The British Armed Forces have revealed an ambitious modernisation plan under a revamped Defence Command Paper (DCP23), earmarking an additional £2.5 billion for the enhancement of stockpiles and the establishment of a UK Global Response Force.
The latter is designed to ensure the UK’s ability to “get there first” in global conflict situations.
The refreshed strategy was announced on 18 July and builds upon insights gleaned from the recent conflict in Ukraine and broader security threats. “The DCP23 outlines how the British Armed Forces will modernise and adapt to the changing global picture and, in particular, we will prioritise investment in science and technology to ensure we have a force greater than the sum of our parts,” reads one of the tweets.
The announcement comes following the publication of the Integrated Review Refresh earlier this year, which designated Russia as the most acute threat to UK security and characterised China as a long-term systemic challenge.
The newly unveiled Defence Command Paper places a strong emphasis on the role of science and technology in military readiness, stating that the UK will “become a science and technology superpower, enhancing our capabilities in fields such as robotics, human augmentation, directed energy weapons and advanced materials, to gain the edge on the battlefield.”
Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, underscored the necessity for the UK to evolve and modernise to counteract contemporary threats, citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a key example. He added, “This Defence Command Paper will sharpen our strategic approach – ensuring the UK remains at the forefront of military capability, and a leading power in NATO.”
James Heappey, Minister for the Armed Forces, reiterated this sentiment and added, “Our people and their expertise are at the heart of what we do, underpinning our strategic advantage across all domains and delivering a force that deters against threats and defends our homeland and those of our Allies.”
The strategic plan also identifies several other priority areas, including an improved surge capacity through the Strategic Reserve, a new industry alliance, and a modernised employment model and skills framework. Moreover, £400 million will be allocated to upgrade military accommodation, aiming to enhance the operational effectiveness of personnel.
Very interesting paper. Couple of key notes for me: the admission that we are now in a multipolar world….this is a huge statement and acknowledges a fundamental shift in geopolitics and geopolitical power. the focus on Euro Atlantic and defence of UK soil. Again we have seen a steady shift from global geopolitics and threat to an acknowledgement of a potential existential threat to UK soil ( that includes the BOTs). the need for strategic reserves and the potential for prolonged conflict. the fact rapid design and development are so important and how linked the UK has been in supporting… Read more »
“the warnings around china but the fact all was not lost and china and the west could work together.”
If they believe that they wil believe anything.
Is it just an excuse to row back on the “Global Britain – policing/protecting Asia” policy Johnson was advocating – so a pull back on that blue sea strategy and a concentration on our own little piece of the big wide world.
I’m not so sure on that, there was a fair bit around around global presence and another visit of the carrier to the pacific in 2025..it was also pretty focused on deployment and speed of deployment across the globe so I’m not seeing a retraction..it’s just acknowledging the European security position is in a very bad way.
Cheers for the summary 👍– I’ll have a proper read when i get chance.
Sleepy Joe shot the UK trade deal down and we already got GCAP, AUKUS and CPTPP, Russia is finished and we already got the support we need from the US to defeat them. The US and EU have thrown their weight around and put the UK in its place apparently on trade so now the UK needs to look else where for large trading partners and a reproach with China may be an answer, especially as we hold leverage via control over CPTPP membership. So job done for global Britain for the time being. Not much point in further supporting… Read more »
I agree wholeheartedly. The ‘Global Britain’ thing was a political myth. It was never going to happen nor in truth, could this country in its current shape ever finance such a thing.
We have always been ‘Global Britain’ and we continue to be so. It is no myth and it does not mean we are a superpower with enormous armed forces.
It means we are globally engaged, have friends and bases in many parts of the world, have renowned soft power and diplomacy, excellent intelligence services operating in many parts of the world, a bluewater navy, globally deployable forces, export our culture and our goods widely etc etc.
Stop mainlining the cool aid.
Everything Graham said is factually correct, we are by every measure still a great power…the problem is we measure ourselves against the benchmark of being a superpower, we were one for over a hundred years before losing the status and for our generation we lived in a bipolar world of two superpowers….it’s sunk into the British way of thinking that if your not the worlds premier super power your nothing on the world stage..and that is just BS, for the majority of history the world has been sculpted by a larger number of great powers not one or two super… Read more »
David, is that a serious comment? Which of my factors do you dispute? You clearly don’t know the difference between a superpower, global power, hemispheric power, regional power or local power. Being a global power does not mean you have the same level of armed forces or level of force projection as a superpower. Many other factors, mostly non-military, are considered. Conversely having large armed forces does not make a country a global power – there are many far more factors at play, as I said. Russia, India are (strong) regional powers but are not global powers. By all measures,… Read more »
Agree, funnily enough we are the only country on planet earth with sovereign territory in striking range of almost every choke point on planet earth.
Choke point? As in maritime straits?
Yes
Good job we’ve got a good navy then!
exactly and those that continue to run the UK down should maybe leave and go to a more mediocre nation
I sincerely hope we do not go cap in hand to the chinese again- Cameron pissed me off the first time – we need to careful if we attempt to further engrain our infrastructure in with the Chinese.
“Put us in our place” -I assume thats made you very happy.
However the EU is by no means backwards coming forwards with its recent EU/China deals and its reluctance to come away from Russian Oil so I don’t think you can hold them up as a paragon of virtue.
& the US has and always will look after itself.
Indeed, I agree with all that.
Every PRC involvement is a vulnerability. It both feeds their regime & puts a noose around our own necks.
We don’t need to go cap in hand to them, they need our ascent to join CPTPP.
there’s no need. If we invest in a few key building block technologies and our core infrastructure we can produce everything we need at the same or lesser price than anywhere.
Robotics, AI, Quantum, 3D printing are the key technologies
Access to natural Resources is the key and China are 20 yrs ahead in locking this down in Africa, but we have good relations with OZ etc.
What we do need is an industrial strategy that supports the UK, as only then can we be competitive to Export.
Time for a rest all round really
Debateable. Whilst European countries and the USA were to some extent dithering over the war of Russia against Ukraine, in the face of the warning given by Putin of unleashing never before seen devastation on anyone who interfered, Johnson and the UK did not hesitate to oppose the Kremlin and provide arms and weapons to Ukraine, on top of the support that came from Operation Orbital. America and Europe followed that lead. With the exception of the Baltics and Poland, the UK was never afraid of Russia.., just that Poland and the Baltics don’t have the UK’s resources. Also, the… Read more »
A Esteban, our favourite Mexican is back 😀
I prefer Speedy Gonzalez myself.
No one is sure what you exactly say with your pretend US accent…
A very clear exposition of known facts. That won’t do around here!
Jim, don’t forget we are in NATO and must do our bit to defend the Euro-Atlantic area – we need forces in Europe and forces in the Atlantic. The European strand does not mean we are protecting the 27 EU countries.
If the yanks and the Europeans are seemingly the millstones around our necks for greater prosperity then we need our own internal market in canzuk and garner better relations in commonwealth trade that accounts for 10tr to date. The point of Brexit was to do our own thing not what others command us to do
It’s a confession of a lazy govt that cannot be arsed to further the beliefs of Johnson’s govt. Its in the same vein as Cameron and May.
So are we a rising or falling great power; a red dwarf or a black hole ?
Yep🙄
Or a white dwarf in transition?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/19/two-faced-star-with-helium-and-hydrogen-sides-baffles-astronomers-janus
Nice one. This could be be closer. Two facets of the same argument, neither knowing what the other side is up to. We’ll have to watch and wait.
I do think we are like that spinning star. We have an identity crises. We can’t decide who we are because we haven’t come to terms with our history. So we go around changing GB stickers for UK stickers on our cars thinking that somehow this will solve the problem. I have an old wooden school ruler embossed with all the monarchs. It starts at 1066. That’s our problem. With the Domesday book the Normans attempted to airbrush England out of history. But England ( thanks mainly to the women folk) bounced back and the Plantagenets ruled half of France.… Read more »
Cannot disagree with much of that to be honest. I agree there should be an English legislature …it both lessens the English and pisses off the Welsh and Scots that we have this thing called Westminster, that is both an English legislature and a British parliament all at the same time. We are three nations always have been, but we have huge shared culture as well. For me the UK should be a federal state it makes a lot of sense. I would go so far as to say that there should be a number of English legislatures based on… Read more »
We need one Parliament & Government for England – the regions will be represented.
Most of the Lords are experts and we are all the better for that – but peerages should not be given to party donors, if that is their only claim to fame – that is corrupt.
Hi graham I think we can agree on peerages given out to party donors..but I think any system that allows the political parties to choose who gets a seat in the House of Lords is open to corruption..the lords it’s meant to be a check and balance as well as expert view…the only far way I can see of getting experts into the lords is some form of democratic vote ( with maybe an elongated term of 10 years or so). Also I would not have the lords votes based around just regions, but also other methods, so not just… Read more »
Good ideas. There is talent in the Lords – many from Industry, the Arts etc – that is good. Must ban party donors, as we agree. Need some Lords coming up from the Commons as they know the business of law making.
I doubt many of the electorate would get enthused about voting for new Members. People have not been interested in voting for their local PCC, for example.
The Plantsgenate period saw the development of fundamental principles of English Law including opening it up to English speakers. https://www.johnsonastills.com/site/blog/ejablog/king-richard-iiis-law
You pack a lot in to your post. Fully agree that Blair blundered in not graning England devolution – that was ufair and undemocratic and it means that central government in Westminster spends an awful lot of time and energy in directing/lording it over English counties. I disagree with your opinion of the House of Lords – it has been reformed numerous times and does not need further reform. We are well served in having very experienced and talented people there to review and amend draft laws. What does stick in the throat is ex-PMs giving peerages to their mates,… Read more »
Agree many peers have expert skills and do good work. But usually their influence is to no avail because their work is overturned in the Commons. In order for the Lords to have the influence or ought to it must become democratically accountable. It must morph into an elected senate. A peerage should just be the candidate selection process. As regards confusion of identity I recall about 50% of people think we are a European nation and 50% think we are something else. 50% of Scots think Scotland should be an independent county and about 50% of people in Northern… Read more »
Sorry about the delay Paul, been away. Hope you read this. I’ll kick off by saying I agree with everything you’ve said. We are becoming unraveled. Devolution, immigration, woke attacks? Even the desocialising effect of the internet. I don’t know what’s to blame but I do feel it’s happening. There should be a properly established English parliament with memers from English constituencies only. All four nations should have the same powers, including taxation (but not VAT), coming together for the likes of defence and foreign affairs and so on. Once upon a time I would have advocated some form of… Read more »
Afternoon Geoff. No worries, hope you enjoyed your trip. There’s no obligation to reply but have to say I agree with what you write; and with your impression or sensation that some ‘de-socialising’ influence is at work.
