Forces need 'fundamental re-think'

Thursday, June 25, 2009

The Army must turn away from Cold War thinking and embrace the type of modern warfare troops have experienced in Afghanistan and Iraq, the future head of the Army has said.

Speaking at RUSI's Land Warfare conference, General Sir David Richards, commander in chief, land command, and the next chief of the general staff, called for a "fundamental rethink" in the way the Armed Forces is structured so that it can fight a successful campaign in Afghanistan.

The Forces must stop trying to "do a bit of everything" or risk "failure" he told delegates on the second day of the conference.

"We cannot go back to the fighting that we might have done 10 years ago when it was still tanks, fast jets, fleet escorts that dominated the doctrine of the three Services."

In short, Sir David argued that the era of fast moving open battlefield wars was over. Although Britain should always be prepared for a state v. state conflict, it should be ready first and foremost for a counter-insurgency campaign. Fighter jets, advanced warships and new tanks will do little to deter an insurgency that exists in remote areas or built up urban centres.

This way of thinking must be applied to Afghanistan, Sir David argued.

"Afghanistan is a war; we just have not really understood it is a war," he said.

To succeed in Afghanistan the procurement model must continue to be overhauled to focus on helicopters, armoured vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles.

"Too often we still strive for a hugely expensive, 100 per cent solution or exquisite solution for some state-on-state war that risks being out of date before it comes into service," he said.

Afghanistan must also have more troops to maintain security. Without them, the populous will have nowhere to turn too but the insurgency.

Sir David is set to take over command of the Army in August.

http://www.defencemanagem...m/news_story.asp?id=9895


Again it seems looking through the press that General Richards is going to be no different than the present incumbents when it comes to tribal warfare and protecting what he sees as his turf. He sees no use in such equipment as T45, CVF and fast jets. He would rather we became a COIN Army with hi tech weapons and lots of soldiers. Then you get figures banded about, £2 Billion, to what it is going to cost to buy all this new Army equipment so that the Army can fight its war in Afghanistan. My understanding was that these senior officers should also have the intelligence to look at the bigger picture and not just focus on a war the they may have previous experience. However in his case it doesn't look like it. He is correct in saying that you cannot fight all wars all the time with the best equipment but by only looking to defend his own service he fails to see that it is not always going to be ground forces at the fore front and we have to cost and prepare for the eventuality that some day a different conflict will involve different "golf clubs" and that if our "golf bag" isn't sufficiently stocked we could get caught short. When you have this tribal warfare going on things like the PAC report on Type 45 just heightens their scorn when it comes to the other services. He has to remember thought that to date after spending £535 Million on FRES (BOXER-PIRANHA V) that the Army still do not have a product. At least the Royal Navy can say they have 6 ships. He has to look at his own service first before he goes and attacks the other two services and their "cold war" legacy equipment. £535 Million! On nothing. They still have yet to put together a clear concise requirements document they just know they want it and it is imperative to the Army that they get it. How can it be imperative if they still don't know what it is going to be? Or exactly what they want? He seems that desperate that he is will to give up 1800 infantry soldiers in cuts to save money. However he knows that in the current political climate it would be very difficult for the MoD to say whilst we have a war going on in Afghanistan and we are short of troops in theatre we are going to cut those very same troops. Now I didn't say he was silly. He has obviously done his homework and learnt his politics. He knows that things like Type 42 with its large cost and old missile system could be cut and that money diverted to his TLB because he believes his is the greater need. A view that he is entitled to and a view that he should make in committee. He shouldn't grand stand at RUSI events making a case at the expense of the other two services. Why? Simple. Those other two services are going to come straight back at him and defend their own corner by making their own speeches....hang on, yep they have done that already. So what you have is a very undignified spat between the service heads when what they are supposed to be doing in providing trained men and serviceable equipment to PJHQ so that they can be deployed overseas. Just remember £535 million, you could buy a T45 for that!
Lee Hannaford - London

http://www.defencemanagem...m/news_story.asp?id=9895

A strategic crossroads

Friday, June 26, 2009

Britain must make changes to the ways in which land forces operate if they are to succeed in future conflicts, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the chief of the general staff has said.


The Armed Forces must learn lessons from current and past conflicts in order to reform its capabilities and adapt to the changing nature of war and defence in the 21st century, Britain's top Army officer has said in a speech.

Speaking at RUSI's Land Warfare conference in London, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the outgoing chief of the general staff, made the case for a new strategic defence review, saying that it should be the starting point for all future endeavours by the Armed Forces and British foreign and defence policies.

