Good news ... and bad?

It is rare that one hears good news from the procurement front these days but, if Thomas Harding's story in The Daily Telegraph yesterday is correct, then a tiny ray of sunshine has broken through the gloom in Whitehall.

This is the story that the British government is leaning toward purchase of the "C" variant of the F-35 Lightning II - otherwise known as the Joint Strike Fighter – the type specifically designed for conventional carrier operations rather than the short-take off and vertical landing model, the F-35B.

The defence advantages of the "C" model are obvious. The aircraft, relieved of the burden of having to carry an extra lift engine and a complicated vectored thrust nozzle on the main thrust engine, and the control bleeds, has a longer range, can carry more ordnance and is easier to fly. It will also be considerably cheaper, at an estimated £90 million per model as opposed to £105 million for the "B", with technological issues still to be resolved. That, against the projected 150 order, could save us £2.2 billion.

Against that is the cost of modifying the two carriers we have planned, installing catapults and arrester gear to deal with the F-35C, but that also confers operational advantages. The carriers will be able to receive aircraft from other carriers – known as "cross-decking", which will extend the flexibility of the asset when working with carrier groups from other nations.

Importantly, our carriers will also be able to operate a wider range of aircraft, including fixed wing Airborne Early Warning (AEW) aircraft such as the Hawkeye, instead of having to rely on helicopters with their limited endurance and altitude.

That said, such is the inter-relationship between the defence establishment and the industrial complex that there is a serious downside. Writes Harding, up to
750 British defence manufacturing jobs are at risk as Rolls Royce produces the lift fan used in the "B" and it will therefore lose out on 150 engines, their replacements and the ongoing maintenance, worth potentially some £5 billion over the life of the fleet.

There is also the question of the estimated £500 million of taxpayers' money paid to Rolls Royce to develop this highly complex engine, which would end up fitted to the 600 or so "B" aircraft to be bought by the USMC and the USAF but would no longer be of benefit to the UK.

One presumes that the investment would be recouped by the sale of engines to the US although fewer units will now be bought, which might extend the recovery period – unless the price can be increased dramatically, which looks unlikely, given the mood of Congress. And neither the USMC nor USAF would welcome the price hike, which could do nothing for relations with the UK.

Harding points to other issues arising from this switch, if it occurs, not least that Rolls Royce was not widely consulted on whether a change might be made. He cites a defence industry source saying: "This is a massive decision as it changes the whole industrial landscape. This will have a hell of an impact on Rolls Royce ... ".

Nevertheless, officially, the "B" variant currently remains the MoD's "preferred solution", which means that there is much lobbying and plotting to do before the final decision is made.

COMMENT THREAD

Shambolic

There seems to be no limit to the crass foul-ups of which the MoD is capable – but this one takes the biscuit. With British troops being torn apart by IEDs, there is a desperate need for better protected vehicles in Afghanistan, to which effect, an Urgent Operational Requirement has been raised to procure highly effective Ridgebacks which offer optimum protection.

The vehicles have been rushed into production and, so desperate was the MoD to get them into service that they even flew them from the United States, where they were built, in giant Antonov 124s (pictured above) so that they could be converted here to theatre standard with the minimum of delay (picture of converted vehicle, below right).

From here though, they were sent by sea to Dubai, where they were supposed then to be flown on to landlocked Afghanistan. But, as The Daily Telegraph and The Sun now reveal, nine (or eight) of them have been stuck in Dubai for the past month because the RAF does not have enough aircraft to fly them on to Afghanistan.

These vehicles are just the first – out of the 157 ordered – of a batch of fifty which is scheduled to have arrived in Dubai by November. But the whole delivery programme is stalled as the RAF's C17 Globemaster aircraft are committed to removing British equipment from Iraq, after the Iraqi government kicked us out.

The situation has been compounded by a ruling that the equipment carried by the Ridgebacks is so secret that it has been categorised as "UK Eyes Only". This means they are not allowed to go on allied or commercial aircraft shuttling out of the airbase.

No doubt the MoD is influenced by a recent incident where Polish Wolverine armoured personnel carriers, despatched by Ukranian-owned Antonov 124s arrived in a damaged condition, with sabotage being suspected.

But, for whatever reason, this kit has been stuck on the tarmac at Al Minhad airbase outside Dubai, with their specially-trained drivers kicking their heels, frustrated because "they want to get out to Afghanistan where they know these vehicles will protect their mates."

For once, we can actually agree with Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, who declares: "The idea that we would have bought potentially life-saving vehicles and then not have the ability to ensure that they would get to those that need them is inexcusable."

Actually, he is being far too mild. Commercial freight aircraft are readily available and all it needs is for an armed guard to accompany every vehicle and the problem is sorted. But even that is beyond the MoD, which – it seems – would rather see men die than get its act together.

Bereft of words as I am, to do justice to this crass, malign stupidity, readers are invited to lodge their own offerings on the forum. There must be a word – or group of words – in the English vocabulary which will describe the people responsible.

