Thursday 3 August 2017

SDSR 2017?

As parliament broke for its summer holidays this year, so began the normal cycle of government trying to slip out all the bad news and controversial decisions that it has up its sleeve, while opposition parties got into a frenzy about how terrible it all is while conveniently forgetting it's the exact same thing they used to do when in power and pretending that they would never do something so underhanded themselves if given the chance. Except this year's round of "Have I Got Bad News For You" got tongues really wagging as it was announced that the Cabinet Office is implementing a review of national security policy, including in its scope the progress of the commitments set out in the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR).

That in turn has prompted many to express concerns that we might be looking at a "Next Steps" type situation, which might involve further cuts to defence. (Insert topical joke comparing the anachronistic nature of the parliamentary summer break to the nature of some elements of the armed forces and/or the thinking that underlies them). And there is perhaps a reason to be concerned. Although the main thrust of this review would seem to be focused on updating the UK's security posture in light of this years terrorist attacks in Manchester and London, as well as just a general assessment of the progress of the SDSR, there are underlying issues which could cause a re-think for defence. And by "re-think" I of course mean "more cuts".

The government was planning to borrow a bit over £50 billion in the 2017/18 financial year to cover its expenses, which apparently now qualifies as austerity. (Insert commentary about how language has lost its meaning in the modern era due to the constant and ridiculous use of political hyperbole). However borrowing over the course of the first quarter alone has been higher than expected and at this rate the government will be on track to borrow over £60bn by April of next year. It's also worth noting that annual government expenditure currently includes more than £50bn in debt interest payments, such is the magnitude of the last 20 years of financial maleficence by various chancellors. (Insert commentary about fiscal responsibility here).

On this basis then it's clear that the government still has a lot of work to do in repairing the UK's finances and additional cuts to defence could be seen as a way to ease the government's load, especially if it needed to find extra money down the back of the sofa to fund increases for other security measures such as more money for The Security Service, which is the shite name currently used for MI5 and rendered utterly pointless by their insistence on using MI5 as their home web address and talking about "being MI5" and "MI5 insights" etc. (Insert commentary about corporate messaging and creating brand confusion here).

Further compounding this problem is the reduction in the value of the pound brought on by the Brexit vote, especially when considering the future major purchases of US products such as the P-8 Poseidon and F-35 Lightning. Under normal circumstances you'd expect a big organisation such as the MoD to have taken a sizable hedge position in the dollar prior to the Brexit vote, just in case, given the scale of its potential exposure to currency risk. But then this is the MoD we're talking about, so nothing is certain. We'll find out soon enough I guess.

To give you some idea of the scale of the potential currency problem, back in 2014 the pound was worth (at its peak for that year) about $1.71. It's now sitting at about $1.31. And yet people still insist on questioning the impact of currency exchange rates on imports and exports, and underplaying the importance of a weak pound to things like the UK balance of trade, despite it being what our American cousins might call "Economics 101".

Oh, and then there's the small matter of the equipment fund being underfunded and another emerging black hole in the MoD's finances, despite prior assurances that the MoD had more than enough headroom to cope with any unexpected changes. Time passes, things change, but the MoD seems perpetually incapable of sorting its finances. (Insert additional commentary about fiscal responsibility here).

But there is a catch to all this. Indeed, there are multiple catches. Firstly, the government has spent much time and effort promoting how much it spends on defence, including making a big song and dance about how its spending 2% of GDP in line with NATO guidelines. To cut back spending now would rather deflate the governments bubble. Secondly, as always with these things, how would the government distribute the funding cuts in a manner that was fair and equitable? (Insert preferred service centric argument here).

This last point is perhaps more complicated than its been for a long time. The Royal Navy is preparing the way to bring into service the first of its new aircraft carriers, while work has now begun on the first of the new Type 26 frigates. Yet at the same time the navy's personnel situation is under severe strain, with question marks not just over retention rates but whether it even has enough manpower to keep the ships it currently has at sea, let alone future ones. 

The obvious answer to such a dilemma is to just give the navy more funding. But from where, especially if the plan is to cut spending, not increase it? One might argue (if one were in posh mode) that the army would be a ready source of cash for additional bodies. The army might have something to say about that though, not least because it would effectively reward the navy for not managing its budget and manpower properly. Under such circumstances the army could make a reasonable claim that it was being punished unfairly for a lack of planning by others.
 
And the army has enough problems of its own right now. 

