Towards the SDSR 2020

5 years ago, I ran a series of articles ahead of the SDSR 2015 in which I highlighted what, in my opinion, were the priorities to be tackled in the review. Admittedly, it was perhaps easier back then, because some major requirements were well evident and it didn’t take much imagination to call for the plugging of those holes. But my predictions proved remarkably accurate, and so I want to write a short piece ahead of the incoming SDSR 2020 as well, pointing my finger at what I see as main issues to be tackled.

First of all, I will expose myself and say that I am, for now at least, somewhat at peace with the idea of the incoming review. I’m relatively confident that it won’t bring big cuts: I’m expecting the targets of the SDSR 2015 to overall hold steady. The Conservatives have committed to the 2% of GDP base figure, and extended the 0.5% annual growth above inflation for the duration of the new Parliament, which is progress, however modest, since that commitment was otherwise going to expire by 2022.

This gives the MOD a degree of certainty about the budget that will be available, and means that the uncertainty mainly stems from the exact entity of the rumored “black hole” in the future years programme. That “black hole” is not really easy to actually define, as its effective magnitude depends on a huge variety of factors that go from Foreign Exchange variations to cost growth in ongoing programmes, to variations in GDP etcetera. In the 2018 estimates of the Black Hole, it is possible, and actually pretty likely, that the 0.5% growth above inflation was not factored in beyond 2022, and that will have contributed to the “worst case scenario” figure. Estimates supplied in 2018, in fact, had a pretty dramatic range, going from a modest 2,8 billion to nearly 15 or more over the 10 years of the programme. Clearly, 15 billion would be a big problem. 3, not so much.

The MOD secured a much needed injection of cash recently, as we know, and that helped overcome the short term problems and avoided the old and highly ineffective solution of delaying expenditure, which inexorably results in an even higher cost further down the line.

The budget pressure is indeed mostly, if not exclusively, concentrated on the next few years since a multitude of programmes are supposed to start and, at the same time, several others are already under contract at the same time. What is already under contract cannot, obviously, be easily tampered with, leaving limited flexibility to deal with money shortages.

In future years the problem is less dramatic simply because much of the expenditure is planned, but not contracted, and can be simply be pushed to the right. Of course, this has an impact on capability as kit is not procured, but on the other hand does not require the frantic cutting of what is already there, which is what happened in 2010.

Much, if not everything, will depend on the real width of the “black hole” and on the flexibility available to deal with it. Obviously, the most vulnerable programmes are the ones which haven’t yet started: Multi Role Vehicle Protected, for example, could very easily slip further to the right despite decisions on both Group 1 and Group 2 being currently expected in 2020. WCSP production, Challenger 2 LEP, but also purchases of F-35s after 2025, the Future Fleet Solid Support ships for the Royal Navy and the procurement of Typhoon upgrades (AESA, Litening 5…) and the purchase of new build Chinook Block 2 are all exposed to delays and variations and potentially even cancellation. Contracts which have not been signed yet are, obviously, the easiest ones to remove from the 10 year programme, and they make for cuts which are quite “stealthy” and do not expose politicians to as much criticism.

In other words, despite the noise on some newspapers about Dominic Cummings’ previous comments about the carriers, it is not the Queen Elizabeth class which is exposed. Both ships are now in service and the acquisition programme is nearly entirely complete, so (thankfully) any further political meddling (like the delay imposed by Gordon Brown which resulted in a cost growth of over 1 billion, or the 2011 mess) is out of question.

The carriers can of course still be hurt indirectly by, for example, stopping the Fleet Solid Support project, but this is relatively unlikely given how unusually high a profile shipbuilding has played in the Election. Labour had promised to amend the shipbuilding strategy to  ensure RFA vessels are built in the UK, and while the Conservative manifesto does not contain such a promise, the Prime Minister has promised more shipbuilding work. While I don’t expect the optional 3^rd Solid Support Ship to ever be contracted, I’m optimistic that 2 will eventually come and I think building them in the UK is almost a certainty at this point.

Some other programmes are much more secure despite the lack of a contract. An easy example: apart from the capability rationale, Type 26 Batch 2 would be political dynamite to tamper with, due to the tensions with Scotland. SKYNET 6 satellites are also unlikely to suffer much, simply because they really are the kind of equipment which just HAS to be procured.

Space is expected to be a winner, in general. The Manifesto promises a Space Command, which might or might not grow into or from 11 Group, Royal Air Force, which is currently in charge for space activities, along with 23 Sqn, resurrected to be the first “space squadron”.