UPDATE: The story is also picked up by The Daily Mail, the BBC and the Press Association. The BBC cites "security concerns" as the reason why the vehicles could not be flown on by civilian transporter. Apparently, the Ridgebacks arrived in 16 July, which was just after the Polish Wolverine incident. It is possible that we are seeing a knee-jerk reaction from the MoD.

The story has now also been published by The Times.

COMMENT THREAD

Another review - The Ministry of Defeat

Colonel Blimp, you're still fighting the wrong war.

by Philip Jacobson

The Daily Mail, 24 July 2009

Although Richard North sets out to make the "case for the prosecution" of the British military and the political establishment for comprehensively bungling their conduct during the Iraq War, it is events in Afghanistan that make the book so timely and thought provoking.

The parallels between the two conflicts are inescapable, from the failure to learn from tactical mistakes to the desperate need for more helicopters.

Where North accuses the Ministry of Defence of an Orwellian attempt to spin an ultimately disastrous campaign in Iraq into a resounding triumph, an unspoken question hangs it the air: is history repeating itself in the wilds of Helmand Province?

The launch pad for North's withering assault on the MoD is the emblematic story of the Snatch Land Rovers, lightly armoured vehicles originally developed for riot control in Northern Ireland and pressed into service in the British zone of operations in Southern Iraq with the approval of General Sir Mike Jackson, then head of the army.

Under fierce attack by the well-armed militias, the snatches rapidly acquired the grim reputation as "four-wheeled coffins". North was one of the first military analysts to highlight their extreme vulnerability to the enemy's roadside bombs, known as Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).

In North's view, shared by other knowledgeable observers, the initial success of the allied invasion was squandered by the MoD's inability – some would say pig-headed refusal – to grasp the true nature of the Shi'a insurgency that followed and adapt tactics accordingly.

Equally damaging, he argues, was the failure of the procurement system – the unglamorous but crucial business of ensuring that British soldiers had the best weapons and equipment for the kind of war they were being asked to fight.

While the Snatch vehicles were going up in flames and commanders pleaded for more troop-carrying helicopters, billions of pounds were being lavished on high-profile projects designed, in North's words, to fight imaginary wars of the future". The admirals were determined to have their giant new aircraft carriers, the air marshals their Eurofighters; meanwhile the army "was getting palmed off with wholly unsuitable, second-hand equipment".

In stark contrast, when IEDs began killing large numbers of US soldiers in Iraq, the Americans rushed into service hundreds of lumbering armoured troop-carriers specifically designed to withstand roadside bombs.

The result was a swift and substantial reduction in the body count. A US Marine officer who survived a massive blast told me reverently: "We just love those big ugly mother f*****s."

The MoD's tactical fallibility was rooted in the fateful assumption that the undoubted expertise acquired by the Army in Northern Ireland could be applied more or less wholesale to the radically different circumstances of Iraq. North cites the toe-curling meeting at which the senior British officer in Basra was dispensing lofty advice to US commanders on how to defeat the militias at the very moment they were forcing his troops into a humiliating withdrawal from the city.

"It's insufferable, for Christ's sake," raged one of the Americans present. "He comes in and lectures everyone in the room about how to do counter-insurgency. The guys were just rolling their eyebrows [as] the notorious Northern Ireland came up again."

Littered with military acronyms with obscure technical data, North's prose rarely rises above the utilitarian, while the crop of footnotes on practically every page reflects his heavy reliance on published sources (it appears he did not interview any of the senior military and political players, British or American).

He might also have examined more closely whether the strategic, tactical and organisational failures he identifies in Iraq are being perpetrated in Afghanistan.

It is hardly reassuring when an acute shortage of helicopters obliges the head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, to borrow and American Black Hawk for a visit to his increasingly hard-pressed "grunts" on the ground.

For years, the default response of the MoD to criticism from civilians, however well-informed, has been to rubbish them as "armchair generals" pontificating from the comfort of the living room.

North will probably get the same treatment but, as he mischievously points out, only a couple of years ago some £2.3 billion was spent on upgrading the MoD headquarters in Whitehall – money that could have paid for two dozen of the troop-carrying Chinook helicopters so desperately needed in Afghanistan today.

And what that show up on the final bill but the purchase at £1,000 each, of more than 3,000 Herman Miller Aeron chairs, advertised as "the most comfortable in the world".

COMMENT THREAD

Clear military advice

Such is the overwhelming fog of impenetrable distortion that, at times one is tempted to walk away from the Afghan War issue, perhaps to write an earnest piece about wind farms and energy policy – or a careful analysis of Booker's column, which indeed I must do later today, if only to express my horror at the events he reports today.

What impels one to continue – I suppose, because I don't really know why I invest so much time, energy and emotional capital into this, when I have more pressing things to do - is perhaps because of an overpowering sense of injustice, and an equally powerful sense of a story that must be told, for good or bad.

This is particularly provoked by a piece in The Sunday Telegraph today, headed: "Labour at war over Afghanistan." It makes the highly tendentious claim that, "Labour is bitterly divided over defence spending as the Government's Afghanistan policy suffers a series of fresh setbacks."

