hms iron duke

hms iron duke

Tuesday 21 August 2018

Norsdstream 2 and Germany's Two-Legged Foreign Policy


Let us lift Germany…into the saddle. Surely, when that is achieved, it will succeed in riding as well”.

Otto von Bismarck, 1867

A German, German foreign policy

Alphen, Netherlands. 20 August. Apparently, it did not go terribly well. Officially Saturday’s meeting between Kanzlerin Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the late-Baroque splendour of the Schloss Meseberg discussed Ukraine, Syria, Iran and the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline project.  The meeting, like so many Russo-German meetings of late, involved ‘hard talking’ but made little official progress. And yet, in spite of the tensions, Nordstream 2 just ploughs ahead tying Russia and Germany ever closer together in mutual energy dependency and threatening to by-pass much of Eastern Europe with profound security implications. Nordstream 2 also reveals the two legs of contemporary German foreign policy which is both legalistic and mercantilist at one and the same time.

German foreign policy is increasingly neither European nor transatlantic, just German.  The strengths and weaknesses of German foreign policy were reflected in the Merkel-Putin meeting.  The German position reflects the deep and abiding commitment of contemporary Germany to international law, a kind of ‘Lexpolitik’.  For all its undoubted power these days contemporary, democratic Germany remains essentially self-constraining with international relations viewed through a very legalistic institutionalist lens. Contrast that with President Putin’s world-view which virtually a polar opposite. Putin is buccaneering with a penchant for Machtpolitik, even though Russia has not actually got much ‘macht’ beyond the purely destructive (of which it has a lot!).  The reason little progress was made at Meseberg thus becomes clear: the Germans would have pushed for ‘solutions’ commensurate with international law, whilst Vladimir Putin would no doubt have snorted that ‘law’ to him is whatever he decides it is.

Nordstream 2 and German strategy

German foreign policy is not all about the pursuit of virtue. Nordstream 2 reveals the strong mercantilist strand in German foreign policy. When it comes to the interests of German business it is Realpolitik that tends to become the norm.  One only has to examine the influence German business has in the EU to understand the centrality of German business to the German interest, and the lengths Berlin is prepared to go to protect this interests. The repeated blocking by Germany of the EU Services Directive prevented powerful British firms gaining a competitive foothold in the German market and had a not unimportant role in Brexit.

And yet, Nordstream 2 is also where German legalism and mercantilism flow together. For Germany, this grand strategic project is a way to keep the Russians talking whatever martial fantasies in which President Putin might indulge.  Indeed, it is interesting the contrasting ways Berlin and Moscow see the strategic utility of Nordstream 2. The Russians see the pipeline as a means to use gas supplies to coerce other Europeans into a grudging acceptance of Russian influence over Moscow’s near abroad and a bit beyond. The other day I was cold called by a Gazprom-led consortium here in the Netherlands offering me cheaper gas. Crimea led to some sanctions being imposed by Germany and other Europeans on Moscow which may be having some limited impact on Russia’s elite. After the Skripal attack on Britain by Russia one might have expected more sanctions, but no. This is because for the Germans the need to keep the Russians talking is at the very heart of the German foreign policy concept precisely because it was born in the charnel houses of Tannenberg in 1914, Stalingrad in 1942 and the divided Germany of the Cold War.  Frankly, Berlin is right.  Therefore, the best way to understand Nordstream 2 is to place the project firmly in contemporary Germany’s strategic and historical context. 

Nordstream 2 should thus be seen less as a pipeline pumping Russian gas directly to Germany and beyond, but rather as a gigantic money-transfer conduit designed to keep Russia afloat. Berlin has reason to be concerned about Russia’s stability and all points European in between. In 2017 the Carnegie Moscow Centre stated: “A substantial part of Russia’s production capacity – more than 40% by some estimates – is both technologically and functionally obsolete and cannot produce competitive and marketable products. For instance, Russia’s machine stock has shrunk by almost a half in the last ten years…Over the next few years, we can expect a decline in investment…This downward spiral will eventually lead the country to economic collapse”. In other words, President Putin is committed to exactly the same course of action as the Tsars (both White and Red) before him: a level of strategic ambition that simply cannot be sustained over the medium to long-term and which unless mitigated or changed will lead to a crunch.  If Russia catches a bad cold the rest of Europe…

Nordstream 2 is mercantilism as strategic stability and thus very German – both noble and self-interested at one and the same time. Saturday’s meeting reflected that eclectic mix of German values and interests. It was thus perhaps fitting that today is the fiftieth anniversary of the Prague Spring and the then-Soviet Union’s invasion of Czechoslovakia to prevent it from breaking out of the Soviet straitjacket. The Prague Spring played an important role in pushing then West Germany to develop its first real post-war independent foreign policy – Ostpolitik. At a time when the Americans were deeply distracted with Vietnam Willy Brandt sought to establish a direct relationship with both the ‘other’ Germany, the German Democratic Republic and the Soviet Union.

What price gas?

History is still the eloquent driving force in German foreign policy but it is history that paradoxically leads to the contradiction from which Berlin’s internationalism suffers.   German foreign policy is not all about Russia, Nordstream 2, or that other great elephant in the room at Meseberg, at least in spirit, US President Donald J. Trump. Germany is now simply too powerful IN Europe to simply remain yet another European ally OF America. Viewed from Berlin Germany is surrounded by supplicant states all either seeking German money, German blessing or both on a continent in which only Germany can guarantee order. That includes Britain and France. And yet Germany still seems ill-at-ease with the very idea of German power and leadership. It is strategic recalcitrance that could well flunk lead Berlin to flunk the hard test that is inevitably coming Germany’s way.

Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, suggests the problem with German foreign policy is that it does not want to get ‘wet’, i.e. face hard realities when things go wrong and have the will and the means to do something about them. It is also why the Nordstream 2 strategy could fail. Given the nature of the Putin regime, Moscow might simply use the new gas money that will flow up Nordstream 2 to further reinforce the very tools of international coercion which threaten other Europeans and upon which Russia has been investing for a decade since the August 2008 invasion of Georgia. What price gas then?

Can ‘Wet’ Germany Lead?

Europe certainly needs German leadership and Europe has not had a better Germany to lead since 1870. Unfortunately, German foreign policy is also a two-legged stool critically lacking a third leg – hard power. Back to Germany and Russia.  Today, Russia commences Vostok 2018, the largest Russian military exercise for forty years, Germany’s weakness is that its foreign policy is an ‘anything but war’ policy, whilst Russia’s foreign policy is ‘war or the threat of war as a means to an end’ policy.. At Meseberg these two very different ideas of power tried to speak to each other and failed, which is why Europeans will continue to need American engagement in its affairs.  Sadly, Russia will not be a ‘normal’ power (nor have a future) until it reduces the level of state investment in intimidating others and starts investing in its own people. Germany will not really be a normal power until Berlin recognises that ‘shit happens’ when dealing with the likes of Putin’s Russia – big shit! It is not Russian power that is a threat to Europe but Russian economic weakness in conjunction with an over-bearing and unaffordable Russian security state. No amount of money Germany pours into Russia via Nordstream 2 will avert eventual Russian collapse unless Berlin can convince Moscow to change course.  

The need for a three-legged German foreign policy is pressing. If the transatlantic relationship is not reinforced and Germany continues to seek the fruits of leadership but refuses to bear its burdens there could come a moment when the ‘correlation of forces’ are so adverse for the European democracies that the military opportunism that has pot-marked the Putin era will be impossible for Moscow to again resist. In that case, it is unlikely to be Germans who will suffer in the first instance, even if Berlin would bear a lot of responsibility.

Europe needs German leadership but as President Teddy Roosevelt might have put it Germany must also continue to speak softly but learn again to carry a reasonably big stick.

Julian Lindley-French  

Thursday 16 August 2018

Europe’s Defence Gap and the Expanding Bandwidth of War


“I’ve seen comparative numbers of US defense budget versus China, US defense budget versus Russia. What is not often commented on is the cost of labor. We’re the best-paid military in the world by a long shot. The cost of Russian soldiers or Chinese soldiers is a tiny fraction”.

General Mark Milley, US Army Chief of Staff, May 2018

Hard choices

Alphen, Netherlands. 15 August. The stress faced by all Western defence establishments is not simply a function of constrained resources.  It is also due to the rapidly expanding bandwidth of warfare across a new spectrum of coercion from hybrid war to hyper war via cyber war demanding forces capable of reaching across air, sea, land, space, cyber, techno-space, information and knowledge.  Only a radically new concept of combined and joint arms will enable Europeans to close the rapidly expanding defence gap.  

In Radically Re-thinking Britain’s Security and Defence William Hopkinson and I made the provocative suggestion that the British should consider scrapping the Royal Air Force.  The intention was not to insult the RAF.  The relationship between air power and innovation is well-established and to lose bespoke air power also risks killing vital innovation.  Rather, it was to demonstrate that if London continues to misalign the ends, ways and means of Britain’s defence policy then hard choices will need to be made.

When I was Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy at the Netherlands Defence Academy I witnessed at close quarters how small, under-funded armed forces too often talk ‘joint’ but do ‘dis-joint’. An inordinate amount of time, money and talent is wasted by army, navy, and air force staffs on preserving army, navy and air force staffs just so they can fight each other over ever-shrinking resources.  Whatever ‘joint’ mechanisms are created to prevent such conflict too often become the battlefields upon which the struggle is fought. How often have I heard European defence establishments invoke tradition to avoid facing the hard military consequences of the political choices imposed upon them?  

Whither transatlantic defence?

Worse, many Europeans no longer understand why they spend any money on defence. In the past, the Americans pretty much decided what defence Europe ‘bought’ with Europeans little more than spokes on an American defence hub.  Their defence spending choices were by and large dictated by the need to maintain military ‘interoperability’ with US forces. However, as the transatlantic relationship creaks and groans under the weight of political and strategic tensions and in the absence of leadership Europeans simply want to stop the world and get off. The latest Deutsche Presse Agentur opinion poll suggests 42% of Germans want the complete removal of US bases from Germany. At the same time, Germany also refuses to face the defence consequences and cost of strategic estrangement from America. Having one’s cake and eating it?

Upon what should Europeans spend? At July’s Brussels NATO Summit President Trump tried to get the European allies to spend more on defence.  Fearful of the consequences of American withdrawal there is now the danger that some Europeans start to throw a bit more money at their legacy armed forces simply to show good intent.  One would have to work hard to find a greater example of pouring scant public money down a large black hole to no particular end. Increased European defence investment should only take place in conjunction with defence reform, but to what end and how?

Defence outcomes & Purchasing Power Parity

Defence outcomes, not defence input are the true test of relative strength upon which all-important deterrence rests. It is the paradox of American defence outcomes which, Trump or no Trump, explains why Washington desperately needs its European allies to awake from their collective strategic torpor. The 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) envisages an increase in the US defence budget from c$690bn to $718bn, and that does not even include the cost of the US Space Command President Trump called for in June and which Secretary of Defense Mattis apparently resisted.  In a sign of future times, the Act also allocates some $40 million to the military uses of Artificial Intelligence. This is vital but also highlights the American dilemma; the need to deliver military strength the world over all of the time. No other power – adversary or ally- faces such a continuous test.  Therefore, the headline US defence budget appears to be massive expanding geo-strategic and technological pressures upon US forces threaten to dilute its ability to deliver fires and effects. In other words, the headline budget might not be all it appears to be given the funding tensions between the now and the future force.

