defence budget and transformation, what airlift capabilities are part of the Core Equipment Programme. [132888]


Mr Dunne: The airlift capabilities in the Core Equipment Programme consist of current in-service capabilities plus the following equipment programmes and their support costs for which funding is allocated:

A330 Voyager

A400M Atlas

BAE 146 Quick Change - interesting to see the two QC airplanes included in the Core budget: they have been procured as an Afghanistan UOR, but the inclusion of them in this list suggests that they might well have already a long-term future ensured, which would be very good news.

Mr Jim Murphy: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the Statement of 14 May 2012, Official Report, columns 261-4, on defence budget and transformation, what helicopter capabilities are part of the Core Equipment Programme. [132889]

Mr Dunne: The helicopter capabilities in the Core Equipment Programme consist of current in-service capabilities plus the following equipment programmes and their support and training costs:

Chinook Mk6 New Buy

Apache Capability Sustainment Programme - i covered this point in great detail here.

Merlin Capability Sustainment Programme - albeit not specified, this should include the CSP for the HC3 utility Merlins (to be known as HC4 following CSP), not just the soon-to-be-completed HM2 upgrade for the Navy's own Merlins. From other answers and documents we know this will also include at least the assessment phase funding for navalisation of the HC3. The HC4 navalised is expected in service in the Commando Helicopter Force from 2017. The HC3 will be working with the CHF already from 2016, however.  

Puma Life Extension Programme

Falkland Island Search and Rescue and Support Helicopter - a decision on how this will be delivered after 2016 has yet to be taken

Wildcat—Army and Navy variants - Still unclear what is happening with the 8 Light Assault Helicopters that were announced in planning round 2011. The annual NAO Major Projects Report should help us understand what is going on in this field.

At the start of this year Jane's reported that the work ongoing to define the Merlin HC3 CSP and navalisation had generated a list of modifications including:

- Cockpit and avionics from the HM2 upgrade, to maximize logistic and training commonality
- Powered folding main rotor head and tail pylon
- Radar Identification System
- Flotation gear
- Lashing points for deck operations at sea
- Telebrief equipment

I'd expect a full fitting of fast roping equipment, which is not indicated but nearly certain to be among requirements. The folding tail i would personally put on the "we'd like to, but...": already in 2010, the Royal Navy had been quietly saying that, since on the new carriers the space is not as much of a problem as on HMS Ocean, they'd content themselves with the folding rotor, in order to save money.
So i wouldn't be surprised if the tail stays as it is. Of course, we'll have to see what happens.

Mr Jim Murphy: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the statement of 14 May 2012, Official Report, columns 261-4, on defence budget and transformation, (1) what carrier strike capabilities are part of the Core Equipment Programme; [132890]
(2) what the surface fleet is in the Core Equipment Programme. [132891]

Mr Dunne: The Carrier Strike capabilities in the Core Equipment Programme consist of the following equipment programmes and their support and training costs for which funding is allocated:

Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers

Joint Combat Aircraft - F35B

Military Afloat Reach and Sustainability (MARS) Tankers - contracts signed, first tanker to be delivered in late 2015 and the other 3 to follow at six months intervals 

Crowsnest—Airborne maritime surveillance and control, to be fitted to the Merlin Mk2 helicopter, which will replace the Sea King Airborne Surveillance and Control (SKASaC) system - Assessment Phase to be launched early in the new year. Reportedly won't be in service before 2020, leaving a very dangerous, damaging gap in the Navy's capability for several years. I still hope in common sense to prevail: i'm sure the pace of Crowsnest can be speeded up immensely if there is the will to do so.

In other documents, notably the MOD Top Level Messages, it is reported that money is also included for the first phases of the design of the 3 Solid Support Ships meant to replace the current Forts. No explicit promises about funding for their acquisition yet. It would thus appear that the SSS will be either built in the 2020s, outside the current financial planning horizon, or that it is on the list of things competing to get part of the 8 "uncommitted" billions in the 2015 SDSR. If the Forts aren't life extended further (very possible) they will retire in the very first years of the new decade, making their replacement rather urgent. 

The latest concept renders of the MARS SSS design. Not at all sure they will be like this when the day finally comes, but the design is very promising, including apparently a well deck, a vehicle deck with RoRo ramp and craneage for a couple of LCVP MK5 landing crafts or boats of the same general sizes. We do know, at least, that the SSS will use the Rolls Royce Heavy-RAS equipment, capable to transfer 5-ton pallets instead of the current 2-ton pallets. The H-RAS is already being installed onshore at HMS Raleigh base to provide the long term Underway Replenishment (UNREP) training facility.

Mr Jim Murphy: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the Statement of 14 May 2012, Official Report, columns 261-4, on defence budget and transformation, what fast jet capabilities are part of the Core Equipment Programme. [132892]

Mr Dunne: The fast jet capabilities in the Core Equipment Programme consist of current in-service capabilities plus the following equipment programmes and their support and training costs for which funding is allocated:

Typhoon Tranche 3 - 3A only, i'm assuming.

