Britain and Defence: How much do we need? Who would we fight?

New Labour to be fair attempted to do a different style - the SDR was led by the FCO based on geopolitical threats within the 'north of Sahara, west of the Gulf' focus that seemed most likely to be the main area of operation (which in fairness it has, ignoring Afghanistan). Operations were deemed 'small' (battalion size), 'medium' (brigade), 'large' (division), 'very large' (all NATO declared) with concurrency for two small indefinite commitments, two medium for a maximum of 6 months with only one of these being war fighting. [for the RAF they saw equivalency in to these Army terms as small = Iraq no Fly Zone, medium = IFOR Bosnia, large = Gulf War]

Even today, that looks small beer against any kind of peer threat (or we should really say superior-peer threat given the UK's lack of military mass).

I'm not anti-carrier. I view the CATOBAR Vs VSTOL argument as a red herring of no real significance.
Another titbit of info though - when Labour made BAE Systems prime military shipbuilder in 2005, the company took on £540M of pension black holes from the inherited shipyards. In return it was expected they would build two CVF and Type 45. That was the quid pro quo.
 
My concern is that the UK is part of the Western Alliance and this involves burden sharing.
I see this as meaning that where others are better placed to do something we should let them do it. We should play to our strengths not to our weaknesses.
Of couse some national capabilities are essential..The nuclear deterrent heads up this list -though even here we rely on the US.
Tornado, Typhoon and now Tempest are national capabilities with partners. F35 is similar.
The carrier debate has raged since the 50s when it was seen as necessary to have carriers for limited rather than general war.I respect the arguments on both sides. When I was younger I wanted CVA01 and still have models of it. But I accepted the 1966 choice in favour of SSNs.
Western Europe has a growing number of countries able to comnit efdective armiured and mechsnised forces to NATO. SDR 1998 argued that we needed an Armoured Division because of Iraq and resurgent Russia.

I disagreed on both counts. Intervening in Iraq was an international not a UK responsibility This is not 1956. Donald Rumsfeld made it clear we were not needed in 2003.

So the nub of my concern is not the RAF or the RN but the British Army.

It has some excellent features, notably its highly trained infantry. We have a large force of AH64 Apaches which can deploy quickly to any European troublespot.
The Royal Engineers contribute around the world to helping save lives.

So we come to the Armoured Division. With Iraq and Afghanistan consigned to history and at last an acceptance by both political parties that our role outside NATO is essenrially maritime with some good peacekeeping and training deployments.

Ukraine had degraded Russian ground forces to a level where they would be hard pressed to take on Poland and Finland even if NATO did not reinforce them. Turkey despite Erdogan still blocks Russian access southwards.

It mqy become necessary as in World War 2 or Korea in the 50s to take part in a long war alongside the US. So we should have the training formations necessary to regenerate armoured formations. This would require conscription given the shortage of young people suited to military service. Others here argue persuasively thwt the UK should make its.own tanks, infantry vehicles and artillery. WW2 suggests we should leave this to a major ally.
 
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Hood said:
I have reading been a lot of recollections and memoires by RAF Staff officers during the 1990s in the last few weeks. Their conclusion is (more or less) that everything since Nott has been a downhill slide with Labour's 1998 SDR being the only brief patch of levelness (with some genuine tri-service agreement and co-operation) before the Treasury quickly put their boot in and ruined it, cutting manpower and kit needed under the agreed SDR limits and re-starting service rivalries. They also blame the Army for going along with the politicians and campaigning in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time - two major commitments which were beyond what the armed forces were expected to resource.
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I doubt if the combination of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq is the sole reason for the downhill slide since the early 2000s, but I suspect it did contribute. The general sense I have is that supporting those operations was (quite reasonably) the priority for politicians, and that gave an excuse to pare down anything that didn't directly support them. The alternative would have been admitting that it was not possible to fight two wars on a peacetime military budget. But, when the wars ended - why, that meant that there was a peace dividend to be taken!