Presently the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan coupled with a troubled procurement programme have left the MoD at "a strategic crossroads" according to Sir Richard. Britain must decide what its place in the world is going to be and what "instruments" it will need to maintain its place and convey power.

Despite the looming £2bn cut to the MoD's budget, a £1.1bn black hole in the procurement programme and alleged interference by the Treasury in current operations, Sir Richard believes that Britain must continue to be a primary actor on the world stage.

"We will retain a global role and will maintain our traditional activist foreign and security policy. This means we need expeditionary Armed Forces that can support that national strategic posture, forces that can meet our responsibilities."

Sir Richard does not explain how this strategy will continue to be paid for given the current budget duress other than the fact that other government departments such as the Foreign Office and DFID must work more closely with the MoD. But he maintains that every major political party and all the services want this to be Britain's primary defence and diplomatic goal.

Achieving this goal will be difficult however. Funding and resources are major issues, but what is happening in Afghanistan and what occurred in Iraq will impact the direction of Britain's military and ultimately its world strategy.

Maintaining a global approach will only succeed if current operations in Afghanistan prevail according to Sir Richard. More is at stake than just defeating the Taliban and preventing terrorism. The logic within the Armed Forces is that their reputation is personally at stake in the conflict. If Britain cannot defeat the Taliban, its standing in the world will flounder in the future.

"Success in Afghanistan is not discretionary and we must do whatever is necessary to deliver that success. Tomorrow starts today and failure today will significantly damage tomorrow," he told delegates.

But progress has so far been slow at best. Only certain areas can be stabilised at any given point in time and the expansion of security zones has been a tedious process. The process is "complex and demanding" and will likely "consume our Armed Forces for the foreseeable future."
To really succeed in Afghanistan and ultimately in future conflicts as Britain maintains a global role, lessons must be learned from past conflicts, specifically, Iraq, according to Sir Richard.

While he stopped short of calling the Iraq War a failure, he strongly hinted that repeating the mistakes of Iraq in Afghanistan will result in an unsuccessful campaign and further damage to the future strategies of the Army and Armed Forces. Three major lessons can be learned from Iraq and applied to future land conflicts.

Firstly, time is a critical weapon. An invading Army must use it to secure a territory as quickly as possible. Rapidly switching to an over watch/peacekeeping role in a newly occupied territory before the situation there is stabilised allows an insurgency to grow and flourish. Britain toned down its operational footing once Saddam Hussein had fled Baghdad and the Iraqi Army universally surrendered, allowing an insurgency to quickly formulate.

Sir Richard argued that the same logic must be applied to newly acquired areas of Afghanistan. Development, reconstruction and domestic security forces can never fully take effect if the areas are not yet free of the Taliban. Britain's current strategy of advance and then withdraw is not progress.

Secondly, commanders must have access to more troops. A land campaign cannot be won with a few thousands troops whose numbers may increase by a few hundred at most, even during the largest security challenges.

"We must take a more flexible approach to force levels through the course of a campaign, being prepared to surge and ebb as the security situation dictates. In truth we failed to maintain the force levels required," Sir Richard said in regards to the occupation of Iraq.

The same philosophy can be applied to Afghanistan. Commanders have repeatedly said that they do not have enough troops on the ground to hold off the Taliban and take the fight to them. The American Troop surge has been widely welcomed in Afghanistan, not just because of the extra manpower but because of the previous success that a surge had in Iraq which allowed commanders to actually secure areas.

Finally, success in Afghanistan, in land campaigns and in the wider world, often comes down to working with the local population and their security forces. Having a locally trained security force is a "powerful force multiplier" that helps to return power and trust to the local people, Sir Richard argued.

In Iraq the British Army made two major mistakes. Firstly it had too much faith in local troops too quickly. Many were ill trained and unreliable. Their loyalties were questionable at best. In the future, the development of a local security force must be done slowly and with care.

The other major mistake was to separate the training of local forces from fighting with local forces.

"The correct model is the one we have always traditionally applied - that of training, living and fighting with the indigenous forces we are mentoring," Sir Richard said.

More troops, more time, more local forces. While these are not universal solutions to securing Britain's place in the world, Sir Richard believes that they can cause a positive chain reaction in a place such as Afghanistan which can ultimately improve Britain's standing in the world

Whether this will be true on such a grand scale remains to be seen, but one thing is clear from Sir Richard's comments; Britain had its share of struggles in Iraq and if changes are not made in Afghanistan, similar problems could occur again among land forces.

http://www.defencemanagem...ature_story.asp?id=12248