The NATO Shadow Plan?

“Give us the tools and we will finish the job” 

Winston Churchill

Shadow Boxing

July 13th. That was interesting. It was not the ‘historic’ summit politicians always suggest when they have avoided declaring war on each other, but the NATO Vilnius Summit was more than a bus-stop on the road from Madrid to Washington. Ukraine was not offered either membership of the Alliance or a road map to it but rather a vague commitment that at some point its future is in NATO. Déjà vu Bucharest all over again? The final Turkish obstacle to Swedish membership was removed. A Defence Investment Pledge 2.0 was agreed under the terms of which 2% GDP on defence so many have so hard to achieve since 2014 has now become a baseline, the minimum Allies should spend on defence. This includes 20% on new equipment annually which will include research and development. Plenty of scope for fiddling the figures there. The much-vaunted Regional Defence Plans and robust in-place combat forces were confirmed but where and when the new 300,000 agile, multi-domain Allied Reaction Force of mainly Europeans will see the light of day remains unclear. There was the usual cyber, space and China guff in the Summit Communiqué leavened by the equally usual NATO political correctness.

However, there was one agreement which most commentators missed but which might for once stand the test of time and which might also in time be the thing the Vilnius Summit is remembered for - Defence Production Action Plan or DPAP. It will have to survive the NATO bureaucracy first and ‘HQs’ almost genetically predisposed to strangle any innovative idea at birth in the name of ‘unity’. Look what is happening to poor old DIANA. That said, the idea that NATO will act as “convener, standard-setter, requirement-setter and aggregator and defence enabler to promote defence industrial capacity” is desperately needed.

It is about time! NATO Europe’s leaders have not so much taken their eye off the ball these past thirty years, they handed it over to potential enemies and invited them to kick us all in the teeth! The fielding times and affordability of European military equipment is so appalling it borders at times on the criminal and is a potential critical weakness in NATO’s defence and deterrence posture. The lessons emerging from the Ukraine war are also clear: modern war is a giant black hole into which people and materiel vanish at an alarming rate far beyond that envisaged by the peacetime NATO establishment. At the very least, NATO European forces will need far more robust logistics, far more forward deployed, with enhanced and far more secure military supply chains particularly important. Far more materiel is also needed, most notably ammunition, not least because of the rate at which Ukraine has been using up the weapons stocks of NATO Allies.

If Defence and Deterrence of the Euro-Atlantic Area, the DDA, is to be anything more than a communiqué writer's wet dream the Allies desperately need to rebuild and build infrastructure to assist military mobility and remove all legal impediments to rapid cross border movements in a pre-war emergency. Deployed NATO forces will also need much improved force protection with the need to reduce the detectability and thus digital footprint of force concentrations (‘bright butterflies’) particularly pressing.

The war in Ukraine has also revealed the vulnerability of armour unsupported by infantry and helicopters in the battlespace, as well as the need for NATO forces to be able to dominate both fires and counter-fires, not least by using large numbers of expendable drones, strike drones and loitering systems allied to extremely expensive precision-guided munitions, such as ATACMS and Storm Shadow. Enhanced land-based, protected battlefield mobility is also needed together with increased force command resilience given how often the Ukrainians have been able to detect and ‘kill’ Russian forward (and less forward) deployed headquarters.

None of the above can be realised without a new partnership with defence industries on both sides of the Atlantic and further partnerships with those in other democracies, which will include commitments to contracts that are both longer and more stable than hitherto.  This is because both military platforms and the systems that sit on them are about to undergo a technological revolution in which speed of data will drive speed of information which in turn will dictate both the speed of command and its relevance on the battlefield.Europe is, as per usual, lagging way behind its competitors and not only going to have to spend more but the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB) far beyond the traditional metal-bashers and their hangers on. ‘Defence’ will have to reach out to new tech communities and learn to operate at their rate of tempo.

The Shadow Scheme

Thankfully, there is a lesson from history from which NATO might draw. In 1935, the “Shadow Scheme” was established by the British Government the aim of was to subsidise manufacturers to construct a system of new ‘shadow factories’, reinforced by additional capabilities at existing aircraft and motor industrial plants that could immediately increase war production on the outbreak of war. It was this scheme that led rapidly to radar, the Hurricane and Spitfire fighters and eventually the Lancaster bomber. It also enabled Britain to surpass Nazi Germany in aircraft production in June 1940, a lead Britain never lost not least because of the entry into the skilled workforce of millions of British women.