With Afghanistan off the table, the army is searching for a role in the future forces structure. While it is deploying a battle group to the Baltics to help deter against little green men from Russia, it otherwise finds itself as something of a spectator of late. It has enough infantry battalions to be able to form almost 4 complete light divisions, but barely enough supporting elements for one. It can scrape together just enough tanks for an armoured division - at least in an all out effort and putting everything else on hold - yet other chunks of its vehicle fleet are almost old enough now to claim the state pension.

In short, it lacks the ability to re-fight the cold war and yet also lacks the ability to fight the current ones. As Russia has surged ahead with the development of ground based electronic warfare, drone integration, anti-armour artillery and flexible, fast deploying formation structures, the British army is stuck somewhere between the old army of the Rhine and Wellington's peninsular army. It would be instructive at this point to compare what the army can contribute to something like the ongoing fight against ISIS to what the RAF brings.

The RAF has Typhoons and Tornadoes dropping bombs and blasting off Brimstone missiles like they were going out of fashion. It has tanker assets supporting coalition operations. It has transport assets providing airlift of supplies. It has Airseeker available to do its secret squirrel airborne electron hoovering act. It has Sentinel for tracking ground movements. It has Reaper drones for observation and strike. Virtually all of the major components of its force are capable of pitching in one way or another. It has in effect adapted quite well to the modern operating conditions, albeit at the expense of some gaps in "conventional" capability, such as lacking an anti-radar weapon for suppression of enemy air defences.

The army is no slouch by any means, able to offer Iraqi forces support ranging from medical services and training to counter-IED expertise, frontline special forces support to tactical training for low level infantry units. But you get the sense that with a slight change of tack this whole Adaptable Force concept could be a lot more, well, adaptable. If the army possessed something like the US HIMARS mobile rocket system for example it might be able to offer Iraqi forces more than just a guiding hand and a pat on the back. While the RAF and the RN have built in a degree of operational flexibility to their force structures over time, the army does seem to be a little left behind.

The army it would appear needs a major re-think of its force design and a major program of recapitalisation. Supposedly part of the remedy for that will be the new Strike Brigades, even though nobody seems to know what that actually means in practice yet aside from it incorporating the new FRES tracked reconnaissance vehicle along with some kind of medium weight 8x8 wheeled APC, with the German Boxer looking like the leading candidate at the minute. (Insert commentary about the ridiculous nature of having a wheeled vehicle for strategic mobility mixed into a formation with tracked vehicles here).

Thus it might be reasonable to argue that the army needs all the funding it can get to keep its own house in order. On paper I think it's difficult to argue that the army doesn't have some room to absorb some cuts, but I think beyond any required savings being passed to the treasury the army would have a good case for retaining any further money from efficiency savings in order to sort itself out. That perhaps is another post for another day.

As mentioned earlier I think the RAF is in fairly decent shape, with the introduction of the new Lightning II and the Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft being covered by the coming retirement of Tornado and Sentinel, with Sentinel's capability likely being shifted to another platform. There are still gaps, such as the previously mentioned lack of a SEAD capability, but overall the RAF seems set for the future. 

Where then does the RN get the manpower funding it needs? I suspect the difficult answer is going to be from somewhere within its own budget. With all the talk earlier in the year about cuts and reshuffling in the Royal Marines, it's possible that more "reshuffling" (cuts) might be considered in order to make the RN's numbers add up. Such is the price of poor accounting I guess.

This of course all assumes that the review will recommend more cuts to defence. It's entirely plausible that this will be something a lot more innocent and maybe even positive for the forces. The timing of the announcement doesn't bode well however. More pertinently, even if we assume that no major changes are planned, that doesn't mean that no major changes are required.

13 comments:

  1. I can see the army taking the brunt wether its fair or foul.

    Unfortunately, once the knives come out, the debate will be framed as the navy and airforce defend the UK, the army defends the EU.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If there are cuts, then yes I suspect the army will get hit the hardest.

      Delete
  2. The navy got hit in the 201p SDSR when the funds went to the army to keep them in the Afghanistan/ Iraq wars - to put the blame at RN mismanagement with effectively a 20% cut to naval personnel is unfair.

    In a post Brexit global world, the role of the army needs to be heavily reviewed. The force of choice and focus of funding therefore should be the Navy.