No obligation to reply but I wanted to. Your post was interesting.🙂
Thx. I do think that the discussion is improved by taking a longer view of history. Two thoughts: England came into being at the battle of Brunanburh in 937. That’s a long time ago. When a nation forgets how it was born ( as we did in 1066 and in the Reformation and the Civil War) it needs to refresh its memory by remembering the original coming together as a people to resist invasion – the Armada, Napoleon, Hitler… Brexit? Remember has 2 meanings. It also means to put something back together… Secondly, remember that Nelson said England expects, not… Read more »
Interesting starting point Paul. Who are the English? Prior to what I suppose would be the second “England”, the first being essentially a centralized Roman state, by 937 we were original Britons, Roman ( with all it’s races), Saxon and Norse. Predominantly then German and Scandinavian. Farmers, seaman and warriors. A good start. Today, unlike the other nations who have largely kept their identity, England is a multi racial society with around ten percent of it’s population being Asian and Black. Does it make a difference? I don’t know. My belief and I hope I’m right is that the overwhelming… Read more »
Evening Geoff, my starting point is a definition of the process of mutual self interest and shared defence by which a group of communities defines itself a people – at Eamont Bridge the kings of Anglia, Mercia, Wessex etc ( and also Scotland and Strathclyde and the Prince of Wales) pledged their allegiance to Aethelstan, the Victor at Brunanburh. In his ecclesiastical history of the English people in about AD 731 Bede effectively christened the various tribes on these isles as one people. The book has been described as a progression from diversity to unity, from heathendom to Christianity –… Read more »
Getting a bit deep for my historical knowledge now Paul but I do think the Windrush Generation were brave enough to take on all that was thrown at them and mostly make a successful life in the UK, they and their children. Is it true today? Probably not but this last twenty years we have entered a period of “I want and I want it now” across the younger generation of all races.
Glad you said that about the last 20 years. It’s almost as if a world wide epidemic spirit of ‘me, me, me ‘ has been running riot. I’m hoping it’s a kind of storm which is abating. cheers.
‘Britain has never been a great power’ – Enoch Powell
The United Kingdom historically was too small to take on Continental powers on land and has sought to avoid wars without allies since the 17th century. A significant naval power against Continental rivals, blessed with a dominant geographic position between the maritime choke points to western Europe.
Yes indeed we are blessed. Richard II Act 2 Scene 1 🙂
Not a great power? Call me mr Jingoistic but an odd quote to dig out. The biggest empire in the history of the world, it’s language the most dominant in the world and gigantic tech and science contributions to the modern world and the winner of the biggest wars in the world, which were largely fought on land, the richest country in the world for a long time with economic might dwarfing everyone else for hundreds of years. Napoleon and the Kaiser and Hitler had the biggest and best land armies , yet defeated by…Britain and its commonwealth and its… Read more »
I don’t know about wasps but are you certain nothing more …? The fact is the version of ‘the British Empire’ we are given is through the lens of Hollywood, snobbish and always devious invaders and occupiers*. In fact Britain’s genius was establishing countries around the globe by giving them the benefit of our system of law and justice and standing them on their own feet. I have just this week seen a gross caricature of ‘the British’ in India on an American website that has it as red coats oppressing the natives. Still, there you go. Incidentally Belgium was… Read more »
Agree with all of that and have an interest in history and politics and recognise every part of that response. I was careful not to stray into the merits and evils of the British Empire, it was just to say the country was great power on land and sea and its power of the purse and ingenuity. For me the rule of law is the one to be proud of. Don’t get me started on Hollywood…in terms of Belgium, yes I lived there for many years and why I gave the casual reference, it’s ‘heart of darkness’ in Congo was… Read more »
Yes but that does not lessen that fact Britain was the predominant great power for almost a hundred years, and every other power on the globe knew very well that Britain would crush them if they stepped out of line…. the US did spend the entire time from 1815 to the great rapprochement ( from 1895) just waiting for the chance to invade Canada…the only reason it did not was Britain making sure the US was well aware that any attack on Canada would result in its shipping being swept from the seas and a crushing economic blockade until they… Read more »
Probably one of the greatest feats of any country was the British blockade in the war of 1812. Given how weak we were after the seven years war with many generals dead, I think wholly that if we had maintained our grip on the States in 1814, we would have crushed them.
Is that why you lost the war? Sounds like a great plan. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened in history, but keep that thought alive. It’s a great story
Lost the war of 1812 ? I suppose thats whats taught in US high schools .
I suppose you reckon US won its previous war against its former ally France in 1798 , actually called the quasi war as it wasnt formally declared , but they against each other at sea after the US reneged on its war debts
Ummm really Great Britain did not loss the war of 1812..it was a draw..the US could not make headway and win the war even when Great Britain was fighting for its life during the Napoleonic wars.after the final collapse of Napoleon’s dreams Great Britain could have turned all its might on the US and the US would have been utterly destroyed ( ask any historian..the reality was the Britain was the last great power standing in Europe and it could have turned on the US and destroyed it). But Great Britain could not really take the expense of holding a… Read more »
Ah your fan boy support for the country that wont take you is admirable!
We never lost that war the yanks got lucky at New Orleans lolll remember wellington didn’t desire the North America command. With France defeated they’d have made mincemeat of you. You’ll know that New England threatened to secede from the US, not only that, the federalists desired closer ties to Britain. Indeed Washington, Hamilton, Franklin etc never wanted to cut ties with Britain. Remember the olive branch petition after the king had forsaken the colonies a year before?? The Americans were so horrified that their kinsmen would jettison them, John Adams wife wrote to him saying “let us declare our… Read more »
Lost the war of 1812? The U.S. declared war on the UK while its back was turned fighting Napoleon, thinking it could grab Canada but failed, the British burned down the White House (and most of Washington) … What other fairy tales do they teach in America?
War of 1812? Are you getting confused with the American War of Independence (1776-83)? GB was still fighting in the Napoleonic Wars in 1812. The Seven Years War ended 59 years before that.
That’s a great story. Not really true but it’s a good story nevertheless
Well actually the explanation of the RN and it’s deterrent approach and success in preventing the US from attacking Canada is a strait quote from a very respected US expert on geopolitical history…all Opinions are valid, it’s just some are well thought out and based on wide ranging reading and knowledge developed from a large numbers of sources..others are just thoughts of one person at that time based on their immediate feelings.
What, the story you tell the US border patrol? Up to you what you say when you keep getting caught.
Thanks for pointing out what parts of the “story” are factually incorrect and posting what u think actually happened.
So insightful 🤦🏼♂️
Read Paul Kennedy. Appeasement was first practiced in the 19th century when the U.S. threatened the Great Britain. Oregon conceded with chinks of the Dakotas and Canada and Newfoundland de-militarised.
I’ve read A lot of Paul Kennedy’ s works cheers, The simple fact is the US did not invade Canada after the 1815 war because it could not have won, simple as, if you look at the flow of the 1812 war by 1814 Britain was refocusing back towards the North America conflict, the war of 1812 was essentially a side campaign to Great Britain but it took every U.S. military resource to fight it..the US banked on Britain being tied up in a European fight to the death..so once Great Britain could focus on the North American war the… Read more »
Just stop.
Stop what? Brit squaddies walking out of your local authority flat at 06:00hrs in the morning? You better tell that to them pal, not us, good lad.
I would disagree with many things that Enoch Powell has said. That being one of them, to simplify a great power to the size of its field army sitting within its boards is a gross and utterly incorrect measure of a great power…by the Measure of large static field armies North Korea would be a major power it is not. A major power is a convergence of many things..first you must have access to wealth and resources that are important in that time and place, this includes population and the materials the power your economy( population mines, food, raw materal… Read more »
Did Powell really say that?- I can find no reference.
I read it last century and I too cannot find when he said it. Whatever, it is true. Too small a country. Our genius was to raise armies in other territories, call them countries and teach them to defend themselves (and our interests!).
He did, but he changed his views on things more than he changeds his pants, so that isn’t surprising
All great powers are in a constant flux of rising and falling, TBO the UK fell from the very top spots during WW2 due to industrial and financial exhaustion and an inability to defend its resources precipitating the end of empire, We fell in a controlled way and probably hit a nadir in the 1970s and have been slowly stabilising as a great power with some regrowing as a great power ever since. one of the issues the UK has at present as a great power is a habit of measuring itself against its time as the preeminent power in… Read more »
Difficult to say that Britain was not a ‘great power’ in the Victorian age. Sterling was a reserve currency, half the world map was pink and engineers used Whitworth spanners. In the 20c the British Empire gave way to the US but much of the world still uses the English legal system and the English language – both of which originate from the Saxon and Plantagenet periods of our history. It all went pear shaped with the Tudors really. Not interring Richard III ( skeleton discovered in 2012) in Westminster or York was a big mistake. You should always be… Read more »
The U.K.’s debt in 1945 was about 75 thousand million GBP (at contemporary values; much more considerable at today’s) and its industries largely exhausted or were broken. This debt wasn’t paid in full until 2006. Europe was re-built by the Marshall Plan because of justified fears its previously pro-fascist peoples might easily turn pro-communist; half of the French voted communist in the early 40s. Great Britain was meant to decline.
the UK received 26% of total amount of the Marshall Plan
My understanding is it received around 4 million. That would pay the interest on the debt. West Germany was re-built. When Keynes went to Washington to ask for debt forgiveness he was brushed away; ‘Is America going to treat Great Britain as if it were Balkan nation?’ he asked. ‘Yes.’ A poll held in the U.S. on British debt relief was 61 per cent against ‘any further assistance’ to Great Britain.