News coming out on some newspapers ahead of the Election suggest there will soon be announcements about a national Global Positioning System, aligned with the 5 Eyes organization (Australia, in particular, is expected to be involved in the project), which will give the UK a sovereign alternative to GPS and Galileo. If confirmed, this would be an exciting development, even if, with the pricetag being given at around 5 billions, I’m not sure should have been granted such a great priority. Much will depend on exactly how alternative it is to the existing GPS and “clones”. To be truly worth it, it should come with different technical approaches, hopefully obviating to some of the known vulnerabilities of the existing systems. With the UK’s (but Airbus-owned) Surrey having build the navigation system payload of the Galileo satellites themselves, know-how definitely exists.  

What I truly hope to see is a bold and meaningful commitment to projects ARTEMIS and OBERON, in connection with the spaceports in Scotland and Cornwall. Both programmes have received some initial funding but are currently experimental: I hope there will be a solid commitment towards growing up both constellations to give the UK a sovereign space-based imagery intelligence capability (ARTEMIS) and a sovereign Radar and Electronic Surveillance capability (OBERON), so to drastically reduce what is currently pretty much a 100% dependency on Allies (mostly the US) in both areas.

ARTEMIS and OBERON are bold because they want to pack high definition imagery and Inverted SAR radar capability in small satellites. Since Britain is among the biggest producers of small satellites in the world, this makes sense in more ways than one. And since the UK will soon have two spaceports able to put small satellites into space from UK soil, this is even more exciting. ARTEMIS, in particular, includes provisions to demonstrate the ability to put satellites into space with short notice, exploiting the air-launched rocket and the modified Boeing 747 “Cosmic Girl” taking off from Newquay in Cornwall.

The UK-developed "origami antenna" which should allow OBERON small satellites to have a powerful Inverted SAR radar sensor, with a resolution normally associated to much larger and heavier satellites 

This is extremely promising and potentially very, very significant, because (relatively) cheap ARTEMIS satellites could be launched at short notice to improve coverage in the future and, crucially, timely replace space-based sensors destroyed or denied by enemy action, kinetic or otherwise.

Britain-made, Britain-owned satellites, launched from UK soil, potentially with the Orbex’s british made rocket. That would be a great capability to have, and it would go quite some way towards healing the disastrous decisions of the past which put UK space on a dramatic capability holiday just after the UK had become one of the few nations in the world to put a sovereign satellite into space with a sovereign rocket (PROSPERO satellite and BLACK ARROW rocket, in 1971).

The RAF putting one first pilot into Virgin’s space programme is also a welcome step going in this very direction.

UK built satellites, launched from the UK, potentially with a RAF pilot at the controls. As early as 2021

Obviously, further support for the SABRE engine is to be auspicated. The recent RAF contract for studies into the potential benefits coming from integrating the pre-cooling technology of SABRE into the EuroJet engine of the Typhoon is a very welcome development and hopefully it’ll be just the first of many applications. SABRE is a true potential revolution in the making, so I’d like to see support to this exciting project being front and centre.

In general, Space should be a winner in the coming review and beyond. Space investment is in no way a Defence exclusive, and the UK has already confirmed a substantial uplift of investment into ESA projects, in exchange securing lead roles in a number of key initiatives. Further investment into space tech for the military sector is likely to be guided in large part by the Space Strategy document which was announced back when Gavin Williamson was still Secretary of State for Defence. The document has not been published yet, but we can expect much of its content to migrate into the new SDSR.

Much the same can most likely be said for the Arctic Strategy as well, which saw the UK committing to a 10 year programme of support, primarily to and in Norway, which will become very apparent with the large scale 3^rd Commando Winter Deployment 2020 (WD2020) which is in preparation. The Northern Flank of NATO should, for obvious reasons, be confirmed as an absolute priority engagement area for the UK. The North Sea is the UK’s exposed flank in any Russia scenario, and this is enough of a reason to ensure appropriate attention is pinned on this sector and on key capabilities such as Anti Submarine Warfare.

A welcome step was the revitalization, back in November, of the NATO Channel Committee to oversee plans for the protection of vital shipping routes across the North Sea and the English Channel. A document was signed on November 7 between the Navies of UK, Germany, France, Belgium and Netherlands to breathe new life into the NATO Advisory Body - Channel Committee (CHANCOM), and it is in the UK’s best interest, for reasons I hope are obvious to everyone, to play a key role in this organization.

With the Type 31 under contract and the Type 26 being a top priority as well as politically red-hot things no one will want to mess with, I’m expecting the Royal Navy to fare well in the review, despite whatever grievance Dominic Cummings might have against the carriers.

The First Sea Lord will go to the SDSR table with the Future Commando Force as one of its top priorities this time, and hopefully that will help the amphibious flotilla and the Royal Marines survive another round of political meddling. This remains, however, the most exposed area for the Senior Service, so it is where the hardest battles will be fought.

