Max Hastings: British military thinking must get cleverer
[Max Hastings is a British military historian and FT contributing editor.]
Some of us have long warned that the Royal Navy was setting a course towards self-immolation by insisting upon purchasing two giant aircraft carriers. So it now appears. Following last week’s defence and security review, announcing 8 per cent cuts in the defence budget, the government said the armed forces would “remain fully capable of making their contribution towards global security”. But what can that contribution be?
There is no money to buy a credible force of fast jets to fly off the aircraft carriers: just 10-12 US-built F-35s will be deployed afloat, and only one carrier is likely to see service. Most strategists believe such behemoths will prove shockingly vulnerable in any future major conflict. Britain will lack the small, handy frigates it needs for such real tasks as anti-piracy operations in the Red Sea.
The navy’s plight has been brought about by the refusal of several generations of its senior officers to think convincingly about future threats, budgetary limitations and plausible roles for warships. Successive governments and weak chiefs of defence staff have failed to make them do so. Labour behaved with ruthless cynicism in approving the carriers chiefly because they meant thousands of jobs in its northern constituencies.
The army faces a future in which it can field only a single brigade of 7,000-8,000 men including support elements for sustained operations abroad. Contrast this with the 33,000 British troops on the streets of Northern Ireland during the worst of The Troubles 35 years ago. Planners are debating the doctrinal implications of a new world in which they lack mass.
Even the US Army lacks numbers to dominate a big battlefield. What does that mean?..
Read entire article at Financial Times (UK)
Some of us have long warned that the Royal Navy was setting a course towards self-immolation by insisting upon purchasing two giant aircraft carriers. So it now appears. Following last week’s defence and security review, announcing 8 per cent cuts in the defence budget, the government said the armed forces would “remain fully capable of making their contribution towards global security”. But what can that contribution be?
There is no money to buy a credible force of fast jets to fly off the aircraft carriers: just 10-12 US-built F-35s will be deployed afloat, and only one carrier is likely to see service. Most strategists believe such behemoths will prove shockingly vulnerable in any future major conflict. Britain will lack the small, handy frigates it needs for such real tasks as anti-piracy operations in the Red Sea.
The navy’s plight has been brought about by the refusal of several generations of its senior officers to think convincingly about future threats, budgetary limitations and plausible roles for warships. Successive governments and weak chiefs of defence staff have failed to make them do so. Labour behaved with ruthless cynicism in approving the carriers chiefly because they meant thousands of jobs in its northern constituencies.
The army faces a future in which it can field only a single brigade of 7,000-8,000 men including support elements for sustained operations abroad. Contrast this with the 33,000 British troops on the streets of Northern Ireland during the worst of The Troubles 35 years ago. Planners are debating the doctrinal implications of a new world in which they lack mass.
Even the US Army lacks numbers to dominate a big battlefield. What does that mean?..