Keynes went to the US to discus the UK war debt. He end up with a low (ish) interest loan from the US and Canada. He died in 1946 and the Marshall plan started in 1948. the split between loans and grants was pretty simlear for the UK,France and Germany
The problem Simon is the comparative figures at scale. Great Britain’s debt in 45 has been estimated at 75 billion (and that may well be rough guess). We re-built our country by our own efforts.
Yeah and they spent it on maintaining their bits of pink on the map while Europe was modernising! The Europeans had electric rail while we were using steam in the 60s
Indeed that is what happened. You often learn more about yourself and how you need to change when you lose or fail. If you win then you see no reason to change. You only get serious about self improvement when the strategies you have always relied cease to work. I think this applies to nations as well as individuals. No pain no gain as they say. The peculiar thing about British culture is that we are addicted to pain but don’t seem to learn anything. We keep voting for the same numpties.
Germans too had steam trains like Britain into late 60s early 70s
It was really about coal still the predominate energy source
US didnt have its cities and industries devastated by the war damage and huge oil production
or have to pay for oil in dollars.Coal was seen as keep the balance of payments better by the Tory’s and keeping people in work by Labour
Great Britain had coal and it was cheap. We rapidly dumped the ‘pink’ on the map following Suez (1956); Harold MacMillan was pro-Atlantic alliance and wished to appease the Americans by showing them we were harmless. One African diplomat, speaking this century, privately was of the opinion we went away too fast.
The Marshall Plan was around 13.5 billion USD. The U.K.’s share would be then around 4.5 billion USD as I wrote. Our national debt has been estimated (Mark Blyth) at 75 billion GBP, a colossal debt. Roosevelt always made it plain he had no intention of rescuing Great Britain from bankruptcy and at Yalta privately told this to Stalin.
other people have said 21 billion
Not half in France voted PCF in standard legislative elections
1946 28%
1951 26%
Prewar it was 15% , but a broader Popular Front , which included the communists, won with 57% in 1936
I believe polling suggested the ‘half’ figure. The Communists were determined to claim ‘Resistance’ was all their own work! DeGaulle had to put two Communists into his governments when he became President. The fear of Communist take overs was nota complete fiction. Still, those proportions have never had a matching figure in the U.K. Another British failure along with National Fronts.
Always the silly excuse. UK had the biggest Marshall Plan help and was not destroyed like Germany, France Italy.
By 1970 West Germany was already richer than UK. You have no excuse for the dominating Fabian ideology or worse that prevades UK since the 20-30’s till today.
John Maynard Keynes was a Liberal (as was William Beveridge, architect of the Welfare State). Nixon adopted Keynesian economics! Facts are not excuses. All major and some minor (i.e. Dover, Canterbury, Plymouth, etc.) were heavily bombed. Three quarters of a million houses were destroyed and many more practically uninhabitable. As I have pointed out Great Britain’s debts in 1945 have been estimated at 75 billion GBP. Marshall Aid was 4.5 billion USD. In real terms the national debt was more than eighty times greater (@ five dollars to the GBP) than Marshall Aid. The last repayment of British war debt… Read more »
JMK, Nixon. What that have to do with anything? No one followed JMK despite many calling themselves Keynesians noe followed the cardinal rule of counter cycle policies.
Peanuts compared to Germany, France, Italy, others.
“The last repayment of British war debt was made in 2006.”
So,again what that has to do with anything. The longer you pay the better and as if debt can not be traded.
It is quite bizarre the arguments about British WW2 debt.
I completely agree with your last point. In comparison with our decades of dominance, we are relatively far less powerful. But, unfortunately, the memory of that period still feeds into our defence policy, leading to too much emphasis on global deployments and too little on actual self defence. If we started with a blank sheet of paper to determine what we really needed, our force structure and equipment might look very different.
Global deployment is self-defence. The greatest short and medium term threats are through our global trade base to our economy. The world’s trade is globally interdependent, and its disruption in one place affects many others, as we have seen looking at the effects on the UK economy of the war in Ukraine. If US and China war over Taiwan, it will tank the UK economy for a decade or longer, whether we show up or not. Deterrence is the key to stability and it’s in our own interest to play our part. Global stability was in reach in the 1990s,… Read more »
If the UK is a “Great Power” then the benchmark is ridiculously low.
A Great Power is a state that can act independently, at times even in the face of opposition by other Great Powers. The UK has not been able to do that for decades having last failed in that regard at Suez in 1956. And it has certainly not become stronger since.
There are only three Great Powers in the world today – US, China and Russia and the question of whether Russia can remain an active Great Power will be determined in Ukraine.
Hi Roy there are are actually a number of great powers, they are states able to influence on a global scale…they due to their economic, political and military power. The Uk is the fifth richest nation on earth and is one of only five nations that can completely destroy any other nation state on the planet, it’s has one of only two/tree navies than can sustain significant global deployments. It has territories across every ocean on the planet and has its its military deployed across the globe. By every measure the UK is a great power and has been for… Read more »
I am afraid one can create any scale one wishes but the broader and more all encompassing the scale, the less useful it is. If the definition is: “states able to influence on a global scale”, that would basically apply to any medium-sized power; i.e. at least all the G20 states and probably more. That stretches the definition of the term “Great Power” to the point of irrelevance. By any traditional definition (which is that which has prevailed since at least 1648), a Great Power is: a) a state that is recognized by other Great Powers in the system as… Read more »
Roy I use the term in its fully accepted academic and geopolitical meaning as per generally accepted across the globe by all powers including the UN. the simple fact is by any and every measure the Uk is around the fourth or fifth most powerful nation on the planet… 2014 publication Great Power Peace and American Primacy, Joshua Baron consider the UK a great power. American international legal scholar Milena Sterio considered the UK a great power zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski the United Nations security adviser considered the UK a great power. the list is of key academics and leaders in the… Read more »
The reality is that there is, and has been for a long-time, considerable debate as to what constitutes Great Power status. I accept that. But the question is, what is the purpose of the term? The purpose, first and foremost, has to be meaningful and it must describe something that is useful in terms of analyzing and describing the nature of the international system. The definition, as you have framed it, as a state “able to influence on a global scale” is far too broad to be useful. Influence to what degree? Influence in what realm or area? Any state… Read more »
If we continue cutting, falling. If we steadily rebuild numbers & capabilities, rising.
Disarming any further in a volitile downright dangerous world is a death wish, insane.
We rose, then we fell, then we muddled along.
Indecision will get you every time. We are afraid of making a decision in case we get punished for making a mistake….think Ajax or many other delayed defence projects and you get the idea.
True.
In parallel, we should have been building High Speed rail lines from the mid-60s like the Japanese (factoid from Wiki – ‘Over the Shinkansen’s 50-plus-year history, carrying over 10 billion passengers, there has not been a single passenger fatality or injury on board due to derailments or collisions’).
How long have we taken to decide on another runway for Heathrow or Gatwick?
So much prevarication in the army on uprading or replacing AFVs and Artillery systems in the last 20-25 years.
There is nothing in the paper that answers any relevant questions about programs that are vital within the next decade: Will the assault ships be replaced? Will Type 32 be built? How many F-35s will be ordered? The paper has a lot of rhetoric (“cutting edge”, “battle winning”), but very little substance of any kind. But then, without any benchmarks, Parliament has nothing to monitor or to hold the Government to account on … which I suppose is the ultimate objective.
But this is a strategy and direction paper, not an integrated defence review…different beast different purposes.
There is nothing in the paper that provides anything relevant on “strategy and direction” either. There are no goals, no benchmarks … anything can be cut in the years ahead and it could be said to be completely consistent with the paper. … as noted, I think that is the general idea.
Its “strategic speak”, very general, other more specific details are to be found elsewhere. I’m with you, it’d be good to hear more on actual commitments to purchasing actual new equipment not just talking about it. And considering the urgency of the moment hopefully all this comes soonish!
The latter is designed to ensure the UK’s ability to “get there first” in global conflict situations I’m not sure I really trust what politicians do or say anymore, since they seem to make the same errors about our countries defence on a regular basis. The question that I have is whether our armed forces have much meat left on the bone, particularly with our superbly competent and professional soldiers who seem to be on the receiving end of most of these cuts. I think that we can safely say that this countries forces (and it depresses me to say… Read more »
Agree sadly we are very much a defence force.Give up on our government and other parties. 🙄
In 1990 we were a defence force with limited power projection capability. Today we are the polar opposite. Power projection force with limited home defence.
In 1990 we were still at Cold War size with very much larger forces than today – the RN could surely do power projection with its three carriers, 50 DD/FF – and the RAF had a larger AT fleet than today. etc.
The Home threat I judge to be internal Jim. Who is going to attack this island from without? Not Russia I suspect. A rising issue is strengthening our national infrastructure. I trust someone is addressing this as I type.
Which is what a classical liberal state is
Agreed
I find it embarrassing and unjust that we depend so heavily on the USA. I’m just grateful that for the time being they are willing to be there when it counts. They shouldn’t have to carry such a heavy burden for the collective defence of the West. This will become more true as the USA begins to lose its reserve currency status and nations move away from buying US debt as a means of purchasing, secure and liquid assets. When that happens they won’t be able to run so high a deb0; so I expect the DoD will have to… Read more »
The thing that concerns me most is what a future US President will decide re. the future of NATO and who pays for the defence of Europe. I think the current status quo is not going to last indefinitely. A very bad deal for the US, they deserve far better. When is a blinkered and complacent Europe going to wake up and take more responsibility for its own defence?
I’m sure we will just have to rely on the 1.8 million service personnel in European NATO to defend our continent after the 100,000 US troops leave Europe.