I’m relatively optimistic about the Littoral Strike Ships eventually materializing since I expect that this requirement will be put in close relationship to well known ambitions for “disaster relief / hospital ships” which will be at least partially funded with Foreign Aid money. According to the latest reports, Boris Johnson is much more open towards the idea of using Foreign Aid to fund programmes which more directly benefit UK interests. The Department for International Aid is said to be heading for incorporation within the Foreign Office, in fact, and in general I expect that Defence will be aided with some of this very budget, where possible.

Littoral Strike Ships will hopefully still happen. Their flexibility will be key, in particular when it comes to their large flight deck and hangar. With the loss of HMS Ocean, UK amphibious capabilities suffer badly from a shortage of helicopter capability, unless a carrier is deployed. 

According to the Press, Ben Wallace might soon lose his role of Secretary for Defence, but until then we have to take due consideration of the priorities he has given in debates ahead of the Election. For the Royal Navy, the absolute priority is making better use of what is already available, and it’s impossible not to agree.

Ships that have been tied up in harbor should be returned to full operational status as soon as possible, and every effort should be made to put a brake on the delays to refits and maintenance periods which are keeping too high a proportion of the existing fleet tied up. The gains will take time, however, and not everything can be affected at all: Type 23 Life Extension refits are demanding and time consuming, and the Type 45s are going to have to circle one by one through Birkenhead to have their Diesel gensets replaced under Project NAPIER. Every effort should be made to ensure that the refits stick to the schedule, however, and even more effort should go into ensuring that all ships in the fleet are used as much as possible. This, of course, means also putting further effort (and money, if necessary) into filling up the manpower deficit.

If sacrifices cannot be avoided, I feel that the first “victims” should be the WAVE and FORT classes. Fort Austin and Fort Rosalie have a dismal record for sea days in the last several years, and 6 tankers are probably too many for the fleet that remains in Royal Navy service. At any one time, several RFA vessels are actually tied up into Birkenhead, inactive and effectively mothballed, and the cause of this should be finally identified and cured. If the RFA cannot actually crew and use the WAVEs, I think they should be sold while they have still value. As for the two oldest FORTs, they have not received the modifications given to Fort Victoria to make them compatible with the new aircraft carriers and thus their usefulness is limited. If there is no way to put them back at sea quickly, it might be better to just sacrifice them. It would not save much money at all, but neither it would hurt the Service that much, since they are mostly only ever parked up in port anyway.

Going back to the Future Commando Force, instead, one priority I’d set if it depended on me would be to bring back into full service the mothballed LPD.

It would be a major win for the Navy and it would reflect the priority of using to the max everything that the Navy already has. Moreover, it would greatly help in achieving one of the key targets of the Future Commando Force, which is to have more Marines forward deployed at sea.

Forward basing in general is likely to be a key theme for the Navy in the new Review. Two 1^st Sea Lords in a row have, correctly in my opinion, identified it as the only option to increase presence abroad without an increase in the number of ships. HMS Montrose in the Gulf for 3 years is the first of, hopefully, a few more long-term forward basing arrangements, with the Royal Navy looking in particular at the Caribbean and at South East Asia. The 1^st Sea Lord would like to “initially” put a couple of OPVs in Asia, and while this might seem low key, it would be a very significant first step, which Type 31 might in future make more meaty.

It will be important, however, to secure a further extension to the operational life of the 3 River Batch 1 ships to cover home water needs and let the more capable Batch 2s free to show the flag abroad and complement actual frigates.

It would be easy to ask for more frigates, but I won’t even waste the time it would take me to write about it, because there are no real chances of it happening any time soon, I’m afraid. Apart from increasing the readiness rate of the existing fleet and expanding its footprint with Forward Basing and Littoral Strike Ships and accompanying groups, my priorities for the naval sector would be:

-          Unmanned vehicles. Some good experimentation is ongoing thanks to 700X NAS and the Royal Marines respectively, but every effort should be made to finally move beyond the experimentation phase. The Royal Navy and Marines both need UAVs to increase their ISTAR collection capability. I’d like to see more work going towards unmanned surface and sub-surface vehicles configured for ASW tasks as well.

Among known projects, the Royal Navy is seeking a few PAC-24 RHIBS converted into USVs, and project MINERVA is working on a large quad-copter which will be able to locate a man at sea and drop a SAR raft and smoke markings to aid rescue efforts. MINERVA, if successful, could greatly reduce the need to tie up an helicopter as plane guard during every launch and recovery evolution on the aircraft carriers, for example, resulting in significant efficiencies in the use of precious and finite assets. The PAC-24 USV could be a precursor to more ambitious surface combat assets for inspection and force protection and, eventually, for ASW.