One point must be addressed immediately – the rest later in this post. Labour is not at "war" over Afghanistan, not in any sense that this mischievous headline implies. It is basing its assertion on a single strand, comments by former defence secretary John Hutton who, for reasons of his own, has chosen to write "exclusively" about Afghanistan for The Sunday Telegraph, calling for more troops and helicopters.

One should also note, that Hutton – whatever arrangement he might have had with The Sunday Telegraph - Hutton has also allowed himself to be interviewed by The Sunday Times where he "breaks silence to fight for the generals".

With this, there is clearly an element of calculation, which fits ill with Mr Hutton. If he cared so deeply, then he might perhaps have stayed in his post instead of quitting after a mere nine months, and fought from the inside. Instead, he walked out at a critical juncture, a decision he had made well before the current controversy reared its head.

Mr Hutton's current pitch, though, is that, "When it comes to the numbers and the equipment it is absolutely essential politicians listen to advice from the military. Politicians must not become armchair generals. They must make decisions based on clear military advice."

Matthew Parris put this in context yesterday, warning us that the politicians should not defer automatically to the generals. Furthermore, Charles Moore reinforced this theme, writing in his column:

And do remember that our top brass, patriotic though they undoubtedly are, are also engaged in inter-service rivalry. It does not hurt the Army, losing money to the Navy's carriers, to protest that it does not have enough for Afghanistan. Just because you don't believe a minister, don't automatically believe a general. Ministers have to adjudicate between competing claims: it is not easy.

So doth Hutton say that politicians should listen to advice from the military. Indeed they should. But that does not mean to say they should take it, or that they should not listen to other opinions, and modify their decisions accordingly.

It also does not mean that they should not take into account the broader political issues that are outside the remit of the generals – and to which they are not always privy – or that they should not take account of the views of allies and, in this case, that of the host nation.

Hutton also says that politicians must "make decisions based on clear military advice." And indeed, subject to the above caveats they must. It would be very nice to be able to do so. But, as this campaign has progressed, it has been clear that the military itself is divided as to the best or correct course of action, that there are different agendas and schools of opinion within the military, and that "clear" advice is not always the right advice.

Politicians, also, must not become armchair generals, says Hutton – not least, one assumes, because the current generation of ministers have no military experience.

However, from their successive statements in Parliament and elsewhere, it is highly evident that ministers – and politicians generally – are extremely deferential to the military, perhaps too much so.

If, for instance, military advice had been slavishly followed in June 2006, Mastiff protected vehicles would not have been ordered in August and rushed into service. Instead, yet another batch of Pinzgauer Vectors would have been purchased. That was the "clear military advice" at the time, which also counselled to keep the Snatch Land Rover in service as it was "mission critical".

In fact, of the many problems affecting the Afghani campaign, one is most definitely that too much "clear military advice" has been taken. It was such advice from the RAF that deterred ministers from ordering large numbers of Mi-17s in early 2007 – even though the RAF had purchased this machine for duties with the Special Forces.

Even though this would have resolved the helicopter lift problem, ministers instead took the RAF advice to buy the six Danish Merlins – at a cumulative cost of over £186 million – advice which – as we record in the previous post, has yet to deliver a single extra airframe to theatre.

Other attempts were made by ministers to bring extra lift into theatre, but ministers were also required to balance their budgets. How they do that is a political decision – it is not for the military to make. The deal was to delay or even scrap the Future Lynx project in order to divert the funding to meet the more pressing need. This aircraft was not due to deliver to operations until 2014-15 – at the earliest – so it had no impact on immediate requirements.

But each time, the "word" came back that the Army did not support any such arrangement. And, although you will not find his fingerprints on any document, that attitude went right up to Dannatt. His concern – as Colonel Commandant of the Army Air Corps – was to protect the Corps. The Future Lynx would ensure its survival. Support helicopters would go to the RAF.

Ministers could have pressed the point but, such has been the ferocity of the pork-barrel campaign to keep the order – with the full and very active support of the Tory front bench – that discretion ruled. The last thing wanted was an open spat with the Army and its serried ranks of supporters.

Yet other options were considered, as The Sunday Telegraph excitably reports, telling us that "the Government" turned down the chance to buy 12 "cut-price" SA 330 Puma transport helicopters from the United Arab Emirates (example pictured), at a cost – we are told - of about £6 million each.

This, as it turns out, was only one of many possibilities considered, and a very tentative one at that. Prices were never discussed and, since they had just been refurbished at £10 million each, the £6 million is a tad on the low side.

Anyhow, the idea was turned down on "clear military advice" from the RAF and MoD. Ministers are the first to acknowledge that they are not technically competent to make detailed appraisals as to the suitability of second-hand helicopters for service in the RAF – and they are not in a position to over-ride the advice they have been given. Thus, they took the "clear military advice" that it was more cost-effective to upgrade the existing RAF fleet of Pumas.

And then we come to the "boots on the ground" issue. Actually, there never has been any "clear military advice" that an extra 2,000 troops should be committed to theatre – as Dannatt has now acknowledged. And the "clear military advice " from the likes of US General John Craddock is that the priority is the provision of transport (particularly helicopters and mine-protected vehicles), intelligence and medical capabilities.