F35-B Joint Strike Fighter (Lightning II) - 48 of them?

Typhoon Future Capability Package 1 - Paveway IV and other improvements, in service from next year

Typhoon Future Capability Package 2 - Integration of Storm Shadow and Brimstone included. RAF wants and needs it before Tornado GR4 leaves service in March 2019. Some thought will also be in order regarding Imagery Intelligence currently provided by Tornado with RAPTOR pods. 

Mr Jim Murphy: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the statement of 14 May 2012, Official Report, columns 261-4, on defence budget and transformation, what heavy armoured platforms are part of the Core Equipment Programme. [132894]
17 Dec 2012 : Column 612W
 
Mr Dunne: The heavy armoured platforms in the Core Equipment Programme consist of the following in-service capabilities:

Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank - a 500+ million CSP for 227 tanks is also part of the budget, we have been told.

AS90 Self Propelled Artillery piece

Challenger Armoured Repair and Recovery Vehicle

Titan Armoured Bridge Layer

Trojan Armoured Engineer Vehicle

Mr Jim Murphy: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the statement of 14 May 2012, Official Report, columns 261-4, on defence budget and transformation, what counter chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear capabilities are part of the Core Equipment Programme. [132895]

Mr Dunne: The chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear capabilities in the Core Equipment Programme consist of current in-service capabilities plus the following equipment programmes and their support costs for which funding is allocated:

Aircrew Protective Equipment and Detection

Hazard Management

Light Role Team Enhancement

Medical Countermeasures

Networked Biological, Radiological, and Chemical Information System

Personal Decontamination

Mr Jim Murphy: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the statement of 14 May 2012, Official Report, columns 261-4, on defence budget and transformation, what submarine capabilities form part of the Core Equipment Programme. [132896]

Mr Dunne: The submarine capabilities in the Core Equipment Programme consist of current in-service capabilities plus the following equipment programmes and their support and training costs for which funding is allocated:

Astute Class submarines - 7 vessels

Successor programme to replace the Vanguard Class submarines. The main investment decision is due in 2016.

Maritime Underwater Future Capability - initial studies into the shape and capabilities of the next generation SSN meant to replace the Astute class

Mr Jim Murphy: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the statement of 14 May 2012, Official Report, columns 261-64, on defence budget and transformation, whether the cost of personnel from all three services is included as part of the Core Equipment Programme. [132897]

Mr Dunne: The cost of service personnel is not included as part of the Core Equipment Programme.


Mr Jim Murphy: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the statement of 14 May 2012, Official Report, columns 261-64, on defence budget and transformation, whether any items on the single integrated priority list are included in the Core Equipment Programme. [132899]

Mr Dunne: The Single Integrated Priority List is a consolidated list of the Ministry of Defence's future priorities for investment in military capability. It is separate from the core equipment programme, which consists of those equipment programmes to which we have already made a commitment to invest, their support costs, and the support costs for in-service equipment.

During the course of Annual Budgeting Cycle 13, the new discipline in our budgetary regime has allowed us to give the go ahead for a series of equipment projects, some of which were previously on the Single Integrated Priority List, which have now been brought into the core equipment programme. This includes targeting pods for fast jets, 76 additional Foxhound patrol vehicles (the minister here is presumably talking of the two separate orders for 25 and 51 additional vehicles that we have had), better protection systems for Tornado GR4, additional precision-guided Paveway IV bombs and enhancements to Merlin helicopters.

As far as i'm aware, there have been no details released about orders for additional targeting pods: Litening III no doubts, but how many? 
Similarly, there is no details about the 'better protection' for Tornado jets. A wild guess is that the current UOR enhanced countermeasures employed in Afghanistan might have been secured for long term use. This includes the Advanced IR Counter Measures (AIRCM) pod, based on Terma's Modular Countermeasures Pod, flown on the port wing. On the starboard wing, the Tornadoes employ the legacy flares dispenser.  



In recent times, another UOR introduced a Helmet Mounted Cueing System, which might have now received additional funding to make it available to a greater number of crews, since it was initially procured in very small numbers. The HMCS had earlier been used on the Harrier GR9.

The enhancements to the Merlin are also a mystery at the moment. 
As for the additional Paveway IVs, it is a debatable claim that possibly implies uncomfortable truths: substantial Paveway IV orders, after all, are supposed to be funded by the Treasury as part of the net additional cost of Operation Ellamy in Libya, where hundreds of Paveway IVs were expended, along with many Paveway IIs. 
The Paveway IIs that are not being replaced, the expended Stom Shadows neither (part of why the costs announced in Parliament appeared so low!), but the Paveway IVs and Brimstones used are supposed to be replaced with Treasury money. The suspect is that, at the end of the day, the money is actually coming out of the MOD's budget. 

A good news is that, as part of the latest orders, Raytheon UK is progressing with the demonstration of a bunker buster warhead for the Paveway IV assembly. This is part of a series of enhancements and evolutions to the bomb envisaged under SPEAR Capability 1.   