Another option immediately available is insisting with either ARCIMS or Halcyon from the unmanned MCM solutions: those are already able to tow sonars, and could complement the scarce frigates.

It’s also time to look again at plans for a rotary wing tactical UAS, which would also be very important for the future of the Yeovil factory. Leonardo was given 8 millions for studies back in 2017, but only ominous silence has followed.

-          Force Protection / Combat Boats. These would be essential not just for the Future Commando Force’s needs, but for the wider Navy. Well armed, enclosed, all weather combat boats with a good operational range could truly open up raiding opportunities along great lengths of enemy coast and even up rivers. Moreover, said boats, deployed from a Bay, a LPD or a Littoral Strike Ship or even a Type 26 or 31 could extend the influence radius of those units by hundreds of miles. Imagine, for example, well armed force protection crafts supporting the few frigates in the Gulf in the challenging task of escorting merchant shipping in and out.

Combat Boats such as the Mark VI, or the swedish CB90, would hugely boast the capabilities of the Navy and Royal Marines in the littoral 

-          Ship to Shore Connectors. Much as “raiding” seems to be the sexy word of the week, the future of the Royal Marines still lies with their ability to put an enemy coast at serious risk, forcing enemy units to mount guard along hundreds or thousands of miles of littoral. Moreover, the amphibious capability of the Royal Navy is only truly valid until it is dimensioned in such a way to enable the landing of heavy, mechanized force elements. New Ship to Shore Connectors, much faster and thus more survivable, are a key component of the future Commando Force, which means that resurrecting the LCU Mk 10 replacement programme as soon as possible should be high up on the list of priorities.

-          Investment in helicopters. Data links for WILDCAT and the addition of LMM missiles and radar on the Army variant of the AW-159.

The Commando Helicopter Force would also like to more heavily arm the Merlin HC4 (miniguns fit) and introduce the ability to refuel in flight.

Finally, in an ideal world the number of Merlin helicopters would be increased by repairing and updating as many of the remaining, stored HM1s as possible. This would be expensive, but everybody knows that 30 Merlin HM2 doing ASW and AEW at once are too few. The pressure on the fleet is very intense. 

For the Air Force, with the deliveries of Typhoon now completed, the only combat aircraft still being acquired is the F-35, and this review will have to look at what happens after the first 48 jets have all been acquired. With the Block Buy contract for lots 12 to 14 having been signed, focus now shifts to reaching a deal for Block Buy II, covering lots 15 to 17. These lots will complete the purchase of the first 48 jets and include an unknown number beyond those.

The questions still without answer are many. We don’t know over how many years the MOD proposes to acquire the famous 138 jets. We also do not know whether the RAF can, and if yes how, absorb that many jets and form additional squadrons from the manpower it has. Officially, the Typhoon Tranche 1 is now going to stay all the way to 2035, but that continues to sound pretty suspect to me, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see those 2 squadrons eventually becoming F-35 units with the very limited Tranche 1 heading out of service. By 2023 there should be 7 Typhoon and 2 F-35B Squadrons, and this is about as many fast jet units as the RAF has had in recent times. Where is the manpower margin to form additional units?

How many F-35 will the UK be able to purchase, year on year? The largest yearly order currently planned is for 8 jets in Lot 14; if the UK purchased 8 aircraft per year after 2023 it would still take more than eleven years to procure the other 90 jets, meaning that the last british F-35 could be delivered in 2035.

In that same year, rather optimistically, Project TEMPEST should deliver the first jets to RAF service. 

I believe the UK will never acquire 138 F-35. The actual number will be lower than that, because expenditure on Project TEMPEST will have to ramp up over the same years and something will have to give.  

This is not necessarily a “bad” thing, however, simply because there does not seem to be the manpower to form additional squadrons anyway. With today’s manpower figures, I don’t think the RAF can actually use 160 Typhoons and 138 F-35s.

Another question yet to be answered is, of course, the make up of the F-35 fleet. The RAF would love to switch the purchase to the A model, but if that happened immediately after the first 48 jets, it would make it impossible to ever fill up even just one of the two aircraft carriers. Moreover, it would make it very challenging to embark, with any sort of regularity, the objective airwing of 24 jets. It would mean embarking 100% of the frontline fleet, and that is unlikely to be feasible for obvious reasons.

The Review should determine how many fast jet squadrons can realistically be formed, manned and supported. Until recently, the target was to eventually field 4 F-35 squadrons. If this number is confirmed, splitting them 50/50, B model and A model, would be pretty horribly ineffective, leaving two small fleets, none of which truly able to meet all needs, which will inexorably be at each other’s throats all the time over finite budgets for updates, maintenance and support.

