Twenty Years On: Afghanistan and NATO

 “The merit of all things lies in their difficulty”

 Alexandre Dumas

 

By

 

Stefano Stefanini and Julian Lindley-French

 

‘You had the watches, we had the time’?

Ominously and tragically, May 8^th’s ghastly massacre of schoolgirls at the Sayed Ul-Shuhada High School has nothing to do with ‘foreign troops’ and everything to do with the Taliban signalling their determination to roll back the social gains made by the Afghan population, especially women, in the last twenty years of foreign presence. Given the implications, whether or not the Taliban carried out the attack is scarcely relevant because it fits into a sadly all too familiar pattern of targeting civilians to terrorize them and undermine support for the Kabul government.  The attack also begs two critical questions. First, is Afghanistan’s future doomed to be a repeat of its violent and tragic past?  Second, will the future of Afghanistan also be the yardstick the future Alliance will be measured against?

The Taliban like to say that whilst the West had all the watches, i.e. the technology, they had the time.  All they had to do was wait and the US and its allies would lose strategic patience and leave Afghanistan.  The dust has still to settle on President Biden’s recent decision to withdraw from Afghanistan twenty years on 911 and the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. Not surprisingly, the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was unsurprisingly upheld at NATO’s April 14^th “jumbo” Ministerial.  The Kommentariat have been predictable in their predictions of a now doomed Afghanistan and if such commentaries are to be believed the Taliban will soon have both the time and the watches to re-conquer Afghanistan. However, drawing up a balance sheet now on the Atlantic Alliance’s twenty-year long commitment to the Hindu Kush is premature. Therefore, assuming that the withdrawal of the Coalition takes place in reasonable good order and the Taliban resists the temptation to try and give it the appearance of a rout, the overarching question of what post-NATO Afghanistan will be like will remain unanswered for some time. That is a big ‘if’. Over the past week the Taliban launched several attacks on Afghan forces.

More than 3,500 military and other personnel from thirty one countries paid the ultimate price and yet the Allied commitment to Afghanistan held, usually with parliamentary support and without any significant backlash from public opinion.  Indeed, the decision to withdraw has more to do with US policy than mission fatigue. Indeed, the European Allies were prepared to stay on in Afghanistan in support of the non-combat Resolute Support Mission (RSM). However, the Trump and Biden administrations both concluded it was time to terminate the counter-terrorism and stabilisation and reconstruction campaigns, in the face of contrarian advice from several military and intelligence agencies. President Biden made it clear that whilst he is aware of the military arguments against the withdrawal, he believes that there is an overwhelming political and geopolitical rationale in favour of doing so. With the US the reason for NATO being in Afghanistan in the first place, as well as the country that has borne a disproportionate burden in terms of blood and treasure, once Washington decided to quit it was natural the other Allies would follow. 

 

Four AFG questions

 

The decision to withdraw also raises four specific questions that also need to be tackled while remembering, and paying tribute to, the men and women who served in Afghanistan and recognising the remarkable solidarity shown by Allies and partners alike. ^[1] What did NATO achieve and what did it not achieve in Afghanistan?  Did the Taliban defeat NATO?  Why withdraw now and is there a wider strategic/geopolitical rationale behind Biden’s decision to leave Afghanistan?  If so, where does the implied new strategic ‘vision’ leave counterinsurgency (COIN) and counterterrorism (CT)?

 

What did NATO achieve and not achieve in Afghanistan?

 

Any such assessment immediately faces a profound difficulty because NATO never defined an end goal. At the ministerial the Allies were informed by Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, that the basic campaign goal of degrading and uprooting Al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations had been achieved. However, that important but relatively narrow goal, one which was originally set by President Obama in 2009, had always been part of a broader campaign design that included counterinsurgency operations, support for the democratically-elected Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIROA), nation and capacity-building, and promoting wider regional stability. Given the Alliance’s complex aims NATO’s scorecard should thus be broken down into three categories each of which has a very different level of achievement. 

 

Counter-terrorism: by helping to defeat and uproot terrorism in Afghanistan, both Al Qaeda and Daesh, and in partnership with the US Operation Enduring Freedom, NATO can claim ‘mission accomplished’, not least because the Taliban seem to have learned an important lesson and are for the moment committed to ensure Afghanistan never again becomes a terrorist safe haven.

 

Counterinsurgency: NATO failed to defeat the Taliban insurgency or pacify Afghanistan, even at the peak of the so-called ‘surge’ between 2010 and 2011. In military terms, the best that can be said for the outcome is that it is a draw, although that assessment could change if Afghanistan descends quickly into renewed chaos.

 

Nation-building: with regard to building up resilient and enduring national Afghan institutions and a legitimate and effective GIROA the results are at best mixed.  The aim was to develop self-sustaining Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) (both Afghan National Army (ANA) and police), improve human rights, support civil society, promote women’s rights and education, as well as establish more effective governance and rule of law across the Pashtun, Hazara and Tadjik homelands beyond Kabul.  It is hardly surprising the results are mixed given the sheer complexity of the campaign, and the need to coordinate efforts with the UN, EU and a broad coalition of nations. Whilst the Alliance did much of the heavy-lifting and can be proud of its overall engagement, it failed to curb corruption and drugs trafficking. That will have consequences for the future stability of Afghanistan. Critically, the withdrawal will undoubtedly jeopardise much of the progress that has been made on human rights, the status of women in society, as well as basic freedoms.

 

In other words, whilst NATO achieved a great deal in Afghanistan the Alliance fell short of “winning”, even though history would suggest the very idea of ‘winning’ is not one foreign powers are advised to take with them into the Hindu Kush. Moreover, much of the good work that has been done could be quickly if the Taliban succeed in unconditionally returning to power and/or if the country falls back into warlord infused chaos and regional proxy wars at the behest of China, India, Iran, Pakistan and Russia. There must also be renewed uncertainty about the future role of Afghanistan as a possible haven for terrorist groups. Al Qaeda and Daesh have been dislodged, but they could still come back and again only time will tell. Lastly, even if terrorist groups fail to re-establish bases in a Taliban ruled or chaos prone Afghanistan people could well vote with their feet and flee across borders into neighbouring countries, aided by human traffickers. In such circumstances, existing refugee flows into Europe could easily again turn into a new migration surge. This would not only be destabilising for Afghanistan’s neighbours, most notably Pakistan, it would also reinforce immigration fatigue and fears in both America and Europe.   

 

Did the Taliban defeat NATO?

 

That will certainly be the Taliban narrative in the coming months, and one which the US and NATO should be keen to dispel.  Much will depend on the Alliance’s demonstrable ability to withdraw in full order, rather than what appears to be a hasty rout.  Indeed, the conditions under which NATO troops leave the country may help partially counter any perception that the Alliance “lost” in Afghanistan. Equally, nothing will change NATO’s bottom line which the Taliban and others will be only too keen to capitalise on: NATO was forced to withdraw, just as the Soviets were in 1989 and the British did so before them between 1947 and 1950. Consequently, NATO’s pending withdrawal will doubtless feed the long-held mantra that Afghanistan is the “graveyard of empires”.   

 

For NATO the beginning of the end began with the approach Trump administration adopted to negotiations with the Taliban. From the beginning of the talks Washington refused to the make the withdrawal “conditions based”, which at times made the negotiations look like a form of complex unconditional surrender, something the Taliban were only too keen to exploit. The Biden administration has already made some adjustments to both the timeline and the narrative, even briefly postponing the deadline for talks, but it has not changed the prevailing assumption in Washington that it is time for the Americans to get out. The Taliban has thus been able to maintain a cavalier attitude towards any proposed political process, both national and regional, because as far as they are concerned they have won.

 

Only time will tell if they have and that the interests of the Taliban and the Pashtun are sufficiently aligned to enable the former to ride a withdrawal wave and take Kabul? Or, that Afghanistan is on the verge of another ghastly civil war similar to that which created the conditions for Al Qaeda and Daesh to exploit prior to 2001.  In the near term, the Alliance’s (and Washington’s) nightmare is a Kabul that turns into another Saigon 1975 as the last remaining Allied personnel are forced to make a panicked departure as the Taliban takes over. If, as seems quite likely, protracted territorial fracturing and infighting ensues in which no one ‘power’ emerges who can claim to control the country three dynamic factors will be at play: Kabul’s stronger conventional military capabilities versus the Taliban’s superior asymmetric tactics; continuing assistance from both the US and some Allies to the Kabul government in an effort to beef up its capabilities (after all, there is still the NATO-Afghanistan partnership); continued two track negotiating processes underway between the Taliban and Kabul, as well as with the other regional powers under the auspices of the Istanbul Conference.  Unfortunately, the signs are not good as the Taliban repeatedly threaten to desert the Istanbul meeting and show little interest in a national power sharing agreement that will be critical to any future peace. Posturing or hubris?

 

Why withdraw now and is there a wider strategic/geopolitical rationale behind Biden’s decision to leave Afghanistan?

 

The short answer to the second part of a complex composite question is “yes but…” President Biden when announcing the withdrawal said that there will be never a good moment for withdrawing so the US might as well do it now.  Moreover, if Washington postpones the withdrawal, Biden argued, no matter for how short or long a time, the US will sooner or later face exactly against the same “this is not a good moment” accusation. In other words, Biden believes that beyond what has already been achieved, especially by the counterterrorism effort, the Afghanistan stalemate simply cannot be broken.  Interestingly, the US position differs markedly from that of the nineteenth century British who deliberately exploited such a stalemate to keep the Russians out at the time of the Great Game. China?