Then there are personnel costs to add to the mix. The planned 2.6% pay raise for US personnel intensifies the bandwidth dilemma US forces face and highlights a critical European defence failure: unforgiving relative purchasing power. General Mark Milley in his May 2018 testimony to the Senate Appropriations Sub-Committee on Defense pointed out that if one strips out the relatively high cost of US labour the defence outcomes China and Russia generate are dangerously close to that of the US, and far, far beyond any defence outcomes Europeans aspire to.   

A New Combined and Joint European Force Concept

European defence? The expanding bandwidth of war, the state of European public finances and the nature of European society effectively mean that no European state can any longer alone afford to secure itself domestically and defend itself from external threats. In a speech last week at the Atlantic Council in Washington the British Secretary of State for Defence Gavin Williamson suggested two unlikely outcomes. First, that Britain would remain a ‘tier one’ military power and, second, the need for Allied grand strategy – the considered organisation of immense means in pursuit of high ends. If he is serious what would ‘grand strategy’ mean? Now, I have some time for Williamson as he is the first British minister for some time actually thinking about Britain’s defence needs and its value rather than how to reduce Britain’s defences and its cost, inventing metaphors to mask further defence cuts from the media or both.

Britain also exemplifies the European defence dilemma. Britain could hike the defence budget to afford the more high-end kit and greater numbers of personnel needed to increase post-Brexit Britain’s influence a Washington vital to British policy. The Americans would certainly appreciate that. Well, at least this week. But, just what influence would London actually buy with what and at what cost? Alternatively, Britain could engage more deeply in European defence co-operation and help shape it accordingly. 

There are two options for European defence co-operation; common or combined. The ‘common’ approach would see Europeans move decisively towards a fully-integrated force that effectively scrapped national command structures and formations. The ‘combined’ approach would see the further development of a plug and play system in which national European forces could be applied more effectively across the conflict spectrum, not unlike Anglo-American forces during World War Two or NATO today.  The common force would be more efficient in theory, whilst the collective force would be more practical in reality.

For all the inflated rhetoric a ‘common’ European force beloved of the EU is very unlikely to happen if for no other reason than Europeans lack a shared strategic culture. In any case, the utility of such a force would require a European Government which is also very unlikely to happen. Therefore, no more time should be wasted on this Brussels fantasy. The alternative is a kind of combined super European Intervention Force along the lines suggested by France’s President Macron that builds on the ethos and structure of the Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF) Britain and France have already pioneered, and which would be by and large Brexit proof.    

Strategic torpor is normally only broken either by an ally, an enemy or both.  Whatever way one looks at the defence dilemma faced by all Europeans only radical change will realign ends, ways and means and re-establish the credibility of deterrence and defence.  Closing Europe’s yawning defence gap will only ever be realised via an entirely new combined and joint European force concept.

Julian Lindley-French

Wednesday 8 August 2018

Amiens 1918: The Birth of Blitzkrieg


“Tactical success in war is generally achieved by pitting an organised force against a disorganised one”.
J.F.C. Fuller
The Battle of Amiens

Alphen, Netherlands. 8 August. ‘Blitzkrieg’, a sudden and utterly irresistible military attack that can strike anytime, anywhere leading to rapid collapse of defences and quick defeat. 

British Imperial forces called it the Battle of Amiens. The French called it the Battle of Montdidier. In many ways what was happening one hundred years ago today as I write just north of the French city of Amiens was the birth of a new way of war that would span World War One, World War Two and beyond.  The unleashing of combined arms warfare on German forces that wartime summer day would become the inspiration for what Hans von Seeckt, Heinz Guderian and others would later dub ‘blitzkrieg’.  The Allied victory that day was so complete that German Commander-in-Chief Erich Ludendorff was moved to call 8 August 1918, “a black day in the history of the German Army’. This is the (brief) story of the Battle of Amiens?

At 0420 hours the British Fourth Army, under the command of General Sir Henry Rawlinson and the French First Army under General Marie-Eugene Debeney, unleashed a force of over 100,000 men against over-extended and exhausted German forces. As part of the plan the usual British and French practice of massed artillery barrages prior to attack had been abandoned. German commanders were caught completely by surprise. The first German front lines knew of the attack was the sight of some 400 massed British tanks rumbling forward supported by 800 aircraft of the then new Royal Air Force with an artillery barrage provided by over 2000 guns creeping forward in front of the advancing British, Australian, Canadian and French forces.

At 0710 hours the Royal Tank Corps captured the first of the German strongholds, whilst at 0730 hours British III Corps captured another. Thereafter, the German front rapidly began to collapse as the Allies advanced over a front of 4000 yards/3500 metres punching a large hole in German lines. By 1100 hours Australian and Canadian forces had advanced over 3 miles/5 kilometres with British forces capturing over 400 German guns and destroying half the enemy force.  Entire enemy formations began to surrender en masse having been completely de-stabilised by the force, pace and surprise of the attack. By 2100 hours Fourth Army had advanced a further 5 miles/8 kilometres.

Over the ensuing three days the pace of the advance slowed but such damage had been done to the German Army that whilst bloody the ensuing ‘Hundred Days Offensive’ did not stop until the November 1918 Armistice. In March 1919 the newly-formed British Army of the Rhine conducted a victory parade in Cologne. The death toll was heavy. By the end of the Battle of Amiens the British and the French had both lost 22,000 men. However, the by then resource-poor Germany Army had lost 75,000 men.

The Origins of Amiens

What eventually led to Ludendorff’s ‘black day’ had commenced on 21 March 1918 with Imperial Germany’s last great gamble – Operation Michael.  With the Royal Navy’s successful blockade of Germany triggering starvation and industrial unrest in the Fatherland it was clear to Berlin that unless the situation on the ground in France could be changed radically Germany would be forced to accept unfavourable peace terms. America’s 1917 entry into the war and the arrival of General Pershing’s American Expeditionary Force all but ensured an Allied victory.

