Richards new UK armed forces head

Richards new UK armed forces head: "Gen Sir David Richards is named as the next Chief of the Defence Staff - the head of the British armed forces."

This comes as no surprise given the amount of trailing that has gone on.  Whilst it is inevitable after the rather unsuccessful  CDS incumbency by Sir Jock Stirrup it doesn't make me happy.

I have no doubt that General Richards is a skilled and courageous soldier whose service in Sierra Leone and his tenure as CGS during the current war in Afghanistan give him peerless credentials for the post and thereby lies the problem. General Richards is a soldier, an armoured warfare man, a boots on the ground military commander.  He is ideal to lead a military engaged in a deadly asymmetric struggle with a dangerous adversary.  But we have larger and far more dangerous potential enemies.  Potential enemies that have nuclear capability, powerful air arms (I would remind everyone that the Taliban has no aircraft) and maritime power projection (the Taliban hasn't any of that either), capabilities that General Richards is hardly instinctively well-disposed towards.  Will he be a powerful voice in Whitehall to advocate a much wider strategic view?  Well we'll soon see with the forthcoming Strategic Defence Review.

So my worry is that we will take our eyes off the ball and throw out the baby with the bathwater (to mix my metaphors).  I am afraid that  it might be no aircraft carriers, no new Typhoons, no Joint Strike Fighters and maybe even no Trident.  Moscow, Tehran and Islamabad are probably much cheered by the appointment.

Back