nocutstoRAFI’d only ask one question: you really think that becoming internationally irrilevant won’t, maybe not immediately, but in the long term, impact dramatically on the world and on your current standard of living that you are obviously all so keen to maintain?
The answer is yes, which is one of the reasons I am interested in our defence, but you will never convince the general public that is the case and politicians get voted in to power by addressing the general publics issues.
nocutstoRAFAs an average British person it seems to me that what the average British person wants is to keep their current standard of living, see it go up in the future, for terrorism to occur in someone else’s country and for all the services they value to be available. If I was not interested in defence I would be much more worried by the massive cuts in the police force than defence.
In conclusion I doubt the vast majority of the British public care one fig if Britain becomes rather irrelevant internationally, in fact most people I speak to seem to think that we should be moving to a lower profile and only have enough military forces to defend ourselves and not be spending our money on policing the world.
I am sure, Liger, you will be able to rebut why this is the wrong attitude, but I am afraid getting angry about it will not change how the vast majority of people feel about the issues.
Now to defence issues, does anyone find it a bit weird that there is nothing coming now about how important the RAF is to Britain. I think it means that if the press is to believed the RAF’s only sacrifice is the MRA4’s and they will get everything else pretty much the way the want it.
nocutstoRAFFollowed by several years where we are told that despite all the evidence to the contrary a) defence spending is really going up and b) the British Forces are getting the right equipment. Oh, sorry flashing back to the past 🙂
nocutstoRAFI think the cancellation costs are so high for the CVF’s that the RN would end up with virtually the same cuts regardless, so the CVF’s are worth the risk, and without the CVF’s the Navy is unlikely to be able to justify either new carriers in the future or a decent number of frigates.
What I personally like to see, but know it will not happen as the point is to save money not spend more of it, is the RN get 8 minor surface combatants in the 3,500 tonne category, built overseas if need be to keep costs as low as possible, that can do all the presence missions, so that the loss of frigates are not so keenly felt. Not sure it is a good design but BAE already has a design in this weight class that could be dusted off and used (I think it is called Frigate 2000). If they then end up only getting 10 of the proposed 18 C1/C2 frigates then this seems fairly reasonable mix in the long run when compared to other navies in Europe.
nocutstoRAFThanks – I am always a little hazy on the ground forces as it is an area that does not as much interest me as other aspects of defence.
nocutstoRAFLook likes the carriers might be safe – though there is no guarantee that the rest of the RN will be cut as a consequence as George Osborne has said today:
“He told the Telegraph: ‘We are going to have a bunch of kit that makes us extremely well prepared to fight the Russians on the north German plain. That’s not a war we are likely to face.’
The chancellor said there was little the coalition could do about the situation.
‘We are bound into contracts and that’s just a fact of life,’ he said.”
nocutstoRAFThen the real danger is that they will configure their forces for Global Guardian role and then choose not to deploy them in that role for fear of the political fall out of protracted COIN operations.
nocutstoRAFWe do not know the exact shape of the review yet – just the rumours – nor can we accurately cost the requirements for either Global Guardian or Maritime Raiding, I base my interpretation of the possibility of either one based the review of the situation by an economist, he might be wrong but he has access to ecometric data that I imagine we do not. Now it is possible that the review turns into salami slicing or even the adoption of the vigilant stance of the NCS (basically a self-defence force which would be a disaster if we want to keep our global infulence) but I think in the long term it is going to be Global Guardian or a close approximation of it.
nocutstoRAF@nocutstoraf
Both scenarios are financially unrealistic and purely philosophy. Both scenarios, done the right way, would still require increased defence spending.
The cuts that are apparently about to come are simply self-destruction of capabilities.
You won’t be able to do one, nor the other. Marittime raiding without amphibs is demented. Amphibs are the very thing you need for it.
Global guardian would still dictate amphibs anyway, otherwise it is not “global” but “local” for the most part. Unless you think to move a detachment in by parachuting it from a dozen of A400 and a few C17s.
The way I understand it – Global Guardian is based on the premise we sacrifice the Navy and to a lesser extent the air force to partner the US and NATO in land operations, and we would need to increase the size of the army – this appears roughly similar to what the PM is alleged to have proposed – cut the Navy to the bone, cancel the carriers, delete the amphibious assault, reduce the RFA, give the Army the money for equipment. Ideally it would also see 10 – 20% increase in the size of the army and control of the marines. It assumes someone else has kicked down the door and that we would sea lift supplies on commercial hulls rather than using specialist sea lift. It would be gearing up to re-play Afghanistan and Iraq ad infinitum.