In March German ‘Stormtroopers’ had made stunning advances pushing the British back over the land they had gained at the Third Battle of Ypres and the Battle of Cambrai in 1917. More poignantly the German Army had advanced rapidly over the old Somme battlefield of 1916.  Ludendorff’s aim had been to split the Allied armies and force the British back to the Channel. He failed. Critically, British Imperial forces did not break under the German assault and by and large retreated in reasonably good order.

Innovation and Retrenchment

Since the charnel house of the Somme British tactics had been evolving led by innovative thinkers such as Colonel J.F.C Fuller who wanted to break out of the stalemate of trench warfare. They combined new thinking with industrial power and emerging technologies to create new strategies, tactics and formations designed to destroy an enemy with shock and surprise. Ironically, the ‘grab and hold’ tactics that replaced the full-on assaults that had killed so many to little effect were copied from German ‘Stormtrooper’ tactics.

Fuller’s Plan 1919, had it been implemented would have been the first truly strategic ‘blitzkrieg’.  Twenty years later on 1 September 1939 a new ‘Amiens’ was inflicted on Poland, but on a grand strategic scale with improved command communications between air and land power the key to victory. As part of a carefully implemented information war the colloquial title given by the Germans to the attack was ‘blitzkrieg’ – lightning war.  In May 1940 Blitzkrieg was further inflicted on Belgian, French, Dutch and British forces, all of which were over-stretched and wrongly-deployed having been deceived into believing their own prejudices about the Germans and each other. In 1943 at the Battle of Kursk Soviet forces began to do the same to over-extended German forces as the British had done at Amiens, albeit on an epic scale.  The massed forces of Marshals Rokossovsky and Zhukov did not stop advancing until they sacked Berlin in May 1945.

Having gained victory via a new way of offensive warfare the Western democracies did what they have so often done in peacetime. They handed the concept and technology of victory to illiberal enemies in the interbellum.  It was ever thus.  Innovative and disruptive thinkers were marginalised whilst disarmament became a metaphor for a retreat from political Realism. The likes of Fuller, Basil Liddell Hart, Charles de Gaulle and Billy Mitchell tried to keep the flame of military innovation alive in the West. However, it was thinkers like Hans von Seeckt in Germany and Mikhail Tuckachevsky in the then Soviet Union who really pushed forward innovation.

Shock and Awe: Lessons of Amiens for today

The essence of Amiens was ‘shock and awe’. Many iterations of such tactics have taken place since, notably General Norman Schwarzkopf’s attack on Iraqi forces in 1991. What links Rawlinson to Schwarzkopf and beyond is the ever-growing distance between attacker and target and between intent and effect as technology has enabled greatly more diverse ways and means of generating shock and awe.

With a seismic shift again underway in the military balance of power away from the Western democracies the conditions are again fast being created in which the unthinkable could become the thinkable and in time the frighteningly plausible.  The problem with the ‘unthinkable’ is that it is normally the leaders of western democracies who refuse to think it.  They prefer instead to believe the unthinkable is the impossible, thus creating the perfect conditions something catastrophically nasty in Europe. 

Today, ‘blitzkrieg’ would better be dubbed ‘blitz-crash’: sudden, overwhelming, co-ordinated impact on already vulnerable and under-protected civilian and military systems using mega-disinformation, mass disruption and targeted mass destruction designed to create panic amongst populations, decapitate national and multinational command authorities and prevent an organised defence and response.

Perhaps the most fitting end to the story of Amiens came in 1952 when German General Heinz Guderian published his book Panzer Leader. It was Guderian who had almost pushed the British Army into the sea at Dunkirk in June 1940.  The Foreword to the book was written by Basil Liddell Hart.

Julian Lindley-French

Tuesday 31 July 2018

RADICALLY RE-THINKING BRITAIN'S SECURITY AND DEFENCE


In the wake of the failure of the Modernising Defence Programme in this second of my extended summer food-for-thought essays William Hopkinson and I offer a radical new approach to the design of a credible and affordable UK security and defence policy. William was a former Director of Studies and Deputy Director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) and Assistant Secretary of State (Policy) in the Ministry of Defence in London. As you will see such a policy would require hard facts to be faced and tough choices to be made, for neither of which the May Government has shown much aptitude. We have, with all due respect, ventured to cast the advice in the form of a submission from the Cabinet Secretary.

Minute from Cabinet Secretary to the Prime Minister, September 2018

Summary: In light of the inability to properly fund the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security and Review and the failure of the Defence Modernisation Programme there is an urgent need for the United Kingdom to re-consider security and defence policy in the round. The UK faces adversaries armed with new technologies and ways of offence that render its current security and defence structures obsolete.  We must meet critical threats, on occasion independently, usually in alliance or coalition, across a broad spectrum, but have a host of legacy structures and systems. We need radical solutions in which security and defence are organised effectively. We must understand the nature of contemporary threats and their interaction, the impact of new technologies and propose to establish a credible level of response and recovery in the event of shock. That will require intelligent but profound choices to be made and will inevitably require a wholesale re-structuring of the Armed Forces driven solely by relevant considerations rather than resources available due to the current policy of imposing profound constraints on the public purse.

The Tasking
1.       I asked the Cabinet Office for advice on devising appropriate structures, below government level, to ensure the safety and security of the state and its members given the rapidly changing and deteriorating strategic environment, the emergence of new adversaries and threats and the re-emergence of ‘traditional’ adversaries armed with new capabilities and technologies. The result is set out below.

