The UK’s Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, made a speech this morning at RUSI, the main military-focused think tank in the UK. That’s the same Foreign Secretary who when at the Ministry of Defense decided to can one fifth of the army, speaking at the same think tank that put out a report yesterday saying Hammond’s government will cut about 43,000 more soldiers – from an army of less than 100,000 – if it’s re-elected. That’s the Foreign Secretary presiding over an FCO whose Russia experts have been let go and scattered to the four winds of oil companies, think tanks and academia, because God knows the UK doesn’t need that kind of expertise. That’s the same Foreign Secretary who can barely spell Brussels, let alone bear to go there, and who is quite satisfied leading the foreign service of a country that increasingly distrusts and fears all things foreign. That one.
Hammond’s speech is easy to summarise: Russia is very mean and bad; ok fair enough, we didn’t foresee ISIS; but if only people would stop all this pointless bleating about the security services’ oversight and transparency, we could get on with our job of protecting the people of Britain. How strong. How plausible. How brave.
It’s only at the level of detail, or rather its self-serving and specious claims, that Hammond’s speech breaks down.
What Hammond says: ‘We said we would legislate to ensure that cases involving national security information could be heard fairly, fully and safely in our courts. And we did.’
What the government did: further entrenched secret courts and a parallel justice system where evidence against individuals cannot be seen by them or their lawyers, destroying the principle and practice of fair trial.
What Hammond says: ‘We said we would strengthen independent and parliamentary scrutiny of the agencies. And we have by making the Intelligence and Security Committee a statutory committee of Parliament.’
What the government did: Make Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee a statutory committee. Whoopee. Anyone who thinks the ISC provides effective oversight should watch some video of its fawning audiences security service leaders or examine the politicised timeline and gutless redactions of its report on the murder of the soldier Lee Rigby. Failing that, examine the record of career securocrat Malcolm Rifkind, its Chair who just resigned for peddling access to the Chinese.
What Hammond says: ‘The clandestine nature of some of the threats that are launched against us; the weapons systems that are developed in secrecy to threaten our national security; the illegal proliferation of military technology; the growing challenge we face in cyber space; the threat of international organised crime; and the great lengths that individual terrorists or terrorist organisations go to in order to try and keep their plots from being uncovered all of these require that we maintain a highly effective, secret capability to identify, monitor and act against these threats before they can do us harm.’
What the government did: Back-doored every device and mobile phone it could and tried its best to break encryption for everyone. Because the real bad guys will never exploit those vulnerabilities.
What Hammond says: ‘We are now faced with a Russian leader bent not on joining the international rules-based system which keeps the peace between nations, but on subverting it. President Putin’s actions – illegally annexing Crimea and using Russian troops to destabilise eastern Ukraine – fundamentally undermine the security of the sovereign nations of Eastern Europe.’
What the government did: Led a 2010 Strategic Defense and Security Review that was anything but strategic, and simply a budget-cutting slash and burn of people, weapons and capability. Repeatedly cut defense-spending in real terms, to the point where it will not now meet its NATO commitments and the UK is goaded in public by its closest military ally. Presided over the continued exodus of expertise and massive cost-cutting to the core of its foreign service, to the point where there literally weren’t enough people to translate and analyse realtime information about Crimea’s invasion. Withdrew so utterly from EU day-to-day business and strategic engagement that Prime Minister Cameron was a barely tolerated tag-along at Merkel and Hollande’s summit on Russia. Blocked and harried for years all attempts to convene a full and independent inquiry into the London murder of Alexander Litvinenko. Made London the safest and most welcoming place for all the dirty money you can pile up in a Chelsea flat.
But despite the Conservative government’s utter failure to pursue any meaningful foreign policy or maintain the UK’s ability to analyse its environment and respond in force to real threats, the Foreign Secretary’s priority is this:
‘The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I are determined that we should draw a line under the debate (MF: on transparency and oversight of the intelligence agencies) by legislating early in the next Parliament to give our agencies, clearly and transparently, the powers they need, and to ensure that our oversight regime keeps pace with technological change and addresses the reasonable concerns of our citizens.’
The ‘debate’ – yes, the one the government has tried to shut down and shoot down every step of the way – is to be concluded for good so that Hammond, Cameron and co. can get on with chipping away at the last few blocks of democracy.
No acknowledgement of the catastrophic failure of the government’s foreign policy. No acknowledgement of the willful destruction of the capacity of our armed forces. And certainly no good faith grappling with the arguments of those who are looking further than the next election cycle:
‘There are some who remain willfully blind to the distinction between the unacknowledged, unregulated, underhand intelligence capabilities of a repressive regime, directed against its own people, and the agencies of this and other democratic countries, where intelligence is directed towards keeping our citizens safe and is subject to the most robust systems of oversight.’
Or, if I may paraphrase, ‘how can you possibly confuse us with bad regimes, and why don’t you trust us when we say – despite history, evidence, repetition and any basic knowledge of the human condition – that we do not misuse these powers against our own people?’.
Corey wrote yesterday about Viola Liuzzo, a working class white woman murdered by a racist thug – and FBI informer – for her involvement in the US civil rights movement. The truly shameful part of Viola’s story is how she was posthumously slandered and smeared by FBI chief J.Edgar Hoover, and her children made to suffer in shame for most of their lives.
Viola’s story is heart-breaking, but it is not exceptional.
Doreen Lawrence, trailed and surveiled by London’s Metropolitan police looking to smear her as she fought to secure a murder conviction of her son’s racist killers, is also not exceptional, in any way other than her almost superhuman courage, persistence and forbearance.
States misuse power. The sun rises and sets. Oversight by the same tiny clique of friends is oversight in name only. The bad things did not all happen a long time ago. And Russia will always, always be a threat.
Those who question and seek to limit state power and hold it to public account are the very opposite of naive. They are the realists, the true Burkean conservatives who want the least harm done by those with the most power.
We are not ‘willfully blind’ to the difference between repressive regimes and free ones, so much as painfully seeing that Western, democratic states show different faces to different people, and some of those faces are very ugly indeed.
{ 89 comments }
engels 03.10.15 at 1:27 pm
Hammond’s government will cut about 43,000 more soldiers – from an army of less than 100,000 – if it’s re-elected
FTW
MPAVictoria 03.10.15 at 1:42 pm
Well said Maria.