 

However, there is a more pressing strategic imperative. First, for the Americans their Afghanistan effort has become disproportionate to the purpose it was meant to achieve, just when Washington must also confront the military rise of China and the resurgence of Russia.  Second, if the challenge of Great Powers and other state actors, such as Iran, is now the priority for the Americans the US can no longer afford to be ‘distracted’ by a resource and policy-draining seemingly interminable campaign in Afghanistan. Some in the Administration believe that whilst there is an undoubted risk of a Taliban take over the failure of GIROA, and eventually a new terrorist safe haven, Afghanistan would not be unique. There are already potential terrorist safe havens in Somalia, Mali, Nigeria and Yemen and they can be better dealt with by more tailored responses given progress in understanding such insurgencies and how to deal with them without the need for large-scale and extended expeditionary campaigning.

 

In other words, twenty years after 911 its influence on US policy whilst still evident has definitely waned.  In effect, Washington’s policy has gone full circle with the US having returned to a posture of leaving the fight against terrorism to a mix of targeted counterterrorism rather than extended expeditions allied to a willingness to live with failed States. Incidentally, such a shift in posture casts into history President Trump’s assertion that “NATO is obsolete because it doesn’t fight terrorism”.

 

Where does this new strategic “vision” leave counterinsurgency (COIN) and counterterrorism (CT)?

 

It is this question that is perhaps the most pressing for the Alliance. NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan fits somewhat neatly into an emerging Western world-view that international terrorism and its Salafist-fundamentalist roots whilst still there must now play second fiddle to a more traditional concept of geopolitics.  Or, to put it another way, the worry now is China, Daesh can be dealt with on an as and when basis. Consequently, the once dominant focus on COIN will now be side-lined (along with its myriad experts) whilst counterterrorism will only be carried out as a form of strategic background noise to a renewed emphasis on high-end warfare and its deterrence.  Mistake?

 

In adopting such a posture the US is undoubtedly taking a two-fold risk, and it is only to be hoped there is some calculation behind it. The first risk is Afghanistan itself. Washington believes that either Afghanistan will not return to Taliban absolutism and barbarism or that, once back in power, the Taliban will not again allow terrorist organisations to settle in or plan attacks against America. The second calculation is that the terrorist threat can be countered at a distance through proxies and allies. For NATO this implies an American vision for ‘burden sharing’ that will be more than simply an issue of financial cost, but also tasks, risks and responsibilities. Moreover, with the British following the Americans back onto to the military ‘uplands’ of high-end deterrence and defence that begs other questions. For example, will the Europeans really ‘take care’ of their North African backyard, as France is doing (to a point) in Mali and Italy should do in Libya?

 

Twenty years after: Afghanistan and NATO

 

Twenty years after 911 and NATO’s entry into Afghanistan the change in US threat assessment and priorities has one further and possibly enormous implication for NATO. If Afghanistan is no longer relevant, or significantly less so, would the Balkans also be less relevant in American thinking if conflict should again break out there in? What about other local and regional theatres that over the past three decades have been deemed sufficiently threatening to justify extended non-Article 5 operations? Plainly, there cannot be a one-size fits all approach to crises, as each crisis has its own very specific characteristics, constraints and thus rationale for intervention or non-intervention. However, the emerging US worldview that led to the decision to withdraw abruptly from Afghanistan will doubtless also lead NATO towards a renewed focus on its core business of high-end deterrence and defence at the expense of what Washington now deems as peripheral commitments. In the medium-long term will the withdrawal from Afghanistan constrain the Allied footprint in Kosovo and Iraq?

 

President Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan is genuinely strategic because implicit therein is a fundamental American reassessment of the international security environment.  For NATO, the consequences cannot be over-stated for when Washington sneezes it is usually the Alliance that catches a cold and America’s change in thinking will doubtless be reflected in NATO’s upcoming strategic concept a year hence. Great powers and state actors are indeed again the main actors in the theatre of geopolitics, which perhaps begs the biggest questions of all: as Europe emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic will it be economically able and politically willing to follow the American shift back to the high end?  If not, what about the sea of instability to Europe’s south and the insurgencies and terrorism that continue to boil and fester therein?

 

Afghanistan? To simply abandon Afghanistan because it is all too complicated and/or because the West simply did not have sufficient strategic patience will certainly return Afghanistan’s future to the pit of a violent past.  The Taliban need to be in no doubt that their dream of a status quo ante is simply not an option.  The question then becomes how? After all, the thing about watches is that they tell the time and only time will tell…

 

Stefano Stefanini and Julian Lindley-French

 

Ambassador (Ret.) Stefano Stefanini is a former Permanent Representative of Italy to the North Atlantic Council and Brussels Director of Project Associates. Professor Julian Lindley-French has just published Future War and the Defence of Europe for Oxford University Press. They are both members of The Alphen Group.

F-35 or F-All!

The F-35, history and technology blindness

Alphen, Netherlands, May 4^th.  Should the Americans and the Allies abandon the F-35 Lightning 2?  That would seem to be the preference for some behind a sustained campaign against the aircraft in Washington and elsewhere.  If successful, any such decision would have enormous consequences, not least for the new British aircraft carriers that were designed around them. HMS Queen Elizabeth, will soon depart Britain for a globe-trotting mission at the heart of the new British-led Carrier Strike Group for which with the F-35 and its strike power is pivotal. 

On the afternoon of May 31^st, 1916 the epic Battle of Jutland began with an exchange of salvoes between Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty’s Battlecruiser Fleet, supported (or not) by the mighty Queen Elizabeth class Super-Dreadnoughts of the Fifth Battle Squadron, and Vice-Admiral Franz Hipper’s German battlecruisers.  On paper it should have been a one-sided fight because the British battlecruisers were faster and their main armament heavier than their German counterparts. This should have enabled the British to stand off at distance and pummel the German ships from beyond the range of latter’s guns.  Instead, Beatty closed the range either because he did not trust or understand the technological advantage his firepower afforded him or because he was suffused with too much of the Nelsonian ‘get close to the enemy’. The result of Beatty’s technology blindness was a disaster as his tactical mistake, compounded by excellent German gunnery and the British admiral’s preference for rate of fire rather than accuracy of fire, quickly led to the loss of HMS Indefatigable and HMS Queen Mary both of which exploded with the loss of over 2300 men.

There is something of the ‘rate of fire’ versus ‘accuracy of fire’ argument in the F-35 debate.  Some of those who want to abandon the F-35 argue that it is not a fighter and that it would not be very good in a classical dogfight against Chinese or Russian fighters.  They are right. It probably would not be that good in such a scenario, but the entire ethos of its design concept is to ensure such a dogfight would never take place.  When fully developed its array of sensors and network-enabling command hub systems will afford an F-35 pilot far greater situational awareness and thus survivability against most adversaries. In time, its increasingly intelligent weapons array would also enable it to afflict both direct and indirect ‘fires’ on an adversary at great distance.  The greatest threat to an F-35 is far more likely to come from equivalent platforms, such as the Chinese J-20 or the Russian Sukhoi Su-57. Critically, the F-35 will soon be the only Allied aircraft capable of penetrating advanced Russian air defences supported by the S-400 ground to air missile system.   

The problem with the F-35

For all of the above I am no apologist for the F-35. A recent report by the US General Accounting Office (GAO) has highlighted the appalling cost inefficiency of the F-35 development programme.  Much of this has been caused by running the development programme in parallel with the acquisition programme for a system that is at the very cutting edge of technology.  In fact, the causes of such problems also run deep within the DNA of most such ‘big ticket’ military technology programmes.  Too often both governments and defence contractors in democracies conspire to hoodwink parliaments and publics about the true cost of any such programme because if they were honest about the true cost many democracies would still be equipped with bows and arrows (I exaggerate for effect).  Such programmes have to be ‘sold’ politically which invariably leads to claims by their promoters they will cost half as much as they really do, take half the eventual time, create twice as many hi-tech jobs in hard-pressed places, and deliver twice the capability.  It was ever thus.  The Panavia Tornado back in the 1970s, the Eurofighter Typhoon in the 1980s (and many years beyond), and the Airbus A400 M today are all cases in point.  It will also be the case when France, Germany and Spain eventually overcome their absurd (but all too indicative) row over intellectual property rights for their proposed Future Combat Air System or FCAS, which if it ever enters service will not do so until the 2040s at the earliest.  And, much the same will no doubt be said for the alternative (absurdly) British-Swedish-Italian FCAS programme. Europe – from F-All to FCAS?

So, yes, the costs per F-35 platform are eye watering, as is the cost per flight hour given the maintenance required.  And yes, the current on board armament is limited compared with some non-stealth 4G fighters.  However, the F-35 is at the very beginning of a development programme which will gather pace over the next decade to such an extent that in fairly short order each aircraft will become a command hub in and of itself for a whole array of both space-based and air-breathing AI-enabled sensors, data links and weapons systems.  In other words, the F-35 is a putative force super-multiplier and must thus be seen as the transition between increasingly obsolete 4G analogue platforms flown by fast jet pilots today, and digital centric 6G and 7G future systems of the late 2030s and 2040s.  Given that context the real waste of taxpayer’s money would be to have invested in such a programme, and then procured a significant number of aircraft, only then refuse to pay for the software and hardware updates that will realise its full potential.  That would be akin to buying the latest and most advanced lap-top designed for super-computing, even quantum computing with upgrades, and then installing it with unsupported Windows XP. 