    The army and RM IMO should be focused around a expeditionary force based around UK style MEU structures capable to be deployed globally by sea and air. Coupled with this should be more traditional heavy army Division(s) held at low readiness to defend the UK or support NATO if the need arised.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello Smithy, thanks for dropping a comment.

      I'd argue that it's been 7 years since 2010 SDSR and the Navy has had more than adequate time to plan since then. They just don't seem to have been able to make all the ends meet and there's only so much blame that can be attributed to government. As I've mentioned in the past about some comments from Lord West I get the impression that the Navy assumed it would be able to have its cake and eat it with the aircraft carriers, getting to bring both into service and keep all its other platforms. That has proved to be a misjudgement.

      Post-Brexit I don't see a tremendous amount changing. We'll still be heavily reliant on NATO partners, as they will be on us, for mutual security. The reality in today's world of low casualty expectations and a scepticism of prolonged engagements means that the UK is likely to continue delivering force at arms length so to speak, through bombs, brimstone and tomahawk, plus the sneaky chaps that government can neither confirm nor deny are up to anything sneaky.

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. I'd argue that Post Brexit flying the flag and Global presence along with low level involvement without committing boots on the ground will be key- perfect for the RN to play the leading role.

      Delete
    4. I'd suspect that things will carry on vaguely the same, if for no other reason than the government would be disinclined to take any kind of drastic action. I'd prefer to see things more balanced. Everything having a role and contributing together.

      The defence budget can't really support a bias towards any one service. It'd leave the other two services too shallow to be effective.

      Delete
    5. The problem is exactly what you propose, by pretending that the UK can support multiple expeditionary approaches they can actually do none of them.

      Of course, a conflict on mainland Europe is possible but unlikely and will not hapoen without notice. Having a nucleas to build for a continental army is one thing, but even then the contribution of the UK will remain relatively small when compared to Germany and France. The real difference the UK can make is to the defence of the northern approaches and in the eastern Mediterranean through the Base in Cyprus.

      Globally, the expeditionary force projection needs to be modest to match our budget, but still can have a big impact if able to deploy at short notice. For me this means Cdo sized units with supporting functions primarily deployed by sea and secondly by air.

      We are very unlikely to do a Gulf War II I scenario any time soon, so let's stop pretending.

      Delete
    6. UK has done a decent job of contributing to multiple different campaigns in all three domains.

      I don't think the UK needs a nucleus for a continental army. What it does need is a flexible army, capable of responding to a variety of scaled scenarios (from BG to Division), almost certainly with allies. Cdo sized units scattering across the globe is a waste as they'll struggle to contribute strongly in any one area. As soon as the going gets tough that will be us gone because we won't be able to contribute on a meaningful level.

      A gulf war II scenario I think is a lot more likely than some of the odd ideas I've seen people kicking around about UK fleets going to war in the South China Sea.

      Delete
    7. @Chris, I've not mentioned any locations where we do not already have a similar sized force, all I'm doing is formalising it and ensuring it has better regional effect to protect and enhance UK interests.

      If the UK say focused expeditionary capability around say 15 such units then a strong rotation with one acting as a ARG would give the ability to react second only to the US and group together to act at Brigade level. This is enough and all we can afford- slowly putting an I'll equipped Division in place is not a capability it's an embarrassment.

      Delete
    8. 15 battlegroups that have almost no ability to make a meaningful difference outside of a select group of scenarios, while trading away the ability of the army to do a more diverse range of tasks? Not sure that's a great trade.

      If the division is ill-equipped then the solution is not to just throw it away, the solution is to equip it properly, which really isn't that expensive in the grand scheme of things.

      Delete
    9. Sorry Chris, completely disagree. UK Expeditionary deployments at Divisional level isn't going to happen even if they were fully funded. They will either take too long to deploy or will be politically unacceptable- like a rerun of Iraq.

      We need Divisional level capabilities for UK defence but no further. Having UK Cdos with significant capability that can act at speed to protect UK interests / nationals or join with others in multinational operations is the only way to go.

      Delete
    10. I've always found the too long argument a little odd. In the run up to both Iraq campaigns there was a sizable build up period for the forces involved. Generally if it's something that needs a heavy division as a response then it's something that will require time for forces to build up, a period of political movement etc.

      I also don't see it as an either/or argument. I believe it's entirely possible to have the heavy division as the longer term, slower building part of the army and then to have faster reacting elements, designed more to deal with a quick but smaller scale dust up.

      Delete