“Give us the tools and we will finish the job”
Winston Churchill
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 1st, 1940 to 732 on October 1st.
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