Mr Jim Murphy: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the statement of 14 May 2012, Official Report, columns 261-4, on defence budget and transformation, what Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, and Reconnaissance capabilities are part of the Core Equipment Programme. [132900]

Mr Dunne: Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) in the Core Equipment Programme consists of current in-service capabilities plus the following equipment programmes and their support costs for which funding is allocated:

Airseeker—Airborne signals intelligence - 3 Rivet Joint airplanes to replace the Nimrod R1s

Crowsnest—Airborne maritime surveillance and control

Scavenger—Future armed operational unmanned air system (UAS) - a long expected announcement on the way ahead, to be chosen jointly with France, has been delayed again and again, but it's at least reassuring to see the programme is part of the Committed budget 

Seaseeker—Maritime electronic surveillance - includes the fitting of SIGINT/ELINT equipment to the Type 45 destroyers, underway

Seer—Tactical electronic surveillance deployed on land - UOR brought into core: man-portable electronic warfare equipment, part of the wider Landseeker effort that succeeds the cancelled Soothsayer programme 

Sentinel—Airborne wide area surveillance - very glad to see Sentinel in the core budget: considering how the answer is formulated, this would suggest that plans to scrap the Sentinel in 2014/15 have been finally abandoned 

Sentry—Air command and control and situational awareness

Solomon—A programme to improve the coordination and dissemination of ISTAR

Watchkeeper—Tactical UAS

Replacing Nimrod MRA4

In the meanwhile, the government has replied to the damning report of the Defence Committee on Maritime Surveillance, making clear that the future procurement of a Maritime Patrol Aircraft will necessarily pass through a wider study known as Air ISTAR Optimisation Strategy (AIOS): 

[...] the Department currently has no defined requirement for an MPA capability. The study into Wide Area Maritime Underwater Search (WAMUS) concluded that in the near term the most appropriate solution to a potential underwater surveillance requirement was a manned aircraft, but the Department’s longer term objective is to merge as many surveillance requirements as possible into single equipment builds (e.g. radars that can operate in multiple modes and in all environments) and to further refine platform types, capabilities and numbers to achieve maximum effect at minimum cost. As such, those requirements previously covered by the Nimrod MR2/MRA4 capability are now
integrated in the Air ISTAR portfolio and work is underway in the form of the AIOS to understand how these requirements can be best covered from the current and planned Air ISTAR Fleet.

The initial findings of the study will be reported to the Military Capability Board (MCB) in April 2013. Those options that appear to merit further investigation will then be developed to inform a MCB Genesis Option Decision Point prior to CSR15/SDSR15. As set out above, we will keep the Committee informed of our work in this area. In the meantime, we have investigated what military off-the-shelf capabilities exist. For comparison, generation of the AIRSEEKER airborne signals intelligence capability, replacing Nimrod R1 through an extension to the US RIVET JOINT aircraft production line, will have taken just under five years from the identification of the requirement to reaching Initial Operating Capability. Should the situation warrant it, adoption of off-the-shelf platforms, coupled with the Seedcorn personnel, could establish a capability in significantly less time.

This means that the budget holder for the Maritime Patrol Aircraft is the newborn Joint Forces Command. 





Expanding SATCOMs

Another news is that tomorrow the Skynet 5D satellite will be launched. It has already been mated to the Arianne rockets that will bring it into orbit.
The addition of this new satellite to the constellation will dramatically enhance and expand communications for the armed forces.
Skynet 5D will meet its 3 equivalents in space, which are also supported by 3 earlier Skynet 4 satellites and by the old but still useful NATO IVB satellite, which was taken over for free in 2011 from the Alliance which was about to put it on a dead orbit. It now provides two extra UHF channels to the armed forces. 

In 2022, ownership of all the satellites, currently in the hands of prime contractor ASTRIUM, will pass directly to the MOD at no additional cost.




Yearly speech of the Chief Defence Staff

A very interesting speech delivered by general sir David Richards, which contained elements of particular interest regarding Royal Navy and british Army.
The full speech, as available on the Ministry of Defence website, reads:

Introduction

1. Thank you Lord Hutton for your kind introduction. It is good to see so many friends and colleagues here and may I take the opportunity to thank you all for your strong support to the Armed Forces. It is hugely appreciated.
   
2. I am feeling slightly cautious this evening. Our senior Defence Attaché in the Americas tells me that in the Aztec calendar today is the Day of the Lizard. They say:
   
3. ‘The warrior must be like the lizard, who is not hurt by a high fall but, instead, immediately climbs back to its perch. These are good days to keep out of sight; bad days to attract attention.’
   
4. So perhaps today isn’t the best time to be standing before you!
   
5. In honouring my commitment to this august organisation that plays such an important role in the life of UK Defence, I want to take the opportunity to examine where we are today, what deductions we should draw, and what we are doing to ensure we are prepared for tomorrow.
   