Improved efficiency was also as important to Britain in 1940 as it is to the Alliance today. For example, the Ministry of Aircraft Production had an immediate galvanising effect. Upon taking over Royal Air Force storage facilities it was discovered that whilst the RAF had accepted over 1,000 aircraft from industry, only 650 had been despatched to squadrons. Managerial and organisational changes were introduced that also had an immediate effect. Between January and March 1940 2,729 aircraft were produced by British industry, of which 638 were front-line fighters. However, between April to May 1940 aircraft production increased to 4,578 aircraft, some 1,875 of which were fighters. By June 1940 British fighter production reached 250% of German fighter production, whilst the overhauled repair service returned nearly 1,900 aircraft to action many times more than their German counterparts. As a consequence, German fighters available for operations over Britain during the Battle of Britain fell from 725 to 275, whilst fighters available for RAF operations increased from 644 on July 1^st, 1940 to 732 on October 1^st.

Key to the success of the Plan was the Directorate of Aeronautical Production which began work in March 1936 and had two goals: rapid expansion of defence industrial production; and the dispersal of the defence industrial base to protect against air attack. By October 1937, there were five Shadow Factories already in production, whilst in July 1938 one Shadow Factory completed its first complete bomber. The Plan was also extended to industry in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa.

The most famous of the Shadow Factories was at Castle Bromwich near Birmingham, which today is the home of Jaguar Cars. The plant opened in June 1940 and after some initial problems went on to build 12,000 Spitfires of 22 variants!  The Shadow Plan also standardised development and production. For example, the Rolls Royce Merlin engine became the powerplant for most (but not all) wartime aircraft. The Plan also looked to the future by helping to fund the development of the jet engine and the world’s second operational jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor, which entered service with the RAF three months after the German Me 262.

By 1944 there were 175 dispersed Shadow Factories in operation, many of which were linked to industries not traditionally associated with defence but with relevant supply chain expertise. The most famous aircraft to come from the Plan apart from the Spitfire and Lancaster was the ‘wooden wonder’, the de Havilland Mosquito, a twin-engined fighter bomber that could outstrip most single-engined fighters. The RAF was not the only service to benefit. The new King George V class battleships were built from 1936 on by many workers and technicians recruited under the Shadow Plan, whilst the British Army got new tanks some of which, contrary to popular myth, were not at all bad.

The NATO Shadow Plan

Much of the European Defence, Technological and Industrial Base has been left to rot since the end of the Cold War. Production facilities are few, many are obsolete and orders even fewer and only seem to come when there is a political rather than a strategic imperative. Major systems only survive from cradle to grave because industry has learnt the vital need to tie government into contracts with punitive consequences when broken, whilst much of the ‘kit’ ordered has more to do with industrial policy rather than defence policy.

Consequently, the unit cost of equipment Allied forces desperately need is inflated, much of it obsolete before it is even fielded and/or because innovation and technological advancement have been ‘de-prioritised’. This has led to procurement disasters, Britain’s Ajax armoured infantry fighting vehicle, a platform that has had so many systems put on it looks more like a Christmas tree than an armoured vehicle. 

The Ukraine War has demonstrated the folly of emaciating Europe’s defence industrial base.  The Defence Production Action Plan is not yet a Shadow Plan and is not to be yet another of those ‘wizard wheezes’ announced with much NATO fanfare only to be lost in the vacuum of political irresolution it will need to be pushed through. It will also need to forge new partnerships across the entirety of a radically reconceived European security and defence supply chain that includes the Alliance, EU, governments, prime contractors, defence sub-contractors, systems-developers and providers who have thus far had little or nothing to do with defence.

The Shadow Plan is the great unsung hero of the British war effort between 1935 and 1945. Without the Plan Britain would have been defeated in 1940.  The Alliance may not be AT war but is certainly engaged IN war and, like Britain in 1935, it most certainly is engaged in a systemic struggle, even if many leaders are in denial whatever the rhetoric. Such struggles are not won by fine words, lofty summits and well-written communiqués crafted to meet the political need of the moment.  They are won by the sustained, systemic, and considered application of resources, technologies, equipment and forces over time and space. 

One final thought: if NATO does not learn and apply such lessons from the past the Chinese and Russians will.

Julian Lindley-French