How many of that 1.8 million are combat ready, fully equipped and supported, genuinely interoperable and ‘ready to fight tonight’? How long could they sustain operations before US support (including material, technological, etc.) was required? I suspect not long. Numbers on paper only tell a partial story.
Paul the simple truth is that the European NATO powers vastly overmatch Russia and any conventional threat. In reality the biggest part of any US security guarantees around Europe relate to nuclear weapons…Russia has failed to destroy a nation with a GDP small than Greece. The reality is Russia would have no hope of winning against the European NATO powers. It’s a poor nation.
Agree
Oh, you are your facts Jonathan!
And what fact is that Barry, it’s called an opinion we are allowed to have them.
Jonathan! Jonathan! That was a joke matey! I completely agree with your analysis based on facts. That might not be a common point of view around here!
Sorry feeling a bit sensitive, had one of those days at work when it does not matter the sense you talk some senior person just has to have the last say..
I sympathise.
Alot more than any enemy we face.
That will happen if one of the great European powers takes command. At present, the money that Germany commands while France is foundering is startling. All we need now is for Germany to drift away to the east and we have a huge issue on our hands.
What do we depend on the USA for? I seem to remember us deploying a brigade in Afghanistan after they were attacked and sending a division to Iraq in support of their war but I have a hard time seeing what we have depended on the USA for since 1989.
Please elaborate.
Are you really that deluded? Lets start that RN would not have carriers and nuclear submarines without US? including SSN because the technology and know how was lost after Trafalgar class?
I am not even talking about Trident.
This comment is quite ironic.
The first aircraft carrier, the first purpose built aircraft carrier to have steel cut, the steam catapult and angled fight deck and optical landing systems are all British inventions.
The Manhattan project wouldn’t have succeeded without Britain.
Britain had an operational jet fighter before America, and had a jet land on a carrier before America.
Submarine wasn’t an American invention.
Sorry for the duplication I don’t know why that happened.
Countries without future look at glorious past.
😐 what do you want me to say to that?
You’ve brought nothing to the table in this discussion, instead just spouting out nonsense
Hard to say who invented the sub, but the first British subs were based on the US version built by Holland ( born in Ireland though)
The first British submarine was built by Mr Drenbel in the 1600s. I doubt they where based on anything American since it didn’t exist then.
Thanks for that . I was thinking the later practical military type.
‘The Manhattan project wouldn’t have succeeded without Britain.’
I haven’t seen the film Oppenheimer, but I doubt much will be made of the British speedy progress towards making a feasible nuclear weapon. In 1941 Peierls and Frisch working at the University of Birmingham correctly determined the critical mass of nuclear material required, a feat the great physicist Heisenberg on the Nazí programme, failed to do. The use of shaped charges to initiate a detonation, was also contributed to the Manhattan Project by a British scientist.
.
Why would the RN not have two QE-class carriers without the US?
Without F-35 there will not be QE.
OK, I see your angle now. Although if F-35B did not exist we would have built the carriers with cats and traps – it was a design option from Day 1 of the programme.
None of that’s true, F35 is a joint project LM/BAE with UK and US both tier 1 partners, and it would not be able to land vertically without RR technology. Should I be greatful to Germany for being a partner in Eurofighter or Japan in GCAP. Seem to remember us building something called Vanguard after Trafalgar and being given access to EB computer and design team hardly means the USA is responsible for astute. It certainly was not involved in Dreadnaught. Trident sure, they sold us a weapon system, I would rather we built it on our own. France does… Read more »
F-35 is an american project, they had resources to go it alone without UK, the inverse is not true.
Astute needed American design teams because UK cannot afford to have silly military-political decisions like US (LCS, Zummy, Ford) but keeps making them.
And yet we built aircraft without the US before F35 (Typhoon, Tornado,Jaguar)and we are building aircraft without the US after F35 (Tempest) if America did not need or want our help why did it offer us such an amazing deal to be part of F35, 15% workshare when we only put up 5% of the development fund and promised to buy 4% of the planned aircraft.
Why did America offer us such an amazing deal, do you think they are stupid?
Please explain you rational.
No answer for that one 😀
Trident – US sold us missiles less warheads. The warheads and the boats were British made.
What do we depend on the US for???? I’m going to say you are being a tad tongue in cheek here Jim. The UK has since 1990 effectively disarmed in all areas. Mass reduced to the bare minimum, then reduced some more to the very point of ( almost ) being unilaterally ineffective. We are there right now, standing on that cliff edge, looking into the abyss, thanks to 30 years of savage cuts. So, we now utterly rely on the US tax payer and the United States military to defend us, it’s a simple fact, just be eternally grateful… Read more »
What power do we depend on the US to defend us from…Russia….this is a nation that has been unable to defeat a nation with a GDP smaller than Greece that had a airforce of Cold War relics and a half trained army….if Russia actually went up against the RN and RAF I would not go well. As for land invasions of NATO what do you think would happen if Russia invites Poland, Finland or the Nordic nations, it would be chewed up and spat out. let’s be very very honest here the major Defense guarantee is a nuclear one and… Read more »
Not tongue and cheek John, you are aware that Uk defence spending is varied on the threat environment, we have done the same since 1707, can you please explain the threat since 1990 that our defence spending has been unable to defend us from?
This just simply isn’t true. In the two major conflicts the US has fought this century, Britain was vital. Britain spent more money as a % of GDP and similar casualties per capita in Afghanistan, for the US to pull out on their own terms. It wouldn’t have been viable politically to invade Iraq in 2003 without Britain. The largest threat to the UK this century has been the invasion of Ukraine. Britain has given more aid as a % of GDP than the US, trained many more troops than the US and led the way in giving certain equipment-… Read more »
I disagree, the US could have cracked on perfectly well without us in Iraq and Afghanistan, we were small players in the greater scheme. That’s certainly no swipe at the total professionalism of our Armed forces, who fought with distinction as ever.. Our involvement was no more that George W Bush leading Blair by the nose into ill conceived interventions. The total tragedy of our Afghanistan intervention was the utter pointlessness of it. It ultimately achieved absolutely nothing (as most forecast it would), just took hundreds of young lives and left many thousands living with permanent injuries. Today it’s like… Read more »
I agree with you on the fact that we shouldn’t have got involved in either wars.
Politically it would’ve been more difficult to invade Iraq alone for the US. They would also have to find an extra 4 brigades for the invasion (7 brigade was huge and almost the size of 2 brigades).
All of that is pretty irrelevant to the fact that we do not rely on the US for our defence. Even the US would struggle to invade Britain.
With respect Louis, the US would be able to overwhelm our defences on day 2 of an altogether unlikely invasion, I’m not sure what phantom Army/ Navy/ Airforce capability you think we have that could stop the overwhelming strength of the US military sledgehammer…
Not so absurd. USAF The distance between the US and UK rules out the USAF aside from bombers and drones. USN 11 carriers, 2 of which are being refuelled so are not part of the active fleet leaves 9. At an 50% availability rate that leaves 4-5 carriers, each with total 51 F/A-18, F35C and EF18s, for a total of 204-255. USMC 9 LHD’s, 50% availability and 16 F35B each gives a total of 64-80. Total US fighter jets at 268-335. RAF 32 F35B 137 Typhoon 3 Typhoon at BAE Warton. Assuming none of the Qatari Typhoons can be scrounged… Read more »
The US needed us politically in the two Iraq wars and in Afghanistan – to internationalise the conflict and give the US president the tacit acceptance of ‘the international community’. The UK’s involvement persuaded others to join the endeavours.
How many missiles did Obama launch at Syria after the British parliament voted not to intervene?
Zero despite French support.
True. Obama was weak, indecisive and changed his mind. He set a red line (Syria using WMD), then ignored it.
He also prevaricated a lot on the raid to kill/capture Bin Laden.
Yes all true, trump did much the same against Iran pulled back last minute.
For all the US strength it has never liked to act alone just as Britain never has.
While the UK may be smaller relative to the US today militarily it’s still desperately important in US domestic politics. No American president wants to be seen acting on the world stage and deploying forces without British support and approval.
Obama was ready to go in to Syria but the pulling back of British involvement stopped him.
How do we depend heavily on the US militarily? The UK is constantly second only to the US in military operations. The two major operations of the 21st century that the US has been involved in are Iraq and Afghanistan. The US was unlikely to invade Iraq without the UK as it would’ve been infeasible politically. The UK spent the most money as a percentage of GDP in Afghanistan (more than the US), suffered roughly the joint most casualties per capita with the US, for America to then leave on their own terms. Since 1902, Panama and Grenada are the… Read more »
Yeah, don’t you know the UK is s**t at everything and everyone else is amazing, no idea why 40,000 people swam the channel to get here last year 😀
% of GDP is irrelevant for the success when that real value is low for the size of war..
How is it irrelevant?
You spend 50% of your personal annual budget giving weapons to Ukranians, is that relavant to the size of the war?
I doubt we will ever “get there first “…second maybe & that still depends on who is there first..
Wallace made a really good point in interviews today, he stated in 1982, 1991 and 2003 we did not actually deploy a war fighting division but rather an adhoc collection of brigades scrapped together from two divisions.
So our war fighting division with two armoured and one deep strike brigade could be seen as an improvement. There was a lot of fat in the army before that was not easily deployable.
The force now is much different but still highly capable on a deployed basis.
It’s certainly effective at Brigade level operations, no doubt, but deploying a division is laughable at the moment quite frankly, with its creaking out of date armour and APC’s, with Scimitar as it’s eyes and ears… Do me a favour…. Maybe in 10 years with Chally3, Boxer, New APC, Ajax ( actually working) and new deplyable and effective artillery systems, AH64E networked to drones etc…. Perhaps them we could actually deploy a fighting Division, today it’s looking more and more like scrapheap challenge after the Army’s armour and supports have been allowed to wither on the vine and get increasingly… Read more »
Same was said in 91 and they excelled in the gulf.
