I doubt if many British soldiers would quarrel with the views of the Tory
homeland security spokesman, Patrick Mercer, a former colonel who remarked
last week on the racial rough-house that is a modern army, for which he had
to resign. That, of course, is not the point. The army is now, like all
public services, a politicised entity. It must respect the changing
dignities and pretences of politics, not war. It must not call a spade a
spade, in any sense of that term.
Who would be a soldier these days? You must die for countries that pose no
threat to your home and hearth. The people you protect are trying to kill
you. You shoot the wrong target and must face a public inquiry. You go to
battle with a lawyer on one shoulder and a journalist on the other.
Meanwhile your ministry leaves you underequipped because it is still buying
ships to fight the Germans and planes to fight the Russians.
Having witnessed soldiers of many countries in war and near war I have no
doubt that British troops are the most effective in the world. The contrast
between an American and a British patrol in Iraq is stark. I am sure that
had Britain enjoyed a free hand in a semi-autonomous southern Iraq since
2003 it would not now be retreating with more than 130 dead and the job
unfinished. That is what happens when our military policy is made
subservient to America.
The same is increasingly true of Afghanistan, where the army is struggling to
obey probably the stupidest order it has received since Cardigan charged the
Russian guns at Balaclava. For British politicians to denigrate other Nato
countries for refusing to commit soldiers to a doomed mission is absurd. By
the time Nato arrived in Kabul two years ago, America’s tactic of search and
destroy had ensured that peaceful reconstruction was not feasible. The
British Army’s mission, to defeat the world’s toughest insurgents, wipe out
the country’s economic staple of opium and bring the entire south under the
rule of Kabul, all with some 8,000 troops, is plain mad.
Soldiers facing death have a vivid sense of the worth of what they are about.
They are now fighting two wars without that crucial prop to morale, a public
back home that believes in their cause. The government has not sustained
public support. Tony Blair responds to interviews as if these wars were
personal crusades. Former generals — even Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of
the army — have questioned the purpose and conduct of both conflicts.
Hypersensitivity to public relations has led to the prosecution of officers
and men for troop misbehaviour. An army trained to “tread on eggshells” in
Northern Ireland has found it harder to do so in the more brutal
environments of Iraq and Afghanistan, where even street patrolling requires
courage and split-second responses.
Conventional military theory calls these conflicts fourth generation wars
(4GW), succeeding conventional, nuclear and guerrilla ones. They are wholly
new, characterised by a blurred line between civil and military realms, an
absence of any clear enemy, a disregard of national boundaries, the
exploitation of terror to incur overreaction and a reliance on primitive
ethnic and religious sympathy to achieve a political goal.
Above all, 4GW involves trapping the enemy into a blundering counterproductive
response, much as a cunning wrestler uses the superior weight of an opponent
to bring about his fall. The American and British responses to 9/11 ignored
all the maxims of 4GW.
Both nations now have armies bogged down in old-style guerrilla wars in
territory they are ceding to jihadist Islam. Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, the
kicking down of doors, crude airstrikes, random arrests, the boasting of
kill rates, the undermining of traditional leaders and the distorting of
local economies by ill-judged aid all defy the precepts of 4GW by playing
into the hands of the enemy. As the International Institute for Strategic
Studies notes, such tactics “reinforce Osama Bin Laden’s narrative depicting
the United States and its allies as seeking to establish western hegemony in
the Arab and wider Muslim world”.
A 4GW army is not about capture and hold, nor even winning hearts and minds,
since its objective is not to defeat an army or dominate territory.
It is to prevent the dissemination of ideas and restrict the manoeuvre of
those who plot terrorism. Such an army is light, mobile and possibly secret.
Its interventions barely qualify for the term military but are rather
diplomatic, economic and propagandist. If an army stays too long on foreign
soil after its initial thrust it becomes a hated occupier. Its gains are
consolidated by contractors, aid workers, journalists and spies.
A 4GW victory may be no more than a tilt in the balance of power within a
regime, to encourage the suppression of a terrorist cell. Such wars are not
pursued by threats, sanctions or military assault, so often welcomed by an
embattled enemy. America’s most effective 4GW was to support the mujaheddin
(later the Taliban) to defeat the Russians in Afghanistan in the late 1980s
— hardly anyone knew.
What must be heartbreaking for the modern soldier is not just to see his hard
work ruined by inept “nation building”. More galling has been to watch
defence ministries spend billions on weapons that have no relevance to the
wars that modern soldiers are expected to fight — usually against enemies
armed only with rifles and mortars. These ministries are stuck in the cold
war.