Rich Puchalsky 03.10.15 at 2:10 pm
Of course I don’t support lack of oversight or unfair trials of soldiers or breaking encryption of devices. But all of that is mixed, in your post, with:
“No acknowledgement of the willful destruction of the capacity of our armed forces.”
If the capacity of the armed forces of the UK was reduced through peaceful firing of 43,000 of 100,000 soldiers, that would be a good thing both for the UK and the world. If the US fears that the UK is becoming “a friend who can’t be trusted” that is also a good thing.
Manta 03.10.15 at 3:20 pm
“Led a 2010 Strategic Defense and Security Review that was anything but strategic, and simply a budget-cutting slash and burn of people, weapons and capability. Repeatedly cut defense-spending in real terms, to the point where it will not now meet its NATO commitments and the UK is goaded in public by its closest military ally.”
Why cutting defense-spending is a bad thing?
“But despite the Conservative government’s utter failure to pursue any meaningful foreign policy or maintain the UK’s ability to analyse its environment and respond in force to real threats” … “catastrophic failure of the government’s foreign policy”
Are you criticizing the Conservative government foreign policy compared, say to the Labour government foreign policy? Because to answer to that, one word suffices: “Iraq”.
Manta 03.10.15 at 3:21 pm
Or maybe Maria is trying to convince people to vote for the Tories?
Maria 03.10.15 at 3:23 pm
Tks, MPA, But I do wonder what’s the point in calling any of it out. Though Hammond was embarrassingly eager to only name-check previous Conservative regimes in his speech, Labour are as bad, if not worse. At this point, does constantly pointing out the awful policies and self-serving fudges do anything other than make people think ‘it’s everywhere, all the time, and there’s nothing I can do’?
The only thing worse than the Kremlin’s ‘100 stories will bloom, and a thousand ‘truths’ post-moderinst nihilism is the Western securocrat smugness of ‘it’s the same story no matter who’s in, so why bother trying to change it’.
Maria 03.10.15 at 3:24 pm
Manta and Rich; yes, it is possible to be against mass surveillance and in favour of a functional military.
Smoke that.
Manta 03.10.15 at 3:31 pm
Maria, I agree with your assessment of the government polices about mass surveillance.
But you didn’t give a single example of a security threats prevented by the additional 40K soldiers.
Moreover, a less functioning military is a good thing for UK: it will prevent more stupid adventures by the next Labour (or conservative) government.
Cian 03.10.15 at 3:39 pm
. Repeatedly cut defense-spending in real terms, to the point where it will not now meet its NATO commitments and the UK is goaded in public by its closest military ally.
And this is a bad thing because?
What exactly is it you think our armed forces should be used for? How much of the GDP should go on this? And what argument would you present to those of us who think Britain’s armed forces should be retooled for a purely defensive purpose.
I think the strongest argument to be made against the cuts was how incoherent they were. Useless aircraft carriers were kept, while purely defensive capabilities were slashed.
Maria 03.10.15 at 3:43 pm
Manta, my piece isn’t about providing evidence of how an army can support the security of the state. So I don’t see why I would go about giving examples of it.
My thrust, though, is that in favour of cosmetic efforts and emboldening/funding the security state, this government has undermined the state’s capacity to take part in its most important military alliance, NATO. The UK alone cannot defend itself, but as a member it can both protect itself and – we hope – deter military enemies.
The Conservative government has failed at doing the things they’re supposed to be good at; realist foreign policy and defense spending.
It’s not because Britain had an army that Blair marched into Iraq, and if you want to talk to someone who thinks it was a wrong and stupid idea to do so, come to my house. We have the medals to prove it.
But none of that helps now that the UK army can barely deploy a brigade of infantry, or field a working aircraft carrier, or prevent Russian war planes buzzing Dorset.
(FYI the ratio of deployable pairs of ‘boots on the ground’ to total numbers serving is about 1:4 or 1:5 at any time. An army of 50k. Do the sums yourself.)
Manta 03.10.15 at 3:43 pm
Here are some data about defence spending by country: http://www.globalfirepower.com/defense-spending-budget.asp
UK ranks 5th in the word.
If its spending were halved, UK would spend on defence only twice as much as Israel: but, as we all know, UK security needs are much more vital than Israel’s.
Rich Puchalsky 03.10.15 at 3:43 pm
Maria: “Smoke that.”
Is that some Britishism, or does it have the U.S. implication that I must be a hippie who smokes weed?
The only legitimate function of a military is national self-defense. Is the British military needed to be “functional” in order to defend against the Russians who your post goes on about? Or are they needed for adventurism? What were the last few major activities of the UK military?
Let’s see, just taking the 21st century, we have the War on Terror, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Libyan Civil War, and the intervention against ISIS. In all of these cases, a “functional” military allowed for what, exactly?
engels 03.10.15 at 3:46 pm
The Russians are coming!
Maria 03.10.15 at 3:46 pm
Put it in your pipe and …
It’s a good thing you’re not a country with a big army, if you’re as quick to take offense.
Rich Puchalsky 03.10.15 at 3:50 pm
Oh yeah, it’s a good thing that I’m not in a country with a big army, full of people who are all about how we can’t possibly lower our defense spending because the Russians are going to attack us.
Quite Likely 03.10.15 at 4:08 pm
“States misuse power. The sun rises and sets. Oversight by the same tiny clique of friends is oversight in name only. The bad things did not all happen a long time ago. And Russia will always, always be a threat.”
Okay, one of these statements is not like the others. In what possible way is Russia a threat to Britain?
Chris Bertram 03.10.15 at 4:14 pm
When Hammond says “in the world we are up against huge and asymmetric challenges”, are the modifiers supposed to apply to different challenges (huge ones and asymmetric – i.e. little – ones) or are some challenges both big and little? Or does the word “asymmetric” just sound fancy?
Maria 03.10.15 at 4:22 pm
I think it just means he isn’t really even sure what they are! Either that or the UK is unexpectedly enormous.
Maria 03.10.15 at 4:24 pm
Seriously, Quite Likely? You want me to explain to you how Europe’s Gaslighting Abusive Boyfriend is a threat to the country I happen to live in?
