I only used that word because you implied that the USA was trying to make it something that it wasn’t. The US is simply stating the truth. It is not saying, so far as I am aware, that it is worse. It is different and it is global.

And so far as it impinges on defence policy it is a great deal different from dealing with localised home-grown terrorism.

But that isn’t borne out by the facts either. Is it really global? In the UK the current terroist threat is still essentialy home grown, the July 7th bombers were British and it was Anglo-American foriegn policy that has helped radicalise them by creating this mythical hydra of global organised terroism (or as they saw it the demarcation of ‘them and us’, ‘west vs islam’).

How many “global terror” attacks have we had since 2001? How many foriegn terror cells have actually made attacks in western countries since September 11th? The airline shoe bomber was british, the 7th july and the later failed bombers were british, the plot to blow up airliners transatlantic 4 years ago were home grown too. The Times square bomber was a US citizen… its “global terror” because governemnts have labelled it as such, they have joined up dots that actually were not part of the same picture (maybe in the same book…)

Like Regan thought he was in a western or Star Wars I often thought that Bush thought he was in a Bond film. If Mr Bin Laden had a bald head and a white cat it would have helped.

“Terroism was also more widespread than it is today despite the USAs best efforts to tell us otherwise.”

That’s rather disingenuous. It is surely less widespread because of the immense efforts by the “west” to contain it.

Indeed containment of terrorism will be a factor in assessing defence needs in the years to come. And that is a very political debate, of course. I suspect that the outcome of the Review will address the realities of the world in the decades to come at the expense of what the military perceive the priorities to be.

I don’t see why thats disingenuous, its just fact. Post 2001 terrorism, quite understandably became the USA’s number one focus. But the rest of the world had been dealing with various terroist groups for decades through the cold war, some sponsored by the USSR, some by the USA, some by other nations and the number of actual terroist incidents was far higher. In Europe terroism was a weekly occurance. It was almost “normal”, if the IRA hadn’t blown something up some red group in Germany had shot or kidnapped someone, a palestinian group had hijacked an airliner etc…happy days….

Nope! Or the CASTOR-Defender either. This was a crap piece of info that was (and still might be) published in the bi-annual “British Army Pocket Book” that the AAC operated a radared Islander. It operates various islander/defender types but nothing with a survalliance radar (AEW or CASTOR).

It was a proposal in the 80s that a squadron of CASTOR-Defender would be purchased for the AAC in Germany but it came to nothing on costs grounds and the usual interservice rivalry over who should operate it, the RAF suggesting it (the radar) should go in a canberra. In the end it became Sentinal R1.

As for Northolt, there are two Islanders, neither appears to have a radar, certainly didn’t when I saw them land at the photo-call last weekend.

Two thoughts.

The oldest HAS3 is 32 years old, younger than the Puma by miles and the last six were delivered in 92-3 so are only 17 years old.

What about those Merlin HM1s that aren’t going to be turned into HM2s…..hmmm surely cheaper as the hardware is already paid for….?

Checked this to see if anything relevant was included:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/politics/10341863.stm

So it’s all up for review. Now what about the Tanker PFI?

You beat me to it, I just noticed that at the bottom of the list of projects suspended or cancelled along with a suspension of concept long lead items for deterent replacement….

I have wondered why replacing HAS3 has been such a priority in the defence budget, they aren’t really that old, certainly Puma, lynx, orginal chinooks, HC4s, Gazelle are all older. As they aren’t used for heavy lift and aren’t deployed very often I have been constantly amazed that this has been such a high priority. Surely a good, in house (ala Jaguar GR3) series of rolling upgrades would be a better way forward that would delay big capital expenditure on a replacement for at least a decade? maybe i’m wrong but if the Junglies with all the beatings they have taken can keep going surely HAS3a is good for a few years yet?

Yes, but then the time scale is longer so it’s not really a major surprise.

Not even that, if you count conflicts in a given year as an average, or even over a decade then the Cold war world is much more violent place. Number of deaths per conflict is down massively since the 50s. 38,000 per conflict down to 5-600.

see http://www.hsrgroup.org/human-security-reports/human-security-report.aspx

The irony being that there were far more minor wars and insurgencies during the Cold War than there have been since….

So rather than emulate the USMC we are probably going to go down the path Canada has followed with a unified armed forces. However I believe since that policy was introduced each branch of the Canadian military as developed is own identity more and more.

Exactly why people are saying USMC. The Cannucks are barely unified now, total fudge that was handled really badly when it was done. But that said I doubt it will happen. Which politico is going to end the Royal Navy? The Army combined with the RAF I can see, after all thats how they started out. But combine the RN into one organisation? Dr Fox would be a very brave man indeed.

I wonder if there are any sacred cow that are immune to a combined military. Will there still be three officer training colleges or will only one survive. The tail end has pretty much been combined so it really leaves the frontline and headquarters. Regarding the latter this is an area many agree will happen but the former is going to be much more difficult. We already have joint helicopter, air defence and NBC units. Prime targets could be the RM and RAF Regiment.

The Royal Navy and the Army, they will never combine. RM and RAF Regiment should be dedicated corps within the Army structure if you ask me. I would actually create a single multi-role Regiment to replace the RAF Rgt that had infantry, engineers, gunners, MPs etc Orgainsied into company groups to support Airfields. One company would do CSAR too.

My main concern is that although I believe there are issues that need immediate attention in the short term, the only areas that are going to see any benefits from the SDR are those directly relevant to Afghanistan. Programmes that are actually in production should be safe or at least suffer only minor cuts, but it is going to be longer term programmes that will be dropped or delayed. The F-35 should survive but at only 60-70 purchased. In fact the RAF seems to be the major target, with the RNs major programmes such as the CVF and new FFGs safe, but the latter will have minimum impact on the budget over the next few years. So that leave further cuts in the fast jet force, probably seeing the Tornado force cut in half by 2015 as the Typhoons come on stream being totally phased out along with the remaining Harriers by 2020 with the introduction of the F-35. That would leave the UKs fast jet strength at between 9 and 12 squadrons. Barely enough to meet its existing committments but then again it has been stated that all committments bar one are up for re-evaluation.

Likely, though there is the UCAV thang on the horizon, manned FJs days are numbered in a lot of roles and money needs to be freed up for that.

In the end I see the UKs Armed Forces being turned into a “Fire Brigade” able to deploy force rapidly for a short term operation but not for long term operations like we are currently involved in in Afghanistan, that will be the job for others.

But surely thats whathe UK armed forces have always been (and are at present) with the exception of the world wars, the whole reason Iraq and Afghan has broken the HMForces is they have been asked to do the job of a large continental garrison army when they aren’t one. We set out under SDR to create an expeditionary force which was acheived. It was then asked to do something completely against that doctrine.