Fundamentally, the UK political environment means that defence is always a challenge. The Treasury is institutionally biased to oppose any spending on anything by anyone; it's much harder for defence to point at the benefits of that spending than it is for other departments. So, barring a compelling reason to stand firm, the Armed Forces always have to tighten their belts. And, because they're the Armed Forces, they muddle on anyway, eating into the margins that allow them to operate in wartime. Until the day, at some point in the future, events mean that those nonexistent margins are needed, and a hollowed-out force can't do what's asked of it.
 
We must beware the casual assumption that specialists can be a 'general' product.
From the confines of a limited population willing to join the Forces, a much more limited pool of potential talent exists and their proclivities for particular specialisations is itself limited and varies due to the 'throughput' of personnel.

Simply put you cannot have just SAS, or just Engineers or Marines or pilots etc....
They are always going to be a minority of those who can pass basic tests and training.

This specialism limit is also a factor in industry itself. You cannot just have niche specialists without the 'ecology' of general industry.

So while I agree we don't need to staff a Division. If we cease with that ambition/delusion, we must accept the consequences for specialists as well.

But I will draw a line on Navy and Intelligence....and above all Logistics and Training.
For these last are the 'secret sauce' of success. Everything flows from this and from asking the horrifically simple questions such as:-

How long can one march before one needs new boots?
How much food is needed to sustain that one?
How much water?
How much rest?
How much can one carry before they slow down?
 
While Health and Education are the largest shares of government spending and the electorate accept that, Defence has had a rough ride since 1991.
Every time I hear a politician use the expression Punch above our weight I groan.
Iraq and Afghanistan cost us too much in blood of brave servicepeople and scarce money.
Ukraine has given us a clearer enemy to confront. But even there public fears of a forever war with Russia have been expressed already.
China is seeking to dominate its neighbours and it is right that UK naval forces contribute to the safety of our friends in the region. Such a contribution must meet tests as to value rather than puffing up political rhetoric..But the UK under both Conservative and Labour governments supported the old SEATO.
A major change is coming in the Gulf. Saudi Arabia has become aware of its unpopularity with some UK and US politicians and is responding as Nasser did in the 50s by looking to its own interests. Tempest is unlikely to wear RSAF markings.
 
So much to unpack and engage on this which is a really wide and deep topic.

I'll leave the Russia/Ukraine business for the moment.

The world we are entering is not the world we've become used to. Which is like the last period of globalisation a temporary thing.

The demographics of the bulk of world's nations is already in decline and with it the economic model we've enjoyed.
As it is China is loosing population to age and any recovery is likely generations. Maybe a century away.
Germany, Poland, Russia all are dwindling.
Japan and Italy already have.

The Germans don't have the population structure to keep their current economic model going.
They have had to choose between Russia and industrial or Western and much less industrial but permitted access for their goods.
They chose Western.....reluctantly, but perhaps pragmatically.

We have our own problems in this, but if we can overcome the growing internal cultural apartheid. Then we face a potential return to something akin to centuries past.
Because the other two Western European states that also seem ok-ish demographically if culturally divided internally are France and Sweden.

Without German economic dominance, France returns to it's natural position as the strongest Western state.....
So we'll be back to where we were before Germany industrialised.

Gulf oil's future depends on who will guarantee shipping security through the straights.
 
The UK will continue to have its closest links with Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the US (sometimes known as Five Eyes).
Our next closest relationship is with the EU/NATO European members. It may not seem like it now but Brexit may allow us to have better relations with countries like France and Germsny because we no longer stand in the way of their EU plans. Sunak has got off to a good start.
Outside this core the UK has the rest of the Commonwealth, Japan and Korea as countries where we have many common interests. The Commonwealth should not be overestimated, it is a very loose and differentiated grouping. But the fact that countries have asked to join in recent years suggest it is not a bad club to be in.
The model for dealing with China, Russia, Iran and N Korea remains the patient combination of collective security and patient diplomacy which saw us through the Cold War. Though Reagan and Thatcher are now remembered for building up our armaments they also supported dialogue and negotiation.
Russia at the moment is in a different place. It is in the words of the Judgement at Nuremberg waging aggressive war. Ukraine has the right under the UN Charter to self defence. Just as aggressors were expelled from the Falklands and Kuwait so Putin must be expelled from Ukraine.
So far the US and UK have held together a coalition of over 50 nations in supporting Kiyv. This has been in the best traditions of both countries.
Russia is a nuclear power just as it was during the Korean War and when it occupied Afghanistan. Resistance is possible and essential but has limits. Zelensky may find this irksome but London and Washington are wise to recognise them.
France is now the leading EU power. Unlike Germany it has both military and economic power as the EU's only nuclear power. Despite frequent spats between politicians our armed forces are closely aligned and we support each other in various ways.
So on the whole I am positive about the UK's future role. Both the Conservatives and Labour have a reasonable consensus on everything from the Trident deterrent to support for Ukraine.
 