No.
Cian 03.10.15 at 4:31 pm
Maria, even after cuts Britain spends A LOT on defense. You seem to avoiding this point.
Now if you want a grown up discussion of British defense spending, the place to start would be considering what our armed forces should not be doing. Because until that happens, Britain is going to continue having very expensive armed forces that are useless at everything (except subsidizing the defense industry). Kind of like the F-35.
Also, how about reorganizing the British army. Our current officer/enlisted ratio seems very high. Maybe we could stop treating the army as a finishing school for thick public school boys.
hix 03.10.15 at 4:33 pm
No higher praise can be given for any military related action than an US general complaining about it.
Cian 03.10.15 at 4:33 pm
You want me to explain to you how Europe’s Gaslighting Abusive Boyfriend is a threat to the country I happen to live in?
As a military threat. Absolutely. Enlighten us.
Bruce Wilder 03.10.15 at 4:33 pm
Substituting expedience for sensible policy is just another form of under-resourcing, so there’s an odd consistency in the new Conservative direction, even if it doesn’t exactly accord with their historical reputation for funding places for vicars and colonels, willy nilly. I suppose it’s all public-private partnership nowadays, so look for some mercenary company: a Hawkwood Regiment or a new White Company to correspond to the American Constellis Group (née Blackwater)? What could be more suitable for a neo-feudalism?
William Berry 03.10.15 at 4:38 pm
Ze Kraggash is holding his fire because he is working up a pressure-cooker.
Ronan(rf) 03.10.15 at 4:38 pm
Would a grown up conversation not require you making a point with some substance, Cain?
Ronan(rf) 03.10.15 at 4:39 pm
Cian,(autocorrect)
Rich Puchalsky 03.10.15 at 4:42 pm
So NATO talks about expanding its alliance to include Ukraine, something that would be pretty much equivalent from the UK’s perspective to Russia going into a military alliance with Ireland. And the ensuing increased geopolitical tensions are Russia’s fault?
If we’re going to talk about gritty realism and the necessity for great power defensive alliances, then what exactly is supposed to be going on?
Cian 03.10.15 at 4:46 pm
I didn’t think my point was particularly obscure Ronan.
1) The Conservative government did a big defense review a few years back, but avoided the issue of what British armed forces are for. Which matters, because that determines staffing priorities, training, funding, equipment.
Instead we ended up with such ridiculous outcomes as very expensive aircraft carriers with no aircraft, and an expeditionary force that isn’t properly equipped for foreign adventures – while also getting rid of exactly the kind of forces that would be required to keep Russian ships/aircraft out of British waters/skies.
Britain can’t afford armed forces that do everything, but for a long time it has pretended otherwise. Cutting expenditure (which I agree with), while pretending otherwise is stupidity.
Maria 03.10.15 at 4:52 pm
“Also, how about reorganizing the British army. Our current officer/enlisted ratio seems very high. Maybe we could stop treating the army as a finishing school for thick public school boys.”
How much do you actually know about the army, Cian? The British Army is incredibly top heavy at the senior officer level, brigadier and above – and has at some levels as many in absolute terms as the US army – but most of the cuts have been in the middle. Cutting a bunch of one stars would be great, as would somehow remove the incentive to be a yes-man to politicians in order to earn a second star.
But if you seriously think the army is a “finishing school for thick public school boys”, then you are sorely out of touch and ill informed. I didn’t know a single officer without at least a 2.2 – maybe not as bright as you, Cian, but not thick either.
UK defense spending is high compared to European states, but of course dwarfed by that of the super-powers in the rank above it. What I have been saying – quite clearly, I think – is that cutting without changing the strategy and without regard for needed capabilities is both stupid and wrong.
The fact that the defense forces have been sent to fight stupid wars does not mean we do not need to have a defense, or that it should be based on a strategy, funded adequately for that strategy, and managed by people who don’t lie about it and hope for the best.
So yes indeed, have at it ‘considering what our armed forces should not be doing’, once you’re finished with the undergraduate insults.
Ronan(rf) 03.10.15 at 4:53 pm
Fair enough Cian, sorry for the snark it’s a valid point. I’ll get back to it later when off this kindle
Ze Kraggash 03.10.15 at 5:05 pm
Not exactly on topic, but what’s the deal with NATO’s Dr. Strangelove (or what’s his name) that even German American flunkies feel embarrassed?
http://rt.com/news/238673-germany-nato-propaganda-ukraine/
AcademicLurker 03.10.15 at 5:06 pm
Why does Britain even need a military when they can just send James Bond to sort things out if there’s a problem?
Dan Hardie 03.10.15 at 5:10 pm
‘Maybe we could stop treating the army as a finishing school for thick public school boys.’
Could we dial this down a bit? I’ve done several years in the regular Army, including three operational tours (that’s the bit where you go and get shot at), as a private soldier and later on as a junior NCO, and I certainly wouldn’t characterise the army as ‘a finishing school for thick public school boys.’ The quality of junior and middle-ranking officers struck me as being between good and very good (generally better in the infantry than in the supporting arms). Certainly the average quality was well above that of the managers in virtually every civilian company I’ve ever worked for. I can think of several really lousy officers right away, but they were the exceptions.
But – to agree with one point Cian makes- undoubtedly there *are* problems with the officer corps, for example its size relative to the number of ‘other ranks’ (ie enlisted men). If you compare the British Army’s officer corps with that of the US Marine Corps, the USMC has a far better enlisted:officer ratio, and no one has ever accused the US Marines of not being combat ready.
My own suspicion is that this is an outcome of the contracts that commissioned officers sign: there are a small number of ‘short service commissions’, some sign off before their commissions are meant to end, but for all too many officers a military commission is pretty much a job for life. The nature of the military is that very few people can continue to do a front-line job into their forties, and many reach their physical limits way before then. That would not be a problem if there were staff jobs that could be filled by all the middle-aged officers needing employment, but frankly there aren’t, as far as I can see, and so at pretty much every level above Major there seem to be an awful lot of officers doing very little, while the key jobs are occupied by a few, hyperactive officers.
Serious reform of the British Army would, I think, mean a rapid and drastic re-writing of the conditions of service of commissioned officers. There should be an assumption that at least 80%, and probably more, should serve for 8-10 years, ie for most until their late twenties or early thirties, after which they would be more than capable of resigning and getting a decent job in civilian life.