"Too often," he said, "the forces there now are relatively fixed, because we don't have adequate tactical mobility to move them around to be able to do the jobs we need them to do." Without that "tactical mobility", additional troops are either ineffective or, worse still, become additional targets.

Given that this is also a coalition operation, and that General McCrystal, on behalf of the coalition command has yet to complete his review of force requirements, and that the whole issue was marked down for an ongoing review after the August election, it is a tad premature to be discussing enhancements of British force levels.

But, says The Sunday Telegraph leader, "Troops are more important than political points." The paper is wrong. Troops levels are an intensely political issue and, in a parliamentary democracy, the civilian politicians make the political decisions.

It is surely right for the generals to warn of the consequences of any such decisions, but it is then for the generals to dispose the forces allocated accordingly. We are not a military dictatorship and, however much this current government might be detested and mistrusted, ministers – not the generals – are constitutionally accountable.

Advice is one thing – and not all of it is either clear or good. Demands are another.

COMMENT THREAD

Let battle commence

Recalling the recent defence debate in the Commons, when, at one time there were only twelve MPs in the chamber of which only one was a Labour backbencher, it is encouraging to note that the much-needed debate on our defence capabilities is nevertheless under way.

In this respect, The Daily Telegraph is to be applauded for leading the way, with a long feature by Thomas Harding, responding to the speech by General Sir David Richards at RUSI this week.

With defence affairs on the cusp, and the campaign in Afghanistan very much in the balance, a wide-ranging debate is both timely and necessary, rendering the contribution of the incoming CGS of considerable importance. It is of some significance, therefore, that The Telegraph remains the only newspaper of substance to take on board and develop his views. And, taking the political blogs at their own estimation of their value, their silence on this intensely political issue should not escape attention.

That is not to say that the media as a whole is silent on defence issues, with The Times also offering a lengthy opinion piece today. Unfortunately, this paper has chosen for its author Patrick Mercer, former infantry officer and currently Conservative MP for Newark & Retford.

In writing on defence issues, Mercer tends to be a one-trick horse, beating the drum for more resources and more "boots on the ground". His arguments tend to be one-dimensional, lacking the depth of strategic thinking that we see, for instance, in Richards' recent speech. It is a measure of the poverty of the general debate, therefore, that The Times believes his views are worth publishing.

Similarly, The Guardian has an offering, this one by Simon Jenkins , one of such unremitting negativity that it encompasses just one idea – that the US and British forces should quit Afghanistan.

In the real world, however, we are committed to Afghanistan and will remain so for the foreseeable future. And since the best outcome is to succeed in creating a stable, prosperous nation, capable of governing itself without external intervention, then the task at hand is to determine how we can achieve this, with minimum cost and bloodshed, all within the constraints of our own budgetary limitations and broader defence requirements. The debate, therefore, should be on how to win – an issue neither Mercer nor Jenkins address.

It is here that Harding, in his Telegraph piece is actually different and welcome. Whatever its limitations – and nothing short of a lengthy book could ever do justice to the topic – the theme is that the nature of modern conflict means our Armed Forces urgently need a major overhaul.

Harding thus "anticipates a battle in which the Army must triumph." There is a campaign that needs to be fought, he writes, not against the Taliban, but between the dinosaurs and Young Turks in the military. The outcome will determine whether the Armed Forces are left burnt out in the wadis of Helmand or evolve into a sharpened and highly effective tool to fight the wars of the future.

As a healthy antidote to the leaden mantras of "overstretch" and “under-resourcing" that have so far dominated the defence debate, the piece starts with a recognition of the reality: "It is becoming clear that there is simply not enough money available to fulfill the separate aspirations of all three Services." This relies on the views of Gen Richards, who articulates that reality, paraphrased as "we can do many things inadequately or a few things well, but to try both will end in failure."

Thus has Richards "adroitly opened the debate on the future of our Armed Forces", this occurring at a time when both major political parties appear bankrupt of defence policies. And, in getting to this point, he has gathered around him some of the most dynamic military thinkers (and not just from the Army) to thrash out the immediate future of defence. They know that its experience in Iraq has left the Army shattered in body and mind and that Afghanistan could prove more burdensome still.

It is no exaggeration to suggest that we are, in dealing with the counter-insurgency battles of the kind being fought in Afghanistan, facing that "horse and tank moment, where it is clearly evident that existing structures, strategy, tactics and equipment are not working. We need a revolution in our thinking, the seeds of which, writes Harding, first appeared in the US earlier this year.

This was the famous episode when US defence secretary Robert Gates announced that the modernisation of non-nuclear forces "should be tied to the capabilities of known future adversaries – not by what might be technologically feasible for a potential adversary, given unlimited time and resources".

The message to the Pentagon was clear: fight today's war, not one against some imaginary enemy of the future and, if the speech was poorly reported over here, it has nonetheless lodged heavily in the thoughts of some strategic thinkers, Richards amongst them.