The last time the RAF had a 2-squadrons fast jet type, it ended up cutting the whole fleet because it was “not efficient”, remember? I would very much like to avoid going there again.

While the A does have some kinetic and range advantages over the B, I would very much recommend going for 4 squadrons of a single type rather than 2+2.

The reasons, I’ve already explained in detail in other occasions in the past.

To complete the Combat Air section of the review, I would of course like to see continued support for capability insertions into Typhoon. The adoption of STRIKER 2 helmets, LITENING 5 pods (with some reconnaissance capability making up at least in part the loss of RAPTOR) and SPEAR would definitely add a lot of capability to the fleet and I hope to see all of those confirmed.

The other and biggest capability enhancement is the AESA radar, with the UK busy developing a “R2 variant” which is expected to have a significantly greater EW capability than the R1 and R1+ chosen by Germany, Spain and Qatar. The timeline for the retrofit is still a question mark and, while Germany has now officialized its intention to retrofit all its Tranche 2s as well as the Tranche 3s, the UK’s plan remains obscure. Extending the Retrofit to the Tranche 2s is incredibly important, longer term, since that is the standard of most of the aircraft in the fleet. There are just 40 Tranche 3s.

Beyond Combat Air, one question which needs answering is what happens in 2021 to the wide area radar ground surveillance capability. A further extension to the Sentinel R1’s service life? A capability gap with their withdrawal going ahead? Or a replacement through the purchase of AAS radar pods for the P-8 Poseidon fleet, ideally along with a few extra airframes?

My favorite option would be withdrawing Sentinel but adding to the P-8 numbers and adopting the air to surface radar gondola.

For the unmanned portion of the ISTAR fleet, the Review will have to consider how many PROTECTOR to purchase. 16 are currently on order, with the stated aim of going beyond 20 with follow-on orders. Will those be confirmed?

Apart from purely financial considerations, manpower margins will play a part in the decision. It should also be noted that the recent spate of UAVs shot down (over Libya and Yemen, but also the Global Hawk shot down by Iran over the Gulf) has reminded everyone that these systems are currently completely (or in some case almost completely) defenceless. Even against enemies which are in no way peers, such as the militias in Libya, the UAVs are quite vulnerable.

I think a pause in the orders would definitely not be a tragedy. Indeed, it might be better to put some money into defences for the PROTECTORs already on order. In particular, I wonder if the defensive pods that came off Tornado GR4 and which saw considerable investment right up to the end of their service life, couldn’t be adapted for PROTECTOR.

Eventually, I would also like to see investment in the proposed ASW capability for PROTECTOR, with SEASPRAY radars and sonobuoys pods eventually becoming part of the fleet’s equipment to give the type a maritime role in support of the precious few P-8 Poseidons.

One expensive programme which has made very little noise so far but which will undoubtedly be reviewed is the Chinook Capability Sustainment Programme. The UK basically intends to procure new build Chinooks, ideally at the latest Block II standard, to progressively replace the oldest airframes. It has already secured in 2017 the authorization to purchase up to 16 such machines and according to Boeing a contract for 14 could come soon. Review permitting, obviously. This would be an expensive endeavour and it might well be postponed in a hurry to ease the pressure on the budget.  

If it does instead proceed, the authorization document suggests the UK has requested helicopters at the MH-47G standard, so the full-optional Special Forces one, with just one very evident item missing: the air refueling probe. In the meanwhile, however, the US have offered the probe for export to Israel and Germany both, so the UK should have no problem obtaining them.

Ideally, it should.

Putting probes on Merlin HC4 and Chinook, however, is only half the job. The UK would then have to procure either C-130J tanker kits, or A400M pods. The A400M is basically “tanker-ready” and recent tests with the reworked pods, carried out in France, suggest that the capability will indeed become available, so procuring a few pods should not be overly complex or expensive.

The C-130 tanker kit is an alternative, but the KC-130s are all short fuselage models, and the RAF is retaining only one short C-130. Converting just one aircraft wouldn’t be great. Had more short fuselage been retained, the ideal solution would have been to procure some HARVEST HAWK kits from the USMC, adding not just air refueling capability, but weaponry.

This would have fit into the spirit of the “VENOM” project announced by Gavin Williamson but never detailed. Assuming VENOM is not quietly cancelled, this should see the integration of a non better specified “kinetic strike” capability on some of the RAF ISTAR / support aircraft. HARVEST HAWK kits would be the absolute best fit among what is already out on the market, and the Special Forces would no doubt appreciate.

This whole initiative, however, is one of the easiest to cancel and will undoubtedly quietly vanish away if saving money fast is imperative.