Effectiveness of modern equipment aside, during the Cold war, we were regarded as having a small professional armed forces. As a snap shot, the RAF had 31 fast jet squadrons at the time of the gulf war, how many does it have today? The RN had 45 escorts, how many today? The Army had 140,000 regulars and 800 MBT’s, how many today? The answer is a ‘tiny’ fraction of the above…. You actually seem blind to the size of our armed forces today? In 1991, we were capable of deploying mass unilaterally, today (no matter the political bullshit spin) we… Read more »
Wallace is spinning the PR a bit here, and must know that as ex-Army. The 12th and 20th Armoured Brigades of 3rd (UK) Division are not tank formations as might be assumed, but renamed Armoured Infantry Brigades, which in turn were renamed Mechanised Brigades. How many Challenger 2 tanks does the division actually have on strength? A reasonable guess is about 80 of the 157 still available (Defence Select Committee report, March 2023). The down sizing to just 148 tanks (albeit CR3’s) is already nearly complete. Also, 3 (UK) Division is now the British Army’s only deployable medium/heavy formation, unlike… Read more »
The US stopped deploying armoured brigades a long time ago, are they shit as well?
Armoured brigades are too heavy to move very far in time. Armoured infantry brigade combat teams replaced them for the most part.
The ability to quickly deploy in a crisis a full Armoured Brigade with c.100 modern MBTs is a good measure of whether a country is a regional or global military power. The UK passed the test in 1991 and just about passed the test in 2003, but can’t now.
“The 12th and 20th Armoured Brigades of 3rd (UK) Division are not tank formations as might be assumed, but renamed Armoured Infantry Brigades, which in turn were renamed Mechanised Brigades.” Yes, and before that in BAOR they were…Armoured Brigades. That sort of name changing goes on all the time. Despite the name changes, their make up remains pretty constant, 1 Reg of Tank, 1 of Recc, 2 of Armoured or Mechanized Infantry, dependant on the name in use at the time, plus assigned CS CSS 1 each of RA, RE Regs, a RLC CS Reg, RAMC Reg, 1 REME Bn,… Read more »
People put waaaay to much stock in names and not capabilities.
👍
Lot of talk and waffle etc, but it doesn’t layout any clear plans for procurement, or modifications to existing procurement issues such as 2 more E7s, speeding up Type 26 construction, purchase of weapons for Mk41 Vls etc etc etc
Got it in one!
Ummm I smell shite to 😎
Without more money there won’t be any modifications or more kit not already announced and budgeted.
Type 26 construction timeframe is set. It is Type 31 that’s moving forward at pace to increase frigate numbers. The last I heard HMS Venturer is still meant to be commissioned in 2025, all 5 by 2030.
Mk41 is for FC/ASW and CAMM. NSM has been purchased as an interim.
Hey Rob,
Do you think the 5 x NSM ship sets ordered for the Type 23s will cross deck to the Type 31s, now that they have Mk41 VLS? I can’t see them fitted to the Type 26 or Type 32 (if they ever come to fruition) and the Type 45s will have their own.
Type 31 with 32 x Mk41 VLS and 8 x NSM will pack a tidy punch! – especially as I understand CAMM can be quad packed in the MK41.
The first 3 T31 will be commissioned before FC/ASW is ready (assuming that meets the 2028 deadline). If it is to have any power projection it will need NSM.
We are getting 11 sets. I believe at any one time we have that number of escorts available for taskings so it seems that whichever ships are active will carry NSM. What happens when FC/ASW is in service I doubt even the RN has decided.
But this is a strategy/geopolitical document it’s not designed to put down the nuts and bolts of how many ships when…..
Yes, and I agree with the direction it takes. But don’t you think, for something of this importance to be taken seriously, it needs –
Details on how these plans will be achieved.
Full costs broken down for each area.
Resources allocated.
What needs to be procured to make the plans a reality.
Till then, it is just waffle, like all the others, which is impossible for either us, the public, or even HM opposition to judge with any clarity.
Hi Daniele yes indeed, this is a good geopolitical opener, but the devil will always be in the details: How will we maintain a credible ability to deploy an effective combined arms division. How will we maintain to quick response stability forces, amphibious and air mobile. How will we maintain an effective carrier group answer air wing How will we expand and develop the SSN force ( vital as a global deterrent). How will we develop a credible air defence system that can protect key national infrastructure against cruise missile, short range Ballistic missiles and hypersonic missile attack. How will… Read more »
I look forward to the Shadow Secretary of State for Defence answering those questions! If the Tories won’t, will Labour?
Ha ha ha
Good joke.
Nobody wants a costed timelined anything to be measured against.
Mind you if they did that I would salute them as a grown up. I’d accept it might slip a bit and have to change as things evolved.
However, the key issue is that the budgets will never add up to the aspirations without that most useful of weasel devices – wishful thinking….
No chance at all, that way we would know what is needed and what it costs, re what we have to sacrifice or pay..that is never going to work as I don’t think anyone would vote for an honest politician.
No – they have said the first thing they would launch when returned to power is yet another Defence Review. So in the context of this paper its virtually pointless as any new administration would write another one.The last thing they would do is make any commitment beyond existing contracts and I suspect some of those may be up for review..
Excellent questions that demand answering for the future security of the nation & its role on the world stage. Unfortunately we lack mature political leadership, being offered far too many “fillers”, money worshippers & idiotic pseudo-celebs. People with real ability & the national interests at heart don’t often ehough reach the positions to do good.
I think we can safely say that’s unfortunately true. I do think it’s how we now select our political classes. They very much seem to choose politics as a way to personal power. Personally I would like to see our political classes come from a wider range of people who have already spent their lives in the betterment of our society. Politics should be the remit of the old and wise. Not the young and ambitious.
Ambition is no substitute for ability.
I thought you might enjoy the article, including links!
Thanks mate.
Spot on. I read the paper twice. The only detail provided is of the help given to Ukraine. The rest of it is a lot of meaningless waffle, much of which has been published before. I don’t understand what purpose such a paper serves and who its intended audience is. Utter waste of time. I did pick up one interesting point and a second slight contradiction. The first is the aim ” to recover the warfighting resilience needed….” ,effectively an admission that we have lost it. The second was the repeated commitment to the defence industrial strategy whilst claiming credit… Read more »
Indeed. Sir Humphrey would be proud.
Look the “The Nigeria Solution” in Youtube…
Thanks Alex, but that search gives loads of videos, which one did you mean?
My mistake and apologies.
The Rhodesia Solution from Yes Minister.
Haha that’s a great mistake to make. We have all been watching videos about Nigeria for the last 12 hours wondering where it all went wrong for Nigeria 😂😂😂😂 classic
We can’t control our own borders. Shame we are happier defending other’s.
Well we could if the politicians fromALL parties had the balls to do what the vast majority of the people want done😡
What you mean have a properly functioning asylum system or are your advocating for death camps, hard to tell.
Yawn.
As far as I’m aware we do have a functioning system for genuine refugees coming through the proper channels! Now how can we process people who we have no clue as to who they are arriving here illegally?
Due to efficiency savings at the home office the system was scaled back, now we have a massive back log.
Didn’t answer the question did you! How do you process people with no identification?
DNA, facial recognition all being used, it’s really not a big problem in asylum applications.
I want those fleeing persecution or war to be compasionately recieved & cared for, not treated like scum. Weed out those trying it on asap but don’t add to the traumor of victims.
One day it could be us.
And if it was me fearing for my life or my family I’d be claiming asylum in the first safe country as would you. Staying in a safe country illegally doesn’t make any sense, you get no support and could be deported. The best policy would be to say if you’ve travelled through a safe country you must claim asylum, we will then consider a resettlement application from that safe country through a proper channel but you must have an asylum claim in progress where you apply from. We could then take those who need most help and share the… Read more »
Except, you know as well as I do and everyone else that a great many are actually economic migrants.
What war is underway in Albania at the moment?
Lots of words acknowledging the developing threats- no specific proposals to respond to them, because HMG has refused to accept the logic that growing threats require a growing capability to respond- which implies the need for considerably more funding to be allocated to defence.
“The latter is designed to ensure the UK’s ability to “get there first” in global conflict situations.”
It’s lucky that we haven’t just retired a fleet of transport aircraft then isn’t it?
Yeah but with ‘bigger and better ones” but maybe with not enough nor quite the niche capabilty…
There’s also the question of readiness rates, it’s hard to find concrete numbers but A400Ms don’t appear to be the most dependable aircraft.
Started reading it but gave up when I realised it was a long way of saying very little! Lots of waffle and trendy buzzwords, plenty of intentions but very few cast iron facts!
Apparently mass no longer matters! I’m sure ‘getting there first’ will mean a great deal to the locals in some far flung flare up when we arrived with our platoon in a single aircraft.
The only aspect I liked was Ben Wallace saying that we need to decide or delete rather than defer on procurement.
but they will be THE best equiped platoon in the world- bar none! Gold compasses and Silver bullets …just in case
Obviously silver bullets for the werewolves, but when will they pick up the holy water for the vampires if there’s no mass? Find out next week on Super(natural) Platoon.
Concur with most posts. Lots of buzzwords and describing military capabilities we have and have had for decades as if they’re somehow new, aimed I suspect at the majority of the public who know not a jot about the military. Lots of refs to the new money going in to the budget, of course. 2.5 billion on increasing stockpiles…how much of that is additional and how much is just replacing UKR bound stock? They did to be fair use the word “augment” but no figures. BW stated on the first page that no detail to add at all on platforms… Read more »
Good summation, thanks
Is there a relationship between LEWIS and Fylingdales or are they to be completely separate systems?
Different radar at another location. Speculation has ranged from Cyprus to the old RAF Brawdy ( currently Cawdor Bks)
Thanks
Interesting to read this. In truth, the UK is faced with not being able to afford armed forces of any substance and the army is now very small, little more than a home defence force. To big things up, the government talks of being a ‘science and technology superpower’. This isn’t going to happen no more than the much vaunted ‘Global Britain’. A country on the edge of Europe with a population and GDP that the UK has just doesn’t pack the punch, no more than say Italy or Spain does. We and others depend entirely on the goodwill of… Read more »
I want to know specifics on artillery and air defence does anybody no any details?