6. You are all aware of how much change there has been over the past two years. We have begun to introduce the SDSR, balanced the books and turned a corner in Afghanistan. Yet much of the world seems less stable and more dangerous than was the case even two years ago; a harsh world in which intra-state conflict can be confused by and for new forms of inter-state conflict. A world in which governance vacuums present opportunities for extremist groups to perpetrate large-scale violence and disruption, especially as precision-strike capabilities, cyber instruments and bio terror weaponry become inevitably more accessible. And this in a period when economic fragility makes us both more vulnerable and less able to respond in a confident and timely manner, a reality aggravated by the huge cost differentials between western forces and non-state opponents.
   
7. All this is demanding much from all of us and is changing the shape and capabilities of the Armed Forces.
   
8. Together with my fellow Chiefs I have been examining, as you would expect, how we should best use what we have and what we need for the future. We have to be hard-nosed realists; accepting we have less than we would wish but that we are still required to protect this nation’s interests through the projection of military force. We cannot shrug our shoulders and hope the problem will go away. We have to be ready to fight and fight effectively, often not on our own terms and accepting the constraints we are under. I have brought this together in a piece of work I will be sharing in the future called How We Will Fight. And I will look at some of its key deductions in a moment.
   
9. We should be under no illusions; the Armed Forces of tomorrow, like those of today, will be engaged in operations around the world. They will require the best of their generation as they always have. People who can think flexibly and with imagination. As Einstein said, “imagination is more important than knowledge”.
   
10. These operations will not be carbon copies of Afghanistan or Libya. But they will require the same skill and dedication that these operations, and all the others we have engaged in since the Cold War, have demanded. They will require the strength and indeed guile that our Army, Navy and Air Force are famous for.
    
11. Building on the battle-winning reputation, proven resilience and technological edge of the past decade, I hope you won’t notice some of the tasks the Armed Forces will be doing. They will be performing a key part of our developing military strategy – deterrence. Preventing conflict, you may recall, is rightly a principal task of Defence.
    
12. I will come back to this theme later but it is worth remembering that your Armed Forces are often most effective when they are not in the headlines. Few operations, exercises or training missions are widely reported but each one communicates that we are strong, credible and reliable. This deters our enemies and reassures our friends.
    
13. And we should be proud of our nation’s record in this respect. The relative peace we have enjoyed here in the UK for the past 70 years is not an accident. It is in large part the result of the quiet work of diplomats building friendships, the skill of our financiers and businessmen in making our economy strong, and the courage of our Armed Forces in deterring and when necessary overcoming threats.
    
14. Afghanistan is an example of this lesson. With our partners in NATO/ISAF and the ANSF we have been more successful than many, regrettably, recognise.
    
15. I have recently returned from a visit there and, I can tell you, we are meeting the tasks laid on us. Over the past decade we have:
    

• a. closed Al Qaeda’s bolthole ;
  
• b. helped underpin a more stable government;
  
• c. overseen elections;
  
• d. trained an Army and police force;
  
• e. and put a country that suffered 30-years of war into a position where industry, education and the rule of law are beginning to grow.
  

1. True, there is a long way to go. The presidential elections in 2014 will be hugely important. But we are heading in the right direction and we have proved what can be done with the right resources and with the right support.
   
2. I look forward to 2013 seeing us increasingly transition to an Afghan lead as we move from mentoring battalions to supporting brigades.
   
3. The Afghan Army now enjoys the support and trust of 84 percent of the country, only 3 percent less than the British Army in this country. That is a fantastic achievement, by them and ISAF. It recognises the integral part they are playing in turning the destiny of a country away from violence and onto a path of peace.
   
4. I am proud of what our Service men and women have achieved in Afghanistan. Alongside partners in DFID and the Foreign Office we have given Afghans a chance they couldn’t have dreamt of only a few years ago.
   
5. Our operation in Afghanistan does not stand alone. It is linked to Pakistan and India and the wider region. In my recent trip to Islamabad, a city I have got to know well, I was very encouraged by the helpful attitude of civilian and military leaders to reconciling the Taliban. The Taliban, like us, are focussed on Afghanistan’s presidential poll and the end of our combat operations in 2014. They know that the window of opportunity to play a role in their country’s future is closing.
   
6. Every day the Afghan Army and Police grow in capability and legitimacy. Every day the government is better able to serve its people and thus better able to marginalise the Taliban. Now, surely, the time is ripe to take risk in order to find that elusive political solution 10 years of military effort and sacrifice has sought to create the conditions for? But in order to pull this off, it is vital that Afghan confidence in the West’s long-term commitment to their country is retained. Why, should this be lost, would they stay the course themselves let alone fight to protect us in 2014 when, absent successful reconciliation, we will be at our most vulnerable? And why should the Taliban reconcile, if they thought we were ‘cutting and running’? Retaining Afghan confidence is the campaign’s centre of gravity. And for the UK, retaining our influence and status within NATO and amongst key allies, is another reason for getting this right.
   
7. While achieving our goals in Afghanistan, British Armed Forces have been active elsewhere around the world. For example:
   
8. In Libya we fought in support of a people who wanted to be free from tyranny. We joined allies from around the world built around a NATO core. Together, we supplied the air force and the navy. The people themselves were the army. They made the change happen.
   