The F-18 fallacy and the future defence of Europe

What is the alternative and at what cost?  There have been calls in some countries to extend the in-life service of existing platforms such as the F-18 Super Hornet.  This would be a particularly dangerous false economy.  At the heart of my latest 2021 book, Future War and the Defence of Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press), is a vision of the future battlespace in which Britain’s aircraft carriers might (hopefully not) have to engage.  Only a fully worked up F-35 with all the supporting electronics, digital ‘blocks’ and weapons systems could possibly survive long enough to complete the suite of critical missions that would be required in such a ‘space’.  An F-18 or some similar 4G system?  They would be like the TBF-1 Avenger torpedo aircraft that attacked the Imperial Japanese Navy on June 4^th, 1942 at the outset of the Battle of Midway.  They were hopelessly obsolete aircraft crewed by very brave, doomed aviators who for all their bravery could inflict no serious direct damage on the enemy.

The simple fact is that critics of F-35 simply cannot offer a serious alternative to F-35 for any country that might have to contemplate fighting high-end warfare. This is not least because much of the cost of F-35 has already been ‘sunk’ and to change course now would be absurdly expensive.  Yes, the Americans might go for a mix of assets because they have the scope and size of force to invest in such ‘redundant’ solutions, although my sense is that when they properly consider their options they too will abandon the idea.  The paradox of smaller allies that operate the F-35, such as the British, is that given the investment they have already made after a wobble or two they will eventually recognise that they have little or no alternative but to see the F-35 through its life-cycle.  The British might possibly reduce the number of planned F-35s from the original target of 138 to say 60 or 70 aircraft (48 have been purchased thus far) i.e. spread the cost across the life-cycle, push for reduced maintenance costs, and offset some of the upgrade costs by reducing the planned number of aircraft.  

F-35 and the future battlespace

Some years ago I stood on the flight deck of the now scrapped 20,000 ton aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious alongside the then Chief of the British Defence Staff and First Sea Lord looking up (and it was up) at a life-size mock-up of an F-35.  Compared to the Royal Navy’s FA2 Sea Harriers of the time the F-35 was enormous and explains why HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales both displace over 70,000 tons fully-loaded. As the F-35 was being explained to me it became evident that not only would the aircraft afford both the ‘RN’ and the Royal Air Force a step change in capability, but that to realise its full operating capability would take many years of continuous software and hardware development and that any such process would be expensive. 

Therefore, having invested in the F-35 all the countries operating it need to understand how best to use them if capability and affordability are to be assured.  If, like Beatty there is a failure on the part of leaders and commanders to properly understand the technological advantage the F-35 affords them over other systems, or if they lack of trust in it due to tech blindness, then like Beatty the forces under their command will doubtless suffer a high attrition rate if they are forced to ‘dogfight’ in a role for which they are not designed. For all of its many undoubted problems the F-35 and the technology-enabling capability it represents IS the future of both air combat and strike and at least until the 2040s when NextGen Future Combat Air Systems are eventually (eventually!!!) deployed. 

The simple fact is that for most countries invested in the F-35, and given the 5G developments taking place elsewhere, it really is a case of F-35 or F-All!

Julian Lindley-French

The British Regiment that Saved South Korea

“An outstanding feat of British arms and raw courage - the enduring requirement of success in battle - that allowed South Korea to remain free".

General Lord Richards of Hurstmonceux, former Chief of the British Defence Staff

The Battle of Imjin River

In April 1951, United Nations’ forces charged with expelling the North Korean Army from South Korea had established two defensive lines known as Kansas and Utah both of which were held by the US Army’s I Corps.  I Corps comprised elements of the US Army, South Korean Army (Republic of Korea), a Turkish brigade and the British 29^th Infantry Brigade.  29^th Brigade included the 1st Battalion the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, the 1^st Battalion the Royal Ulster Rifles, the Belgian Battalion, and 1^st Battalion the Gloucestershire Regiment (the Glosters) under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel J. P. Carne.  29^th Brigade was also supported by twenty-five pounder guns of the 45 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, 4.2 inch mortars of 170 Independent Mortar Battery RA, 55 Squadron. Royal Engineers, as well as Centurion main battle tanks (MBT) of C Squadron, 8^th King’s Royal Irish Hussars.  29^th Brigade’s mission was to defend a front some twelve miles (nineteen kilometres) in length.  Such was the length of the front it was impossible for the Brigade to form a continuous defensive line so the force was deployed to defend key positions. The Glosters were on the left flank of the Brigade to the east of South Korean forces and had taken up a position close to a ford that crossed the Imjin River.

Unbeknownst to the British Chinese and North Korean forces were massing to the north with the aim of capturing the South Korean capital, Seoul, as a May Day gift to Chinese Communist leader Chairman Mao Zedong.  Under the command of General Peng Dehuai the Chinese-led force comprised some 305,000 men poised to attack UN forces defending the Imjin River in three places.

Contact

On the night of 22nd-23rd April, 1951 Chinese forces first made contact with the Belgian Brigade on Hill 194 and threatened to take two bridges which, if successful, would have trapped the Belgians on the wrong side of the river.  The Royal Ulster Rifles tried to block the Chinese but were unable to secure the bridges, enabling Chinese forces that crossed the river to then press home an attack on the Fusiliers, which led to a British retreat covered by the tanks of the Hussars. 

Thankfully, a patrol of seventeen men from C Company, Glosters, to the left of 29^th Brigade’s line ambushed Chinese forces and successfully prevented them from crossing the river on three separate occasion, significantly delaying their advance. However, with ammunition running low C Company was forced to conduct a tactical withdrawal across the river. Later that night both A and D Companies also came under attack.  Massively out-numbered by dawn the Glosters had been forced out of their positions on Castle Hill. Whilst an attempt was made to retake the positions, during which Lt. P. Curtis was killed destroying a Chinese machine-gun position, for which he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.  Several further attempts were made on 23rd April by British and American forces to retake the lost ground, all of which failed.  Meanwhile, the Belgians successfully withdrew and took up new positions behind (to the south) the Glosters and the Fusiliers and then withdrew further.

Hill 235

At 2030 hours, on 23rd April, after almost twenty-four hours of continuous, intense combat, A Company of the Glosters fell back to Hill 235 (still named Gloster Hill to this day).  At that stage of the battle A Company had lost half of its strength with all of its officers either killed or wounded.  Unfortunately, D Company's position also became dangerously exposed, and having lost a lot of its own men during the previous night, was also forced to withdraw along with B Company.

The worst was yet to come. Outnumbered some eighteen to one by Chinese forces B Company faced six determined assaults during the night all of which they resisted.  At one point the company commander even called in artillery strikes on their own positions in order to stop one assault. However, again running low on ammunition, and having suffered many casualties, at 0810 hours on the morning of 24th April the Chinese finally forced B Company to abandon their positions and only twenty men were subsequently able to join up with their comrades on Hill 235. Later that afternoon Colonel Carne sent a famous message to Brigadier T. Brodie, Officer Commanding 29th Brigade which read as follows: “What I must make clear to you is that my command is no longer an effective fighting force. If it is required that we shall stay here, in spite of this, we shall continue to hold”. By late afternoon, Chinese forces threatened to split 29th Brigade between the Glosters and the Fusiliers and in an attempt to prevent that an attempt was made by US, British and tanks of the Philippine’s Army to relief the Glosters now effectively cut off on Hill 235, but it failed.

Two other attempts to relieve the Glosters also failed after which Lieutenant-Colonel Carne was told he could decide whether to try and break-out of their positions or surrender. At 0800 hours on the 25th April, the commander of US I Corps had been forced to abandon the Glosters and withdraw all UN forces to a new defensive line to the south of the Imjin River. The situation of the Glosters now looked hopeless with B and C Companies so reduced they were merged to form one fighting unit, whilst efforts to re-supply them from the air also failed. In spite of that, and in an incredible feat of arms, the Glosters had stubbornly resisted preventing the Chinese for taking Hill 235 for some two days, and crucially slowing the Chinese advance.

However, by mid-morning 25th April, it became clear that 45 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery were no longer able to support the Glosters and what was left of the regiment were told to try and make British lines “as best they could”.  In the end, only some elements of D Company were able to escape, whilst Lt. Col. Carne and 459 men of the Glosters were taken prisoner. 29th Brigade suffered 1,091 casualties killed wounded or missing, of which 620 were from the Glosters, whilst Chinese and North Korean forces are believed to have lost over 10,000 men during the action. 

Lessons from Imjin

Lessons for today? There are five lessons that are perhaps most current given the recent British defence review.  First, mass has a quality all of its own, as the Chinese and North Koreans eventually proved. For a state like Britain striking a balance between mass (and thus strategic depth) and technology-enabled manoeuvre is an abiding and constant military-strategic challenge. It is also a challenge that must be met.  Second, expect the unexpected. ‘Korea’ started out as a so-called policing mission, but turned out to be a full-scale war.  Enemies do not always conform to expectations, and they certainly did not in Korea. Third, General Sir James Everard, until recently NATO’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told me that soldiers will not fight this well unless they are well-led and well-trained. Imjin and the Glosters demonstrated the enduring importance of leadership, hard training and good discipline. He also made the point that a small number of brave soldiers can generate not only an operational, but also a strategic effect, as the Glosters most certainly did.  Fourth, there can be no compensation for what Everard calls ‘field or turret time’. As George Patton said, “If brevity is the soul of wit, then, for the soldier, repetition is the heart of instruction”.  Soldiers learn by being shown how to do their jobs, and then doing it over and over and as such the Glosters were the embodiment of tradition, training, discipline and willingness to self-sacrifice. Fifth, good soldiering can save bad strategy, but only to a point.  Indeed, as Sir James rather pointedly said to me, “We are… reminded that the perfect discipline and unconquerable spirit of the Glorious Glosters at the tactical level also saved an imperfect strategy”.