As a lay member of the 1997 defence review panel formed by George Robertson,
Blair’s first defence secretary, I recall being told that we were free to
debate anything. New Labour was open-minded, not least to 4GW.
Not true. We could not discuss the merits of the navy’s new aircraft carriers,
the RAF’s Eurofighters or the Trident submarine programme, despite their
consuming much of the ministry’s vast procurement budget. Desperate not to
seem “weak” on defence, Labour was determined to go ahead with these
projects, irrespective of their strategic obsolescence.
An example of Gordon Brown’s weakness at the Treasury has been his inability,
over 10 years, to cut even one of these cold war equipment programmes. Even
a new batch of archaic destroyers, the Type 45, is still being built, at
£800m apiece, and Brown has caved in to the nonsensical Trident replacement
lobby. None of these weapons has a role in any conceivable war. But they are
hugely expensive (with some £35 billion in the pipeline) and thus have
behind them Britain’s monopoly arms supplier, BAE Systems, a company so
powerful it could get the Serious Fraud Office to stop investigating bribery
allegations against it. Although only a third of BAE’s employees work in
Britain it always “threatens” to sack them if not given the orders it
requires.
The one service that fights modern wars is the army, yet it constantly loses
out in Whitehall battles over money. The army is down to 100,000 personnel
and declares itself chronically overstretched, while the navy and air force
employ 90,000, including more admirals and air marshals than there are
serving ships or squadrons. Yet because navy and air force procurement is
inflexible and expensive, it can browbeat a succession of weak Labour
defence secretaries into capitulation.
The result has been the underpaying and underequipping of the army. A soldier
gets barely half the take-home pay of a policeman with overtime.
The shortages of helicopters, armoured vehicles, body armour and battlefield
radios that regularly fill the press and army blog sites are not due to some
considered view of military priorities. A decision to buy dud Merlin
helicopters, or too few Viking troop carriers, or a jamming SA80 rifle, or a
defective Bowman digital radio emerges from the clash of tri-service rivalry
in Whitehall defence industry chauvinism. Most of this equipment could be
bought more cheaply off the shelf.
Glib pundits may state that the nation “needs” both more army manpower and
more expensive ships and planes. The truth is this cannot be afforded. What
gets sacrificed is the manpower. Because there is no profit in soldiers, the
nation gets planes and ships it does not need. The defence ministry fights,
or rather buys, the last war and ignores the next.
The iron law of defence policy remains unaltered. It is dictated not by
defence but by money. And the highest price, as always, is paid by the poor
bloody infantry when the guns begin to shoot.
Ross damages the case for increased military expenditure with implausible 'facts'. Can 72% of Iraq/Afghanistan sorties possibly be by naval aircraft? The RAF has about 200 of the bomber version of the Tornado; Debden museum maybe 20 obsolete ground-attack machines. The RN has been cut savagely but not monthly.
More deeply, the military doesn't need more money, it needs to use what it has halfway sensibly. Publish the 'requirement' for Trident and the carriers and the Astute boats and the Typhoon and a miserable dozen rebuilt Nimrods, and cancel them if they can't answer informed critism - and sack the vast majority of our thousand star-rank officers and even more high bureaucrats .
Noel Falconer, COUIZA, France
I hate to rain on everybodys parade here. Theres only one thing to do when goverments send soldiers to war,and thats to support them in any way we can. Be it with good press or good pay or even good vibes!
Yes,Simon Its always the "poor bloody infantry" that pays the ultimate price,but you all forget one thing,the said "poor bloody infantry" are there by choice,they choose to go and fight our wars because its what armys do. We cant exactly send the "poor bloody cleaners" can we!?
Robin, Belfast, Northern ireland
As an Army daughter and now an Army wife, I can say that today's modern army is totally inhospitable. The drastic cuts to the Army in the last few years have led not only to dangerous practice but also to dangerously low morale - yet Blair's government continues to commit more and more British troops to wartorn areas. A soldier's welfare and his family is disregarded by senior officials and by the government. Soldiers are expected to do back-to-back operational tours as a matter of "duty" (more like peer pressure) with no regard for their own welbeing - rehabilitation programmes are pitiful. And the Army's approach to the wives, girlfriends and families of soldiers is out of touch - faced by long periods of separation from our husbands, our sadness transmits itself upon our hardworking fellas, giving rise to their own feelings of sadness, guilt and anger - emotions that are not conducive to keeping focused when in hostile lands.
Camilla Leask, London, UK
The British military has the 3rd largest defense budget in the world. When will I read this in a tabloid newspaper like The Times? Only then will take their arguments seriously.