Maria 03.10.15 at 5:11 pm
Philip Breedlove, Ze. Apparently not the smartest 4-star of his generation, but no slouch either, I presume. Some German foreign ministry types have taken to briefing against him in the rather pro-Russian Der Spiegel. Nothing to see here.
engels 03.10.15 at 5:11 pm
About 5 to 7% of pupils in the UK attend independent schools yet represent just over 45% of the Sandhurst intake for the last year
bob mcmanus 03.10.15 at 5:14 pm
Interesting. Thank you for this post, and I hope it generates an energetic discussion.
It is not clear in the post, and commenters may not remember that Maria has a personal and/or economic interest in the subject, being married to an officer (?) if I remember correctly. Please correct me if I am wrong, or reprove me if I am presumptuous.
I in no way believe this disqualifies her, more like the opposite. For myself, having grown up in an era of massive military Keynesian tilted more toward manpower than tech and weapons, am more open to the military as a jobs program with broad social benefits than younger readers. Though this is an argument rarely made anymore.
Wilder makes a good point at 23. We should be asking not whether we will have a military, but what kind of military we will have, and what are the implications and consequences of the decision, the benefits and risks, the missions possible etc.
As far as Russia goes, let’s just say I slightly favor the Donetsk/Luhansk side of that civil war over the Kievites.
parse 03.10.15 at 5:15 pm
three operational tours (that’s the bit where you go and get shot at)
Could you also define operational tours as “the bit where you go and shoot at people” or are British casualties so much higher relative to their opponents that the offensive part of the UK’s military actions isn’t worth mentioning?
Maria 03.10.15 at 5:19 pm
Thank you, Dan.
Yes, at the upper ranks, the British Army does seem to be unusually top-heavy. I got my comparison of brigadiers wrong above; the UK has 200 brigadiers and the US 300, with the US of course having an army five times the size. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30962007
It’s a bit self-interested of me probably to agree, as it’s the path my husband took, but doing your 10+ years and then getting out of the army while you are still earning your keep as an officer seems the best thing. Reforms that deal with the far too high numbers of one and two stars are badly needed, and as part of a strategy that looks at what the needs really are – not what Osborne is prepared to pay.
The 2010 SDSR was a shambles. Basically a bunfight between the services who allowed themselves to be divided and conquered in a squabble over kit – and now it turns out the issuing to Peter Wall by Cameron of an IOU that by 2015 the cuts would be over. Worth all the paper it wasn’t written on.
Maria 03.10.15 at 5:23 pm
Bob, re. your remark ‘Thank you for this post, and I hope it generates an energetic discussion’, I think we can agree that we have all obliged!
I’d written my comment to Dan, above, about my husband’s path before I read yours, but yes, absolutely, I recognise that my exposure to the military makes me more conscious of it. No need for any reproof to you for raising it.
MPAVictoria 03.10.15 at 5:24 pm
“The fact that the defense forces have been sent to fight stupid wars does not mean we do not need to have a defense, or that it should be based on a strategy, funded adequately for that strategy, and managed by people who don’t lie about it and hope for the best.”
Hard to see how anyone could argue with the general point here. I think the disagreement would be over what the general “defence” strategy should be. There are many different ways to proceed:
1) A military capable of defending British land and airspace alone against possible threats but with minimal ability to project power abroad
2)An military based on working with the Americans. This would mean being very good at a number of support roles (e.g. Anti-submarine warfare) and cutting everything else to the bone. This is basically what Canada tries to do
3) A smaller force intended for internal missions (responses to natural disasters say) and capable of providing only token support to missions abroad
4) Try and do it all.
/Personally I think that a smaller military based around defending Britain and spending less on ridiculously overpriced military hardware and more on troop readiness and training would be the way to go. But I am not British, nor a defense expert.
engels 03.10.15 at 5:25 pm
Imo if you went to a private school (~ 93rd percentile of UK population, or higher, in terms of family income and educational resources spent on you) and you only managed to get a 2:2 (~ 50th – 60th percentile [?] of UK population for academic achievement) then you would have to be a bit thick, all other things being equal.
Maria 03.10.15 at 5:33 pm
engels, go and be an illogical arse on someone else’s thread. No more comments from you on this one.
Maria 03.10.15 at 5:36 pm
parse @37, there is no need for that. You are banned from this thread.
Maria 03.10.15 at 5:40 pm
MPA, yes, those all sound like good starting positions. The other complexity worth working in is NATO. i.e. to come up with a defense strategy that encompasses the alliance’s use, downsides (e.g. provocation?), pooling of risk and capacity and collective defense, the calls it makes on spending and capability. Does the UK give more than it gets out of NATO / where would it leave the relationship with key allies (and how materially important/beneficial are those relationships) / how if ever are NATO members going to cooperate more than on set piece joint exercises, etc.
Layman 03.10.15 at 6:12 pm
“Yes, at the upper ranks, the British Army does seem to be unusually top-heavy. I got my comparison of brigadiers wrong above; the UK has 200 brigadiers and the US 300, with the US of course having an army five times the size.”
This does sound top-heavy, but I suppose it depends on the role of brigadiers and the relative level in comparison with the rest of the officer ranks. As one example, despite the name, brigadier generals in the US Army do not usually command brigades; colonels do that, while brigadiers command larger formations or fill staff roles. Should British brigadiers be compared with American colonels instead?
MPAVictoria 03.10.15 at 6:30 pm
Just a quick point, as leftists aren’t we suppose to oppose people being tossed out of a job they have done for 10 years? People shouldn’t be disposable. This applies to Army Officers just as much as people building cars. Find them other work to do.
Cian 03.10.15 at 6:50 pm
UK defense spending is high compared to European states, but of course dwarfed by that of the super-powers in the rank above it.
According to Wikipedia:
In terms of per capita spending we have:
1 USA
2 Israel
3 Singapore
4 Saudi Arabia
5 Kuwait
6 Norway 2009
7 Greece 2009
8 UK
The US spends a little over twice the UK, Israel double, Singapore 1.5 times. Of those I would ignore Kuwait and Saudi Arabia for what should hopefully be obvious reasons. Israel and Greece have fairly obvious justifications (however much one may agree, or disagree, with them).