The British regiment that saved South Korea

One only has to see the difference in quality of life today between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) to understand what was at stake during the Battle of Imjin River.  Moreover, the Glosters did not in and of themselves save South Korea.  That achievement belongs primarily to the 600,000 South Korean troops and the 326,000 American troops who fought in the Korean War between 25^th June, 1950 and 27^th, July, 1953.  The British force was only 14,000 strong.  The South Koreans also lost over 162,000 soldiers (1 soldier in 4), whilst Americans killed in action totalled 37,000 compared with British losses some 1,200.  Communist forces possibly lost over a million killed and missing. Tragically, between two to three million civilians are also believed to have been killed during a brutal war.

Equally, the Glosters’ feat of arms cannot be over-stated. For more than two critical days 29th Brigade, with the embattled Glosters at its core, delayed and utterly disrupted the Chinese battle plan forcing the offensive to stall.  They also enabled UN forces to withdraw in some order to the so-called No-Name Line, north of Seoul, where the Chinese and their North Korean allies were eventually blocked. If the Chinese had successfully broken the UN line early on the night of 22nd April it is quite likely the entire defensive line would have collapsed.  Seoul would have fallen soon thereafter and, quite possibly, the entire UN campaign would have unravelled as US allies began to question the cost of the mission. At the time, not all the European allies bought into Washington’s grand strategic idea of containing Communism and several were in Korea only out of a sense of Cold War obligation to the Americans and were far more concerned by the threat posed by Stalin’s Red Army in Europe. One paradox of the Korean War is that it also led to German rearmament.

Aftermath

The Glosters captured at Imjin endured a torrid time at the hands of their Chinese and North Korean captors and those that survived were not released until September 1953.  On October 14th, 1953 the troopship SS Empire Orwell docked in the Port of Southampton. Still under the inspiring command of Colonel Carne they came home to well-deserved welcome.  On November 21st, 1953 a Thanksgiving Service was given in Gloucester Cathedral at which Colonel Carne offered a small wooden cross that he had carved and which he said had sustained his faith.  The cross can still be seen at the Cathedral to this day.  On receiving the Freedom of the City of Gloucester Colonel Carne also said, “I doubt my own worthiness for such great honours, but of that part of it which is shared by the officers, warrant officers and men who served with me in Korea I have no such doubts”.

The City of Gloucester were not the only ones to recognise the bravery of the Glorious Glosters.  Both the Regiment and 170 Battery of the 45^th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery were awarded a Presidential Unit Citation by US President Harry S. Truman.  It read:

By direction of the President, under the provisions of Executive Order 9396 (Sec 1, WD Bul. 22.1943), superseding Executive Order 9075 (Sec.III, WD Bul.II, 1942) and pursuant in authority in AR 260-15, the following units are cited as public evidence of deserved honor and distinction. The citation reads as follows: The 1ST BATTALION GLOUCESTERSHIRE REGIMENT, BRITISH ARMY and TROOP C, 170TH INDEPENDENT MORTAR BATTERY, ROYAL ARTILLERY, attached, are cited for exceptionally outstanding performance of duty and extraordinary heroism in action against the armed enemy near Solma-ri, Korea on 23, 24 and 25 April 1951.

Sadly, the Gloucestershire Regiment was disbanded in 1994 as part of the shift away from county regiments to functional formations.  As a teenager I worked behind the bar of The Ship Inn at Oldbury-on-Severn in Gloucestershire.  Just up the road lies the village of Olveston from which Private William Lansdown left for the Korean War.  He was killed in action on January 10, 1952, aged nineteen. Later in life I also had the honour of acting as Head of the Commander’s Initiative Group for Lieutenant General Sir Richard Shirreff, Commander of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps.  In October 2010 they moved back to the UK from Germany to their present headquarters at Imjin Barracks on the outskirts of Gloucester.

Look at a map of Korea today. The fact that there is a 38^th Parallel owes much to the men of a regiment that rightly became known as the Glorious Glosters. Therefore, perhaps the most fitting way to end this tribute is in the words of the Glosters themselves and their regimental motto:

“By our deeds we are known”.

 Julian Lindley-French 

Deterrence IN Denial

Deterrence and denial

April 14, 2021. This past Tuesday I gave evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament following the submission of my new report Honest Broker? The EU, Strategic Autonomy and Security in the Future Arctic.  My own evidence was supported by several colleagues who also gave evidence, including a Danish colleague who made the assertion that Russia would not breach any agreements or seize any area because ‘ownership’ of most of the Arctic has already been settled.  As he spoke, Russia was threatening Ukraine with force specifically with the aim of reinforcing its flagrant breach of international law in Ukraine.  Deterrence in denial?

Deterrence BY Denial normally concerns a state or an alliance generating sufficient military power to convince an adversary that they will be denied any gains if they use force.  As such, deterrence BY denial has been at the heart of NATO strategy since its inception, and such deterrence continues to work for most Western European states. However, the steady erosion of relative European military power compared with Russia (and increasingly China), allied to the growing military overstretch of US forces as they seek to remain relatively strong the world over, is placing allies on the periphery of NATO and the European Union at ever greater risk.  This growing risk is increasingly evident from the Arctic to the Baltic Sea through the Black Sea and even into the Mediterranean. 

Complex strategic coercion

Strategic communications are a vital component of deterrence, which is essentially about messaging. The counterpart to Deterrence BY Denial is Deterrence BY Punishment by which an adversary is convinced through several channels of strategic communications that any ill-advised military action would inevitably lead to an unacceptably high price for its leadership and wider society. This is the ethos behind mutually assured destruction.  Moreover, with the emergence of complex strategic coercion that stretches across the information, cyber and battlespaces, allied to the 5Ds of applied deception, disruption, disinformation, destabilisation and implied destruction a new form of continuous warfare is already being applied against the democracies by China and Russia. Unfortunately, too many Europeans seem to have embraced a new concept called Deterrence IN Denial by which they communicate to adversaries, such as Russia, that there is really no problem at all.

Deterrence, be it by denial or punishment, only works when sufficient countervailing force exists to mount a credible defence or credibly mount a rescue whenever and wherever it is needed. European defence IN denial is to simply hope that a pious belief in the sanctity of international law will be enough to deter predatory powers. Indeed, some of my colleagues yesterday seemed to go out of their way to praise Russia for its constructive commitment to Arctic governance, ignoring the build-up of Russian forces in the region. As Ukraine attests, of course Russia will observe the rules, until it does not because for the strategic autocracies in Moscow and Beijing international law is tactical means to a Realpolitik end. Sometimes, I get the distinct impression Europeans are playing chess, whilst Russia and China are playing poker.  If that is indeed the case of course Europe can become strategically autonomous from the Americans because for deterrence IN denial to ‘work’ words will suffice. The German defence minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has even suggested that Russia is deliberately trying to provoke a reaction and because of that Germany will not get drawn into a response.  

The simple facts are these: some 83,000 Russian troops from the Western and Central Military Districts are now deployed to the north and south of the Donbas.  They include Special Forces and other elite units, with some enabling elements coming from as far away as Siberia.  Moscow claims the force is merely exercising, but the size of the force is far larger than is normally the case for the annual spring exercises in the region. Moreover, given the nature and type of the formations deployed they are clearly configured for offensive operations.  If such an operation began it would do so quickly, probably at night, with Spetsnaz and other specialist formations leading the way, accompanied by a host of measures that in the past I have described as ‘strategic maskirovka’, all of which would be designed to keep Western powers politically off-balance.  One reason for the scale and configuration of the force could well be that since 2014, Ukrainian forces are far better trained (thanks mainly to the US and UK) and could sustain a far more effective defence than they did when Moscow seized Crimea.

What does Russia want?

Why is Moscow doing this?  First, Moscow wants to send a clear signal to President Biden that when it comes to European security the Kremlin will only deal with Washington.  For all the efforts of Paris and Berlin in the Minsk process and the Normandy Format, the Russians are only ever interested in being seen as the equals of the Americans (which is why they are considering a summit.  Indeed, Moscow dreams of being one-leg of a new tripolar world with China and the US, even though Russia’s economic fundamentals warrant no such status. Second, Moscow wants to warn Ukrainian President Zelensky to back away from his calls for early NATO membership (highly unlikely) and to punish him after he blocked media channels run by the pro-Russian Viktor Medvedchuk, leader of Opposition Platform.  Third, Moscow is also keen to deflect attention from growing domestic criticism of the Kremlin in Russia and the imprisonment and hunger strike of Alexander Navalny. 

There could well be another reason which is the direct consequence of Deterrence IN Denial.  The Biden administration has been particularly critical of Berlin’s determination to complete the NORDSTREAM 2 gas pipeline between Germany and Russia. Some 94% of the 2460km pipeline now complete.  If finished NORDSTREAM 2 would double the amount of Russian gas being pumped to Germany and increase the dependency of Germans on the Russians for much of their energy security.  Unfortunately, Berlin is a strategy-free zone in which mercantilism and historic guilt continues to shape much of Germany’s foreign and security policy towards Russia, even at the expense of fellow Europeans.  Moscow knows that and the message from the Kremlin to Berlin is honour your commitment to NORDSTREAM 2 or else.  Moscow would also only be too happy to drive yet another wedge in the US-German Essential Relationship.

