The Generals Speak

In a rather astonishing prediction General Richards, Chief of the Defence Staff asserts that:

History Will Judge Afghan War Positively

I should have thought that this is would apply only if we win; by no means a foregone conclusion.

I must say that I am starting to have serious concerns about the geopolitical understanding of our senior military leaders who seem to be living in a colonial time warp.

Jolly good show chaps!

Military chiefs' clash with politicians over Libya and Afghanistan

This is a headline being trumpeted by the Telegraph.  Judging by some of the quotes in the article it’s a fairly mild clash.  Military rebellion isn’t just around the corner.  The PM can sleep comfortably in his bed without fear of a visit by the SAS or whoever is currently tasked with what the KGB used to refer to as “wet work”.

The substance of the “military chiefs” concerns is entirely reasonable but the public airing of them is not.  These disagreements should be resolved in private.  Making them public suggests that the service chiefs are entering the political arena, one they should and must keep clear of. 

Once serving generals become political our trust in their neutrality and objective reasoning withers. Unlike places like Libya we live in a democracy where war is an extension of policy by other means, not a way of  life.  The government makes the decisions and where necessary the military acts.  My country right or wrong – that is one of the facets of the Faustian Bargain entered into by all warriors. And besides generals, admirals and air marshals make great military leaders but usually lousy politicians (The Duke of Wellington notwithstanding).

Now before you dismiss me as a bleeding heart liberal I would remind you that I am one of the greatest supporters of the military having been a soldier and an airman too.  In fact my friends ridicule me for it. But I am an even fiercer democrat by instinct.

BBC News - Taliban resistance 'under-estimated' by Britain

 

 

This is a Western affliction for which the evidence is strong:

• The Romans at Teutoburg Forest in 9BC
• Britain and the settlers in the American War of Independence
• Britain and the Zulu in 1862
• Britain and the Afghans 1839-1842
• Britain and the Boers in 1880-1881
• Britain and the Japanese in 1940
• The US in Vietnam
• The Russians in Afghanistan
• The US and Britain in Afghanistan

(and there are probably lots of others)

Why is this so?  Do we really believe we are better than the opposition or do our intelligence people simply not know what’s going on?  And why, in the face of this sort of evidence, do we fail to learn?

As Sun Tzu said 2,500 years ago Know yourself and your enemy and you need not fear the results of a thousand battles.

Clearly we ain’t got a clue.  And they teach military history at Sandhurst!  Maybe the cadets can’t be bothered listening.

BBC News - Taliban resistance 'under-estimated' by Britain

The Life Guard and the RAF

It seems that former Life Guard and international crooner James Blunt had a bad experience trying to get to a morale boosting concert in Afghanistan.

On the face of it everything that could go wrong at the hands of the RAF did and the concert had to be cancelled.

As  former air force officer (in my case the RAAF) it really hurts to hear these tales of woe.  Being a fighter jock is great and glamorous but the real projection of strategic power in the sorts of conflicts we chose to fight these days can only be achieved by the so called “trash haulers”.  But it appears that they aren’t very good at it.  A big size 12 boot up the arse is definitely required here.

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.

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CV-22 crash not caused by mechanical failure

 Flight International is carrying a report that the recent crash of a USAF Special Operations Command CV-22 Osprey was not due to mechanical failure after having already had enemy action eliminated from the possible causes.

 Source: CV-22 crash not caused by mechanical failure: "The BellBoeing CV-22 crash in Afghanistan on 8 April was not caused by

The revolutionary CV-22 is a very important aircraft for the US and its long development has been punctuated by a number of crashes due to both mechanical failure (its twin tilting rotor system is fiendishly complicated and has taken a long time to perfect) and pilot error (it is rumoured that the conversion from normal helicopters to the CV-22 is difficult).

Could it be as the result of the dreaded "brown out" that so bedevils rotary wing operations in Afghanistan?