This, of course, opens up the tri-service debate, where each of the Services have their own views of what is necessary for the defence of the realm, a taste of which is to be found in the letters column of The Daily Telegraph, and in particular from Major-General Julian Thompson, victor of the Falklands. He writes:

Britain is an island, reliant on importing goods by sea. With fewer warships (report, June 25), our trade would be vulnerable to the type of attacks being mounted by pirates in the Indian Ocean. The war in Afghanistan is important, but the bottom line is that after only a few weeks without imported oil supplies and food, we would starve.

Richards, in fact, addresses that issue noting that any future operations of any significance are going to be conducted as part of an alliance – not least in dealing with piracy in the Indian Ocean, where we have operated as part of a combined Nato force and (unfortunately) within an EU detachment.

Here we confront that other reality. The UK is no longer a global power and the Royal Navy does not rule the seas. In the Far East, where the Navy once maintained a powerful fleet, the US Navy roams free while Australia and India are important regional powers, developing substantial navies of their own. We protect our interests now not by flying the White Ensign but by diplomacy and forging alliances, as partners rather than rulers. Thus, while opinions vary – and there are strongly-held views on such matters – inconvenient questions must be asked and honest answers given.

But, writes Harding, where does this new mindset leave the three Services in Britain? Unfortunately, with a limited pool of cash the laws of survival apply, and the Services have reverted to unhelpful tribalism. The RAF will not give up its attachment to strategic bombing and the Royal Navy ardently clings to its aircraft carriers, advanced destroyers and fighter wing. There are many unglamorous parts of the Air Force that quietly go about achieving a great deal – from air transport to helicopters and surveillance. But those leading the RAF are fighter pilots who are loath to yield to the realities in front of them.

Then we address some of the detail. It's a big ask, adds Harding, but the idea of putting fighter pilots in a single engine, turbo-prop aircraft such as the Super Tucano has to be contemplated. Aircraft like the Tucano are cheap, low-tech and highly effective, as many South American drug barons have discovered. They provide surveillance, along with an armament of bombs and machine guns and an ability to loiter overhead for a long time, and they are also easy to maintain.

It will take courage for someone in the RAF hierarchy to advocate using the Tucano (cost £6 million) over the Eurofighter Typhoon (cost £65 million) but it is the type of thinking now required. The problem today is the RAF's attachment to fast jets. Either it goes for the Typhoon or for the US-made Joint Strike Fighter, but the defence budget cannot sustain both.

Harding raises many other such issues – very many of them having been discussed on this blog - and while neither he nor I could pretend to have explored them fully, much less come up with definitive answers, the very fact that they are being discussed is an advance on the previous sterility of the defence debate.

The ultimate problem though, which Harding identifies, is the "bed blockers" at the top of the MoD and in the military establishment, who do not seem to recognise the need for change. Perhaps more optimistically than we would allow for, Harding concludes that, "once they are removed and once a new government is persuaded that the Ministry of Defence is aiming to fight the wars of today, we are likely to see major changes in the configuration of our Armed Forces."

We hope that is the case. The current paradigm cannot continue and now is the time to face reality and decide honestly, clearly and with candour, what it is we want our Armed Forces to do, and then to make the changes necessary to ensure that they can succeed in what we ask of them.

COMMENT THREAD

Cut and be damned

Public spending should be cut by £30 billion says the think tank, Reform, as retailed by The Daily Telegraph. Both main political parties, it goes on to say, should stop the "conspiracy of silence" which is ensuring state spending remains high.

The detail is in its report and, with good cause, one of its targets for cuts is defence procurement. "Inappropriate" defence projects, says the think tank, should be ended, these including the future carriers, Eurofighter Tranche 3, A400M and Nimrod MRA4. They, we are gravely informed, "do not contribute to the UK's modern defence requirements."

Notionally, this would save £2.7 billion in 2010-2011 and the savings thus gained would act as an effective platform for further reform of defence procurement. Says Reform, if necessary, some of these programmes could be replaced with relevant off-the-shelf purchases at a lower cost. This would come at a cost to the Exchequer which would reduce the savings identified

However, while one cannot begin to disagree with the general thrust of the Reform thesis, their offering does little more than illustrate the huge difficulty in making sensible decisions on the purchase of military equipment.

Taking the list from the top, it is strongly arguable whether the carriers could be regarded as not contributing to the UK's "modern defence requirements," but it is not an issue I would care to argue and be confident of winning either way. Of course, the savings would be substantial, but the greater saving would be in not buying the Joint Strike Fighter to equip the carriers. Yet, Reform has nothing to say on this.

But, if the saving, to say the very least, is controversial, the Eurofighter Tranche 3 is equally so. This saga is one of long-standing and such is the nature of the contractual arrangements that, to cut the order now would possibly cost as much in compensation as would buying the aircraft. There is, though, something of an end in sight.

The idea is that we should split the tranche of 88 and commit to just 40 aircraft immediately, then allowing the 24 sold to the Saudis to be included in that number. That would leave 16 aircraft to be paid for but, with each airframe at £88 million, that still leaves us £1.4 billion to find. Like it or not, this is probably the best deal we can hope for. Reform's idea of savings here are probably illusory.