Or, there could be another reason. Moscow has simply decided there will be no better moment than now to finish the job it began back in 2014, seize the Donbas and completely block Ukrainian access to the Black Sea.  What if President Putin means it, AKK?  What then the future of Europe?

Speak softly...

Which brings me back to the Arctic.  How on earth can Europeans trust Russia to observe international law ad infinitum in the Arctic when Moscow believes the region is just as strategically vital to its interests as Ukraine and Crimea (just look at a map)?  At the heart of my new report on the EU and the Arctic is a scenario in which Russia, with the support of Chinese forces, seize Svalbard in 2030.  My reason for including the scenario is not to suggest that such an attack is GOING to happen, but rather to get the Arctic States and their European friends to stop being so pious about international law and begin again to consider the worst-case.  In other words, start backing their laudable commitment to multilateralism with some military attitude.  Only then could any such scenario be definitively ruled out because real deterrence, be it by denial or by punishment, would be clear to all involved, including Russia.  Rather, be it in the Arctic or in Europe much of ‘deterrence’ is built on denial, with Germany to the fore, about just what President Putin might do.  And that indeed is the point.  President Putin has a history of doing what he says and he might just decide to act precisely because he knows Western Europeans (and this is a complacent Western European problem) are in denial.

Denial is NOT deterrence.  Indeed, I sometimes think if Teddy Roosevelt had been a contemporary European his mantra would not have been speak softly but carry a big stick, but rather speak a lot, say a lot of words, but forget the stick.

Julian Lindley-French   

FUTURE WAR AND THE DEFENCE OF EUROPE

 To mark the publication of my third Oxford University book Future War and the Defence of Europe, below is a piece that I wrote and which appeared last week on the website of Oxford University Press. 

The future of war and defence in Europe

BY JOHN R. ALLEN,  FREDERICK BEN HODGES, AND JULIAN LINDLEY-FRENCH

MARCH 23^RD 2021

We face a critical challenge: unless Europeans do far more for their own defence, Americans will be unable to defend them; but there can be no credible future defence of Europe without America!

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift of power from West to East, revealing a host of vulnerabilities in Europe’s defences and making major war in Europe again a possibility. The lessons of history? From D-Day to the creation and development of NATO, the importance of sufficient and legitimate military power has been at the heart of credible defence and deterrence, whilst shared innovation and technology have been critical to maintaining the unity of effort and purpose vital to upholding Europe’s freedoms.

However, Europeans now face a digital Dreadnought moment when strategy, capability, and technology could combine to create a decisive breakthrough in the technology and character of warfare—and not in Europe’s favour. The future of peace in Europe could well depend on the ability of Europeans and Americans to mount a credible defence and deterrence across a mosaic of hybrid war, cyber war, and hyper war. To remain credible, deterrence must thus reach across the conventional, digital, and nuclear spectrums. If not, Europe will remain vulnerable to digital decapitation and the imposed use of disruptive technologies.

The threat

Critically, if the defence of Europe is to remain sound, both Europeans and their North American allies must squarely and honestly face the twin threat of hostile geopolitics and disruptive technologies, and they must do so together and with shared purpose:

·         Russia: Russian economic weakness and political instability allied to the overbearing cost of the Russian security state and its development of new weapons poses the greatest danger to European defence.

·         Middle East and North Africa: state versus anti-state Salafist Jihadism and the impact of COVID-19 are exacerbating deep social and political instability across the region. The Syrian war has also enabled Russia to further weaken Europe’s already limited influence therein, with transatlantic cohesion further undermined by conflict over what to do with Iran and its nuclear programme.

·         China: the rise of China is the biggest single geopolitical change factor; Europe’s nightmare is China and Russia working in tandem to weaken the US ability to assure Europe’s defence. US forces are stretched thin the world over and could render European defence incapable at a time and place of Beijing and Moscow’s choosing. The Belt and Road Initiative and the indebtedness of many European states to China is exacerbating both European weakness and transatlantic divisions.

The dilemma

“Could Europe alone defend Europe? No, and not for a long time to come.”

Can NATO defend Europe? Only if the Alliance is transformed; for if it fails, any ensuing war could rapidly descend into a war unlike any other. Europe must understand that if America is to provide the reinsurance for European defence, it is Europe who must provide the insurance. NATO is thus in the insurance business. It is also an essentially European institution that can only fulfil its defensive mission if Europe gives the Alliance the means and tools to maintain a minimum but credible deterrent.

Could Europe alone defend Europe? No, and not for a long time to come. Given post-COVID-19 economic pressures, the only way a truly European defence could be realized would be via an integrated EU-led European defence and a radical European strategic public–private sector partnership formed to properly harness the civ-tech revolution across Artificial Intelligence (AI), super-computing, hypersonic, and other technologies entering the battlespace. Can Europeans defence-innovate? They will need to.

The future

Europe must quit the comforting analogue of past US dependency and help create a digital and AI-enabled defence built on a new, more equitable, and more flexible transatlantic super-partnership. A super-partnership that is fashioned on the anvil of an information-led digital future defence against the stuff of future warfare: disinformation, destabilisation, disruption, deception, and destruction. A partnership which at its defence-strategic core has a new European future force able to operate to effect across air, sea, land, cyber, space, information, and knowledge.

The future of European defence is not just a military endeavour. COVID-19 has changed profoundly the challenge of defending Europe. It has also changed the assumptions upon which the transatlantic relationship has rested since 1945 and changed the relationship between the civil and military sectors—and even between peace and war. Therefore, Europe’s future defence will depend on a new dual-track strategy: the constant pursuit of dialogue between allies and adversaries together with a minimum but critical level of advanced military capability and capacity. Only a radical strategic public-private sector partnership that leverages emerging and disruptive technologies across the mega-trends of defence-strategic change will the democracies be able to defend themselves.

If not, then as Plato once reportedly said, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

 

John R. Allen, President, Brookings Institution, Frederick Ben Hodges, Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies, Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), and Julian Lindley-French, Senior Fellow, Institute for Statecraft.

John R. Allen is President of the Brookings Institution. He was previously Commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2013, and is the recipient of numerous US and foreign awards.

Frederick Ben Hodges holds the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies at the Center for European Policy Analysis. He was previously Commander of the United States Army Europe from 2014 to 2017.

Julian Lindley-French is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Statecraft. He is also founder and chair of The Alphen Group, a high-level strategic 'do-tank'. His publications and high-level reports combine policy experience and academic expertise, and include A Chronology of European Security and Defence (OUP, 2008) and The Oxford Handbook of War (edited with Y Boyer, OUP, 2014).

Global Britain or Little Britain?

EXTENDED BRIEFING

 Global Britain in a Competitive Age: The Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy (IR2021)

“Since the Cold War the threat from our adversaries has been evolving. Our traditional defence and deterrence capabilities remain vital, and our Armed Forces work every day to prevent terror reaching the UK's shores. But our enemies are also operating in increasingly sophisticated ways, including cyberattacks, to further their own interests”.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson

PART ONE: THE REVIEW

The Integrated Review 2021: The three most important words in the review are ‘competition’, ‘compete’ and ‘agility’.  The review is in effect a ten year plan designed to function much like a US National Security Strategy and has four chapters: science and technology; the open international order of the future; security and defence; and building resilience home and overseas.  Its essential purpose is to strengthen the British home base so that London’s projection of power and influence becomes more credible, and adapt the armed forces to reinforce defence, deterrence and Britain’s strategic influence. Some of the enhanced security and defence effects the review seeks to generate will demand a fusion of civil and military systems, structures and technologies.

However, for all the talk of innovation the review’s strategic roots are deep in traditional British grand statecraft and for all the rubric of Britain being a “force for good” and a “soft superpower” the review can best be summarised thus: post-Brexit global free trade mercantilism with nukes.  The focus is on enhancing the power of the democracies through global multilateralism built on a genuinely grand strategic effort to consider how best to invest Britain’s still very considerable resources in security, defence, development and foreign policy. Britain is effectively adopting a ‘super-Harmel’ strategy by both seeking dialogue with regional adversary Russia and trade with global competitor China, whilst also preparing to defend against the very considerable ‘sub threshold’ threats they pose and across bio-security, climate change, violent extremism and CBRN.  By focusing on agility at the higher end of the conflict spectrum Britain is also seeking to reinforce its importance to NATO and the US through a greater capacity to share transatlantic burdens, even as it effectively withdraws from the land defence of Europe. In other words, the politics of this review will need to be as agile as the force it seeks to create.

 

Drivers of the review: 1. Britain must in future meet the high-end ‘force-on-force’ challenge across a mosaic of hybrid war, cyber war and hyperwar that China and Russia are mounting, whilst also facing a hybrid and cyber war challenge from lesser powers and terrorists. 2. COVID-19 and the search for assured energy supplies have both accelerated and intensified dangerous global strategic competition; 3. The nature and scope of new military technology and the 5Ds of ‘sub-threshold’ continuous warfare (deception, disinformation, destabilisation, disruption and coercion through implied or actual destruction) with which Britain must contend demands a new concept of defence and new methods of deterrence; 4. Post-Brexit Britain must pivot away from Europe and “tilt towards” the high-growth Indo-Pacific (there is to be a new British ambassador to ASEAN); 5. Invest significant energy to deal with a host of wider transnational challenges, such as climate change, global health, terrorism and organised crime; and 6. Use the ship-building programme for the Royal Navy to support jobs in Scotland to weaken the appeal of Scottish independence.  