In terms of proportion of GDP:
1 Saudi Arabia
2 UAE
3 Russia
4 USA
5 South Korea
6 India
7 UK
Russia spends 4.1% of its GDP, the US 3.8%, the UK 2.3% (China spends 2%). Dwarfed seems like an exageration.
In terms of actual money spent the UK is 5th. Russia spends about 20% more (but then it is a much larger country, with actual military risks on multiple borders). China spends three times as much, but I’m not sure whether those figures take into account the People’s army’s extra-curricular industrial interests. But even if they do, given it’s size, dwarfed seems like an exageration.
Cian 03.10.15 at 6:52 pm
I meant to add to the above, nothing in the figures seems to support the argument that Britain’s defense spending is ‘low’. If anything, given what we get for it, our spending seems very high.
Layman 03.10.15 at 6:52 pm
In the US, Army officers are eligible for retirement after 20 years of service. Retirement pay is equal to 50% of their pay at one rank lower than their rank upon retirement, and includes medical and other benefits, so it is not inconsequential. In practice, this means they could be pensioned at age 42 or so, depending on how much time they spent on education before taking up their commission. Many choose this route and move on to another government job (double dipping) or a job in the private sector. Forcing most of them to do it would not be an especial cruelty…
Cian 03.10.15 at 6:53 pm
This applies to Army Officers just as much as people building cars. Find them other work to do.
They get a decent pension, and usually don’t have much trouble finding alternate careers (often fairly lucrative ones, typically decent ones). Save your pity for the enlisted men.
Layman 03.10.15 at 6:56 pm
I should add that enlisted ranks (in the US) get the same pension deal, though obviously at lower rates of pay…
TM 03.10.15 at 6:58 pm
“the rather pro-Russian Der Spiegel”
I doubt that’s a very constructive characterization of what this is about.
TM 03.10.15 at 7:03 pm
47: The figure for the US seems to be significantly under-reported, at least that’s what I hear from anti-militarists.
LFC 03.10.15 at 7:10 pm
Rich P. @12
What were the last few major activities of the UK military? Let’s see, just taking the 21st century, we have the War on Terror, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Libyan Civil War, and the intervention against ISIS.
You left out this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_military_intervention_in_the_Sierra_Leone_Civil_War
Cian 03.10.15 at 7:18 pm
Dan – fair point on the rhetoric. However, I think the point still stands that the army officers have a disproportionate number of public school boys in their ranks. Engel’s figures seem in line with other estimates that I’ve seen over the years. It also used to be true not that long ago (and maybe this has changed due to recent cuts/consolidation) that certain regiments were very socially exclusive in terms of who they accepted. Now given how Britain tends to operate I’d be surprised if that didn’t affect which parts of the army get cut, and where resources get devoted.
A lot of senior military officers have positions in the MoD, that often duplicate those of civil servants. Ostensibly this is to make sure that the MoD is focused on military needs, but I’ve always wondered how well that works in practice. From the little I saw when I briefly worked for DESG (as was), it seemed to add an additional layer of underqualified bureacrats.
Rich Puchalsky 03.10.15 at 7:27 pm
Let’s see if I also can get banned from this thread.
Refocussing the armed forces on territorial defense as an alternative to just cutting force size willy-nilly sounds good, but what does it really mean? It seems to me like a weird kind of discourse that when examined closely doesn’t have the strengths of either idealism or realism.
What would really keep Russia from attacking the UK, on the assumption that for some strange reason they wanted to do so? Nuclear weapons, probably. I can’t see any reasonable increase or refocussing of the UK’s conventional forces that would really stop them on the strange assumption that they were dead-set on war. Well, the UK has nuclear weapons. What more is needed, ICBMs? If so, then what does this have to do with troop levels?
If the concern is not really home defense but rather keeping other countries from throwing their weight against UK interests in ways that they could get away with because clearly no one would be willing to risk a nuclear exchange over them, then yes you need conventional forces for that. But in that case, one can’t simply complain that the conventional forces are being used for types of wars that they aren’t supposed to be used for.
MPAVictoria 03.10.15 at 7:33 pm
“Save your pity for the enlisted men.”
I have enough empathy for both.
Z 03.10.15 at 7:48 pm
States misuse power. Workers, including government employees, including army personnel should be protected from dismissal and treated decently all around. The Sun rises and sets. The United Kingdom and most (all?) western european democracies spend way too much on the military. The bad things did not all happen a long time ago Army personnels in many (all?) said countries have had a bad to horrible deal, in terms of employing conditions and treatment from the political class, these last 20 years. Military interventions by said countries have mostly (systematically?) been terrible catastrophe these last 20 years. “Russia will always, always be a threat” is a strange and disturbing hyperbole.
Guano 03.10.15 at 8:05 pm
Main point:- politicians like Hammond like grandstanding about the UK’s international role but there is a dire lack of analytical capacity in the FCO, the military and the intelligence services. They appear to want overthrow dictators without the slightest idea of what might be involved in changing a regime.
hix 03.10.15 at 8:08 pm
If we count Iceland as western European, they save the day. I was going with the Vatican first, but on reflection that nation actually fell short on two counts.
Cian 03.10.15 at 8:12 pm
MPAVictoria: They’re not tossed out after ten years. That’s the typical length of an army career, and anyone joining should know this (people I knew who were interested at school certainly did).
Maybe things have changed, but certainly it used to be the case that army officers did pretty well on leaving. They have experiences that many employers respect, typically have pretty decent qualifications (often at army expense) and a decent pension.
Like I said, you are feeling sorry for a group that are not hard done by.
Luke 03.10.15 at 8:21 pm
@Rich, Guano
I think you’re missing the point of the UK military’s mission. It’s not there to defend Britain from enemies; it’s there to protect it from friends. Why have Canada and Australia both signed blank cheques for a white elephant of a fighter plane (the F-35) that doesn’t even have the range to provide territorial defence, when more effective aircraft could be had for a fraction of the price elsewhere? Because the US/NATO is the one doing the territorial defending; the purpose of allied militaries is to co-operate in US imperial adventures.