Turning to the A400M, there are no savings there to be made at all. With or without – and preferably without – this aircraft, we still need the airlift capacity. Thus, if the aircraft is cancelled, the same amount of money will have to be spent on C-17s or C-130Js, or a combination of the two.

The Nimrod MR4, however, is another matter. It is probably fair to say that if the clock was wound back, this aircraft would not have been ordered. But, with such a huge investment already made, should it now be cancelled the loss would be enormous. And there would remain a need for a high performance maritime surveillance platform, which could hardly be cheap, and could hardly be off-the-shelf.

Looking at the Reform proposals in the round, therefore, it is very hard to see how their ideas could yield their projected – or any – savings. The bigger point, though, is that waving a magic wand, making arbitrary cuts, is not the way to contain defence costs.

Equipment requirements, as we have so often observed, should stem from strategic requirements and then the doctrines that emerge from them. We then look for best value amongst the equipment needed to fulfil the needs. It is not an exercise for bean counters and for Reform to enter the fray is unwise.

COMMENT THREAD

Playing games in the bubble

We do not hear so very much about "joined-up thinking" in government these days – presumably because it has been given up as a lost cause. For the gentlemen (and ladies) in the House, however, their task is to mount a general oversight of the affairs of government, which presumably gives them the opportunity to take a wider perspective of issues.

That, unfortunately is not the case. Our wise and dedicated MPs, it seems, fall into exactly the same trap as our masters, thinking along tramlines, totally unable to deal with the bigger picture.

Yet another classic example of this inability is today’s much-hyped report from the Commons Public Accounts Committee on the great Chinook disaster – a project started in 1995 which has left us with an expenditure of £422 million for eight aircraft, which originally cost £259 million and have yet to fly operationally.

For sure, it is the job of this committee to examine high expenditure projects and draw conclusions from them – and this the committee has done again. It has already visited this project several times. But what it is not entitled to do – and does not assist by so doing – is to draw lurid conclusions which are not supported by the evidence or for which there are other inferences to be drawn.

However, you can immediately see that the line taken by Edward Leigh, the chairman of the committee, is calculated not to bring any light to the subject but simply to create an opportunity for grandstanding. This we see in the publicity, which has The Times reporting "'Troops put at risk' by MoD blunder in deal for Chinooks" and The Daily Telegraph telling us that MoD "Chinook delays 'endanger' troops".

Here, there is a link between the shortage of helicopters on operations and the fact that troops are often as a result required to use less safe modes of transport, exposing them to risk. And there is a case to be made that the absence of helicopter lift was a direct factor in a number of deaths in Afghanistan.

Not least, there was the death of Jack Sadler, killed by an explosion as he was riding in a Wimik while escorting a slow-moving convoy of guns which could have been quickly and efficiently delivered by helicopter.

But the point here is that these deaths occurred ten years or more after the original Chinook order, and many years after 2001 when it was evident that the project was going belly-up. The fault, therefore, lies in the failure then to make alternative provisions for airlift to make up for the shortfall of capacity represented by the non-availability of these machines.

On this, we have charted endlessly the availability of alternatives and pointed out that there were many different options that could have been taken. That the MoD consistently refused to take up any of these lies at the heart of the airlift shortage.

But what is sinister about this, and Mr Leigh's pathetic attempts at self-aggrandisement, is that this issue was explored in the oral questioning by the committee. Led by Ian Davidson, we see this exchange:

Q138 Mr Davidson: Was there nobody else, Australia, New Zealand, anybody else at all from whom we could have borrowed stuff?

Sir Bill Jeffrey: The truth is that in the two significant campaigns that we, the Americans, the Australians and others are engaged in, helicopter support resources of this kind are at a premium. In fact, there is in my view a strong need to persuade NATO allies in particular to be ready to deploy their own helicopter capability on their own account. At the point in time you are referring to, we did explore with Americans in particular and we found it just was not possible.

Q139 Mr Davidson: In the same way that it would appear the French want to borrow our aircraft carriers, if you read the front page of The Sun—and it must be true because it is in The Sun—there was nobody from whom we could tap helicopters at the time then?

Sir Bill Jeffrey: No.

Sir Bill Jeffrey is currently Permanent Secretary for the MoD, its most senior civil servant, made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 2007 New Year Honours List. It cannot be said of Sir Bill that he actually lied. Most probably, there was nobody from whom we could have borrowed helicopters. But there were most certainly many opportunities to lease helicopters. Jeffrey was being somewhat economical with the actualité.

However, had Davidson been better briefed – or had he or any other members of the committee got off their idle arses and done some homework – they could have picked Jeffrey up on this, and got to the bottom of the issue.

This is not what our gilded MPs are all about these days. As long as Mr Edward Leigh can get his name in the papers with a lurid headline, the committee has served its purpose. As for ensuring that our troops are properly equipped, so that they do not have to die, well that is hardly of any importance at all.