More SPG are coming, be they Archer, K9, or another. No idea how many. MoD has 6 AD programs ongoing, from memory, and this was weeks ago so I may be a bit out or missed something. Expansion of MRAD – meaning Sky Sabre in 16RA. Certainly more launchers, but if more Batteries too then that is not yet clear. SHORAD – A new vehicle to replace Stormer, probably Boxer based. SHORAD – A 4th HVM Battery has already formed. Another SHORAD program is looking at AA guns to counter UAV. 3 other programs as yet undisclosed. GMLRS – Money… Read more »
Hi Daniele,
SPG were mentioned recently by Ben Wallace. I can’t remember where – he as been making quite a few statements recently. He stated that the short range 155 guns (AS90) would be replaced with Archer mark 1 systems. I got the impression when I read this that the MoD was going to standardise on these systems as a full replacement programme, but he might have just been refering to the small number being procured to replace those AS90’s going to Ukraine…
Cheers CR
Hi CR
Shame, I would have liked K9 with UK build as suggested by the Koreans.
Didn’t Wallace mention Swedish built kit somewhere recently. I thought that was for the RA to replace kit sent to Ukraine – or maybe that meatballs for the NAFFI.
My understanding is that the Archer systems are only an interim replacement to partially fill the gap left buy gifting AS90 to UKR. The actual future SPG system has yet to be decided.
Hi M8. I think you have sort of summed this all up with your comments regarding the RA and the extra that is being provided. Same can be said for the uplift on the actual war fighting abilities of the T45, T26 and T31. Plus the move to a more flexible approach to deal with Mines and sub surface threats and tge partnership with Holland on future Amphibious capacity. I believe this paper isn’t a Defence secretary setting out a future brand new strategy but actually putting in the public domain his vision as a roadmap for his successor. It… Read more »
Evening mate. “Daft as it sounds but for me the best bit of new info was him outing Jeremy Corbyn as a Brexiteer.” New info? I’d missed that, and I did not watch or listen to Wallace, but I thought it well known anyway JC was a closet Brexiteer! Retaining Warrior? Is this some new rumour that Warrior will be updated after all and retained alongside Boxer? A new one on me, or a confusion due to delays in Boxer/Ajax? What I do know is that Boxer, for all the hype, will not be available in bulk until the 2030s… Read more »
With build rate of Boxer being 3/month, it would take 42 years to issue 1,500.
I know, ridiculous at present. Obviously, it will ramp up.
What, in your estimation is an acceptable build rate for an APC like Boxer, once things are up to speed?
Just done some maths – US/Canada built 18 Strykers per month, but we are not in that league!
French built 5 VBCIs per month. Perhaps 5/mth would be the most that Boxer could ramp up to. Not great news, is it!
I’m stunned. Surely not. There are 2 UK production lines I understand.
Maybe it will be more than 5/month – I may be over-cautious. There really is little info to go on. You are right that there are 2 manufacturers. MoD contracted with ARTEC who build 117 Boxers in Germany then hand over to UK contractors. ARTEC have sub-contracted to WFEL (was Fairey Engineering) and RBSL who will split the Tranche 1 order equally. https://defence.nridigital.com/global_defence_technology_jun21/wfel_boxer_miv_facility “WFEL’s slice of the workshare includes fabricating hulls, assembling finished vehicles, and integrating and testing finished vehicles”. WFEL specialise in military bridges and have never made a vehicle before! WFEL has built a bespoke Boxer fabrication and… Read more »
The various reports are confusing, particularly those from RBSL, which I believe are spun too heavily. That 260 figure you link to is from 2020, before the extra 100 modules were ordered in 2022. I had thought the two production lines were for base hulls and modules, WFEL building the bases and RBSL building the modules. Now I’m not so sure. What I think is happening is that WFEL build most of the drive units (480) and RBSL and WFEL split the mission module production between them, with RBSL getting more of the modules. Try this article from Battlespace, regarding… Read more »
Jon, you have my admiration for trying to make sense of this. So many websites give scant to no detail – it is such a problem for those of us who like at least some details.
You talk about 635 but someone said recently on UKDJ that funding is in place for over 1,000 Boxers.
I hate this site’s downer on longer posts that means whenever I try to reference something properly and link to sources, it goes to approval hell. Then it’s just a toss up whether it eventually makes it out of the other side. That algorithm need a serious rethink!
I’ll keep fingers crossed my long reply gets through. The tldr is that the “equal” split isn’t what you might think and your 260 figure is from before the 100 extras, so it’ll be more.
Why do some posts go to Approval – didn’t used to happen to mine, but it often does now. One day all my posts (about 10) went to approval, and none were long.
My guesstimate that UK Boxer production could go from 3 to 5 per month is based on doubling the stated 3/mth figure for the 2 lines, then taking away 1 (3×2-1)to reflect that we always seem to have some difficulties.
Can’t work out the numbers properly without knowing how many build stations each company has, how many workers, what the build time is, what the build process is including QA checks testing etc.
Even if it is quite a lot more than 5/mth for the 2 factories combined, the build time for 1,000-1,500 vehs is long.
Whatever it turns out to be, it is a reason is going nowhere for now.
Just read on the Major Projects reports on Twitter ( Gabs Blog ) that Boxer is slightly delayed due to a comms fit issue.
Not surprised there will be a glitch or two with a vehicle that is new to UK manufacturing. Comms fits are notoriously complex to design, develop and test.
But… on the other hand, that means that the buisness won’t go under. Japan has been builting the Type 10 MBT at a pretty consistent rate of 10 per year AFAIK, which is incredibly slow…. but on the other hand they maintain an active production line of MBT’s so….
True. VDS/BAE made 386 CR2 and 22 DTTs in 1993-2002, then 66 T2 in about 2002-3. Then had no further tank orders and no contracts for major upgrades. So two new tank factories at Newcastle and Leeds closed. What a waste.
Have a read of the Times article on Warrior, it’s rather interesting.
I cannot read it, and not interested in signing up for tree trials that they suggest.
What’s your take mate?
I think you are right. I just wish there was a bit more commitment to number and timelines particularly for come of the COTS and MOTS projects where costs are nailed down. I wouldn’t be too surprised if he or his aides read some or all of this. Coherently argued thoughts often do end up on governmental desks the world over. Ideas have to come from somewhere. Rather amusingly, or maybe not, a post of mine made in a different sphere once crossed my proverbial desk with ‘what do you think of this idea – sounds quite well informed and… Read more »
That is definitely amusing; did you suggest that the author might deserve a bonus? 🤔😉
I fear that the recipient would have realised the the contributor was one whom the present interlocutor was in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun.
To borrow a phrase from Sir Humphrey…….
You have zeroed in on a critical decision node–who will be selected to replace Big Ben? No one believes this, but he has been the most effective Defence Minister in at least one generation, possibly two. Restored rationality to MoD, both a tactical and strategic and planning focus and a tireless advocacy for additional funding. Unfortunate that he can”t be recruited to DoD, really intriguing possibilities could be envisioned w/ a $800+B budget. Best wishes for R. Sunak to select a competent replacement. 🤔🤞
The Next Defence secretary will only be in the job for 9 months at most and won’t be doing a defence review thank god. Rishi sunak specialises in having a government specifically designed to do nothing and leave no trace. He is worse than Obama who at least managed to play a fair bit of golf. Agree on US budget, it’s absolutely astounding your spending over $800 billion a year and you just increased it by a further $80 billion. Clearly the US military is the most powerful force on the planet but I think that’s more to do with… Read more »
You need to include how much of that 800 billion disappears into their “Black Budget”
That is where their “Death Stars” are.
I bloody hope so for that price 😀
…and he can’t be reruited to be SG of NATO due to Joe Biden favouring Ursula vdL.
Options to replace Big Ben must include: James Heappey, Tom Tugendhat, Penny Mordaunt – although rumour has it that James Cleverly is interested but that would be a demotion, so that’s puzzling.
Cleverly answered the rumours saying that he really wanted to stay put at FCDO (you will see the fingernail marks on the parquet flooring of my office if anyone tries to drag me out). Why would Sunak want him anywhere other than where he is? Home Office would be more likely than Defence, but then who would take FCDO?I don’t see Mordaunt going back and I think Heappey will get it over Tugendhat. I like Tugendhat, but he has opinions and will want to do something. Rishi won’t want a boat rocker in the run up to an election. Heappey… Read more »
Tugendhat came across as too quiet and not strong enough in the leadership debates. Useful that he has military experience but I cannot understand how he went from 2Lt to Lt Col in the Army Reserve/TA in only 10 years – in the regulars it took 18-20 years for the gifted.
I think it will be Heappey.
The story about retaining Warrior came from a Ukraine source – they also got it wrong that we would up the CR2 donation to 28 tanks.
Check out the Times article on Warrior. You couldn’t make it up if you tried.
Its behind a paywall. What were the main points?
Here is my take on this. There were 2 options. Option A – Cancel WCSP and buy Boxer for the AI instead. Cost of this option includes: write-off of £473.467m on NRE for WCSP (which would have upgraded 380 Warriors of various types); purchase of 380 Boxers at £5.36m ie £2037.1m. Grand total of £2,510.567m. I have not included the costs to the State of 158 men losing their jobs at LM Ampthill, some of whom might now be getting dole money and Job Centre support. Option B – Continue with WCSP. Accept that WCSP over-ran by £227m so the… Read more »
Thanks for all this extra “real” detail. 😆
Looks like a load of waffle to me
Well, I was looking forward to reading the paper…
Expecting to see some actual pictures of future structure and numbers etc
With updates on equipment etc
It was page after page of boring nonsense!
An awfully long wait for an awful lot of nothing.