William Berry 03.10.15 at 8:42 pm
Sorry about my @24; I hadn’t read the “Dugin” thread yet, and that is where abb1, Data Tatushkia, Ze Kraggash actually detonated his pressure-cooker. Predictably enough.
What saddens me is that there are a number of “leftists” in that thread who seem to agree with him. A leftist defense of radical rightism?!
The left has been my home for a lot of years, but can it can be a very cranky place at times, I am sorry to admit.
Rich Puchalsky 03.10.15 at 10:06 pm
“What saddens me is that there are a number of “leftists†in that thread who seem to agree with him. A leftist defense of radical rightism?!”
When you see that someone is being groomed as Hitler of the Week as part of a push for war, you don’t have to say that the person is actually a nice guy in order to disagree. Were the people who said we shouldn’t go to war in Iraq defenders of Saddam Hussein? I think that we were called objectively pro-fascist, come to think of it.
Ronan(rf) 03.10.15 at 10:54 pm
I agree with Rich @56 that saying Britain’s armed forces should be retooled for a purely defensive purpose’ doesn’t really say anything. At least at that level of generality. There’s a lot of room to define ‘defensive purposes’ (just as there are a lot of ways to define threats and how to respond to threats) so I’m not sure what this is meant to say? To fight the Mongol hoardes advancing over the steepe ? To fight a ground war in Europe ? Take on the Chinese Navy ? I don’t think there are any meaningful major threats to Britain at the minute, so by this logic you could probably cut the Armed Forces to 4 men in a boat with an RPG and be bascially fine. When British policy makers are entering into their various alliances and developing military strategies they are also doing this exact same thing, in part, developing ideas on how to ‘protect the UK’, first and foremost.
I think there’s a little bit of the point being missed here as well. Britain doesn’t fight wars primarily because Britain has a (relatively) large army. Britain has a relatively large Army because Britain likes fighting wars, and because British policy makers see it in the countries interest to sell themselves as an important international power. (which having a meaningful armed forces is a prerequisite for) Rightly or wrongly, British policy makers conceptualise their international role in a specific way. They feel they have specific obligations to ‘international security’, or ‘friendly regimes’, or various alliances/interests etc (cut this anyway you like) So cutting military spending doesn’t change this perspective. It might make intervention less likely, (or put another way make certain types of intervention less likely), but as Rich also said if the logic is a defence policy that stops at the British coast line and that’s all, then you need very little. Just nukes.
So you destroy the military but don’t change the policy mindset, what do you get? A lot of the stuff that used to be done directly by the Armed Forces gets outsourced. Policy makers still involve themselves in stupid conflicts but just with contracters and demoralised, understaffed forces. You compeletly replace your system of alliances and reimagine your place in the world ? You forfeit all of those benefits that come from being an ‘important power.’ ? You annoy all those people who like the Armed Forces? How does this work, in practice ?
Phil 03.10.15 at 11:05 pm
there literally weren’t enough people to translate and analyse realtime information about Crimea’s invasion
Call me an old imperialist, but that to me is disgraceful. I was horrified and amazed when I heard how few linguists the US could muster when the War on Terror first kicked off – what, they haven’t got anyone who knows Pathan?; I just assumed that was what Foreign Offices (or State Departments) do, what they’re there for.
At the moment I guess what it’s there for is to be cut, like most of the rest of the state.
LFC 03.10.15 at 11:22 pm
1) p.s. to my comment @54: the Br. intervention in Sierra Leone is generally and plausibly viewed as one that had beneficial effects for S. Leone.
2) Ronan:
British policy makers see it in the countries interest to sell themselves as an important international power. (which having a meaningful armed forces is a prerequisite for) Rightly or wrongly, British policy makers conceptualise their international role in a specific way. They feel they have specific obligations to ‘international security’, or ‘friendly regimes’, or various alliances/interests etc (cut this anyway you like)
Yes. Britain as one of the five permanent members of the UN Sec Council, as one of the ‘original’ nuclear powers (that is theoretically supposed to be working w the others toward complete nuclear disarmament under the NPT, but never mind that), as a member of NATO, has a particular view of its international role. Britain sees itself as a ‘great power’ in the sense of that phrase that means that it sees itself as carrying special responsibilities for, in UN Charter-speak, the maintenance of intl peace and security.
One of the points of the OP (and I don’t really agree with the statement about Russia) I take to be: if Britain is going to see itself and hold itself out to the world as a major power, it does not make sense to reduce the conventional armed forces to a size that calls into question its ability to play that role. Whether seen as ‘imperial adventurism’ (per Luke, above) or in a more benign perspective, you need a conventional army matched roughly to the self-presentation you make to the rest of the world. Or, at least, this is not an obviously unreasonable argument.
LFC 03.10.15 at 11:33 pm
This is prob relevant on the pt above.
William Berry 03.10.15 at 11:59 pm
@RP: Well, yes, but what really got me was the slamming of human rights (mere human rights!) as some kind of Western liberal imperialist plot, or something.
MPAVictoria 03.11.15 at 12:53 am
“@RP: Well, yes, but what really got me was the slamming of human rights (mere human rights!) as some kind of Western liberal imperialist plot, or something.”
Yeah. Ze is like an annoying undergrad student. Just ignore him.
sanbikinoraion 03.11.15 at 9:53 am
What I don’t understand is how the military could have believed that the coalition government could have meaningfully promised to increase military spending in the succeeding parliament.
It is and was well-known that a) one parliament cannot be constrained by the actions of a previous one and b) the likelihood of a specific coalition surviving into the next electoral cycle in British politics is almost nil.
Guano 03.11.15 at 10:48 am
Luke #62
I’m not putting forward a view on the UK’s military mission. I merely note that people like Hammond assume that the UK has an international role, but the reality is that the UK’s main institutions in the international field (FCO, MI6, the military) appear to be dysfunctional.
Dan Hardie 03.11.15 at 12:15 pm
The public school influence definitely still exists in the Army but is less prominent than it was. The regiments that have a repuation for being public school-heavy among the officers are the Guards and the Cavalry, and to a lesser extent the old Greenjackets.