9. In the seas off Somalia we are playing our part in an operation that is controlling the spread of piracy. Alongside navies from around the world, including Pakistan, India and China, reinforcing the benefit of cooperation.
   
10. Closer to home we have also been proud to play our part in HM the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. And my fellow Chiefs and I were delighted to receive so many letters of support for the actions of our Regular and Reserve Service men and women during the Olympics.
    
11. It reminded all of us in uniform of the level of support that we enjoy amongst the people of this country. We are very grateful.
    
12. All this has happened as we have been going through reforms.
    
13. Over the past two years we have implemented some of the most radical changes to the Ministry of Defence and to the Armed Forces in decades.
    
14. The SDSR shrank the size of the Armed Forces and changed the governance of the department. And whilst we are aware that the Autumn Statement has further implications, a balanced budget means we can start from a firm base and better demonstrate what is at stake.
    
15. The new Armed Forces Committee mandates the Chiefs to resolve problems in the interests of Defence as a whole. It exploits collective military judgment and balances single service requirements in private allowing the CDS to go to the Defence Board with the underpinning authority of a combined Joint service view.
    
16. The AFC, the Defence Strategy Group chaired jointly by John Thomson the PUS and me, and the new style Defence Board chaired by Philip Hammond enable the MOD to be more agile and decisive in responding at the strategic level to developing threats and trends. The world is not a safe place. Some threats to our interests and allies are long term but some are very present.
    
17. The immediate danger of the collapse of the Syrian regime is one. We will support our allies in the region and would all like to see a diplomatic solution but cannot afford to remove options from the table at this stage. Should chemical weapons be used or proliferate, both President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron have made it clear that a line would have been crossed.
    
18. And Syria is linked to Iran. The regime is backed by Tehran so the fall of Assad’s dictatorship will impact the Iranian government. What that means for the stability of the region is as yet unclear.
    
19. In my recent trip to the Manama Dialogue I was struck by the issues that came up. Our host, Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain, emphasised the threat of nuclear proliferation. North Korea’s missile test last week aggravates this risk.
    
20. The Kenyan and Ugandan armed forces have been exemplary in bringing order to Somalia but this has not been without cost. Both have sustained losses, and the retaliation of terrorist groups has endangered Kampala, Nairobi and the Kenyan coast. We must continue to support both countries, as well as the fledgling Somali government.
    
21. To the west, Mali is a major cause for concern. As still is Yemen, despite President Hadi’s laudable efforts. So What?
    
22. Now reducing these short and long term threats, our task is to evolve a force capable of meeting, with allies, various complex tasks. By the early 2020s, these plans result in a powerful Joint force that, on the basis of a balanced budget from Planning Round 12, should be able to meet the requirements laid on it.
    
23. It has not been easy.
    
24. But the Secretary of State, building on the work of the SDSR, has ensured that the department is able to squeeze the most from the resources available.
    
25. By 2020 we will have kit that many of my fellow NATO Chiefs of Defence, saddled with much more sclerotic budgets than we, are envious of:
    

• a. A World Class Carrier Capability with the JSF – Lightning II – on board;
  
• b. Type 45 destroyers on patrol;
  
• c. Type 26 frigates in production;
  
• d. Astute class submarines;
  
• e. Chinook Mk 6 bringing the total Chinook fleet to 60;
  
• f. Typhoon Tranche 3, as well as the Lightning II;
  
• g. Atlas and Voyager air transport and air-to-air refuelling aircraft, underpinned by our now larger C17 fleet;
  
• h. Scout vehicles, upgraded Warrior, Challenger, and Apache to give the Army better reconnaissance, mobility and firepower;
  
• i. Rivet Joint and other critical ISTAR platforms that will ensure we have better situational awareness than ever.
  
• j. And much more emphasis on Cyber, to which I will return shortly.
  

1. But our most decisive asset will remain our Service men and women.
   
2. As the private sector puts it, we must look after the ‘talent’. As I see equipment around the world parked with no-one to operate it. Great equipment without talented people counts for little.
   
3. We must ensure our people have the intelligence and confidence to treat the unexpected as an opportunity to exploit. They must be capable of informed, independent action; of what has been described as a ‘brains-based approach’ to operations.
   
4. You have all heard the common refrain that we must do more with less. Well, to be frank, that is what we are doing. At the strategic level, a brains-based approach means deciding to act only when we must and then doing it well, not always kinetically.
   
5. This type of thinking has shaped the work I have started on ‘How We Will Fight’. Assuming the approach I have just outlined, I and my fellow Chiefs have designed our forces to:
   

• a. act jointly and with allies, but able to act alone.
  
• b. be well equipped, but not tied to platforms.
  
• c. adapt as the environment changes.
  

1. But we must prioritise. And as spending has tightened, we must be ruthless in our requirements and getting the most from them. Effectively targeting limited resources is, in large part, the art of military command in war and in peace through force design.
   