As I feared, the plan to form a Littoral Response Group (South) has clearly been abandoned, and it’s now LRG in the singular. E.g. “The Littoral Response Group will be ready to periodically deploy to the Indo Pacific from later this year”. A bit embarrassing as it was almost the only part of the Integrated Review that the Yanks liked, and the 2SL was talking it up with them as recently as this April! I wonder where that leaves RFA Argus and her delayed LSS conversion? It’s not included in the MOD’s latest contract PIN list so must now be very doubtful.
I don’t really understand the RFA Argus refit for LRG south, we could replicate LRG north if we wanted – have both bulwark and Albion in active service
The Albion’s are too expensive to run and currently it would be impossible for the RN to crew both with sacrificing something else. Also they have command & control facilities designed for managing a full scale brigade-level amphibious operation – but the UK lost that capability years ago. So basically overkill in a LSS role. Finally their hull life is now having to be managed carefully as they will almost certainly be in service for closer to 35 than 25 years. Deploying Argus (with a largely RFA crew) permanently to the Indian Ocean with a company of RMs and a… Read more »
Yep, with only one LRG it seems likely that Argus won’t be converted. Might be scrapped given her previous OSD was 2024.
Also seems the commitment to permanently forward basing T31’s in the Indo-Pacific has been dropped.
Trying to do everything everywhere results in pretty rhetoric with little of substance to back it up.
Yes, the forward deployed OPV’s have been almost too much of a success. Also the T31’s have grown in cost and sophistication, hardly ‘light overseas frigates’ any more. They will need a home base, UKNSF Bahrain at least. Makes me wonder if an upgraded Batch 3 River incorporating “lessons learnt” makes more sense than pressing on with the still intangible T32 project, spend the savings on a couple of extra T31’s.
I’m not sure that’s what the review is saying. LRG North has already deployed but like many other matters isn’t mentioned specifically. It is odd that it refers to “the” LRG deploying to Indo Pacific and not LRG South, but that could be just clumsy writing.
I agree, I see no evidence the LRG(S) idea has been binned. That will be Labour’s job in a few years.
Mmm.The lack of force structure detail says to me it was written with an eye that this current political party won’t be running the MOD in 18 months time.
Get there first? Get there first with what exactly?
There’s no point arriving first unless you arrive with enough clout to hold your own without any help. Otherwise you arrive, wave your willy, then get bitch slapped.
We can only just achieve that in our own back yard. We certainly can’t achieve that just outside of our own backyard. To suggest we can do it globally is ridiculous.
Who writes this shit?
I think the get their first was supposed to be around the deployment of the global rapid reaction force. Composed of 16th air landing brigade and the Rams plus logistic, engineering and light artillery support.
Royal marines, not Rams. Blinking autocorrection.🤣😂🤣
More boots on the floor.
More hulls in the water.
More fighters in the air.
Fewer idiots in Whitehall.
👍👍👍 🇬🇧
According to Capt Mainwaring’s resignation speech in Parliament yesterday, he has obtained an extra £24billion for defence over his 4 year term in office. This is more than the defence budget of many other countries. Exactly what has the taxpayer got for this tremendous sum? How many additional ships, tanks, warplanes, trained fighting personel, artillery, armoured personel carriers, tracked SPG, Wedgetails, airlift capability, helicopters etc does this represent? As far as I can tell very little. So on what has the money been spent? I would say MoD pensions, covering for the latest cock-ups, wasting £billions on R&D projects like… Read more »
Exactly all that money just went in to fill existing black holes. Army and RAF procurement isn’t broken it’s detrimental to them at the moment. Howerver, the RN does seem to have got its house in order after a decades of mismanagement.
ASRAAM and Enhanced Paveway 4 are British weapons on F35B. So will Spear 3 and Meteor 👍😉
The F35B inability to carry integrated British missles isn’t really to do with spending the money is it – but I get your point.
Meteor was not ready when UK weapons were being integrated like ASRAMM and Paveway IV on Block III and SPEAR 3 did not even exist. That’s why they are on block IV integration which is unfortunately years late. It’s nothing to do with it being a British weapon, the US and everyone else has piles of weapons in the queue as well.
There is an interesting reference to the need in future to avoid vendor lock in on projects. I assume this is a reference to the F35, where LM won’t even allow the US government full access to key software.
Navy Lookout summarised it perfectly “Political perfection – you can’t miss a target that has not been set.”
Nothing more than 90 pages of waffle, sums up the never-ending mess the country is in.
Positive attitude, please people I love this website but sometimes reading the comments is like listening to a scratched CD!
Lots of positive acquisitions going on, lots of young enthusiastic recruits joining the forces!
Average Joe on the street doesn’t want to pay more tax, for the size of this country we have a great military!
WW3 Isn’t coming and with our allies we’d still be on top! So no worries be happy 😊
Tax rates are too high, but the money is being wasted in eye watering amounts. The British Military is still one of the best, but it is constantly mismanaged and underfunded.
I think people who know know and others just speculate, and that’s fine but sometimes be positive, That’s my point, top man!
one thing I would say…actually there are some pretty good indications WW3 may actually be coming. If China decides it can take Taiwan it will launch an invasion, that even would almost certainly trigger world war 3, that is a distinct geopolitical risk that is only rising and will reach maximum risk in around a decade if nothing changes geopolitically speaking ( like a great sino western rapprochement or the ROC suddenly giving up and surrendering to the CCP).
Thanks for the the great reply mate, like hearing different points of view.
Invading Taiwan is not an easy task irrelevant of man power and equipment, so many reasons why this shouldn’t happen (not saying it won’t) just can’t see China throwing it all away for Taiwan.
Regards
An autocratic President coming to the end of his tenure and thinking legacy doesn’t see what he’s throwing away.
https://katenorthrup.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/kate-snail-blog.jpg
Utter nonsense. This government continues to hollow out the Army and it should be ashamed of itself.
Nonsense this country has a great armed forces! If you want to speculate nonsense that’s up to you! Everyone blaming every government is pathetic, no government will make anything perfect x
Yes, it reduces, and at the same time it is recapitalised. The army is currently getting: Apache E Challenger III Ajax Boxer New SPG More AD systems, both MR and SH It will be spending north of 10 billion on WCSP, Boxer, Ajax, and so far has a handful of vehicles to show for it. There has not been a lack of money sent in the army’s direction since 2010, but General Carter made a mess of things chopping and changing priorities which caused WCSP to fail and Boxer to be made the priority, over a decade before it was… Read more »
Good summery..I don’t think the Afghanistan and Iraq can be understated in the issues the army has been having in finding its direction and core purpose…it clearly had to focus on a set of hybrid asymmetrical wars it was not really created to fight in places it really never expected to be and was again not designed to fight in ( anyone sending conventional armies into Afghanistan need their heads examined). Then we gutted it to support austerity ( while still making it fight in two asymmetric wars half way across the globe from each other)…then as you say the… Read more »
Interesting. Op Telic essentially ended in Apr 2009 (with only 150 personnel, mainly matelots, staying on in a trg team for 2 more years).
Op Herrick ended in Oct 2014.
Surely 14 years and 9 years respectively is more than enough time for the army to reset back to ‘core’.
Trouble is we then had the dreaded austerity…so that stopped everything in its tracks ( it screwed the NHS from undertaking modernisation for 10 years and the).
Did the NHS really suffer during the austerity period (as much as Defence)? I don’t recall hospitals and GPs surgeries closing but I do recall the loss of manpower and assets from the Forces.
Hi graham, the thing that crippled the NHS and its ability to change was the loss of the PCTs and the senior experts in how to build a health system. Effectively the government gutted the organisation and made redundant all the people who new how the system was put together and worked as a whole. The health system is hugely complex and you have different levels but effectively it’s layered as follows. Before 2010 the health system was designed in the following way: 1) political and national policy: political appointees and those who work for them ( civil servants) decide… Read more »
Hi Jonathan, I have never heard anything so crazy in my life. Why does no-one vet these harebrained plans?
The 2010 reforms were utter insanity to be honest, what was worse is that they had not even been thought out…the conservatives manifesto at the time had been no top down changes to the NHS ( everyone knew the NHS needed time to start modernising and reforming/changing services and the only way for the to happen was for the politicians to leave the decision making structures alone for a bit so they could look at provision). But they get in and within a year the new health secretary Andrew Langley had put in a place the complete destruction of the… Read more »
The 2010 review was insane in many ways. Two points stick out for me. 1.The Treasury wanted the defence cuts to be a lot more severe than they were, especially in terms of manpwer cuts.2. The MoD could not agree to give up the last of the carriers and the Harrier Force, so Cameron had a meeting on the Sunday before the Announcement and forced it on the MoD.
Many of the decisions later cost money to do U-turns.
quick question, we assume the nuclear detterant sucks the life out of the MOD budget but does anyone know the cost pa all in please. If we assume it to be £10bn pa (inc Astutes) then that is significant but doesn’t really explain where the other £30-40bn goes. At some point I really would like to see some transparency out of the MOD on all this. as someone who constantly reads their budgets and reports – they are all over the place and contradict themselves within the same report ultimately I think the MOD needs a budget of around £65bn… Read more »
Hi Pac I’m not good with financial figures, so I cannot give detail there. I recall someone on UKDJ did break it down once. The 30 billion plus for nuclear stuff I think is over a decade in the equipment program which might explain where the rest goes. That needs to pay for: Submarine agency delivering Astute. Money to RR for Raynesway. Decommissioning HMS Vulcan. The Strategic Systems Executive, a little known key agency. Trident, Dreadnaught. I assume NARO too. AWE, big costs there with the warhead replacement and replacement or modernisation of AWE buildings and key infrastructure like the… Read more »
From memory, the nuclear budget is £54bn over the 10 years to 2032, so £5.4bn pa. £1.1 bn goes on an Astute SSN, the other £4.3bn goes on the Dreadnought programme and all the other nuclear elements that Daniele mentioned. It is d4prrssingly revealing to compare the main annual equipment budgets. From memory: Nuclear programme £5.4bn RAF fast jets £1.7 bn RAF other aircraft: £1.6 bn Army equipment: £1.8 bn RN, excluding subs: £1.7bn Helicopters: £1.4m I’ll see if I can dig out the source for this. What stands out is what a whopping share of the cake goes on… Read more »
Bingo. I couldn’t agree more. It needs to be removed or conventional forces compensated for it’s inclusion.