I would argue that if we doubled our defense budget, the tabloid papers would still be printing stuff that demands we feel sorry for ourselves, and be outraged that we have a smaller navy than Belgium or Indonesia (Nations who in fact spend less than 1/15th on defense than Britain).
I would bet that if we weren't in Iraq and Afghanistan the intelligent media(sic) would be complaining we were letting the nation down by not being on the battlefield and what a total disgrace that would be.
It could be that our media is more of a threat to Britain's future than the Taliban or Al Qaeda could ever dream of being!
Mark, Perth, Australia
It's hardly surprising that fewer and fewer Britons wish to be soldiers. But it's not just a matter of poor resources (although this is a disgrace), or the fact that the wars Britain fights these days are the products more of childish moral spasms than cool calculation, or that the profession is pestered by 'human rights' lawyers and sensationalist journalists. It's also a question of having a sense of pride in one's country. How could ANYONE admire modern Britain, or think it worth fighting for? Edmund Burke said it well, "To love your country your country must be beautiful". Without that kind of irrational and unconditional love, the numbers willing to join up will get less and less with each passing year.
Derek Turner, London,
The British Army has long been renound for it's excellent capability in a low-equipt 'light role'. Long has the British Army been the best in the world, learning from each conflict zone, and sadly paying the price in human life, ofen for little or no reward bar this knowledge. Knowledge that the squaderous American Forces seem to be happy to trade for 'the big guns'. This gung-ho attitude backed by the 'metal and meat' training is not suited to the surgical, and precise British army.
Why not pull our armed forces out of countries that constantly demand our departure, shift money being spent on 'oil wars' across to funding for alternative fuels research and be free of our constant dependance on a 'semi-stable' middle east. The answer to better budgeting has to be a wider picture than just trimming here, and adding there. It's time for brown to stop using the cut and paste function on his accounts software and wise up to issues outside of the labour wallet.
Thomas Morgan, Wells, Somerset, UK
72% of the air sorties in iraq/afghanistan were from naval aircraft, NOT from landbased aircraft.
Thats thousands of sorties there, and without them your beloved army would be overrun. Just remember that mr editor.
The navy itself is in skeleton form, infact the entirte armed forces are - Did you know Wembley can fit all the other ranks of the Army in it?
-Did you know an RAF museum has more strike jets than the RAF itself?
-Did you know the navy has lost ships under a decade old, sold at knock down prices to other nations, cut monthly, it's a skeleton simply put that cant physically commit to all the requires places it is needed at anymore despite this "more capability" rubbish politicians spout they have no invented teleport or the ability to be in 2 places at once. All of labour's cuts have come by holding the carriers (still unordered) to ransom, and theres still the 50% cut looming which will surely see our navy ended as a force in the world
The budget needs a raise in all areas
Ross, London, UK
Labour managed to stay out of power for 18 years - primarily because the British public would never trust a government that doesn't keep our country's permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Only a nuclear weapons capability gives us this and guarantees our ultimate self defence.
It is debatable whether we need to spend as much on the next nuclear deterrant as Blair and Brown say, since it is difficult to envisage what technological progress can possibly justify the extra tens of thousands of millions over the cost of the existing force. Even allowing for inflation.
What is needed is a timely replacement - not a new generation of weapons. In all other areas of technology, costs and prices have come down while functionality has increased exponentially. This does not seem to apply to British military equipment provision even if for strategic reasons, we avoid the use of South East Asian sweatshop labour to provide the manufacturing base. We need to question why?
Ali D., St Helier, JERSEY
Somewhat glib and behind the times. The SA80 works is an excellent weapon, the Viking vehicles are Royal Marine vehicles not Army hence in small numbers,(better kit than Landrovers should be supplied and is being if slowly and late), the U.S tactics have changed enormously in last couple of years and it is the Europeans who are doing most damage with airstrikes,(US in fact always had good counter-insurgency tactics from Vietnam and it's hamlet policy, to the Phillipines and Haiti...it just tends to forget all it learned and has to re-learn it. Malaya very different.
No public support? Jenkins means no Liberal commentators support ala Vietnam.
Cold war dead? US advisors and dollars reach all around world from Iran to Mongolia, Russia is still the enemy, along with China and Europe...just keeping them off balance.
Cna't afford both men and kit? How about Blair spending £16 bn on a computer for the NHS that even the supplier says won't work? or £10 bn on the Olympics? Priorities?
