“I think the Services can be
rightly very upset at the continuous series of defence reviews which the
Government has been forced by economic circumstances—and maybe economic
mistakes too—to carry out…”
Rt. Hon Denis Healey MP, Secretary of State for Defence 1964-1970
Jim
Alphen,
Netherlands. 25 July. His name is Jim. Jim is British. He is also an
experienced non-commissioned officer in the British Army. Still, given Jim’s story, he could also be called Francois,
Jeroen, Jurgen or increasingly Heidi, Karin or Yvette. Jim has twenty years’ service to his name and
is the backbone of the force of which he is part. Year after year of defence
cuts have left Jim the only survivor of the little band of brothers which whom
he served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some were killed, others invalided out, but
most simply left for better jobs in ‘Civvy Street’. On many occasions, Jim has thought about following
them. Even though his wife has to work to make ends meet and the Ministry of
Defence housing inflicted on his family is falling apart consumed by damp and
faulty plumbing, as a member of the poor bloody infantry the time never seemed
quite right.
A couple of
years ago Jim received a modest pay rise which did little to offset the years
of Whitehall imposed pay restraint. Year
after year Jim has heard his senior commanders promise new equipment and new
investment, but somehow it never came to pass. When it did the ‘kit’ on offer
did little to convince Jim and his mates that in a full-on firefight with an
enemy which knew its business they would last very long. Behind
the shiny metal things London liked to
show to give the impression the British Army was still a fighting force to be
reckoned with there was Jim’s reality. Jim’s reality was endless reviews with
shiny names like Army 2020 but which in fact always meant the same thing of
making do with what was available, coping with never enough spares, far too
little ammunition and even less training and exercising because it was deemed
too expensive by the budgeteers.
Still, to Jim
and his mates the budgeteers were not
the real enemy. They were the ‘fuckwit’ politicians who in one breath would
announce that Britain had the finest armed forces in the world, then in another
breath announce yet further cuts. The latest
round of cuts had gone under the wonderfully euphemistic name of the ‘Defence
Modernisation Programme’ which as far as Jim could see threatened to ‘modernise’
the British Army’s spearhead out of existence. Perhaps that was the aim. At
times Jim thought he was part of an armed aid delivery service rather than the
cutting edge of a fighting force so capable its very existence would deter any
enemy.
Jim would
admit that once he had looked down a bit on his colleagues in other European forces. They were not THE British Army with its fighting traditions
and ‘can do’ ethos. They were Bonsai
militaries full of part-timers playing at soldiers led by politicians who
seemed to believe everything could be left to the Americans. The British, Jim
thought, were different. Britain would
always fight and if he and his mates were to die doing it they would do so
knowing that at least his commanders and London had their backs. Not anymore.
Britain it
seems was just like any other strategically-detached European country led by
weak politicians surrounded by think tanks and policy lobbyists hell bent on
convincing these kings and queens of the short-term that defence was passé and
that the defence budget was little more than a reserve cash cow to fund the
National Health Service, social care and social security. Even if Jim and his mates did not understand
the specifics Jim wondered why his brand of decent patriotism and his
willingness to serve and if needs be die for his country was sneered at by one
half of the political class and under-valued by the other half. A government who seemed so obsessed with
balancing the country’s books in the short-term that they were prepared to risk
Britain’s security to do it.
Jim was a
decent soul who welcomed the growing contingent of foreigners in the Army. If
they were willing to fight for his country alongside him and they could take a
joke that was fine by Jim. He also
wondered why so many of his senior commanders seemed willing to defend the repeated
cuts in uniform but once retired seem all too happy to appear on TV telling all
and sundry that the state of the British Army was so parlous it would be
defeated in a trice by an enemy with any military capability. Deep down Jim hoped they were saying the same
things whilst in uniform to the prime minister as they seemed so willing to say
out of it. Frankly, he doubted it. In any case,
these were questions way above Jim’s pay grade.
So, Jim did what he always did and focus on his unit, his men, his ‘oppos’,
for when it came to the crunch it was for them and with them he would fight.
Jim gets the
call
It was high
summer when it started. Jim got a text
message on holiday to report back to barracks immediately. For days now he had
been on leave laying on a Cornish beach, building sand-castles with his twin
five year old boys and enjoying an occasional bit of body-surfing off Fistral Beach.