2. The new UK Joint Expeditionary Force is an expression of this. The JEF promises much greater levels of integration than previously achieved especially when combined with others, as is already happening with our French allies in the Anglo/French Combined JEF. The JEF must be genuinely synergistic. It is the building block to future alliances and independent action. And we would hope that allies such as Denmark and Estonia, who have fought with distinction in a British formation in Afghanistan, will want to play key roles within the British element of the CJEF.
   
3. What it offers is clear: an integrated joint force with capabilities across the spectrum at sea, on land and in the air. A force that can confidently be allocated a specific slice of the battle space in an allied operation or act alone. It will be the basis of all our combined joint training.
   
4. With the capability to ‘punch’ hard and not be a logistical or tactical drag on a coalition, we will be especially welcomed by our friends and feared by our enemies.
   
5. The JEF will be of variable size; a framework into which others fit. It will be the core of the UK’s contribution to any military action, whether NATO, coalition or independent.
   
6. Together with critical C2 elements such as HQ ARRC and the emphasis placed on the maritime component HQ at Northwood, the JEF is designed to meet our NATO obligations.
   
7. In the Libyan campaign, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates were able to play a vital role by bringing their regional expertise into the command structure of a NATO operation. This provided greater military and political reach. I look forward to the alliance, perhaps in part through the vehicle of the JEF, working more with non-member states.
   
8. Britain’s JEF will be capable of projecting power with global effect and influence. Nowhere is more important to us than our friends in the Middle East and Gulf and in line with clear political intent we would expect, with other initiatives, for JEF elements to spend more time reassuring and deterring in that region.
   
9. Let me briefly examine how the How We Fight work affects the single services, starting with the Royal Navy. As the Prime Minister has put it, the Navy “keeps the arteries of trade of the global economy from hardening.”
   
10. The Royal Navy will continue to grow in importance. As our carrier capability comes into service it will be a key part of our diplomatic, humanitarian and military strategy. Prepared to overcome the toughest military challenges. This is its raison d’être. But I know it will be used for much more.
    
11. The Americans demonstrated through their deployment to Aceh and Haiti that aircraft carriers have huge strategic impact supporting people around the world. Seeing US military personnel, ships and helicopters playing such a critical role boosted the standing of the US in the world’s most populous Islamic country and undermined extremist rhetoric.
    
12. Hard power is an essential element of soft power. In this respect especially, numbers, or mass, still matter. We must resolve the conundrum at the heart of Bob Gates quip about ‘exquisite technology’.
    
13. In the future, the Chief of the Naval Staff and I have a vision for a Navy which procures ships differently allowing us to have more, not fewer platforms.
    
14. We must resist the pressure that has shrunk the number of platforms. Clearly that will mean rethinking the Navy, including examining the case for ships that may have a limited role in general war. But this is not new – remember the corvette over the ages – and is similar to the utility of light and heavy land forces, tailored to task. And in so doing we will ensure seamanship skills and leadership qualities, so much in demand by our friends and allies, flourish into the long term.
    
15. The Royal Navy’s maritime and amphibious components, with 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines at the core of the latter, will be at the heart of Britain’s JEF. As the concept develops we will look to acquire ships that range from top-end war fighting elements through potentially to more vessels tailored to discrete but important tasks, to be deployed on a range of routine non-warfighting duties.
    
    
16. The Army too is changing. Once we come out of the combat role in Afghanistan at the end of 2014, it will cease to be on permanent rotation with the burdens that imposes.
    
17. The Army will maintain a hard power war-fighting capability while creating the strategic influence, support and engagement ability essential to modern operations.
    
18. Like the Navy, these land forces must be equipped to pack a punch but war fighting is not all they’re for.
    
19. Conflict prevention, to which I will return in a moment, is not just sensible strategy; it is a military operation requiring appropriately configured and equipped forces.
    
20. The Army 2020 reforms are a fundamental re-set for the Army, making the best of a regular force a fifth smaller than when I commanded it only three years ago.
    
21. While we will retain three high-readiness manoeuvre brigades, we will also have ‘adaptable brigades’ to sustain enduring operations and routinely develop partnerships and knowledge around the world.
    
22. Though more conceptual work is needed, given the importance of the region and clear Prime Ministerial intent, I envisage two or more adaptable brigades forming close tactical level relationships with particular countries in the Gulf and Jordan, for example, allowing for better cooperation with their forces. Should the need arise for another Libya-style operation, we will be prepared. This would greatly enhance our ability to support allies as they contain and deter threats and, with our naval presence in Bahrain, air elements in the UAE and Qatar, and traditional but potentially enhanced roles in Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, would make us a regional ally across the spectrum.
    
23. In Africa, brigades would be tasked to support key allies in the east, west and south whilst another might be given an Indian Ocean and SE Asian focus, allowing for much greater involvement in the FPDA, for example.
    
24. If we are to influence, we must know what drives our friends and how to motivate them. This is not something that can be done on the eve of an operation. As these adaptable brigades develop links with countries around their region, this will create opportunities for soldiers and officers to progress their careers through linguistic and cultural specialism.
    