Garvey, London, uk
We do need air and naval power, as well as the army, but we cannot afford and do not need trident. Both air and naval power must be capable of rapid deployment, delivering an armed force anywhere in the world preferably within forty-eight hours if required. All our efforts should be devoted to meeting this target, not to supporting an office-bound force reminding one of the Hungarian navy, or the old style South American military dictatorship nor in subsidising the American arms industry by buying weapons that we cannot use without permission from the White House..
What are we doing about possible, unpredictable threats in the middle of this century? Invasion from Mars perhaps? Robot armies? Who knows? It is vain to think that we can prepare now for whatever may be in store for us in fifty years time.
laurie, Tunbridge Wells,
A splendid and timely article. The military-industrial complex against which President Eisenhower warned in the fifties still dominates government policy in both the USA and this country.
As for this coming week's debate, in what sense is Trident an "independent" nuclear deterrent? It could never be deployed independently of our American masters.
Furthermore, in the event of a nuclear war aimed at the Western alliance, Britain would be a primary target as an example to others, and it would be entirely expendable as far as the USA was concerned.
A replacement for Trident is the ultimate suicide bomb.
Richard Baker, Maidenhead, UK
Isn't it remarkable that those such as Blair et. al. should be so keen to send young men to fight in an illegal war when they themselves have never faced anything more daunting the the loss of their parliamentry seat? Perhaps if we had a a defence secretary and/or a prime minister who had had personal experience of what happens in a war, they would be less keen to take ill-considered and ultimately disasterous decisions
Roger Kirman, Southport, United Kingdom
Some Simon Jenkins' views are puzzling to me, like: "Who would be a soldier these days? You must die for countries that pose no threat to your home and hearth. The people you protect are trying to kill you." Now, the taliban Afghanistan posed no treat to western countries?. On the other hand, however far you are, the people you are trying to protect is your owns' country people, and protection of afghans and irakis is a consequence of that first goal.
Jenkins goes on: "If an army stays too long on foreign soil after its initial thrust it becomes a hated occupier. Its gains are consolidated by contractors, aid workers, journalists and spies." As far as I know (I might well be wrong), the insurgency has been targeting contractors, aid workers and other civil personnel precisely to prevent consolidation of army gains, as they are the weaker piece in the chain and the one that would give a good looking face to the initial occupation.
Jose MR, Madrid, Sapin
I joined the army 29 years ago. Bowman was in deveopment. My son says that, today, Bowman means you are Better Of With Map And Nokia.
Bill, Befast, N.I.
Simon Jenkins' assessment is realistic and sobering. There is no substitue for "boots on the ground". Armise must get larger and their logistics trains should as well. There should be NO PRIVATE CONTRACTORS involved in either security operations or logistic operations. All this takes money, for sure. But more importantly, it reqiures manpower.
Arthur G. Brina, Fairport, New York
The reason that this Government seem so hell-bent on buying all of this obsolete equipment wouldn't have anything to do with Lord Drayson being on the board of some of the companies that have an interest in these items would it? Didn't think so.
Gavin Fraser, Bicester, England
An employer who'd rather spend £1000 on a chair instead of on their troops on active service is not worthy of the dedication and commitement from those who sign up for God and Country.Hang your heads in shame politicians and senior defence staff who seem to have no back bone when it comes to looking after those who put their lives on the line.
Tom Slattery, Paisley, United Kindom
Simon Jenkins makes powerful points. Surely an underlying cause is the widening gulf of experience between those in power (both political and civil servants) and the few with any form of service experience. The professionalism of senior UK military is their Achilles Heel - they shrink from rejecting the stupid orders from Government and avoid complaining in public.
The army is beset by controls from an ignorant and misunderstanding public. I gave up when my soldiers were prevented from using an assault course until Health & Safety had tested the puddles - rapidly followed by instructions not to shout at recruits for fear of infringing their human rights. Recent mergers ignore Regimental origins and local recruting grounds.
SJ is right in regarding the British Army as the finest - but it may well be 'broken' very soon. The UK will be the poorer and not just in the application of force - but in the loss of its traditions of excellence and service to society and comrades.
David, Bristol,
We still need to keep up to date with naval and aerial weapons and sensors for the longer-term threat of new superpowers - but I agree that we don't need to buy lots of completely new naval and aerial platforms at the moment. Better by far to invest our "hedging" money in rapid prototyping systems and simulators so that if a rising power comes calling on Siberia, the Middle East, or any other resource-rich region, we can quickly field great clouds of new platforms. This would advance our civilian productivity as well.