Since the early ’90s, the Guards have been cut back considerably, to five battalions from well over that number (eight or ten at the end of the Cold War, I think), while the Royal Marines (part of the Navy, but they undertake training and ops largely with the Army) and the Parachute Regiment, both of whom have decidedly less public-school officer cadres, have seen their numbers maintained, and have been given a disproportionately high share of missions (which is what most soldiers and officers want, especially if they’ve never been to war before). The Greenjackets, meanwhile, first of all saw their battalion numbers cut from four to two, and were then merged with a number of the ‘County’ regiments to form the Rifles (with whom, I believe, Maria’s husband served). The Guards and Cavalry and their public school ties are no doubt still trying to exert some influence, but the Army is a lot less susceptible to that influence, and from what I’ve seen, most Guards officers would be very good officers in any regiment.
I spent part of one tour with a Guards Regiment (the Irish Guards) and would go back to them very willingly- yes, their officers were all upper-middle-class, but they were also very good and conscientious, and relations between them and their men were excellent. That may have been an attribute of the particular company I was with, but I look back on those guys with real respect and affection. I may be biased, as a Para, but I do think the units that many keen officers want to serve with, however, are the Paras, the other units in 16 Air Assault Brigade and Special Forces, as well as the Commando-trained units that operate with the Marines.
I suspect one key event in bringing this about was the Falklands war, where the Marines ran the land war, very successfully, the Paras contributed two excellent battalions, the Scots Guards did well but the Welsh Guards had a list of dreadful failures. Afterwards it was generally accepted that the Marine and Para ethos of very high physical fitness and good field skills was more use in war than the ethos in at least some Guards units of ‘the right school tie and plenty of ceremonial drill’.
At a tactical level- sections of eight guys, platoons of 24 to 30, companies of about a hundred, battalions of seven or eight hundred- the British Army strikes me as pretty good, and certainly better than most other Nato armies. (The USMC are a generally acknowledged as being very good, and we should probably be quicker to learn lessons from the US Army as well.)
The problems with the British Army, I believe, start at the operational level- using battalions and larger units in concert- and are even more apparent at the strategic level- deciding why we want to use military force, and when, and how. That’s the Generals’ job, and recently most of them, as the Duke of Wellington might have said, have done their jobs deucedly badly.
Rich Puchalsky 03.11.15 at 1:14 pm
” […] deciding why we want to use military force, and when, and how. That’s the Generals’ job […]”
It’s the Generals’ job to decide why, when, and how the UK uses military force?
Maria’s comment #10: “It’s not because Britain had an army that Blair marched into Iraq”: well, having an army was a necessary though not sufficient condition for Blair doing this. If he hadn’t had an army ready to do this, he couldn’t have. “But none of that helps now that the UK army can barely deploy a brigade of infantry, or field a working aircraft carrier, or prevent Russian war planes buzzing Dorset.” Since the threat as far as I can see is not Russian war planes buzzing Dorset, but rather British politicians sending the armed forces off on military adventures because they can, I think it’s a good thing if the UK really can’t deploy a brigade of infantry. It’s a capability whose only use is for these kinds of adventures.
I don’t like the phrase “imperialist adventures”, btw, because humanitarian adventures have much better P.R. and lead to the same outcomes in any case, and are therefore more dangerous.
LFC 03.11.15 at 2:12 pm
because humanitarian adventures have much better P.R. and lead to the same outcomes in any case, and are therefore more dangerous.
So Britain helping to end the civil war in Sierra Leone was the “same outcome” as an ‘imperialist adventure’?
Rich Puchalsky 03.11.15 at 2:20 pm
“So Britain helping to end the civil war in Sierra Leone was the “same outcome†as an ‘imperialist adventure’?”
On average, yes. Leaving aside the question of what British military intervention actually accomplished in that case, and whether it materially contributed to ending the civil war, it was one of a number of interventions justified largely on humanitarian grounds. I’d be willing to bet that a similar proportion of overtly imperialistic interventions also ended well, just because of the disconnection between intentions and consequences.
Maria 03.11.15 at 2:36 pm
Hi Dan,
Yes, the cuts and amalgamations seem to have hit the historically posher regiments harder than others – not least because of the political decision to maintain under-subscribed battalions in Scotland at the expense of over-subscribed ones in England.
Anyone who thinks the MoD makes decisions based on public school affiliations is, ahem, under-informed about ‘how things work’. The army gets the same baked over managerialism and politically motivated decision-making everywhere else in the public sector does.
The notable thing about the creation of the Rifles – from the Green Jackets, Devonshire and Dorsets, Light Infantry and … I always forget the 4th regiment but it was a mixed county one – is how sanguine those serving seemed about it. Yes, there was initial grumbling about fewer battalions and therefore opportunities to advance and ultimately command, but none of the hand-wringing about history, tradition, etc. etc. The only real moaning I’ve ever heard is from old duffers I’ve sat beside at reunion dinners. The guys themselves pretty much just got on with it. Which is the primary characteristic of soldiers I have known generally and never stops being impressive.
Taking a warmed-up class consciousness to the armed forces and viewing them simply as ruperts versus everyone else is just cartoonish. Some are, many aren’t. And as you say, the class profile in the Paras and Royal Marines is very different from the stereotype most people have, and they are incredibly effective organisations. (Though it’s different strokes for different folks. When I told an old family friend and former politician what regiment I was ‘marrying into’, he mentally clicked through the various ones involved in N.I. that had given the Irish government trouble, to put it mildly, and was audibly relieved my now-husband wasn’t a Para…)
Maria 03.11.15 at 2:40 pm
Rich and LFC, fwiw, Sierra Leone was very much a solo-run by the brigadier on the ground, acting against government wishes and policy: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8682505.stm Sometimes the great man theory of history has its uses.
Dan Hardie 03.11.15 at 3:08 pm
All those accusing Maria of wanting a more hawkish foreign and defence policy need to consider that it is likely that we have stumbled into a confrontation with Russia- and, worse, Ukraine has stumbled into a bloody part-insurgency, part-proxy-war- precisely because this Government did what Maria is objecting to: the ruthless shedding of diplomats who knew about Russia.
What we needed, before and just at the start of the Maidan protests, were people who could say the following things: ‘What will happen if we give tacit support, and perhaps more than that, to an anti-Yanukovych rebellion? What will the Russians feel they are now allowed to do? Where might they cause trouble? Just how much trouble can they cause- given their proximity, given that they speak the language and were recently part of the same country, given that they believe themselves to have vital security interests at stake, given Putin’s known ruthlessness? Just how strong is the Ukrainian state? Just how bad could all this get?’