 

Defence-strategic aims: 1. To make British Future Force the most technologically-advanced ‘agile’ force in Europe by 2030 thus affording London a coalition leadership role and post-Brexit influence in Washington, NATO and other capitals; 2. To demonstrably invest in the defence Special Relationship by creating a British Future Force able to operate with US forces at the high end of integrated military effect across the multi-domains of air, sea, land, cyber, space (including protection of resilient space-based systems), information and knowledge as part of a new concept of deterrent escalation across a spectrum of information war, conventional war, digital/cyber war and ‘continuous at sea’ nuclear deterrence to 2070 at least. 3. To generate sufficient information, digital and defence power to enable post-Brexit Britain to exert some continued influence over European and other allies and partners, as well as being a ‘force for good’ in and of itself; 4. To generate greater strategic influence through the efficient integration of high-end military force with intelligence, diplomacy and aid and development to maintain a global presence across the civil-military spectrum, and thus retain a seat as a Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council; 5) Deliver an increased British capacity to compete below the threshold of armed conflict; 6) To better defend sea-lines of communications (both surface and sub-surface) that are critical to British economic interests. 7) To restore Britain’s defence outreach by rebuilding the network of defence attaches and other elements of defence diplomacy.

 

Defence in a competitive age: Britain is clearly taking a significant risk with its defence-strategic choices in the Defence Command Paper, the defence component of IR2021. The implicit post-Brexit message to the US is that alone amongst Europeans it is Britain that will maintain high-end interoperability with the US future force, but at what cost?   The message to other Europeans is that even though Britain is a nuclear-tipped island the British are still willing to defend Europe (through what it calls ‘collective action and co-creation’) but only if Britain is treated equitably by the EU and only on British terms. Indeed, the review effectively marks the end of the October 1954 commitment to station a large British land force on the European continent in support of NATO collective defence. There is also an implicit assumption that Britain will never again engage in another Afghanistan or Iraq and is thus pivoting away from land-centric extended stabilisation and reconstruction campaigns. The British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) it is not and Britain’s commitment to the future defence of Europe will be made through a profound shift of posture to one of engagement in the hybrid, cyber, hyperwar domains (across air, sea, cyber, space, nuclear and information warfare). Indeed, in 2017 when NATO assigned capability targets Britain committed to the provision of two land divisions which is now impossible.

 

Whilst it survives the British-led deployable headquarters, the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC), is by and large absent from the review, which is strange given the centrality of NATO and the regional threat posed by Russia to the planning. A 'manoeuvre division' (3 UK Div) will be maintained in the Army’s order of battle (ORBAT), although it would not be a formation that either General Cavoli or General Gerasimov would recognise as such. The Army will also create four new US Ranger-type battalions similar to the US Green Berets, which is ironic given that the US Rangers emerged from a colonial era British force.  All of this points to transformation of Britain’s armed forces into a small, high-end strategic raider force capable of commanding complex coalitions during limited span first responder defence and deterrence operations.  However, the British will be unable to conduct extended campaigns over space, time and contact, as there will certainly be a significant further reduction in large-scale fighting power. For example, there will be no armoured infantry fighting vehicle (AIFV) with the Warrior to be replaced with a lightly armed, battlefield mobile, wheeled Boxer vehicle and there will be a paucity of tracked capability.  What presence Britain does maintain in the rest of Europe will be penny packet formations such as the battlegroup in Estonia that leads NATO’s enhanced forward presence (eFP) therein, a reconnaissance squadron in Poland as part of the US-led eFP, and the UK will also continue to support the training of Ukrainian forces, mainly through the Royal Navy. 

 Defence Command Paper and Integrated Force 2030:

 Royal Navy

The Navy will invest £40m in the Royal Marines Future Commando Force over the next four years, whilst an additional £50m will be spent on converting a Bay-class support ship into a littoral strike ship, although that does raise questions about the future of HMS Bulwark and/or HMS Albion.  Two Littoral Response Groups will also be stood up and deployed first to the Euro-Atlantic Area of Operations in 2021, and then to the Indo-Pacific in 2023. All Mine Counter Measures Vessels will be retired as an automated Mine Hunting Capability (MHC) that has been developed in partnership with France is brought into service.

Several Offshore Patrol Vessels will be permanently deployed to the Falklands, the Caribbean, Gibraltar, and the Gulf to enable RN frigates and destroyers to be used more efficiently and effectively. Type 31 and Type 32 frigates will be brought into service and will provide protection for the Littoral Response Groups and be able to conduct strikes from the sea in support of resilient Ship to Objective Manoeuvre (STOM).  The air defence Type 45 destroyers are to be upgraded but the Harpoon anti-ship system phased out. A concept and assessment phase will also be commissioned for a new ‘Type 83 Destroyer’ designed to replace the Type 45 by the late 2030s. Three new Fleet Solid Support Ships will be constructed around a Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance capability, and two Multi-Role Support Ships (MRSS) by the early 2030s.

Army

The Army will be reduced from a ‘Full-time Trade Trained’ strength of 76,000 today to 72,500 by 2025 and re-organised around two heavy Brigade Combat Teams.  The future force will be organised around 2 Heavy Brigade Combat Teams comprised of Boxer, Ajax and Challenger 3, 2 Light Brigade Combat Teams, 1 Deep Recce Strike Brigade Combat Team, an Air Manoeuvre Brigade Combat Team, together with a Combat Aviation Brigade Combat Team.

148 Challenger 2 Main Battle Tanks (MBTs) to be upgraded (and called Challenger 3 under a £1.3bn modernisation programme, whilst the rest will be scrapped. All Warrior AIFVs are to be retired and replaced by an up-armed Boxer Mechanised Infantry Vehicle (MIV) currently under construction at a plant near Stockport with the programme due for completion in 2025.  The plan to procure Ajax Fighting Vehicles is confirmed.

A new Ranger Regiment will be stood up in August 2020 and will form the core of a new Army Special Operations Brigade, which will draw its personnel from Specialised Infantry Battalions, such as 1 SCOTS, 2 PWRR, 2 LANCS and 4 RIFLES. £120m will be invested in the force over the next four years.  A Security Force Assistance Brigade will also be stood up to be deployed regularly at short notice world-wide in support of British defence outreach.

£250m will be invested by 2030 in longer-range artillery fires such as the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) and £800m will also be invested over 10 years in a new ‘Mobile Fires Platform’.  The Exactor missile system will be retained and upgraded for longer-term use.

Some older Chinook helicopters will be retired from what is meant to be the Joint Helicopter Command, and newer extended range variants purchased, along with a new medium-lift helicopter by 2025 as part of a consolidation of the Army’s fleet. The Army will also upgrade Watchkeeper unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

Royal Air Force

The RAF will retire its Tranche 1 Eurofighter Typhoons and Hawk T1 trainers/Red Team aircraft by 2025, whilst the C130J Hercules fleet will be retired by 2023 and replaced by the Airbus A400M, which will boost maintenance costs significantly and raises questions about suitability for some missions. However, the Typhoon force will be upgraded with new weapons systems, such as the SPEAR Cap 3 air-launched precision guided missile and the so-called Radar 2 programme.  Strategic lift has been maintained with retention of the RAF’s eight Globemaster C-17 aircraft and a major capability gap has recently been filled with the procurement of five, soon to be six, Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft (MPA).

£2bn will also be invested in the Tempest Future Combat Air System (FCAS) over the next four years, whilst the E3D Sentry will be retired in 2021 as the three new E-7A Wedgetails come into service. The current order of 48 F-35B Lightning 2s will be increased to a number as yet to be specified, but probably not as high as the 138 originally envisaged. However, Britain will invest in the software and weapons upgrades to ensure the F-35 force has the constant data interface upgrades which is the sine qua non of the aircraft and which will make it in time a force hub for an array of deployed ‘loyal wingmen’ drones. This is important given that by 2030 the RAF believes 80% of air operations will be unmanned.

The British Future Force: The spear-tip of IR2021 will be a small, high-end, maritime-amphibious-centric ‘strategic raider’ force. As such, the review emphasises both Britain’s traditional role as a blue water naval power and a coalition command designed first and foremost to share transatlantic burdens more effectively and equitably.  Indeed, buying influence in Washington is clearly central to the whole exercise. However, the trade-off is that that development of relatively small Special Forces, air-mobile and sea-mobile forces comes at the expense of the British Army which is to be further cut to fund modernisation elsewhere.  The regular Army will be cut from the current planned 82,500 to 72,500. Given that the Army is in fact already some 7500 personnel below its peacetime establishment much of the required reduction will come through euphemistic ‘natural wastage’. The shift to new technologies will also lead to further reductions in the Britain’s 227 main battle tanks, whilst the Royal Navy will in time receive additional Type 26 and 31 frigates, plus a commitment to build a Type 32 frigate, even though the decommissioning of Type 23 frigates will see a temporary reduction from 19 principle surface craft to 17.  The seven planned Astute-class nuclear attack submarines will be delivered, and in time a new class of four Dreadnought nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines will replace the Vanguard class that will come towards the end of their useful operational lives from 2030 onwards.    