Fat chance.
And in fact, do you follow Gabriel’s Blog? You should.
He’s just today put a Twitter thread up on the major projects, and how they’re doing.
The costs of some are breathtaking.
People ask where the money goes. Well, top end kit costs a lot. Have a read of it.
thanks Daniele,
appreciate the response
Over many decades I’ve seen no indication HMG is capable of feeling ashamed.
Get there first and prioritise science and tech going forth, shorthand for we fucked up, our enemies are before us in the race and we are lagging way behind, so…errrr sorry peeps. 🙄
Hope all this strategic outlook doesn’t lead to reductions on previous commitments that then leads to actual under equipping, under arming and not enough equipment in the right places.
These types of reviews are always done backwards, they start with the money rather than ending with it. The review should look at what threats there are and then consider what we need to counter it and ending with what it would cost. Then there could be a proper debate on whether we as a nation want to take the risk. Instead they make recommendations based on the available budget and current financial commitments, meaning the result isn’t really a review on what threats the nation is exposed to but rather what ones it has budgeted to be exposed to.… Read more »
You are thinking of the IR – that looked at Threats etc.- and gave shape to the follow-on DCP.
IR review also only looks at threats that are within budget.
Well, it shouldn’t!
It’s a polictical process not a military one. The aim of the game is to make the government in power look good. That would not be achieved if a defence paper came out saying the forces were not geared or numbered to achieve the threats. Generally the going in position is now to make cuts that will get the least amount of bad press.
Very good understanding of ‘realpolitik’, Steve.
Its whey they cut the army so often – Joe Public is not bothered that a few tanks cannot be manned and so fewer of the next generation will be ordered (CR3) – they would be bothered if we could not man 2 or 3 DD/FF or most of the Atlas A400M fleet (as an example).
Prior to every SDSR there is always a series of ‘leaks’ about huge cuts and the government sees what the reaction is and tones backs on the ones that get the biggest reaction. Also it allows them to play the classic trick of making it look like massive cuts and then when smaller ones happen they don’t look so bad. Polictics 101.
SDSR 1997/98 did start with the Threat. Treasury were only allowed in through the doors towards the end of the process.
The review is irrelevant imo. This time next year we’ll be heading into an election and with it a very high chance of a change in government and shift in policy then shortly after a review to match those policies.
…and the Lessons Learned from the war in Ukraine were? and the changes to doctrine, grand strategy, military strategy, TTP, equipment, force size and structure are?
Yes it was less than clear, but it did go more on strategic reserves and the need for a whole national approach to winning a war, so maybe they have had lessons percolate through that close to peers wars are not all over for tea and biscuits on Sunday type events, but are long term national struggles in which the side that suffers complete strategic exhaustion first looses.
Good points. Just trying to think when our last war was against a near-peer opponent. Not Iraq (both Gulf Wars) or Afghanistan obvs.
Maybe, given Chinese involvement, it was the Korean War – that took 3 years, but of course it is a very dated example.
Yes I would say it’s Korea, Then we went into the Cold War mentality in which conventional conflict and conventional forces were essentially seen as nothing more than a barrier in time and space to give the diplomacy time to prevent the “real” (nuclear) war. No one really considered strategic depth or the concept of stategic exhaustion as a thing…it’s was all focused on essential a couple of weeks of intense conflict and then either a diplomatic solution or the end of the world…everyone expected the third world war to be nuclear after all the final act of the second… Read more »
Interesting. You could also say that the USSR suffered strategic exhaustion in being unwilling to maintaining the Cold War beyond 40 years. That strategic exhaustion encompassing financial overstretch. However strategic exhaustion suggests a situation arising due to long duration and failure to make adequate progress. State-state wars can also end for other reasons. Putin has often warned that he might release tactical nuclear weapons in his war in Ukraine if Russian territory is (seriously) threatened. He would not expect retaliation from NATO in terms of NATO committing conventional forces or launching nuclear weapons either tactical or nuclear – he is… Read more »
I just looked up some history. Wiki: “On 14 December 1950, the division (3rd Div) was reformed to provide a divisional-size strategic reserve to the British Army, to supplement the existing strategic reserve of 16th Parachute Brigade.” To the present day – we don’t have a similar concept of a Strat Reserve as far as I know. But what I think the DCP discusses is creating a strategic reserve of manpower if required, from ex-regulars. However this is nothing new. When service personnel left the forces after a medium or long term period they would join the Regular Reserve (RR) –… Read more »
Let’s see what happens when the fxxxxxg useless tories are gone,a banker for a prime minister big ears sunak , charlatans ruined our country ,Labour has one chance to rectify our armed forces if they don’t then they finished as well ,it’s amazing our tax receipts were 850 odd billion pounds last year ,bottom line, get our people the tools they need not clapped out crap both tories and Labour left them with ,
A lot of overview, lack of substance. The cuts, which are still quietly going on in the background, will continue to erode are status as a tier 1 to tier 2. Defence of the realm, is now just a nice to have. Shocking state of affairs. A 1936 moment.
In 1936, we were 2 years into re-arming.
The first thing to recognise is that esentailly this is a Political paper and vision of the future, So the first question we need to understand is “Is this a realistic prospect for the MOD and military or is it a wider vision of the whole Government” personally I see it as a vsion for the whole governemnt based upon this moment of time. I think it is very unfortunate but understandable that the role of lets say the forign office is not gone into, all it mentions is the beniftis of our miltary attache’s ( which in my view… Read more »
A great pity the Ben Wallace will not be at the helm to ensure the follow through.
Global response force – nice idea but we don’t have the strategic lift capacity to make that anything but a nice sounding gimmick. Should have bought more C17s when we had the chance. Binning the Hercs also not ideal. I wonder if we might look at adding some lift – more A400Ms or even some second hand Trent powered A330-200s from the scrap market to operate as mixed cargo and pax lift. Imagine what even four of these could do. You’d have pilot/crew commonality with the Voyager fleet, Trent and Airbus parts in stock and you can pick up low… Read more »
Chris, you seem to think that we should only send the entire GRF by air (that is a quite huge force of three bdes – 16x, a lt bde and a log bde).
Lead elements could go by air – the rest can go by sea.
I agree completely but my point is that I suspect we don’t have the slack in the strat lift to be sending the lead elements of three brigades anywhere in the world by air. The strat lift we do have is worked so hard and my view is that we could benefit a lot by having (for example) four A332s to handle the air taxi stuff. We are basing a sub in western Australia soon and ramping up the activities at the Middle Eastern basing as well, and a few civilian A332s would really take a lot of the strain… Read more »
Deployment of selected numbers of troops and their kit on operations is not something for the AT to do if they are not busy on other tasks! It is their core job.
We do of course charter civvy aircraft to augment RAF a/c. I flew once, when serving, on a Jet2 flight.
That’s true buying a charter flight for a civilian passenger or cargo airliner is not difficult or expensive, there is lots of civilian capacity and your then are not sitting on al whole new set of training and logistics pipelines to keep a small number of airframes in the air, you just charter as needed… Although I can see sense in a greater number of A400m simple due to their utility, strategic lift, tactical lift, parachute and things like air sea surveillance….
Slightly off topic. Keep hearing on the news lately the repeat Russian bombardments of Odessa and the grain facilities. Hope Ukraine gets all she needs to knock the Russian forces lights out as they’re behaving like bastards. Hope Ukraine finds their ships, subs, missile sites on the Crimea and sinks the bloody lot. And if Russia threatens or attacks genuine grain ships well that’s going to deserve a response too. Maybe Turkey needs to step up here as an intermediary.
The newly unveiled Defence Command Paper 2023 has placed a strong emphasis on relying on science and technology to plaster over the cracks within the armed forces that’s been building up since the end of the Cold War. I feel that in the future, the current government’s Global Britain ambitions, that are rooted in the two Integrated Reviews are a sound direction to move towards. But saying that I believe that the only way that the armed forces can achieve this thinking is by harnessing the joint force approach and work towards having two dedicated Joint Expeditionary Forces that will… Read more »
This ‘joint expeditionary force’ borders on the delusional. Anything we could field east of Suez would be extremely minimal, token and at the expense of NATO Europe. We are down to only 4 army manoeuvre brigades now. With the current and future heightened tensions with Russia, they would all be needed in the European theatre – and 4 is precious thin to support the ARRC in Germany and Poland, provide what should be a brigade-size force in Estonia, provide a battle group or two for Norway/Sweden/Finland, all of which we are signed up to. There are no spare combat battalions… Read more »
A fair assessment of the current state of UK armed forces. Over the next 10 years, current plans will deliver new or modernized equipment to the army and navy. Typhoons upgrades will continue and a few more F35s will be bought. But overall, there will be no increase in the size of any of the services.
So the reality is we can’t make a meaningful contribution to NATO in Europe and resource wider global deployments properly. Even if the budget had been spent optimally over the last 10/15 years, it is simply not big enough to fund both.
Peter, perhaps you forget ‘double-earmarking’.
That is to say: Declaring certain forces to NATO but actually using them (when NATO are not running operations requiring them) on UK Global Britain tasks.
Been doing that for years. So many examples.
Thanks for your viewpoint, I can totally understand that you feel that the JEF structure is delusionary. The key to the future is to re-balance what force elements remain in the armed forces, and to find the best way to utilize what strength we have that can deliver the governments global vision. The levels that all the three services are currently held at is frustrating to say the least, but that doesn’t mean it cannot be achievable, due to the overall size of the armed forces the only way to move forward is for closer cooperation that is seamless in… Read more »
There will also be cases where we have
an essential national security requirement for
certain industrial capabilities to be available
‘onshore’ within the UK.
wonder quite what this covers ?
Building warships is the obvious one. Also building nuclear warheads.
Yes, they are the obvious. there was also a section that mentioned the semiconductor strategy, wonder how that is going to work?
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