Two warnings.
1. Do not bank on the US remaining as involved as it has been.
The trend is clear, less and less involvement.
Reliance on them which has always been a gamble. Is going to become harder to justify.

2..Do not bank on current political parties being what they have been.
Labour and Conservative are not guaranteed anything.
UK society is no longer that which sustained these two parties.
Let the fate of the Whigs and the Liberals stand as a reminder, that what draws support for particular political outlooks can change.

And it has profoundly so.

Whatever 'wins' the internal contest of UK politics will shape it's relations with the outside world and in turn that will shape what military forces it thinks it needs.
 
Both points are well taken and may well come to pass. However, the history of the last hundred years is a helpful guide.
The United States between the World Wars retreated into isolation with disastrous consequences But for Roosevelt and Pearl Harbour it might have continued to let the rest of the world go hang. President Joseph Kennedy or Charles.Lindbergh have featured in counter factual fiction.
The Conservative Party has survived bloodletting from Chamberlain to Truss and reinvented itself again and again. The Labour Party from Macdonald to Corbyn has shown a similar durability. But the Internet and single issue political movements may yet test both parties to destruction.
The chaotic years from 2016 to 2023 have led many of our friends in Europe and the rest of the world to shake their heads and even write us off.
But the same country that mourned an old lady leaving us in 2022 once cut off a King's head long before the French. Britain is no stranger to turmoil. While enslaving foreigners around the world we treated our own people in farms and factories with similar callousness. Reforms when they came were slow and hard fought for.
But the country has also consistently stood up to tyrants and found friends and allies amongst former foes. NATO was founded in the shadow of a Europe laid waste and under the shadow of nuclear holocaust. It has survived despite political twists and turns since then.
Though not wanting to join a European super state, Prime Ministers from Churchill onwards have wished France and Germany well in setting aside their quarrels to build a new Europe.
France in particular has had a strained relationship with Britain but we have now been allies for well over a century. De Gaulle came to know us more than any Frenchman since. He wisely saw the tension in Downing Street between our relations with the US and Europe. But he also knew that.London offered hope to people occupied by a foreign tyrant.
So yes I remain optiimistic about our ability to rise to challenges and defend ourselves and our friends.
Looking at pictures of the carrier I and others have much maligned I smile when I notice she bears the emblem of the first Queen Elizabeth. Pethaps Big Lizzie has come good.
 
No I don't think the last 100 years is the best guide, especially the last 70 years.
If anything that encompasses significant divergence from the last 500 years.
Which is much more likely a guide.

Though nothing prepares us for major population decline around the globe. We'd have to look at the Great Plagues, and end of the Roman Empire for something even remotely similar.

Nor is the arrival of this 'common medium of communication' (the Internet etc...) anything but an even more radical change than the printing press.
Which as you might reccal from your history lessons, caused major changes in religion and politics.

History just keeps happening ;)
 
Well only 100 years ago the RAF was designing bombers to reach Paris...

Would Eddie, Freddie and Davie have thought that their atom city-busting bombers would only ever see action over Egypt and some very, very remote British islands they probably only ever read about in naval battle history books?

In all seriousness, I doubt Britain has ever fought anyone that it planned to (apart from the 1938-39 rearmament and even that didn't pan out how they intended) in the modern era.
 

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