But, if we want to play Mr Leigh's games, it is useful to note that, buried in the oral evidence – but not highlighted by the media – were some interesting snippets of information. The original request from the RAF for Special Forces helicopters was formally made in 1994, for the CH-47E (more correctly, the MH-47E). This was turned down by the then defence procurement minister, on cost-cutting grounds. From that stemmed the decision to adapt the eight HC Mk2s, a decision which led directly to this procurement debacle.

And the minister who made the decision? Ah! The Conservative colleague of Mr Leigh, Mr James Arbuthnot, currently chairman of the Defence select committee. It is he who so recently labelled the FRES project a "fiasco". Well, it seems it takes one to know one.

COMMENT THREAD

Those carriers

To absolutely no one's surprise, the government has gone ahead with the order for two aircraft carriers, formally announced today at a cost that seems to vary according to source between £3 and £4 billion.

The ships, to be named HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, will be the biggest and most powerful ever constructed for the Royal Navy. Each will displace 65,000 tons – roughly the same weight as the QEII cruise ship - and carry 1,450 crew with up to 40 aircraft.

Defence secretary Des Browne calls it "an historic day for everyone in defence … Today's contract signing seals the future for thousands of jobs, and ensures that we will have a Royal Navy fit for the 21st century." The contract was signed on board HMS Ark Royal in Portsmouth.

As expected, the ships will be constructed by a consortium that includes BAE Systems and the VT Group. Other members include Babcock International Group and France's Thales, which were involved in the design. Work will take place at shipyards in Barrow-in-Furness, Glasgow, Portsmouth and Rosyth and – given there are no delays – the ships will enter service in 2014 and 2016.

Needless to say, the order has reactivated the ongoing debate about defence spending priorities – the BBC hosted such a discussion on its lunchtime Radio 4 news programme, part of which has been repeated here. The obvious point was made, to the effect that this huge expenditure could hardly be justified when the Army was struggling to meet its equipment requirements.

No doubt, we will continue to rehearse these issues on this blog and our forum, but it would help focus minds if more realistic figures were used. At the moment, the ship construction costs are being cited, but it seems to have escaped attention that these are aircraft carriers, which means that these also have to be bought and paid-for.

Currently, the Joint Strike Fighter order, to equip these ships, is cited at around £10 billion. If you add the infrastructure costs (upgrading a Naval Air Station and also providing new dry dock facilities) and add in the permanent fleet escorts that will be required, the total cost of this project is in the order of £20 billion.

Arguments made for the project costed at £4 billion may or may not stand up, but they take on a different dimension when £20 billion is being considered – not including the running costs. In terms of force projection, one needs to ask what else could be bought for the money, and whether that would have the same "reach" or more as two large ships, their escorts and aircraft.

This is, I suspect, a debate which will be fuelled more by heat than light. But once again, the political dimension seems to be lacking. Given a change in government at the 2010 general election, it will be the Conservative administration which will have to find the bulk of the money to fund this project. What price Cameron refusing to make funding commitments when this government is making them for him?

COMMENT THREAD

Problems stacking up …

Mick Smith of The Sunday Times offers an interesting, if superficial report today on the ongoing struggle to balance the MoD budget.

He tells us that Gordon Brown has overruled services chiefs and told them to delay replacing "ageing weapons, vehicles and aircraft" to plug the infamous "£2 billion black hole in the defence budget".

Smith has it that the heads of the armed forces had suggested cancelling two programmes outright to preserve the rest of their replacements from "salami-slicing", the prime minister having been "understood" to have vetoed individual large-scale cuts for fear of negative publicity.

Smith may be right about the delay, but his sources may be misleading him about the provenance of the opposition to the "cuts". It rather depends from whom he has taken his "briefing" in the MoD, notoriously ridden with competing factions. Our understanding is that the prime minister's office was in fact seeking cancellations, rather than subjecting the Services to death by a thousand (salami) cuts.

Anyhow, we learn that "at least eight programmes" will now be delayed (or so it is claimed), with FRES being the highest-profile postponement. This now seems to have acquired the general and misleading description of "a new generation of armoured vehicles", which Smith seems to think was "due to come into service next year".

In the dreams of some, this may have been true, but has not been on the cards for some years. When we first reported on FRES in 2004, it was very clear then that the projected in-service date was not going to be met.

What we have learned not to expect, however, is any deeper analysis from defence (or any) correspondents. After the MoD announcement in May, when the provisional winner of the FRES competition was revealed, it looked like the generals were going to get their way, buying a fleet of unnecessary and hugely expensive armoured vehicles.

If that project is to be delayed, is good rather than bad news, especially if – as is suggested – it will save £800m from the 2008-11 budget. Interestingly though, if true, it parks the problem fairly and squarely in the Conservatives' domain, should they get elected in 2010. Then, one of their first big decisions may well have to be whether to reactivate the programme, or face the approbation of a high profile cancellation, right at the beginning of their term.

The political implications here are getting quite interesting. The Conservatives have publicly supported FRES and are promoting themselves as supporting the Armed Forces. Yet they are going to have every bit as big a problem as the current government in seeking to fund all the planned procurement projects. Their best hope in this respect was that Brown wielded the sword, saving the new government from the embarrassment of having to do the dirty deed.