Maritime Raiding is the polar opposite, it supposes you down scale your army, concentrate the army as a defensive forces and some light forces you can air lift to support your marines, along with special forces and focuses on carriers, amphibious assault and having a good number of SSN’s and top spec frigates and destroyers. It clearly the route you would be most sympathetic to, it’s the option I prefer, and it’s the one that I suspect Liam Fox support’s but it requires dismantling the Army which makes it IMO political impossible at the point of time, and I suspect Liam Fox original plan called for small cuts in the next five years, and then post Afghanistan a massive redirection of funds from the Army to the Navy.
Finally IMO if we make big enough sacrifices to the capabilities of one or two of the services we can afford to implement either Global Guardian or Maritime Raiding as a strategy under the adaptable stance of the NSC. We might not like the consequences and it would be a case of admitting that we cannot do everything any more even on the budget we have let alone a reduced one, but it is doable. But it would mean either decimating the army or the navy
nocutstoRAFThe real battle is between the two possible scenario’s (see RUSI for more detail):
Global Guardian where we need a larger army, more tactical and strategic lift, but reduced fast jets and naval power – this leads to more land op’s in alliance with NATO, more COIN operations but reduces our flexibility at sea and in the air
or
Maritime Raiding where we need a larger navy, more marines, but reduced army -this leads to ops where we bust down the doors and let someone else hold the ground, good for a quick medium scale intervention but reduces our ability to really take ground and hold it in a larger scale operation.
The PM would appear to favour the first, and virtually everybody here favours the second along with Liam Fox, and George Osborne favours cutting us back to self defence force to clear the deficit as quickly as possible, which I suspect is why we will end up in some sort of fudge.
PS. I cribbed these ideas from RUSI, Think Defence and a blog reference on Think Defence which I cannot remember the name of but his/her blog name began with a J. They made sense to me when I read them but the ideas did not originate with me 😀
nocutstoRAFI think it is to late to change track from the CVF’s. It might have been sensible five years ago to look at smaller cheaper carriers or large LHD’s with a limited ability to carry F-35B’s, but it looks like at this juncture most of the savings are from the air group which is not coming out of the RN budget. From what I can tell the development costs are already sunk for the CVF’s and both the MoD and the companies think that the companies have a strong case to get paid most of the money they are due it the Government cancels, so at best it would be a spend of £4 billion for zilch or £5.2 billion for two CVF’s.
nocutstoRAFI know wikipedia can be inaccurate but the only ice-break I could find in the Royal Norwegain Navy is this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NoCGV_Svalbard
Can that be correct that Norway would give up a nine year old ship which is their only ice-breaker?
nocutstoRAFRE: Geoff
Could it be even more fiendish – he play’s hard ball with Liam Fox to keep the Lib Dem’s happy, then leaks Liam’s letter himself, and next week at the conference he allows the party to pass a resolution to increase defence spending. Goes back to the Lib Dem’s, agrees to leave main gate for Trident until after the next election in return for them not opposing a small increase to defence spending, and then uses the ideas generated under the SDSR for cuts to restructure the forces to something more to his liking with an emphasis on equipment procurement which is a bit more flexible, exportable, multi-role and a bit less gold plated.
nocutstoRAFEven if David Cameron does not back the carriers as they are (and given a number of key contracts in Lib Dem areas I would say he might have to give ground) too much money has already be spent on QE for them to sensibly cancel them as they would still need some sort of carrier capacity even if it is a couple more ASW carriers or LHD’s with limited air group of F-35B’s, and I cannot see how it would not end up costing more. Plus David would have to fight the companies who obviously think they have a good case, and I wonder how well it would play with the press if BAE takes the Government to court for breach of contract and wins.
On top of this the US has made it clear that the only things they need from the UK are for it stay in the F-35 programme, special forces and Trident renewal, and it is hard to see the point of staying in the F-35 programme without the justification of the carriers, or the point of Trident if we do not have a comprehensive navy as it gives us precisely two options do nothing or nuke the excrement out of someone with no middle ground.
I cannot see cuts forecast happening unless the RN is to be turned into a self-defence force (which in combination with the letter from Liam Fox seems to be the intent – cancel the carriers, amphibious assault, reduce number of frigates and destroyers, cancel MR4 before it comes into service)
nocutstoRAFThe Danbjorn (shown in the left of the picture) is 3,700 tonne ice breaker which orginally entered service in 1965 – at least according to this: http://www.navalhistory.dk/english/theships/d/danbjoern(1996).htm
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