I really don’t see that anyone in a position of power in any Western European government or diplomatic service asked these questions, and that has helped lead to the bloodbath in Eastern Ukraine. Wanting to have a serious, well-funded diplomatic service capable of asking difficult questions and coming up with unwelcome answers is not the hawkish demand that some people here seem to think it is.
Dan Hardie 03.11.15 at 3:13 pm
On the Para thing, there’s no doubt that throughout Northern Ireland, many and probably most within the Para Reg had a ‘fuck the civvies, especially the Catholics’ mentality. I’ve read and heard some horror stories. (Not that other Army regiments, and the Marines, weren’t also guilty of the same things and worse at times- see Dervla Murphy’s ‘A place apart’ for a shocking list of stories about one Marine Commando in South Armagh.)
But you now only get to be a Para officer if you’ve done well at Sandhurst, and probably the brightest British General of recent times- the parodically-named Rupert Smith- was a Para. The guys at the top were smart enough to work out that the public mood was changing. Back in the ’70s the public might have bought, say, the frankly incredible excuses made for Bloody Sunday, but they were increasingly unlikely to do so now. And a lot, quite probably most, of those officers simply didn’t want to belong to an organisation that just maltreated people and then lied about it. I didn’t see harassment and maltreatment of civilians on the battlefield in Afghanistan, although the casualty rates were as bad as or usually worse than Northern Ireland.
This is now, I think, a general thing within the army: every soldier has to attend a lecture at least once a year on the Law of Armed Conflict, which is illustrated by, among other things, a photograph of the face of Baha Mousa, dying after he was tortured in custody by British soldiers. I think the Army top brass, and a fair number of people lower down the ladder, did wake up and say ‘the country won’t back us if we do these things any more’ and also, in many cases, ‘and I don’t want to face my wife and kids if I have done these things, or allowed them’, and that has had a salutary effect.
Rich Puchalsky 03.11.15 at 3:16 pm
“precisely because this Government did what Maria is objecting to: the ruthless shedding of diplomats who knew about Russia.”
As far as I can remember what people wrote (without going back and re-reading the thread) exactly zero people wrote something like “Oh, we don’t need diplomats.” On the contrary, the OP had a long list of objections that people mostly agreed with, except for the one about troops.
Dan Hardie 03.11.15 at 3:21 pm
Oh, you weren’t even doing that, Rich. You were just coming out with ever-more-abstract verbiage to avoid answering the question ‘so what was wrong with defeating the RUF and the other militias in order to end the Sierra Leonean civil war?’
Maria 03.11.15 at 3:30 pm
The objectors didn’t like two things; my views on cutting defense and Russia being a threat. They are on board with the whole ‘surveillance is bad’ thing. Ironically, today’s FT has a piece about Cameron trying to massage defense spending for the 2% NATO commitment by … including intelligence agency spend in it.
Whether you agree with it or not, it is pretty internally consistent to say ‘the government is talking big on the Russian threat but has hacked away its ability – militarily and in foreign policy action and capability – to do anything about it, and that is bad’.
Then there was the whole ‘officers are rich thickos who deserve no one’s sympathy’ side show, which Dan has capably shut down.
TM 03.11.15 at 3:36 pm
Dan: “it is likely that we have stumbled into a confrontation with Russia- and, worse, Ukraine has stumbled into a bloody part-insurgency, part-proxy-war- precisely because this Government did what Maria is objecting to: the ruthless shedding of diplomats who knew about Russia.”
You mean if only the politicians had better, more knowledgeable advisers, they wouldn’t have made these kinds of blunders? I hate to be cynical but… in our centers of power, wishful thinking trumps rational analysis any day of the week.
Daragh McDowell 03.11.15 at 3:44 pm
@Dan Hardie 79 – just an aside. While I have an obvious professional interest in the ‘hire more Russia experts!’ side of the argument, I should note that most Russia experts got Putin’s reactions wrong. The ugly truth is that the Maidan was more of an unwelcome distraction for the EU, which thought it was signing a simple trade deal back in 2013, and for the EU’s component states, who weren’t paying attention. Once again, one of the Kremlin’s more paranoid assertions – that the Ukrainian revolution was instigated by external powers – has been accepted as basically true in the general narrative of the conflict, despite the paucity of evidence to back it up. The problem with Western diplomacy isn’t that stupid things are being done without regard to the consequences, its that we’re maintaining the hope that ignoring problems will make them go away, not make them worse.
Rich Puchalsky 03.11.15 at 3:47 pm
Dan Hardie: “You were just coming out with ever-more-abstract verbiage to avoid answering the question ‘so what was wrong with defeating the RUF and the other militias in order to end the Sierra Leonean civil war?’”
You appear ready to take credit for a host of other factors that contributed to ending the war, after arguably three previous military interventions (ECOMOG, Executive Outcomes, UNAMSIL) didn’t. British forces didn’t capture Foday Sankoh, nor did they do the diplomatic work around conflict diamonds. They won some small-scale engagements which had the lucky effect of contributing to the end of the war.
Because of the example of Sierra Leone, how many people were killed in Iraq?
engels 03.11.15 at 3:49 pm
Then there was the whole ‘officers are rich thickos who deserve no one’s sympathy’ side show, which Dan has capably shut down.
1. No-one said that.
2. You ‘capably shut it down’ by ordering me not to comment further.
3. I’m very happy not to do so, but in return I’d ask you not foist offensive views on to me which I don’t hold,when I’m unable to respond. (That’s just a polite request, and my last comment- feel free to delete it.)
Maria 03.11.15 at 4:07 pm
engels, I’m sorry, you were not the person who said that and not who I had in mind. It happened after you left the thread.
Maria 03.11.15 at 4:17 pm
Enough of the bad manners and bad faith on this thread. With sincere thanks to Dan for trying his best to engage, I am closing comments.
I will continue to write about military matters in future, but when I do, I will zap immediately any comments with the kind of nastiness that characterised some commenters’ participation in this thread. If you want that kind of discussion, go to cif or the DM.
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