2.     `The areas covered include those commonly embraced by the police, armed forces and intelligence services but also deal with gaps in current structures. The responsibilities of and relationships between the structures and organisations proposed have been considered on their merits, without constraint from existing practices or legacy equipment.

3.           Britain needs appropriate machinery to formulate, review and implement national strategy. It lacks an effective mechanism for the scanning of strategic horizons, the crafting of consequent objectives, and the making, pursuit and fulfilment of appropriate strategy.  This does not happen in practice, partly because ministers are unwilling to engage in this way, and partly because the machinery to formulate coherent strategic advice does not exist. Given the need to service the voracious twenty-four hour news cycle ministers regularly confuse the tactical with the strategic. The Prime Minister’s heavyweight engagement is necessary directing and coordinating the three principal departments Defence, Foreign Affairs and the Exchequer.

4.      The government must be able to defend the home base and its population, and the overseas territories, contribute to the defence of allies, and project power to realise its legitimate vital interests where and when that is necessary. It must do so against traditional threats and across a new spectrum that involves and combines hybrid war as well as the renewed threat of military aggression including through the use of new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence.

5.           It is vital that not only do our security structures integrate and work seamlessly but also that all parts of government, and indeed other public authorities, do the same. The different parts of government and state machinery must work as a coherent whole. There will be important interfaces between security organisations and bodies responsible for public health and national infrastructure. Those bodies will be the subject of separate studies.

6.       This minute is essentially about how to meet security needs. Economy and efficiency will be important but for the sake of the study I have assumed that there will be no undue resource restraint. The UK is around the upper quartile of EU states in GDP per head and I have further assumed that we will continue to commit circa 9% of public spending or roughly 3.5% of GDP to security. Given the UK has a circa $3 trillion economy some $100 billion per annum is devoted to security in the round. If the security afforded by the private sector is included the resources available to the UK to mount credible and effective deterrence, defence and recovery is considerable. The missing factor is structure and organisation to co-ordinate and employ such capability effectively.

The Threats
7.           The UK must be able to respond to natural disasters, major accidents and malicious attacks, both at home and abroad.  The effects could range from the undermining of societal cohesion to widespread destruction of population and infrastructure, even to the undermining of national existence. Attacks may be by state or non-state actors, or a mixture, and involve high-intensity, cyber and hybrid warfare.

8.           Hybrid warfare may involve conventional weapons, weapons of mass destruction (WMD), crime, terrorist and information elements that could destabilise, preventing effective governance by an adversary state. It may also include direct military action, major criminal activity and subversion. The aim of such attacks is to create a political dystopia in which systems of governance break down, trust between citizens and the state collapses, leading to situation in which a state is felt by its own people to have no greater legitimacy or capability than aggressor groups.  Such efforts at de-legitimation may also extend to institutions and international organisations, such as the EU and NATO.

9.           Cyber warfare transforms cyberspace into a battlespace. The strategic aim is to ‘turn’ computer systems large and small into a weapon to disrupt and destroy critical infrastructures and procedures of the state. This can compound social vulnerability and a lack of social cohesion thus undermining societal resiliency.  Cyber aggression may be the mechanism of choice for an adversary seeking to escalate a conflict whilst at the same time preventing or delaying attribution of a hostile act. It also enables terrorists to force multiply and adversaries to employ such groups remotely as part of a destructive process of conflict escalation.

10.        In the wake of the Salisbury nerve agent attack, it is clear Russia now poses the most direct military threat to the United Kingdom. It has placed increased emphasis on nuclear weapons, and other forms of unconventional hybrid and hyper warfare capabilities and capacities, to counter what Moscow believes to be NATO’s conventional military superiority. Meanwhile, radical Islamist groups, such as Al Qaeda and ISIS, are also exploring the use of technologies and strategies to penetrate open, western societies, erode the protection of the home base and undermine the social and political cohesion upon which all security and defence strategies in democracies are necessarily founded. Also, other illiberal regimes are developing high-end military capabilities that could place both the UK and its deployed forces under enhanced threat. These efforts could soon be reinforced by new force multipliers, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing and their integration into the future order of battle, allied to the development of hypersonic weaponry. The UK is unlikely to successfully deter or defend against what can best be described as radical warfare unless it can also demonstrably do so simultaneously same against hybrid, cyber and hyper warfare.

Capabilities
11.        The range of capabilities required will involve high-end war-fighting, gendarmerie, border control, crime-fighting, including against financial and cyber-crime. This is not to say that everything from nuclear deterrence to neighbourhood policing should be the responsibility of one organisation, only that decisions about organisations and structures must start from what needs to be done, not what has always been done. The same is true of intelligence-gathering and analysis, not least as regards what is done for protection of the home base.

12.        Radical warfare allows no place for silos, a terrain reservé, or internal jealousies. Nor should we seek to introduce the sort of structural checks and frictions found in the USA machinery of government. Overcoming existing attitudes, traditional approaches and understandable loyalties to how things have been will be a challenge that must not be shirked. At the same time, we must remember that maintaining the morale of those who may be called upon to hazard their lives in the national interest is vital.

13.        Defence of population involves deterring and defeating both aggression and serious crime and also dealing with natural and other disasters. Working with allies and international institutions involves diplomacy and effective policy coordination as well as the application of force, all of which place a premium on the maintenance and enhancement of Britain’s influence, itself underpinned by a credible level of British force.

14.        The application of force will involve action by land, sea, and in the air, and in cyber activities and space. It will need to be integrated with effective presentation and information, both for the home audience and for others. Countering hostile information and distortion will be essential. All the above will be necessary not only in dealing with state actors but also with serious crime, insurgency and with the complexities of hybrid warfare. The long-standing divisions of capabilities between military land forces, navies and air forces, and between such armed forces and police does not even meet current requirements, let alone radical warfare.