My list of priorities for the RAF would include:

-          Expanding 216 Squadron activities and capabilities (the unit is standing up to work with Swarming UAVs)

-          Investing in the LANCA “loyal wingman” development, including the requirement for “runway independence” to ensure they can readily be embarked in support to the F-35Bs of the carriers as well. Maturation of the LANCA capability should be pursued with decision, because this is probably the only truly feasible way to expand the number of aircraft in service

-          A plan to get to a total of 4 F-35B squadrons. Avoid a fleet split, especially if no more than 4 Sqns can be expected to stand up in total. A reduction in total number of airframes is not only acceptable, but borders on the advisable, in order to free up funding for Project TEMPEST

-          Project TEMPEST should be supported and nurtured and every effort should be made to try and involve more countries, beginning with Japan in particular. Speaking of Japan, continued support to joint development of the Joint New Air to Air Missile (evolved Meteor with AESA seeker) should be a priority.

-          AESA retrofit extended to cover Tranche 2 Typhoons as well; STRIKER 2, SPEAR and Litening 5 to be adopted as soon as practicable 

-          Investigate adding some self-defences on PROTECTOR; ASW capability if financially possible.

 

-          Acquiring 2 to 4 sets of AAR pods for the A400M fleet once they have been proven workable

i      

       Ideally, go ahead with the Chinook CSP, including AAR capability for at least a portion of the fleet

If money could be secured, I would recommend investing further in capability aiming at the suppression and destruction of enemy air defences. In particular, an anti-radar missile derived from Meteor (MBDA has already proposed such a development) and eventual adoption of Escort Jammer pods for use on Typhoon would be my favored investments. An anti-radar weapon derived from Meteor would come with the key advantage of being compatible with internal carry into the F-35, while escort jammers would give better chances to the Typhoons to stay relevant well into the future.

Finally, the Army.

While for the other Services I auspicate a continuation of current programmes and approaches, I would recommend a wide ranging rethink of the Army plans. As I’ve written many times, in multiple articles, the Army plans for the future are by far the messiest and less convincing.

To this day, few seem to have awakened to the fact that more than half of the Army’s infantry battalions are “parked” within 4 “brigades” which have no artillery, no signals, no logistic, no engineering units of their own. The whole 1st Division is a container for “spare” infantry and some Light Cavalry. For me, this is an unacceptable waste of finite resources. I can accept some “spare” battalions (the UK needs a few just to cover rotating, standing tasks including Public Duty, Brunei and Cyprus), but maintaining a ghost division and parking in it around two thirds of the available Infantry is in no way acceptable.

Fixing 1^st Division, and indeed the wider imbalance within the Army, should be priority number one perhaps of the entire Review. The plans that Carter left behind himself are in large part unworkable and should definitely be rewritten.

Re-balancing the Army will require the courage to tackle head on the one and only true Sacred Cow in Defence: the british fetish for the infantry battalions and their capbadges. Courage will be needed to merge and / or disband a few more battalions in favor of beefing up what remains and in favor of standing up more supporting units, to ensure that the brigades that remain are actually able to deploy into the field with their own communications, logistic, engineering and artillery support.

In particular, I would recommend adopting an army structure similar to the one adopted by France with the recent “Au Contact” restructuring. In practice, instead of having all deployable brigades in 3^rd Division and “everything that’s left” into 1^st Division, I’d encourage the formation of two more equally resourced Divisions, each one comprising an Armoured Infantry brigade, a Medium brigade (STRIKE, if you truly must insist with that rather empty title) and a Light brigade. In the past I had attempted a detailed look at such a possibility, and while today I’d go a slightly different way about it, that article remains interesting to see, in detail, what would be needed and what is instead already available.

One of said Light Brigades might have to be 16 Air Assault. This would cut down to a minimum the need to raise new Artillery, Logistic, Engineer and Medical formations, since 16AA already has these formations (albeit with just a couple of sub-units each).   

On the other hand, ideally I’d want 16 Air Assault and 3^rd Commando and the Specialized Infantry Group (which could well be given a Brigade identity, since it is a 1-star command anyway) sitting together under a Joint Divisional Command specializing in unconventional warfare and theatre opening. The reasoning behind such a grouping is simple: Specialised Infantry is meant to be constantly deployed abroad, building security but also local knowledge of various reasons which might one day be theatres of action. 16 AA and 3^rd Commando are early entry forces and, in particular with 3^rd Commando, a raiding / unconventional warfare force which could be used to create the conditions for a subsequent deployment of a larger Army force.  

I’d alter the (too) ambitious Carter target of being able to deploy a Division of 2 Armoured and 1 Strike brigade, which does not appear realistic, in favor of being able to deploy either one of the two “identical” divisions instead. They would be individually lighter, but they could rotate in and out of operations and ensure the Army is not just a single use silver bullet which, if ever expended, is then out of the picture nearly completely for years.