He had wanted to go abroad on holiday but the family could not afford it. He had
been vaguely aware that something was ‘up’. The newspapers and TV were full of ‘experts’
warning about the build-up of Russian forces on NATO’s eastern border. This was
not the first time he had heard such ‘stuff’ so Jim had let any clouds of concern
he might have drift on by under the high summer sun. Still, something nagged at him. For the past two months, the Americans had been embroiled in a full-scale crisis
with the Chinese in Asia. As a front-line
combat soldier Jim was a member of a battalion
that was part of one of the Army’s new strike brigades, halfway between a ‘light’
and a ‘heavy’ force. Jim knew that in an emergency he would be one of the first
to go, after the Hereford Lads (SAS), the Bubbleheads (SBS) and 16 Air Assault
Brigade.
Jim left his
worried wife with the usual assurances that it was just another scare and that
he would be back in no time. But this was different. When he got back to base
it was clear he was walking into a full blown crisis. There was none of the usual ‘let’s tick the box’ go through the motions exercise nonsense. This was for
real. Very quickly Jim’s force was
joined by other battlegroups being rapidly embarked in Portsmouth for shipment
to Germany. Jim quickly learnt that the
original plan had been to trans-ship the force across Europe by rail. However, Europe’s
rail system was simply not up to the job of getting even a moderately large force forward deployed quickly enough
and the decision had been taken by the ‘brass’ to use requisitioned civilians
ships and escort them to Bremerhaven for onward dispatch.
With tensions
so high this was a risky course of action. Taking a British-led naval task
group into the Baltic Sea with the bulk of Britain’s land strike force to a
possible war was replete with danger. He could see the concern on the faces of
his senior commanders, most notably the Royal Navy officers charged with
escorting the force. The ‘RN’ simply
lacked the anti-submarine and air defence ships and submarines to properly defend such a
large and vital convoy. Worse, Britain’s
much vaunted new aircraft carriers HMS Queen
Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales
were deemed too vulnerable (and too expensive) to be risked given they were so lightly
armed and armoured. The simple truth was that the Navy could either escort the
convoy or the carriers but not both. French,
German and Dutch ships would also help defend the convoy but the ships of the
German and Dutch navies, in particular, lacked vital defensive weapons systems.
At least the
politicians were still talking and, as ever, Britain would muddle through as it
always did, or so Jim thought. Once embarked
and underway Jim and his men settled down into a sort of routine. Constant weapons checks and exercising on
deck were interrupted for ORP or operation ration packs. They engaged in
friendly and not-so-friendly banter with the Royal Marines. As for the Scots…. Still,
Jim could smell the apprehension. Some men talked too much, others too
little.
In fact, the
voyage to Bremerhaven went surprisingly smoothly. The problems for Jim and his
mates began when they arrived. The
Americans had spared what force they could and sent four more armoured
brigade combat teams to Europe. The British force arrived just after the
Americans such was the disorganisation created by the emergency. The British force was also under American
command because Washington had made it perfectly clear that such was the nature of the emergency and such were the pressures faced by US forces that no way would the Americans rely on that ‘talking
shop NATO, as the American president had called it.
For two days
Jim and his mates sat off Bremerhaven waiting to disembark. Sitting ducks. When
they finally got ashore they waited a further two days before they set off
eastwards into Poland. As they made their
way along EU-funded Polish motorways none of which had been designed with
military mobility in mind the mood darkened.
News was that the emergency was now a full-blown crisis with war
imminent. Like all soldiers on the eve
of combat there was anticipation and resolve allied to a mix of boredom with
the journey, uncertainty as to what lay ahead, and the adrenalin-edged smelly expectation
that fear generates. Would it happen? Could it happen? Will I survive? What
about my family? Above all, will I let myself and the lads down? Over and over again Jim’s mind mulled what soldiers had mulled since time immemorial. It was a relief simply to go through another drill or check
weapons again and again as the monotonous northern Polish countryside lumbered by. Every now and then he would linger for an
already nostalgic moment on the last images he had of his wife and kids on that
peaceful Cornish beach.