25. The Defence Engagement Strategy, prepared with the Foreign Office, will provide what I have often referred to as a ‘strategic handrail’ for engagement.
    
26. This will require tough decisions. If we are to invest properly in some relationships, others will naturally get less attention.
    
27. But if we get this right ¬– and we will – we will have deeper links to specific regional partners giving them the confidence to deal with their own problems and, when appropriate, to act in partnership with us.
    
28. What I have described puts military flesh on the bones of welcome, NSC endorsed, national strategy.
    
29. This all comes as we are increasing the Reserves and integrating them closer with the Regular forces. This will do more to increase our own capacity and ability to help friends and allies.
    
30. Turning now to the Royal Air Force. The rate of technological advance is most keenly felt on air platforms. This is understandable. These are complex fully networked combat and ISTAR platforms. This intelligence cuts the time between understanding and reacting. It allows us better to out-think and out-act our opponents.
    
31. At the same time, lift, both tactical and global, reduces the number of reserves we need to keep, giving the Armed Forces a flexibility that was unimaginable just a few decades ago.
    
32. Understanding and exploiting the opportunities technology presents will be decisive in maintaining our advantage – in sufficient numbers – into the future.
    
33. Remotely piloted air systems and novel anti-air defences have changed our understanding of both what it means to fight and defend. We must not allow sacred cows – such as the indispensability of on-board pilots – to rule the day. The Chief of the Air Staff is leading the change. By giving ‘wings’ to UAV pilots the Royal Air Force is recognising the capability of the platform and skill of the pilot.
    
34. Indeed, it is a reflection of how early we are in this process of transition that we still refer to remotely-piloted air systems or unmanned aerial vehicles. How long was it before we stopped referring to the horseless carriage?
    
35. For all three Services, their role within an integrated CJEF will be the driving force in their force development and training. Whoever the enemy, wherever the threat, we will need partners. Building them now is an investment in our own future and our capacity to succeed quickly should war break out. Cyber
    
36. But there is a new environment within which we must learn to manoeuvre with confidence.
    
37. Today Facebook, with around a billion users, is the third most populous country in the world. It exemplifies one of the most extreme changes we have seen in the past decades.
    
38. Cyberspace is the nervous system of our global economy. We are reliant on the internet and other networked systems for every aspect of our lives. It allows bewildering speed of action and global reach.
    
39. Unsurprisingly, just as crime has become e-crime, spying has increasingly become cyber espionage. We have seen nations, their proxies and non-state actors use this new space for terrorism and conflict.
    
40. Though not conventional assaults, the hostile cyber attacks on Estonia in 2007, Georgia in 2008 and Burma in 2010 were damaging.
    
41. In the Middle East, there have been unprecedented levels of cyber attack over the past 24 months. Israel has reported over 44 million attempts to disrupt its government websites during recent tension around the Gaza strip. STUXNET demonstrated a new class of threat aimed at process control systems at the heart of modern infrastructure.
    
42. Without doubt, actions in cyberspace will form part of any future conflict. Communication and the control of infrastructure and systems has become a new environment through which combatants will further their objectives.
    
43. Our immediate priority must be to ensure our networks are secure and defensible, working with partners in industry and around the country to drive up standards and ensure we have robust protocols in place. This builds on the excellent work done under the National Cyber Security Strategy but Defence has particular challenges as a department, as Armed Forces and through the contractors and partners with whom we work.
    
44. I am determined that the Armed Forces should understand cyberspace, and how it will shape future conflict, as instinctively as we understand maritime, land and air operations.
    
45. This will mean changes in the way we operate: new doctrine; new capabilities; new structures, with Joint Forces Command at their heart. It will mean a new approach to growing and developing the talent we need to operate in this new, electronic, environment. Like our Secretary of State, I see an important role for reserves in this domain.
    

Winding Up

1. In examining each environment separately I hope I have highlighted some of the key issues on the Chiefs’ plate and how we must respond to them. But the most important is developing an integrated Joint model.
   
2. The JEF is neither the 1980s Canadian model nor, whilst there are some apparent similarities, is it a British version of the US Marine Corps.
   
3. The effectiveness of the UK armed forces relies heavily on the different skill-sets and ethos of each single Service. Each adapted for its environment, and evolving as times and technology change.
   
4. But a joint conceptual approach, based on lessons from the real world, embedded through force development, in training, on operations and though the cohering glue of modern C3I and cyber is vital to delivering the military capability the nation requires.
   
5. This is about ensuring single Service skills meld into joint action so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
   
6. The JEF won’t mean we can do more with less; it will mean, through the synergy it provides, that we get the most from what we have. And doubtless there will be some roles that we continue to leave to others, notably the USA.
   
7. As I close let me draw some lessons from my 41 years in uniform.
   
8. Some constants which may seem obvious in this room but are often over looked:
   

• a. The need for military force to influence, secure and protect is as great as ever.
  