15.        Information and knowledge are central to the mounting of any effective defence in radical warfare: ‘thinking forces’ able to generate, assess and use information will be critical to both deterrence and defence.  That will necessitate the move to a much more comprehensive force posture – civilian and military alike. Experience gained by the Joint Force Command will be relevant though not sufficient.

Intelligence, Cyber and Information
16.        The current top level Intelligence structures should be maintained, with a Joint Intelligence Committee entirely free from political appointments or membership. The Defence Intelligence staff should also continue. A joint Service/Civilian organisation should be charged with offensive and defensive Cyber warfare, and with out of theatre Information warfare.

17.       There are three strong arguments for closer integration of armed forces than has usually been seen: one is so that on operations there is commonality of vision about the problems and how to tackle them; the second is the impact of new technologies on force structure; but it is the third that is perhaps most compelling – the need to avoid three-way squabbles about the division of a now very limited British defence cake. If there are three chiefs of staff there will be ferocious arguments about splitting the cake three ways; if there are only two the squabble is reduced to a two way one. A fourth significant argument is to ensure rationalisation in procurement and logistics.

18.       We need to better understand the range of technologies and techniques available to adversaries, from the application and exploitation of big data to exploit divisions with society to the use of unmanned drones and AI-armed with long-range weaponry that could inflict sudden and massive damage. Such understanding requires a culture of worst-case assessment to be re-established, the engagement of the political leadership in realistic exercising, and ensuring a continuum of credible effects across across effective defence, deterrence, consequence management and resiliency of both people and systems. Consideration must also be given to the impact of such new technologies on structure and command and control in a crisis when the time for decision-making could be reduced to seconds.
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19.        The UK is particularly well-placed to take advantage of new technologies, of which most of the development takes place in the private sector. However, as yet the UK has failed to exploit its extensive private security sector.  A partnership would help create capability and be a possible source of regular and surge capacity. It would also reinforce the ability of government to recover from an attack or a disaster. However, many companies at the cutting-edge of innovation have little experience of the defence sector and it will be important to develop a much broader understanding of ‘defence’ in the business community than hitherto, whilst ensuring that research undertaken in the UK is not stolen via industrial or other espionage. 

20.            The relationship between the state and its industrial sector in extremis should also be considered.  A variant from well-established policy of STUFT - ships taken up from trade in the event of conflict could help bring industries relevant to security and defence rapidly under state control in the event of need. The UK should also consider assisting such companies to make them more robust against all forms of attack, including cyber.

21.            One particular lacuna in the UK’s deterrence posture needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. As the conventional forces have declined in comparison with potential and actual adversaries reliance on the nuclear deterrent has implicitly increased. However, the UK’s nuclear deterrent is a last resort.  The treaty-legal and illegal development of short and medium range nuclear-tipped missile systems by Russia suggests that should conventional deterrence fail the UK would face a choice – seek terms or escalate immediately to the level of nuclear Armageddon. Such a situation would afford ministers little of no option but to effectively submit to an aggressor.

Ground Operations
22.            Military and hard security operations will generally require engagement on the ground: even pirates usually have a home port that must be gripped if their activities are to be abolished. The UK needs ground forces (an army) to aid the Civil Power, to project to protect and defend itself and its allies, and to deter aggression. These will include Special Operations Forces, forces capable of undertaking gendarmerie roles, and those capable of high-intensity combat.

23.            Engagement on the ground will usually require mastery of the air (which may or may not have to be achieved against opposition) and cyber and information operations. Air support, both kinetic and for local movement, must, in general, be integral, though elements may need to be added from naval structures, particularly in littoral operations. The ground operations in which the UK is likely to be engaged away from the country are most likely to be in conjunction with allies, although cyber and much information activity by their nature need not necessarily be carried out in the physical area of actual engagement. Nevertheless, for these activities, there needs to be the closest liaison between the command structures of any deployed British forces and those of allies and whatever organs are conducting the operations.

24.            Ground operations may range from all-out heavy conventional combat to relatively peaceful gendarmerie operations, and also humanitarian relief work, sometimes with several operations running concurrently. In particular, keeping the peace amongst a civilian population during and after combat may require multiple roles to be played by and in support of the forces on the ground. All levels will require the use of aviation assets, intelligence-gathering and interpretation, and (except in the case of natural disasters) concurrent offensive and defensive cyber operations. In all cases, information activity, in and out of theatre, will be essential.

25.            Given the requirements, land forces will need to be significantly increased in size and improved in capability.  NATO assumes that the UK will provide two divisions within 60 days of a major emergency being declared. At present, we would struggle to deploy even one such division and be unable to provide a high-end, manoeuvre force for some time after the commencement of hostilities. In other words, British land forces could well face a crushing defeat in the early part of a war, particularly forward deployed forces on NATO’s eastern flank. Even the crudest of analyses suggests that the British Army needs to be at least twice the current size.

26.            Command must be vested in the lead ground engagement agency, usually the Army although, exceptionally, another agency may be appropriate. That force should be responsible for the air assets involved, whether for movement or reconnaissance/intelligence gathering or kinetic action. Those assets should, in general, be Army ones in peace as well as in deployment and manned by Army personnel. An exception may need to be made if naval assets are assigned to this work, e.g. carrier-borne aircraft. In that case, there will need to be clarity over command and control for the period of assignation, and over the terms of the assignation itself.