On the equipment front, I’m recommending that the MoD does not proceed with a production contract for the Warrior Capability Sustainment Programme. If the decision was in my hands, that budget would be immediately moved across to the MIV programme to purchase further BOXERs, which would then be equipped with the WCSP turret (the only part of the program which is already under contract). The turreted BOXERs would then be mixed with the APC variants to form 8 battalions: 2 for each Armoured and Medium brigade. There are many reasons for me to formulate this recommendation, but they all more or less stem from the following main considerations: the Warrior hull is old and tired and the CSP does not quite solve that, nor does replace the old powerpack; an all MIV fleet helps standardization; having the infantry on wheels helps the Army be more self-deployable and means the precious few Heavy and Light Equipment Transports (89 and 77 respectively) are free to focus on moving the MBTs and other tracked platforms, such as AJAX and TERRIER; having at least a portion of the BOXERs well armed with a 40mm gun means that, apart from being able to get to the fight, they will also be able to fight. The current MIV, armed like a SAXON, can get there but can’t get into a fight, only drop its infantry a safe distance back. 

Finally, plans for a new tracked support vehicle to replace FV432 seem to have died entirely, and it would border on ridiculous to field a 28 tons tracked Warrior supported by wheeled 8x8s weighting close to 40. Boxer is a modern and well protected hull, and if the Army cannot afford a proper split of tracks and wheels, on balance of merits and defects, wheels should probably take precedence. This is what France has done, by the way, with the VBCI replacing the last tracked IFVs of the Armee de Terre. 

Again, a priority for me would also be to re-evaluate the variants of MIV to be procured, reducing to the bare minimum the number of ambulances and command posts in favor of pursuing instead a 120mm mortar and an ATGW variants as well as, potentially, more APCs / IFVs to increase, if at all possible, the number of mechanized battalions in the Army. With over 500 vehicles already on order, it should be feasible. I’ve written about this in greater detail in a previous article.  

The Ambulance role and, wherever possible, the C2 role would be instead “offloaded” onto much cheaper Multi Role Vehicle Protected variants. Regarding MRV-P, I’d personally urge the Army to finally proceed with the programme with the aim of rationalizing the current dog’s breakfast of multiple “mini” fleets, getting rid progressively of Husky, Panther, DURO, Pinzgauer and part of the Land Rovers.

My favorite for Group 2 would be the Thales Bushmaster, to be assembled in their Glasgow plant as promised by the company and by the Australian government.

Unfortunately, the near totality of the Royal Artillery modernization attempts are not under contract yet and are thus exposed to silent cancellation. It would be a repeat of the “lost decade+” that saw the previous programme of evolution nearly entirely killed off by budget cuts. The Royal Artillery’s main priorities for the new decade are pretty much the same as the previous decade:

-          Land Precision Strike. Initially delivered by EXACTOR MK2, it is meant to evolve towards a weapon system with a much greater range (at least 60 km, eventually). EXACTOR has a provisional OSD of 2023, but might be the successor of itself through a Mid-Life Upgrade. The Land Precision Strike system should be mounted on a vehicle, and EXACTOR itself (currently launched from a small trailer) might end up retrofitted onto a vehicle base in the next few years if the MLU happens.

-          Deep Fires Rocket System. This modernization / eventual replacement of MLRS should expand the striking range and introduce a greater variety of ammunition and effects. The Royal Artillery hopes to procure the GMLRS Extended Range rockets being developed, which would double the current range (to above 150 km) and it should also pursue the Alternative Warhead developed by the US as replacement to the old submunitions to restore an area suppression capability. Procurement of the new Land Precision Strike missile developed in the US or of a national alternative would enable strikes to 500 km or potentially beyond, reducing the gap against Russian systems, primarily ISKANDER.

-          SERPENS. This key programme is about procuring replacements for the handful (literally) of MAMBA artillery locating radars and the sound ranging equipment. High priority should be attached to this programme and to the Army’s Surveillance and Target Acquisition capability in general. Ideally, “basic” STA should be pushed down into the Close Support Artillery regiments, while 5 Royal Artillery Regiment should focus on Theatre-wide / Divisional level STA. More and better radars are a key upgrade the Army cannot do without if it has to be taken seriously in a peer scenario.