Jim never saw
or heard the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal
hypersonic missile that killed him and destroyed his column. The MiG 31 that
fired it never even left Russian airspace. Years of cuts had rendered force
protection of forward deployed British forces utterly incapable of dealing with
such a dangerous adversary in the absence of American forces in strength. They were busy elsewhere. Jim never
even got to fire his SA80 L85A1 rifle. Jim just died.
Why Jim died
There is a
gnawing predictability to the downward spiral that is British defence
policy. Yes, London may have been
politically-savvy getting more defence bad news out on the last day of
parliamentary business before the long Brexit-laden summer recess. In Westminster,
it is known as ‘take the trash out day’.
Yes, the usual apologists have been ushered out of the woodwork to
suggest another retreat from defence reality is in fact much-needed further
rationalisation of the ‘defence base’.
Yes, it is sad that RAF Scampton, home of the famous Red Arrows and the
even more famous Dambusters is to
close. History must not be allowed to warp
contemporary and future policy, strategy and requirement. No, the politicians
can do that all on their strategically-illiterate lonesomes. Still, there is
something fittingly poignant about the closure of Scampton and it what it says
about the defence ambition of Britain’s leaders.
You see none
of the above grips the essential truth that Britain’s failure to close the £20bn
plus funding hole in the British defence budget puts the British people,
allies, and above all the ‘Jims’ in uniform at ever greater risk. Even those responsible for the cuts admit the world is demonstrably becoming more
dangerous by the day. A world in which
deterrence might well in future rely on novel ‘hybrid, ‘cyber’ and quite
possibly applications of artificial intelligence, but which right now rests on sufficient
cadres of capable armed forces properly-equipped by the democracies they serve.
That is now demonstrably NOT so in Britain’s case. This week thus marks perhaps
a definitive retreat from realising the baseline force that even as recently as
the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review was deemed to be the minimum
force necessary given the threats Britain faces.
As such, the
much-vaunted Defence Modernisation Plan is nothing of the sort. Defence Secretary Gavin
Williamson failed to convince either Prime Minister May or Chancellor Phillip Hammond
that significant extra funding was needed simply to fulfil the 2015 baseline. It now means that the real Jim and his mates if they ever have to be used at the
higher end of conflict will do so at a far higher level of risk than should be
the case. Instead, the ‘DMP’ has become yet another of those now many metaphors
and euphemisms Westminster and Whitehall employs for politics before strategy
defence cuts. The ‘we recognise only as
much threat as we can afford culture’ that Hammond has imposed on British
defence because he fails to realise there is a world beyond the Treasury that try
as he might refuses to fit neatly onto his spreadsheet.
In the wake
of this further retreat exercising and training will be adjusted to test only
those things Britain’s tiny force can do, rather than the things it might be
called upon to do. Worst-case analysis
and scenario planning will be abandoned for ‘let’s hope for the best’ planning. Consequently, the hollowed out force will get
ever smaller, and the smaller force will get ever more hollowed out.
So, whilst
much of the population and all of the chattering class are slumbering on the
corner of some foreign beach that will be forever England the spin doctors and
news managers in the Ministry of Defence and across Whitehall will be congratulating
themselves on a successful piece of news management. That the minister has been protected from the
media for another week even if such ‘protection’ comes at the expense of
Britain’s fast-declining influence and the abandonment of the first duty of the
state – to properly defend its citizens. Naturally, and true to form, Secretary of State for Defence Williamson in an attempt to mask this
latest chapter of political shame announced fantastically that Britain would
build a 6G fighter called the Tempest. But, of course, it won’t.
You see ‘Jim’
was not killed by the Kinzhal. He was
killed back in 2018 and in the gap the
politicians created between the strategic reality Britain’s leaders should be
confronting and their repeated and collective refusal to do so. Jim and his mates died trying
to close that gap. You see major wars
have started unexpectedly because unaccountable illiberal leaders have miscalculated. Faced with the extreme consequences of their own extreme policies they have convinced themselves that accountable
liberal leaders are too politically weak to make the choices that need to be
made, even if those choices are not the ones they want to make. Shame on them, but shame also on our own leaders for creating the environment where such folly happens.
Thank God
there is always the Americans?
Julian
Lindley-French
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