• b. I joined an Army that was geared to defend Britain by fighting in Germany.
  
• c. Today life is more complex but the principle is the same.
  
• d. 9/11, and the 7/7 bombings in London show that we cannot choose our battlefields as we once did.
  
• e. The world is not a safer place and the distinction between home and abroad is strategically obsolete. Today it is part of a continuum.
  

1. We cannot just stand by and hope we are ignored and danger passes us by.
   
2. As the Foreign Secretary said in September last year: “the country that is purely reactive in foreign affairs is in decline”.
   
3. Responses may be based on either soft or hard power, but to divorce the two is strategic blindness. Soft power is not a substitute for strength. On the contrary, it is often based on the credible threat of force, either to support a friend or deter an enemy. Hard power and soft power are intertwined.
   
4. It is not enough to provide aid or speak kindly. Our friends want to know we are there when it counts, not just fair-weather friends. This is the confidence hard power brings. It drives equipment sales and thus industrial growth, as well as diplomatic treaties, just as it has for centuries. But hard power also does more than this: it dissuades.
   
5. Deterrence doctrine has fallen out of fashion so perhaps you will allow me to recall some of the elements. Sun Tzu’s famous maxim is: “Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting”.
   
6. Too often this is seen as clever posturing on the eve of battle. It is not. Training, equipping and partnering with allies enhance the aura of British power. They give us presence on the world stage and ensure that we are not tested.
   
7. It is worth being clear: when the Armed Forces train we do not just do it to be ready, we do it to be seen to be ready. When we succeed on operations, we do not just win a battle. We prove that we can win a war.
   
8. In a very real sense, everything the Armed Forces do deters and reassures. With enough numbers, enough equipment and with good leaders at every level, Britain is a credible threat to our enemies and a reassuring friend to our allies.
   
9. This is cheaper than fighting and more credible than talk.
   
10. Reading the record of how the Soviets saw the Falklands War demonstrates this admirably. What many saw as post-colonial folie de grandeur, the Soviet leadership, rightly, saw as proof that the British Armed Forces were united with their government and people – Clausewitz’s famous trilogy – and more than a match for them.
    
11. It was far from the only factor, but the increase in Soviet defence spending in the 1980s which ended up contributing to the collapse of the Warsaw Pact was partly due to clarity of their failure to impose their will in neighbouring, occupied countries while Britain could liberate territory some 8,000 miles away.
    
12. As Chief of the Defence Staff I do not wear the burdens of office any more lightly than my predecessors. I have set out some of my concerns for the coming years and some of the ways we will think and act to meet them.
    
13. Under the Prime Minister’s chairmanship, The National Security Council, on which I am privileged to sit, considers all the big strategic issues that I have listed and more. It is a hugely welcome addition to Whitehall, directing and bringing clarity to national strategy and coordinating cross-government action.
    
14. But the nature of the world is such that what will later seem obvious, today is opaque and unpredictable. How will Europe emerge from the Euro crisis? How will the Arab Spring conclude? How will global warming affect water supplies? And what of cyber?
    
15. After all, grand strategy, while providing a guide to action in peacetime, is also about being prepared and balanced for what we can never know.
    
16. Ensuring we have enough left in the bag while actively deterring, and when required defeating, aggression against us and our friends, enough left to succeed against those ‘unknown unknowns’, is ultimately what I and my fellow Chiefs are paid for.
    

I have highlighted the passages that i deem more impressive and interesting. They go in the direction i've always suggested to follow: a UK with capable armed forces capable to act indipendently and, perhaps even more crucially, provide a framework in which less well-equipped countries can provide numerical strenght, helped by the crucial enablers fielded by the UK, including the aircraft carriers, the Sentinel R1, the Rivet Joint platforms, the RFA, the strong amphibious fleet and brigade and other elements. 
There is also a return to Nelson's "want of frigates", for which i've also been arguing: Nelson wanted cheap frigates in great numbers to serve as eyes for the fleet, and to cover the immense number of jobs that a navy has to cover every day, leaving the big, powerful and expensive ships of the line free to focus on delivering the thick of the military effect.
The Navy needs that kind of approach today more than back then. With the important difference, not always appreciated, that today's frigates and destroyers are the ships of the line, while OPVs and corvettes are the "frigates". The Royal Navy needs a fleet of simpler, smaller but capable, long range "presence" ships to cover the wide variety of not-warlike standing tasks, so that the "ships of the line" can focus on warfighting, reaction and task group roles.

I can't help but wonder if we can read in this speech a ray of hope for Portsmouth's shipyard, among other things: the CDS essentially agrees with me on the strategic concepts, and i think he would agree on the opportunity to begin the rebalancing of the fleet with an order for a couple of OPVs...


On strategy, i can't help but link back to two articles i wrote long ago on the subject. Reading back into them you will see why i recognize myself in the CDS's speech.

http://ukarmedforcescommentary.blogspot.it/2011/07/strategy-for-uk.html
http://ukarmedforcescommentary.blogspot.it/2012/01/future-force-2020-strategy.html