Value versus cost: The four-year defence deal at the heart of IR2021 will be worth £16.5bn ($21.8 billion) of additional moneys, which given that the annual defence budget is some £40bn ($56bn) such represents a yearly increase of about 10%, far beyond any comparable commitment by any other major European state.  However, (and as ever) there is some quibbling over the figures. For example, the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests there will only be £7bn ($10bn) of new money for the annual defence budget by 2025. The discrepancy is explained by the fact that existing planning envisaged the defence budget rising to £45bn ($63bn) by 2025, whilst the new plan will now see it rise to £52bn ($73bn). Downing Street’s response is thus: “The £16.5 billion extra in the Ministry of Defence's budget over the next four years is the amount over and above the manifesto commitment. The Government has already pledged to increase defence spending by 0.5 per cent above inflation for every year of this parliament. On existing forecasts, this is an overall cash increase of £24.1bn ($33bn) over four years compared to last year's budget”.

Affordability: One of the many paradoxes of IR2020 is how the plan is to be afforded given that the GDP to debt ratio is just over 100.2%. In the wake of World War Two that ratio stood at 250% and London paid for it with cheap US loans and bonds issued with low yield over many years.  That approach will again be adopted. Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that Britain’s borrowing power is not what it was back in the late 1940s.  That is questionable in a world awash with credit much of it seeking a stable and long term yield.  In other words, precisely because Britain is in such debt affording the defence strategy is paradoxically cheap because the British will again take on cheap long-term debt.

New structures:  1) a new US-style Situation Centre that will give more weight to the National Security Council and Britain’s crisis management operation; 2) a new National Cyber Force that will centralise both offensive and defensive capabilities through a fusion of both GCHQ and the Joint Forces Command; 3) a new UK Space Command that reinforces the Space Operations Centre at Air Command in High Wycombe including a launch site in Scotland. This is a deep joint force and involves personnel from the Royal Navy, British Army and the Royal Air Force and is in line (albeit far more modestly) with US Future Force planning, particularly the development of US Space Command.  The so-called ‘high frontier’ is now regarded as future war theatre for military operations. 4) Defence Intelligence believes much of forces’ equipment is some fifteen years out of date, particularly artillery and other ‘fires’.  Britain will thus create a military Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics capability with the focus on developing intelligent drone swarms, autonomous vehicles and target recognition, with a significant part of the new investment devoted to research and technology. 3) an increase in available yield-adjusted nuclear warheads from not more than 180 by 2025 to not more than 260 to provide more “operational flexibility” for the four Vanguard class British nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines; 4) a new Counter-Terrorism Operations Centre that will far more effectively combine police, intelligence and legal advice.

Defence-industrial strategy (DIS): The just published Defence and Security Investment Strategy: A strategic approach to the UK’s security and defence industrial sectors emphasises innovation as so many of its predecessors have, and the need for a robust and appropriate skills base.  Indeed, because of the emphasis on science and technology and the development of the future force in the review it will also highlight the need to exploit the entire national (and beyond) knowledge base and supply chains far beyond the traditional defence-industrial sector.  Much of the focus will be on a major investment in science and technology which is expected to reach 2.7% GDP by 2025.  Indeed, the fusion of national and defence investment strategies across the civilian and military spectrum will be based on the applications of research. Much of the military investment will go into new technologies such as space systems, cyber, directed energy weapons, AI, biotech and quantum computing.  Much is made of the need to build supply chain resilience by actively defending it, imposing tougher requirements on foreign direct investment, creating a national tech-industrial base, harmonising trade and export practices with the US, and looking to better exploit multilateral institutions and bilateral relationships.  Critically, a defence Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategy and a defence AI centre will be forged together with investment in what the paper calls a Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) to identify innovative solutions to key challenges.

PART TWO: ANALYSIS AND ASSESSMENT

Return to Suez? Global Britain is an attempt to fuse geopolitics and geo-economics using defence strategy as the glue.  Indeed, Britain will even seek to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). At times it is an uncertain fix being neither one thing nor another with the narrative at times over-reaching.  Indeed, after a forty or so year European detour, might well be the ultimate incarnation of London’s post-Suez strategy.  In spite of the commitment to maintain traditional ties to states in the Persian Gulf and the promise of a permanent presence in the Pacific (Singapore?) Global Britain does not envisage a return in military strength east of Suez, rather a return to the policy of never crossing the Americans on any big strategic issue.  Indeed, the plan rests on continued assured access to US technologies. Some will thus suggest that whilst the poodle will have grown a few more teeth it is still a poodle. There are clearly tensions between the civilian grand strategy and the defence strategy which is apparent in the so-called Defence Command Paper.  This effectively makes the British even more dependent on the US for enablers at the high-end of military action, the centre of the entire plan.

Global Britain, European defence? For all the talk about the Indo-Pacific and Britain's future influence therein the essential tension in the strategy is between London’s implicit post-Brexit mercantilist ambitions and its putative defence strategy. The latter only works if the UK adds value to the US effort and it can only really do that given the planned force posture somewhere between Spitzbergen and North Cape and the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap (GIUK) and the Greenland-Iceland-Norway (GIN) gaps or at a stretch by projecting influence into North African and the eastern Mediterranean.  Whilst much is made of the importance of NATO reading between the many lines of Global Britain it would appear Five Eyes is the real centre of strategic gravity for the British with close links to the Americans reinforced by reinvigorating traditional links to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and interestingly Japan.  This shift to more informal groupings than the Alliance is reinforced by London’s emphasis on the D10 group of global democracies (the Global West?) and to some extent the Commonwealth.

Grandstanding Britain? There is, as ever, some significant leger de main in the implication that Britain once again seeks to become a global military power by having a quasi-permanent presence in the Indo-Pacific.  London could only ever countenance the planned deployment of HMS Queen Elizabeth and the UK Carrier Strike Group into the South China Sea with strong US support, which it will have later this year, and tacit Chinese acceptance at a moment that is still reasonably permissive when Beijing would not seriously countenance an attack on a British aircraft carrier. The Chinese are simply not that dumb. If the situation was really that dangerous sending the strike group close to China would be akin to the sending of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse to deter the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1941 without air power, i.e. extremely dangerous posturing and really dumb. The reason the Americans are willing to support the deployment on this occasion is because of the messaging it sends about the Global West and the democracies standing together in the face of Chinese bullying in support of freedom of navigation. However, if the Americans gain the impression they are being played by London to make Global Britain look Global (and not for the first time) at the cost of more stress on US forces they will pull the plug, rapidly and rightly. Moreover, even for the extended deployment of one carrier strike group to the Indo-Pacific the logistics and other components needed to make such a capability credible are tight to say the least, implying even greater reliance on the US.

Ten Year Plan? The real defence vision at the heart of the Defence Command Paper is of a small, high-end coalition command force with a maritime-amphibious focus that is designed primarily to ease pressure on the US in the eastern and northern Atlantic. From that perspective the 'plan' makes some sense but only if London actually means it - big if - and aspiration is turned into fact.  There is much in the plan about the role of future tech in this British future force, including the development of directed energy weapons, drone swarms and their associated capabilities and sensors, the joint development of hypersonic missile systems with the US, and enhanced anti-submarine capabilities.  However, all defence technology strategies inevitably involve trade-offs in democracies and past experience suggests that this latest ten year plan might only last five dashing any hope that the Armed Forces can for once plan with certainty will be dashed.

Beyond 2030: A June 2020 report by the National Audit Office entitled, Carrier Strike – Preparing for Deployment captured the tension implicit in British defence strategy between the need to both afford the present threat whilst investing in future threat.  The decision to procure more of the F-35B Lightning 2’s above the current order for 48 is to be welcomed if it is acted upon. The two heavy aircraft carriers are at the core of Carrier-Enabled Power Projection (CEPP) and thus central to the defence strategy. Under CEPP HMS Queen Elizabeth is to be supported by HMS Prince of Wales, which is kept at a lower state of readiness, although the two ships could be used together to generate a ‘surge’ of capability if needs be.  In such circumstances, they would both operate twenty-four strike aircraft (more if needs be) which means the minimum number of aircraft needed to maintain such a capability given refits and training etc. would be between sixty and seventy.  Certainly, 48 F35s is not enough to make efficient use of the two extremely expensive ‘assets’ in which Britain has just invested over £6bn which reinforces the need for the two ships to normally operate relatively close to their home base, often in support of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), and usually afforded some protection by land-based air power, which is somewhat ironic.

Super-Uber? Swarms of future drones will certainly one day operate from the carriers but only when UAV and UCAV systems are far more integrated with artificial intelligence packages reinforced by advanced machine-learning, resilient quantum computing and hyper-fast command algorithms.  Another option would be to correct Philip Hammond’s false economy and refit the two carriers at considerable expense with ‘cats and traps’ and buy US capability off the shelf, quite possibly the F-35C Mark III or IV complete with an arsenal of loyal wingmen drones for deployed air defence and autonomous strike. There is one other option: the Royal Navy simply becomes a super-Uber for the US Marines Corps taking the Americans wherever they want to go (burden-sharing or burden-carrying?).  Still, unlike the French and Germans the British actually have their hands on a working 5G platform that will be developed extensively over its life cycle.