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Hamid Karzai is making some pretty unpleasant friends

This report from the Telegraph outlines the growing concern within NATO and ISAF about where Hamid Karzai's true allegiances lie.  That he and his regime are corrupt is manifest.  Unable to establish national authority beyond the confines of the Presidential Palace Karzai seems to be becoming a major impediment to our fight against terrorists and extremism (not to mention drugs).

The report is worrying as it hints at new covert alliances between Karzai's Afghanistan and Iran and China, something that the West can well do without.  In the short term such lack of commitment shown by Karzai must make us question whether it is worth the candle to continue the seemingly unwinnable war that is costing us many dead and wounded troops.  Should we not abandon the whole lot to their inevitable destiny?  But in the longer term we may need to remain engaged to deter the rise of another global division like the Cold War.  In either case the prospects are not encouraging.

Hamid Karzai is making some pretty unpleasant friends: "President Karzai's links to Iran and the Taliban are causing increasing concern, writes Con Coughlin."

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MoD 'pays more in compensation to chicken farmer than injured soldier'

From the Telegraph.  There could not be a better example of what ministers think of the military than this.  Its crassness beggars belief.  Shame, shame, shame.

MoD 'pays more in compensation to chicken farmer than injured soldier': "The Ministry of Defence has been condemned amid claims it paid less compensation to an injured soldier than to a farmer whose chickens were
disturbed by RAF jets."

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Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

The rather elegant blog Defence of the Realm which is not only well thought out but has interesting and perceptive analysis is running a story on changes to tactical doctrine in UK warfighting in Afghanistan.  The new doctrine will be taught to all new army officers.  But is the doctrine really new?  It sets out the need to bribe the Taliban with "bags of gold" in order to buy them off.  This strategy for the UK has a long and ignominious history going back to William Pitt the Younger and the bribing of most of Europe to stand fast against the tyrrany of Bonaparte.  An analysis of British foreign policy over the last 300 years shows little evidence of the stupendously misguided concept, advanced by the late Robin Cook, of the UK having an "ethical foreign policy".  

This policy of bribery (exquisitely announced on the eve of the Queen's Speech which inter alia outlined  the  Bribery Bill, which will make it offence to bribe foreign officials and for business to fail to prevent bribery) also acknowledges that our counter-insurgency tactics, learned in Northern Ireland, don't work generally.  Perhaps this will put an end to the extremely irksome behaviour exhibited by some senior army officers of going round saying to anyone who will listen "Now pay attention you lot, we know all about the right way to conduct these sort of operations"

Hopefully this will all lead to a new generation of army leaders who actually understand how to prosecute these wars.  Unfortunately the admission that we have got it wrong will be of little comfort to the wounded warriors of the current conflict.

It seems that the young Independent Whig might have had it right after all.

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Afghan war 'controls immigration'

From the BBC:

Afghan war 'controls immigration': "Removing troops from Afghanistan would 'significantly increase' the number of asylum seekers in the UK, a minister says."

So now we finally have it.  The policy objective of our war in Afghanistan is not to prevent terrorism, not to tackle opium production, not even to support our allies but to control immigration thus reducing the pressure on Macavity in the run-up to the next election.

And to say this on the day five of our soldiers are murdered is extremely off.  Shame, shame, shame.

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Don't Cancel the Big Ticket Programmes

The next public spending round is going to be very difficult.  Although Macavity will be keen to offer new popular spending promises to the electorate  prior to the election so he can portray the Tories as dire takersaway, Treasury will not be amused and will insist that he cuts other things to pay for the handouts.
Against this background Defence will be particularly vulnerable.  Britain is currently locked in mortal combat with an enemy who understands and applies the principles of asymmetric warfare to devastating effect.  The outlook is bleak, the policy objectives muddy and the duration uncertain but long.  Despite all this Macavity will be keen to make swingeing cuts in the high value items of the MoD's budget and that almost certainly means the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and Future Aircraft Carrier (CVF), already reduced to only one (what happens during necessary refits is anyone's guess).  Both of these programmes are multi-billion pound tickets and because the current conflict in Afghanistan is all about helicopters, protection and boots on the ground will be cut or worse terminated without much public reaction.
This would be utterly disastrous.  We must not forget that the Afghanistan campaign is being conducted in an environment of total air dominance by ISAF - the Taliban does not have a single aircraft let alone a credible counter-air capability.  Pakistan, on the other hand, does. Macavity will not understand about commanding the air to win the ground battle and so will see no military risk in cutting the JSF programme and doing away with the remaining CVF.  Let us hope that Service Chiefs will be able to persuade him of the foolishness of such a course of action.
Were they to fail we must then reconcile ourselves to forever give up the notion of "punching above our weight" and so pursue a similar military strategy to Denmark.