Constabulary/Gendarmerie
27.            The issue of appropriate national, civilian police structures will be the subject of a separate submission, which will cover the interface between them and the armed forces.  However, given the security and defence issues faced by the UK, and their interaction, not the least of which is the growing threat of transnationally-organised criminal gangs, there will be a need for an armed, military, deployable gendarmerie-type force. That force may undertake some of roles normally carried out by Royal Military Police (i.e. the armed forces’ internal police units) but will have wider responsibilities maintaining order in conflict and post conflict situations as part of re-energised civil defence and effective consequence management and recovery.  In peacetime, the numbers required will not be large but there could be significant requirements for expansion in conflict and humanitarian crises.  The key will probably be to have the bulk of such a force provided by reservists, perhaps those not fully fit for high-intensity-combat, with a cadre of regulars, drawn possibly from the military police.

Air Operations
28.            Air operations are indeed vital but need to be integrated with others. Extensive experience has shown, contrary to early hopes, that the air arm alone cannot win wars. The scope for independent air operations will usually be very limited. Except for the unlikely but not impossible requirement for some independent strategic strike, ultimately the nuclear option, air operations need to be closely integrated as a function of ground or maritime operations, with a particular focus on anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) and rapid supply and re-supply of forward deployed forces. In the former, they should be no more independent of the main ground effort than the use of artillery (of which they are in essence a kind) or of other (tactical) reconnaissance assets. Those undertaking the missions, whether of combat, reconnaissance or transport, need to be, in understanding, training and tasking, as one with the rest of the forces engaged on the ground. Similar arguments apply to the involvement of air activities with maritime, whether for combat, policing, reconnaissance or long-range transport. The critical factor is the steady shift away from manned platforms and moves towards automated command structures informed by unmanned space and air-breathing SIGINT and strike capabilities. If it is ever built the part-manned 6G Tempest fighter would almost certainly mark the last such air defence asset that carried a human pilot.

Air Defence
29.            Such developments as the Tempest, allied to cyber, AI and other new war-applicable technologies now bring into question the need for a separate air force.  With the Royal Air Force celebrating its centennial and commemorating those tens of thousands who gave their lives in the defence of Britain further major reductions to the RAF will come at a political cost.  Opposition to the plans to close historic RAF Scampton give some idea of the opposition to which such a significant chance would lead.  However, all of the above can leave no doubt that the UK must forge a new balance between the future defence roles of the Armed Forces, the ability and willingness of the country to afford them and the likely profound impact of new technologies on the structure and method of Britain’s future force.  Therefore, we conclude that a separate Air Force is unaffordable and will complicate unnecessarily structure and command at a time when speed of decision-making and response will be a vital, if not the vital, element of a credible deterrence and defence policy.

30.            Furthermore, except for close-in protection of ships and personnel and materiel on the battlefield, air defence must be layered and executed far out and probably at greater altitudes than could be attained by manned aircraft launched at a putative enemy close to launching an attack. Stand-off weapons, such as the new Russian Kinzhal missile, which is capable of speeds in excess of Mach 9, and cyber threats to defensive systems make it necessary to integrate and combine information, AI and missile defence responses to cyber and air-borne kinetic threats. Such integration and machine-led reactivity will be essential to the effective air defence of the homeland, as well as for the successful conduct of expeditionary warfare, including the movement of force to theatre.

31.            The main protection against air attacks crossing Europe must involve an effective defence coordinated through NATO along the line of access across the continent, facilitated by enhanced military mobility via air, sea, rail and road. Many of the necessary systems and assets will be those of allies, with which British contributions must be able to integrate seamlessly. For attacks crossing open seas, the assets required will be largely maritime, both for information gathering and execution. To protect both the homeland, and deployed maritime assets against such attacks the UK must deploy forces of its own. The same sort of assets will also contribute to protecting naval forces from surface and subsurface attack. Given the security requirements, the most effective arrangement will be for extended air defence to be a naval responsibility.

32.            Therefore, we recommend reverting to a two force, naval and army structure, with the two forces being two halves of a deep joint force construct. We further considered whether that approach should be carried a stage further, merging the Army and Navy into one Defence Force.  That has been done by some smaller nations, in general, who do not seek to play a world-wide role or a high-end role in conflict. Such attempts at force synergy has not always proved successful and given Britain’s mix of responsibilities and complex objectives, and the different roles of maritime and land engagement we do not recommend such a step. Nevertheless, the Army and Navy must be capable of close, joint operations, and generally, the command structure will reflect that.  To inculcate the appropriate skills and attitudes the rank structure above Brigadier/Commodore should be both common and joint.

Force Projection
33.            Force projection involves getting to grips with an opposition, probably but not necessarily at least involving a state actor, and possibly several hostile elements, some overt and some covert. Such action is likely to be with others under some international mandate or agreement. For the UK such contingencies will involve getting there, securing passage by land, air or sea (or several of them); entry into theatre; and engagement with the opposition, whilst holding off interference by ground, air or maritime elements. The first step, after political decision, is integrated planning, involving diplomacy, information and cyber-defence. The next is securing passage and entry to the theatre of operations, requiring transport and force protection.

34.            Force projection needs intelligence-gathering, and preparedness for air, land and probably maritime engagement. Except in the still unlikely but no longer impossible case of all out engagement with a major enemy (the complicating policy factor) where there may be a case for a strategic strike, once forces are in theatre the focus should be directed by the ground engagement. Movement to theatre and any forcible entry may require different arrangements.

Littoral Operations
35.            Except in littoral (brown water) operations, there will be little direct read-across between maritime and ground combat (as opposed to logistic) operations. Littoral operations are a significant aspect of security and of fundamental importance for Britain’s interests. They can be very complex, not least because of the increasing urbanisation of conflict. In part, it is because of the change (in simple terms) from getting forces safely into where they are needed, to their operating effectively therein, and of switching certain assets from a maritime role to a ground one. In part, it is because littoral operations may well involve humanitarian and constabulary roles for which warfighting assets may not be ideal whilst purely civilian assets may not be appropriate.