Well beyond 2030? London is also making much of the Tempest Future Combat Air System (FCAS) which if ever realised will afford the RAF an impressive command and strike platform for an array of manned and unmanned systems.  However, at present Tempest is little more than a concept circulating amongst a group of companies in Lancashire.  Past experience of such advanced British projects suggests that if Tempest ever does get off the ground it will need a bigger consortium than Italy and Sweden (possibly with France and Germany and Berlin is certainly inching towards such a deal), it will also be far more expensive than planned, and take far more time than envisaged.  London suggests Tempest could be in service by 2035. Experience again suggest it will be 2045 at the earliest before the aircraft carriers ever see the plane on their decks at which time they will be towards the end of their operating lives. 

The real challenge of force modernisation: The critical force modernisation and military-strategic challenge implicit in the defence strategy is the planned shift from counterinsurgency (COIN) force, with all of its supporting doctrines and mind-sets, into the future war strategic raider force envisaged.  In other words, the transformation of the force will need to take place in parallel with the complete rebuilding of combat support, combat support services, logistics et al which successive British governments have shamefully hollowed out. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has also said that the force will be the “right size” to face modern threats. Only time will tell. The reduction of the Army to 72,500 personnel will make it the smallest it has been since 1824 in the wake of the Congress of Vienna and the Napoleonic Wars.  Former Chief of the Defence Staff Lord Richards is right when he says that mass has a quality in and of itself because whatever the nature of an operation there will always be hard yards to be gained and, critically, held.  The tiny size of the British Army has already been noted by General Gerasimov and does afford the Russians an “asymmetric attraction”.

 

The planned expanded SOF, Ranger Regiment, and Future Commando Force will also need to be constantly exercised and worked up which is expensive, however realistic synthetic simulation technologies.  The removal of any elements due to an unexpected COIN contingency would have a disproportionate effect on the cohesion of the force as a whole.  The planned force transformation will also be as much about mind-set as ‘manoeuvre’ because the future force at the heart of IR2021 will need to be a deeply joint, highly-combined, resilient command hub able to operate across air, sea, land and space whilst at the same time interfacing with the digital and information domains across the mosaic of hybrid, cyber and hyper war of not-so-future warfare. Strategic Command will thus need to really strategic.

Communicating strategy? The various elements of Global Britain and the way it has been rolled out in packages reveal both the ambition and the complexity therein.  Precisely because the review seeks to cover so many bases it is at times confused and confusing resulting in a not unreasonable assumption that because mercantilist Britain is looking to the Indo-Pacific so is the British future force. Much of it is also aspirational and will depend on future British governments continuing to invest in an expensive strategy during a period of post-Brexit, post-COVID economic duress when how such a strategy can be afforded is not at all clear given the many other pressures on the Exchequer. Critically, and in spite of the planned boost to defence investment, the black hole in Britain’s defence equipment budget is yet to be fully closed and could well act as a continuing brake.

PART THREE: GLOBAL BRITAIN AND EUROPEAN DEFENCE

European defence: What are the implications for European defence? For all of the above, if followed though, and assuming the investment is reasonably well-managed (a very big ‘if’) IR2021 could go a long way to promoting a sound British security, defence and credible twenty-first century defence and deterrence posture through a properly established Strategic Framework overseen by a suitably empowered National Security Council. Certainly, the Global Britain 'strategy' is far better than anything that has emerged from the rest of Europe of late, partly because Britain is far better placed on future war stuff like AI, robotics and hypersonics etc.  Global Britain also marks a return to strategic responsibility and the need for Britain to help shape the international order. Still, the 'plan' is only credible if Britain sees itself for what it is - an important regional-strategic but mid-ranking power capable of doing impressive things but only if properly embedded in the Alliance and enabled by the Americans.  Only then does London assertion that capability matters more than numbers start to make sense given the numbers are so small. Indeed, Global Britain is really about an adapting NATO and its strategic centre of gravity should ideally involve adding real European heft to the NATO Military Strategy, the Defence and Deterrence of the Euro-Atlantic Area Concept and a military vision for a future NATO Strategic Concept.

The regional-strategic political challenge: The real problem for Global Britain is the rest of Europe and the crisis over the place and use of force in which most of it is mired. Other Europeans, such as The Netherlands, only pretend to ‘love’ the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy because they are free riders and refuse to pull their weight in the Alliance, whilst Germany continues to pretend that the future land defence of Europe will depend on Berlin’s military leadership, and the French call for Europe to be strategically and militarily autonomous without the means or the ends, whilst quietly courting the British (look at the interest in Paris in IR2021).  All of this whilst the power-obsessed European Commission poisons the vital strategic defence relationship by constantly seeking to punish post-Brexit Britain for leaving its orb and by demanding a much higher standard of border control on the inner-Irish border than anywhere else around the EU's lamentable external border. If such tensions continue trust and cohesion amongst the European allies will be destroyed. Indeed, if the European Commission and President Macron really do seek to impose a latter day version of Napoleon's post-Treaty of Tilsit Continental Strategy on Britain then as a nuclear-armed island with excellent intelligence and counter-terrorism capabilities IR2021 reaffirms that Britain would simply turn even further from the future defence of Europe - a lose-lose situation for all – and look for allies elsewhere (Five Eyes plus Japan?).

At the very least, Europeans must stop attacking each other for narrow political reasons and return to the shared realisation that given the geopolitical pressures the Americans face, and given the relative weight of ALL Europeans in the twenty-first century world, the frighteningly big picture imposes on them a first and foremost need to become effective, collective high end first responders to all and any threat in, around and to Europe. The British are at least trying to balance the ends, ways and means for their part in such a force, but are they welcome? The rest of Europe is not even trying. Just talking. Indeed, with the possible exception of France, Britain is the one European power that seems to have noticed that there is a 'world' beyond Europe.

At the core of Europe’s future war, future defence there will need to be a European future force able to act as a first responder at the high end of deterrence and thus credible as a force across air, sea, land, cyber, space, information and knowledge.  That is precisely the ambition implicit in IR 2021 and perhaps its greatest paradox: the plan only really makes sense as a command hub to enable a NATO-centric high-end, first response European future force that helps to ease the burden on the US just at the moment Britain is both disengaging from the defence of Europe and being forced out by the European Commission.

PART FOUR: GLOBAL BRITAIN IN A COMPETITIVE AGE: THE INTEGRATED REVIEW OF SECURITY, DEFENCE, DEVELOPMENT AND FOREIGN POLICY (IR2021)

 

Does IR2021 pass the geopolitical smell test?  Is the strategic ambition implicit in the review appropriate for the world’s fifth or sixth largest economy given the scope and nature of threats and opportunities Britain faces?  The good news, on balance, is that the answer is yes.  The two prior reviews (SDSR 2010 and SDSR 2015) were little more than politics dressed up as strategy and built on the dangerous premise of how much threat London believed Britain could afford.  IR 2021 is at least an attempt to systematically identify what threats must be afforded, in what opportunities Britain should invest and the ends, ways and means needed to realise such a balance. IR2021 is thus appropriate for a Britain that has the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world and over the coming years will shift much of its trading patterns from Europe to the growth centres of the Indo-Pacific via high added value trade (the real message of the document). However, whilst the increase in the defence budget is to be welcomed is it enough?  If one breaks down all the military tasks and their associated costs the required investment would be closer to 3% GDP compared with the 2.2% GDP of today. 

 

Ultimately, IR2021 is a deterrence and punishment review designed to put discretion over the use of British force firmly back in the hands of the British prime minister.  As such, it will be measured in the decade to come by the effects and influence it generates across the hybrid, cyber and hyper war spectrums.  It says to the Americans that Britain in future will ease the burden of force entry at the higher end of operations by having the capability to get in, hit hard and get out fast. However, Britain will not clear up afterwards by staying for extended periods in dangerous places.  The focus is on national security and defence, in particular the new deterrence that stretches across the information, digital, conventional and nuclear spectrum, but which also implicitly recognises that if World War Three really does break out we are all screwed whatever the size of the British force. Many will complain of the loss of another Army battalion and over one hundred aircraft from the inventory but much of what is to be cut is in any case obsolete. 

 

Above all, the vision in the Defence Command Paper is for a Plug, Play and Fire Coalition Force, available to Five Eyes as much as NATO, a force for a good D10 as much as an additional ‘US’ component force. For once the force envisioned by and large matches the threat assessment in Global Britain and suggests a new balance between ends, ways and means.  Not the ends, ways and means of the future force itself, but the civil-military fusion that will be needed to mount a twenty-first century multi-domain defence across 5D warfare. A fusion of force and resource that will require a level of unity of effort and purpose and transformed ways of working hitherto unknown across Whitehall and beyond, and demanding of Britain’s political leadership immersion in defence they have avoided for several generations, including playing themselves in regular exercises and increasingly important synthetic simulation.  As such, a particular onus will fall on the National Security Council that will need the status, the structure and the people its importance will demand if critical ‘competitive advantage’ really is the goal.  Above all, this is a bridging review between an analogue past and a truly digital future in which driven by AI, machine-learning and quantum computing the speed of command will be such that all defence systems could one day be by and large unmanned.

 

Finally, IR2021 is not only a choice, it is also a gamble that will set the strategic direction of travel of British foreign, security and defence policy for a generation.  But, at least it IS a choice, not the little bit of everything but not much of anything nonsense that has imposed such attrition on the force for so long and as such it is to be commended. So, Global Britain? Possibly not.  Little Britain? No, it is better than that. Rather, IR2021 is a down-payment on a strategically serious Britain, even if the tension between the future war vision at its core and the peacetime funding that ‘supports’ it remains.

Julian Lindley-French, March 2021