-          Mobile Fires Platform. The replacement for AS90 and for the L118 Light Gun in the “STRIKE” regiments. Around 98 systems for equipping 4 regiments, with initial capability expected in 2026. This programme is also very vulnerable to stealth cancellation, but it should be accorded high priority because the British Army’s artillery is truly in bad shape. In this very early phase of the programme, the Army has essentially looked at autocannons (CAESAR and ARCHER above all) but I’d recommend a more careful evaluation of the options. The US are about to move on to a 58 caliber 155mm gun system, while in Germany Rheinmetall is now working on a 60 caliber retrofit option. It would be very unwise for the Army to procure (with so great delay) a 52 caliber system only to still lag well behind both Allies and Enemies in terms of range.

-          Precision / Near precision 155 mm ammunition and, ideally, a smart shell with top-attack capability for use against enemy armour on the move. The Army had selected SMART shells for this requirement but the procurement was just one of the many programmes to be cancelled in the lost decade.

Other priorities, Army-wide, include finally pressing home the reorganization of the Army Air Corps and Joint Helicopter Command. Plans have been ongoing since at least 2015, including a seemingly endless review into the possibility / opportunity of moving the Apache helicopters out of Wattisham to rationalize the AAC bases.

Plans were well advanced, but implementation has largely been put on hold. It is now likely that the plan will be brought into the SDSR 2020 and the formation of a Combat Aviation Brigade on the American model will be part of the final document. Next year, a UK combat aviation battlegroup will deploy in Europe together with a US CAB during the mega exercise DEFENDER EUROPE 2020, and this is likely to be a key test for the new structures and methods. The implementation of the Combat Aviation Brigade plan should be a priority and it should, obviously, involve the RAF Chinook and Puma squadrons.

Finally, I’d urge the Army to proceed with the Challenger 2 LEP, because the obsolescence of the type can no longer be denied. The new turret put forwards by Rheinmetall BAE Land Systems will cure the problems and turn Challenger into one of the very best tanks within NATO, ensuring its validity for the next couple of decades. Ideally, a powerpack change should also be funded, however, since the current engine has too little power for such a heavy machine, and is getting increasingly unreliable.

Rather than cutting the number of tank regiments from 3 to 2, I’d encourage the Army to set up 4 tank regiments, albeit individually smaller (Type 44 instead of Type 56, for example), to ensure that the two Armoured Infantry brigades can have a solid “square” base and assign a tank formation in support of each infantry battalion.

Ideally, in a more courageous Army, I’d urge the reorganization of the Tank and Armoured Infantry regiments / battalions into Combined Arms Battalions, similar to the American ones, permanently combining tank squadrons and IFV companies. With Armour now being all concentrated in the Salisbury Plain area, this should not prove overly complex.

In terms of Commands, I remain unconvinced by the restructuring last August which saw Force Troops Command dismembered and renamed. While I recognize that the “spare infantry” of 1^st Division would be used to secure the rear in a Divisional deployment and would provide security to theatre opening activities, I still don’t think 104 Logistic Brigade, 2^nd Medical Brigade and 8 Engineer Brigade belong there.

As I said, in my “ideal” army, a Joint Rapid Reaction divisional HQ would group together 16 AA, 3 Cdo and Specialised Infantry, while 1^st and 3^rd Division would be nearly identical in structure and would alternate into readiness (and deployment, when necessary).

Force Support units would probably sit under a command focusing on logistics. However close the liaison would have to be with the “fighting” divisions, I don’t think the current arrangement is a good idea.

Conclusion

This piece is a summary of my expectations and opinions ahead of the SDSR 2020. As such, it might well be proven wrong in multiple areas. Things might end up being a lot rougher. I would lie if I said I was relaxed and solely confident in the outcome of the review.

I am, however, moderately optimistic. I’m expecting something upbeat, more similar to 2015 than 2010. There will be less big programmes launched, compared with 2015, and much of the focus will be on Cyber (thus on area where progress is hard to visualize and even harder to measure, allowing loud and cheap claims) and on Space. In general, I think the 2015 targets will be maintained as much as possible, and I hope there will be room for a few welcome adjustements and boosts in key areas.

As I’ve made clear in the article, pain is likely to be felt mostly in the less glamorous programmes which are part of the 10 years plan but are not really known by the public and are not yet under contract. Stealth cuts are a constant at the MOD, and this review will not be an exception. I don’t think Boris Johnson will want to associate himself and his government with draconian cuts to what is left of the Forces, so I’m trying to focus on the positive. The one area in which I think a revolution is necessary is the Army. Unfortunately, it is the one area which is most resistant to change. There is often much talk about “sacred cows” in defence, but as often happens, what is talked about the most is the smokescreen, not the problem.

Sacred cows are not the Paras, or the Marines. The one Sacred Cow is the Army’s insistence in clinging on to its regiments and infantry battalions, even at the cost of maintaining a ghost Division with very low actual combat capability.

This is the one sacred cow I’d want to slay right at the start of the Review.

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.