36.            Ideally, Britain needs more dedicated assets and personnel, closely linked with the Navy, to cover the whole range of potential in-theatre activity: military, humanitarian and constabulary.  Resources are unlikely to permit that, and some of the skill and assets are likely to be of direct relevance to other land warfare commitments.  Therefore, the best compromise may be a core of naval integrated assets and personnel, capable of dealing with maritime, ground support and a range of land warfare situations, in particular forcible entry and assault, and supplement them by attaching elements from a ground warfare force.

Movement
37.            The UK is an island power, with a long though now attenuated maritime tradition. Force projection will necessitate movement of forces and equipment from the homeland to the place of deployment. Much of that movement will require sea lift, certainly for heavy equipment and stores and probably for significant numbers of personnel. Even movement by air will generally involve overflight of sea to avoid the political complications of overflying neutral or hostile states. In the circumstances, the movement of a force into theatre, and their guarding along the way, will be a critical element of mission success.

38.            Not all the assets and personnel involved need be naval, though in general that will make sense. The point is that the direction and responsibility must be naval. Unless the personnel and assets have other roles, unrelated to movement and its safeguarding, they should be naval or maritime-specialised civilian assets and personnel. Effective maritime reconnaissance, strike and patrol aircraft naval will be of particular importance. The role of ground support aircraft borne on carriers, of land-based air defence aircraft protecting maritime assets and of strategic reconnaissance and intelligence gathering assets receives further consideration below.

Maritime
39.            As an island, heavily dependent upon sea-borne trade, and with world-wide interests the UK needs effective maritime armed forces (a Navy).  The organisational issue is what capabilities the Navy should require and how far they should be integrated.  Some assets necessary for the effective functioning of a Navy, such as strategic intelligence collection and analysis can best be run on a national basis; others that have historically been separated, such as maritime reconnaissance and strike, should be integrated. Therefore, naval assets and responsibilities should include all maritime and air lift/transport, except tactical battlefield movement; all long-range air reconnaissance; and all extended airborne air defence.

40.            Consequently, the UK needs maritime-amphibious forces that can both project power in strength and extend power in numbers.  The future fleet should be constructed around two large aircraft-carriers with the UK able to deploy one, possibly two fully-armed and fully-protected battle groups reinforced by a significant number of Special Operating Forces and specialised marines. Force protection will be critical and require the ability to defend against all potential forms of attack. Those include the use of fast speed boats by terrorists armed with explosives, sea-based hypersonic missiles capable of up to Mach 9, and underwater weapons using artificially intelligent robotic swarm technologies. Therefore, in addition to the two capital ships, the UK must have effective anti-submarine and anti-air capabilities.

41.            The aircraft carriers would be unsuitable for launching and sustaining ground forces for anything but the most permissive of operations. Without their heavy equipment, such forces are little more than light infantry. Moreover, given the risk of shore-based anti-ship technology, deploying the capital ships into the Littoral would subject the UK’s main carrier-strike assets to an unacceptably high-level of risk for all but the most extreme of contingencies.  The UK would, therefore, need landing platform dock (LPD) and/or landing platform helicopter (LPH) ships.

Strategic Enablers: Space and Knowledge
42.       The essential message of this paper is that Britain needs to radically re-think its approach to security and defence, particularly in the face of radical war. The Armed Forces must be recast into a deep joint force organised around a reformed Army and Navy.  However, Britain’s future force will require two other strategic enablers – space-based capabilities and knowledge.

43.           In addition to air-breathing intelligence assets Britain will need access to or ownership of space-based SIGINT and military satellite communications (milsatcom) systems able to manage a high-level of data transfer at a high-level of encryption. The cost of such bespoke systems under sole national authority will be prohibitive.  Traditionally, Britain has offset such costs via access to US systems or via co-operation with other European powers, such as the Skynet series of milsatcom satellites. There may be another way to fund such assets via co-operation with the private sector. Both commercial space-based SIGINT and satellite communications offer a high degree of both capability and capacity.

44.          Implicit in the joint force construct is the idea of the ‘thinking force’. Given the complexity of radical war and other operations mission success will depend on the ability of officers at every level of the command chain to make reasoned decisions and understand the strategic as well as the tactical implications of their actions.  Such an approach will place an entirely new meaning on junior officer leadership and Britain’s future leaders (not just military) need to be far better prepared. Therefore, an enhanced programme of security and defence education and training will be critical to the realisation of national policy.

Conclusion
45.           The harsh logic of this analysis is that the UK lacks the right forces and the right organisation of forces to meet twenty-first century challenges. And, without a clear understanding of how to apply force against threat is uncertain about the critical security and defence investments it must make. Government is trapped between the need to invest in future security and defence and failing to do so for fear of making ill-informed or mistaken choices. In the absence of coherent policy government partially invests in an essentially legacy force simply to give the impression of defence engagement. Heat instead of light.

46.          Such drift in policy is becoming daily more dangerous. Given the vulnerability of British society and supporting critical infrastructures, the defeat of British forces would mean the effective and rapid defeat of the UK itself. Such a defeat could be inflicted by a determined state adversary with a markedly weaker economy than that of the UK. Grave damage could also be inflicted by non-state actors. Therefore, the intelligent strengthening of forces and radical improvements to organisation are imperative.

47.            There are many barriers in the way of such a radical programme of reform. There are powerful vested interests deeply-committed to ‘tradition’ and the legacy structures it helps maintain.  Government departments will resists synergies that erode their ability to shape and implement policy.  The cost associated with the process of transformation (for it is transformation that is necessary) will be extensive at a time when there are many competing demands on the Exchequer. However, given the current threats, and the changing nature and scope of those threats, such action is needed if the UK is to afford credible protection to its citizens in the twenty-first century, projecting meaningful influence, credible deterrence, effective defence, and necessary coercion at an effective level of capability at an acceptable level of affordability.

Cabinet Secretary