DEFENCE – OR THE LACK OF IT
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
In June 2022 General Sir Patrick Sanders was appointed Chief of the General Staff, the professional head of the British Army. With the war in Ukraine then four months old Sanders issued an instruction to the army telling them to train for war in Europe. Shortly after that he said publicly that the government’s decision to reduce the size of the army was ‘perverse’. Politicians do not like soldiers pointing out uncomfortable truths, indeed the Chief of Defence staff, Admiral Sir Anthony Radkin, was forbidden by government to give television interviews on Remembrance Sunday last year, terrified that he might expose their lack of commitment to the defence of the nation. Soon after Sanders’ pronouncement the Ministry of Defence announced that his tour as CGS, normally three to four years, would be cut short to two years, and that he would be replaced by Lieutenant General Sir Roland Walker, whom the politicians presumably feel will be more amenable, As Walker is a Guardsman of independent means they may be disappointed. With but a few months to go before his enforced retirement, Sanders obviously feels unconstrained and has recently called for a massive expansion of the army to fight what he sees as an inevitable war with Russia. While he did not specifically mention conscription, that is what he meant, prompting from Downing Street an immediate denial of any thoughts of compulsory military service.
Currently the war in Ukraine grinds on, indeed those who assumed that an offensive by Ukraine would bring a swift and decisive end were sadly lacking in their understanding of modern war. The Russians had months to prepare obstacles to movement, defence lines, anti-tank minefields, artillery killing areas all several miles thick and needing massive resources and considerable time to penetrate. A Ukrainian offensive can only succeed when all the assets are ready and in position, with the men and women trained to use them. This includes fast jet aircraft, modern tanks, up-to-date engineering equipment and very large quantities of artillery ammunition. Soldiers are being trained (30,000 Ukrainian infantry recruits to date in the UK alone), Ukrainian pilots are being converted from Soviet era MIG and Soyuz to F16, and Leopard II tanks are coming on stream. All this takes time and it is unlikely that Ukraine could mount a meaningful offensive much before the end of the Spring thaw in 2025, and that presupposes the continuing support of the West.
It has yet to be brought home to the British public just how important it is that Russia does not win this war, for if she does than the Balkan states and Finland, previously part of Tsarist Russia, will be next. Currently a convoy of British trucks trundling through Poland delivering ammunition to Ukraine is a legitimate military target, as are the British training establishments housing Ukrainian recruits, and Putin would be perfectly entitled to attack them. What keeps him from doing so is Article Five of the NATO treaty which says that an attack on one member of the alliance is an attack on all. Should NATO resolve falter and should Putin think that Article Five will not be implemented then he may well consider it worthwhile to attack the UK.
There has always been a strain of isolationism in the United States of America. Already Republicans are questioning both the cost and the rationale of supporting Ukraine, and many in both parties ask, very reasonably, why America should continue as the world’s policeman. Donald Trump was right to say that Europe does not spend enough on its own defence and the USA spends twice as much per head of its population than does the UK. If Trump wins the presidential election in the coming November and becomes president in 2025 he may well consider that Ukraine is not a vital interest for the US and withdraw or reduce funding, preferring to concentrate on Israel and Taiwan. Should that happen France and Germany, always lukewarm in confronting Russia, may pull out too, and that just leaves the UK. If it is apparent that the US will not risk Chicago to save Manchester, and thus Article Five is no longer an inhibiting factor, the UK could very well find herself at war. While no doubt the white dominions, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, could be relied upon, their armies too are tiny and we would stand no chance short of using nuclear weapons.
In 1960, when this author arrived at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the British Army was 200,000 strong. It fielded sixty-eight infantry battalions and the commensurate numbers of artillery and armoured regiments, with the logistic units to support the whole. Today we have twenty-nine infantry battalions, but this itself is a fudge because it includes four Security Force Assistance battalions each with a strength of 247 all ranks and another four so-called Ranger battalions, top heavy in officers and NCOs and intended to assist in the training of the armies of developing countries friendly to Britain, and each with a strength of only 300, or half the size of a combat deployable battalion. This leaves twenty-one battalions that could be deployed. In 1960 the Royal Navy deployed 234 warships, including eight aircraft carriers, 156 destroyers and frigates, fifty-four submarines and fourteen cruisers. Today we have sixty-nine warships including two carriers, eighteen destroyers and frigates and ten submarines. We spend more on interest payments on government debt than we do on defence and we are to reduce the army by another 10,000 and mothball a number of warships.
How have we got into this situation when the risk of war is nearer than at any time since 1945? Partly it is in the nature of our democracy. The aim of a politician – any politician – is to get into power and having got in to stay in. They do this by bribing an ignorant and greedy electorate that wants instant gratification and is interested only in those things that affect it directly. To do this they remove money from things that the electorate either do not care about or do not notice, to spend ever more on the welfare state and the financial black hole of the non-functioning and incompetently managed National Health Service, and promising tax cuts when what is needed is tax increases. And where does the money to do that come from? Defence is a prime target and for decades, under the stewardship of both parties, Defence has been whittled away until today it is very doubtful if we are any longer a first tier military power. Certainly our major ally, the USA has expressed considerable concern. As parliaments last for only five years most politicians look only as far as the next election, with no thought to the long term fate of the nation.
While no regular soldier wants conscription – it lowers standards and the period of compulsory service would not be long enough to produce much more than cannon fodder, as is the case with the present part-time Army Reserve, previously the Territorial Army. In order to save military manpower the recruiting organisation was handed over some years ago to a civilian commercial company, which has been a disaster, as those employed by it have no real understanding of what the armed forces do or how they operate. Forces pay is still not sufficient to attract the sort of people we want, and too much accomodation is in a poor state of repair, the Ministry of Defence having sold off the housing estate to a Japanese company and now rents it back. If a pay rise, improved accomodation and recruitment removed from the dead hand of Capita cannot get the numbers we want, then conscription may indeed be necessary, but only as a last resort.
Our potential enemies are many: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea. This is not the time to skrimp and save on defence, but to increase the size and capabilities of the armed forces, and that means spending a lot less on pampering the populace and a lot more on defending it. If we do not act now then we are fated to watch the Russians hold victory parades down Whitehall.
Chris, I take your point about the Cold War threat but then our armed forces were big enough to put up a pretty robust defence if the 4th Guards Shock Army crossed the IGB (re my comparison of 1960 v 2024). Now they are not. Then there was no question of NATO's resolve, now there is. I shall probably end up commanding the Kent Home Guard!
yes, at the very beginning of my military service we still had some national servicemen in British regiments. If they signed on for the extra year, i.e. three rather than two, they got a considerable increase in pay. You can make soldier in three, but not easy in only two.