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Gordon Brown's 'dithering' leads to longer tours for Afghanistan troops

Macavity Strikes again.

Gordon Brown's 'dithering' leads to longer tours for Afghanistan troops: "Soldiers in Afghanistan have tours of duty extended because PM has not made a decision about deploying more troops".

National Disgraces - It's Time to Go

The Daily Telegraph is to be commended for running a campaign that focuses on MP's expenses and what military equipment could be purchased with that money for troops in Afghanistan.  Although not a Telegraph reader I am impressed with the courage and persistence with which the Telegraph has pursued this issue.

These articles highlight two National Disgraces perpetrated by Government:

• Troops being sent to fight a war without the means to protect themselves or finish the job; and
• MPs corruptly claiming expenses and then making weasel excuses like: I wasn't any good at arithmetic; I didn't know that I couldn't do this; I thought it was OK etc. etc.

As Gough Whitlam, Australia's famous PM, said before the 1972 general election as Leader of the Opposition: "It's Time".

Well It's Time now too in the UK.

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Macavity's Not There

Ah ha... see.. Macavity's not there

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Cobblers Should Stick to Making Shoes

So now Macavity knows more about hostage rescue than the experts.  His ill advised sanctioning of the commando raid to free a journalist in Afghanistan flies in the face of expert opinion and resulted in several needless deaths, including a special forces soldier doing his duty for Queen and Country.

Macavity can barely manage his own Cabinet let alone trying to micro-manage a war where his knowledge and expertise is non-existent.  Shades of Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam  War where he insisted on personally directing air strikes thousands of miles away.  As someone may have said (with apologies to Clemenceau) La guerre, c'est une chose trop grave pour la confier a des politiques.

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Macavity's Not There

I am utterly disgusted at how Labour politicians are attempting to vilify and smear the  former Chief of the General Staff, General Dannatt.  Macavity is silent but you can bet your life that the brooding, malevolent, great clunking fist is behind it all.

It is perfectly clear that the Government holds the military in contempt.  You only have to look at its parsimonious procurement and treatment of wounded warriors.  And the military feel the contempt too, witness Macavity's visit to Afghanistan the other day where the troops were singularly unimpressed with him.  Defence is only seen as a way of securing jobs in marginal seats and the vague assertions as to why we are in Afghanistan are merely weasel words.

But this situation and the Government's attitude is in a grand British tradition that dates back to Wellington's army in the Peninsula War: ask the Army to do the impossible with nothing and when it's all over treat the troops as pariahs.

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Chinook..chocks away?

Well here it goes for real. Could not believe it when I read this morning that the reason the SF Chinooks are grounded is ultimately because the MoD thought that they could write better software for the CH-47F than Boeing could despite being warned by Boeing that it would not work. So many years later and millions of Pounds of taxpayers' money we have 8 bog-standard Chinooks with no capability, no armour and unable to fly when it's cloudy. But we knew all this. What we didn't know until today is the excruciating hubris of the MoD in thinking they could do it better than Boeing! Latest in a long line of cock-ups that are costing lives. Some years ago the Met were found to be "institutionally rascist". We should raise a new category called "institutionally incompetent" to describe the MoD.

Although the dead hand of Treasury is clearly implicated in this fiasco the MoD needs a root and branch overhaul to enable our troops to get the right kit at the right time.