Paul Connor, Toronto, Canada
Please add this to the previous comment.
http://eureferendum2.blogspot.com/2006/10/march-of-amateurs.html
Richard North, Bradford, UK
Not only is Trident strategically pointless and distracting from the armed forces, it will also divert money and nuclear engineers away from the fight against global warming. If we are to have a future on this planet, we will need to convert entirely away from fossil fuels and we will need a large-scale nuclear energy program to acheive this. Sending engineers to make nuclear submarines or nuclear weapons is a distraction from the more urgent goal of energy independence and zero carbon economy.
Stephen Stretton, Cambridge, UK
Simon Jenkins is spot on. The biggest thing we need right now is boots on the ground. Forget a notional war in 30 years time, we have been in Iraq for 4 years and we send our soldiers to their deaths in thin-skinned landrovers. Morale in the wider Armed Forces is plummeting because fewer and fewer servicemen are spending longer and longer time away from their families fighting unpopular wars. A crisis of manning will shortly hit the Armed Forces, caused by incompetent politicians and weak military leaders with half an eye on the next job or title.
Nige G, wilts, UK
The situation is worse, far, far worse, than Sir Simon portrays. There is no British 'Independent Nuclear Deterrent': the capability to end the world, and America in it, is not entrusted to any ally, however old and reliable; Trident is toothless. Carriers are attack weapons, that enable warmongering leaders to do what should not be done. Destroyers, frigates and hunter-killer submarines exist primarily to protect these. We could disband the RN - and dismiss the 47 admirals who oversee a total of some twenty warships in commission - without the slightest detriment to our security.
The RAF has 35 air marshals for half that many shrunken front-line squadrons, and the army 60 generals for 93,000 men, plus 259 air commodores and brigadiers; all able, energetic people who can't and don't sit still, who get in each others' way, who damage our defences. We need to sack nine of every ten of these panjandrums, then reintegrate their Services.
Noel Falconer, COUIZA, France
I'm not sure why Simon feels that warships have no role in "any concievable" conflict. Did he miss the events in Lebanon last year, when the Navy had to lift two thousand civilians out of Beirut? At least the threat was Lebanese terrorists, who don't have sophisticated weapons... apart from the radar-guided anti-ship missiles they sank one ship with, and damaged another?
If we want to get the infantry to where they're needed, support them while there and extract them when done... we need to do it by sea, and those sea lanes are vulnerable.
Paul J. Adam, Horndean, UK
The problem with Simon Jenkin's thesis is that without a Navy or Airforce how do you put the Army on the ground and sustain them there?
Currently the Navy's 3rd Commando Brigade is the lead fighting UK echelon in Afghanistan. and is proving itself very effective in suppressing the Taleban and winning hearts and minds of the locals. There is very little support for Taleban on the ground. This has been achieved in large part by the Marines turning a blind eye to US orders and listening to what the locals need rather than what the US wants.
Peter Thomson, KIRKCUDBRIGHT, s
In his comments Mr. Jenkins shows an incredibly narrow view of Defence expenditure and planning for the future. The programmes such as the future carrier, new destroyers and Trident replacement, which he so condemns, will not bear fruit for many years. By which time our forces will probably no longer be fighting in Iraq, and will hopefully have drawn down considerably in Afghanistan. Mr. Jenkins, no more than anyone else, does not know what threats may emerge in the coming years but he should remember that the balance of power, both economic and military is shifting in the world. There will be future tensions between emerging and established nations some may lead to conflict. Only a fool would plan for the future based on the assumption that we will only ever have to fight so called asymmetric wars and never again have to confront a hostile nation. Furthermore, naval forces are playing a huge part in both operations - soldiers need supplies, support and a secure off shore base.
Alan, W. Sussex,
Simon Jenkins states "military theory calls these conflicts fourth generation wars (4GW), succeeding conventional, nuclear and guerrilla ones." Rubbish! 4GW was first published in 1989, "The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation." (Lind et al) Four Generations began with Peace of Westphalia (1648);arguing that this established a state monopoly on war. Previously, different entities fought wars (families, cities, etc) First Generation War runs roughly to 1860(Napoleonic line and column tactics). 2GW is "massed firepower": WW1 is typical. 3GW is manoeuver (Blitzkreig tactics in WW2). In 4GW, the state loses its monopoly on war and we return to an era of warfare reminiscent of pre-1648 with non-state actors and intra-state rather than inter-state war dominating. There is some empirical evidence to support. Guerilla warfare, terrorism, civil war etc are typical 4GW examples. Hence the generations should read line and column, massed firepower and manoeuver!
Andy, London, UK