As it is, Smith is telling us that "procurement chiefs" are expecting the budget crisis to get even worse, citing – as usual – an unnamed defence source”, who claims that, "The service chiefs are in 'survival mode', trying to avoid making any decisions to kill off programmes in the vague hope Gordon might go."

This seems to contradict what Smith has to say in respect of the "cuts" coming from Downing Street, but it is nevertheless the dynamic to which we alluded in an earlier post. There, we cited Allan Mallinson who then opined: "…all the service chiefs can then trust to is an incoming Tory government brave enough to make an overall adjustment to public spending, thus finding the extra money to reinstate the long-term projects."

Given David Cameron's refusal to commit to additional spending, and the likelihood that the public coffers will be empty by the time the Conservatives take office, it looks like the service chiefs may be disappointed.

Furthermore, FRES is not the only programme slated for delay. Others include the Integrated Soldier Technology (Fist) programme – although, after US experiences with a similar programme, this is also probably no bad thing – especially as postponing this programme will push £100m of spending three years into the future.

There is also a software upgrade designed to give the army's Bowman communications system a battlefield tracking system to avoid friendly-fire attacks. This has been delayed indefinitely, Smith claiming that it will push back more than £300m. Again, this is probably no bad thing – such a system is only really needed in the free flowing conditions of manoeuvre battles, and has less importance in COIN operations. A delay would allow the technology to mature and to take account of the developments made by our allies, the Americans, with whom interoperability is essential.

More worryingly, the RAF will receive no replacements for the three Hercules transport aircraft lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the nine scrapped over the past year due to fatigue problems. This will saving £600m, but leaves the RAF airlift capability dangerously stretched until the Airbus A400M programme comes on stream. Oddly enough, though, Smith does not mention the Super Lynx, which is a primary candidate for the chop.

The Royal Navy, though, seems to have survived virtually untouched, being forced only to accept that it will now only get six Astute submarines instead of the 12 (Smith says nine) originally planned and six new Type 45 destroyers, also instead of the original 12 (Smith gets this wrong as well, citing seven). But both these cuts were already accepted in return for the carriers, we are told, but no questions are asked about how a mere six Type 45s can provide adequate coverage for two carrier groups.

Most of all though, in common with most of the journalist fraternity, Smith does not seem to have understood the significance of the MoD’s non-review, even though the clue is in his own report.

"We have recently concluded our planning round which prioritises across the defence programme," says the MoD. "Some decisions will be put on hold while the examination of the equipment programme is carried out."

In other words, everything is to play for. Nothing is cast in stone and we may simply be seeing the expected round of manoeuvring and leaks public briefing, in order to influence the outcome of the non-review. Either way though, problems are definitely stacking up for the Conservative Party.

COMMENT THREAD

It's what isn't said that matters

The much expected and somewhat overdue announcement on the go-ahead for the Navy's two "super" carriers was made today.

According to The Times the £3.9 billion contract will not be signed until June, the delay being to allow the formal establishment of a joint venture company which will build the 65,000 ton ships.

This is the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, which include BAE Systems, VT Group, Thales UK, and Babcock International, which runs Rosyth dockyard. We are told that the carriers are to be constructed in sections in shipyards at Portsmouth, Barrow-in-Furness, Glasgow and Rosyth, with final assembly at Rosyth.

What we are not told, however, is anything about the final design of the ships, any detail about its intended capabilities or – crucially – the types of aircraft that will be operated. It is assumed that the F-35 short take-off vertical landing version is still the preferred option, although there has been no confirmation at all on this.

Details of the design would, of course, give some clues as to whether the F-35 is to be chosen, but as long as they are not revealed, the government can keep its options open.

There thus remains a possibility that the government could be considering dumping the F-35 (formerly called the Joint Strike Fighter) and buying in the French-built Rafale.

If The Sunday Times is any guide, that could be a very serious option. Nicola Smith and Michael Smith, writing for the paper, claim, "Royal Navy may share new carriers with France", telling us that the Royal Navy and the French navy "began talks last week aimed at sharing their aircraft carriers."

With the French thinking of cancelling its new-build carrier, the two Smiths assert that Sarkozy and Brown will build on the "bilateral carrier group interoperability initiative", proposed by Nicolas Sarkozy, at his summit meeting with Brown in London in March.

The outcome of this could be an arrangement whereby either navy could borrow an aircraft carrier from the other if their own was unavailable as a result of a breakdown or refit. "If we have no carrier to do a mission then the only way currently is to try and form a coalition ... and to ask a country if it will do the mission," said Captain Jérôme Erulin, the French naval spokesman.

So far, MoD officials have dismissed the talks between the two navies as "aspirational" and insisted there were "no current plans" to share carriers with the French. But, if the aspirations have any chance of being realised, then choice of aircraft will be crucial. A carrier rigged for the F-35 would be of no value to the French, as it would not be able to operated its Rafales from it.

Thus, as always, we are being kept in the dark, the more important part of today's announcement being the things which have not been said.

COMMENT THREAD

Ceci n'est pas une revue

If The Sun has got it right – and it looks like it might – the MoD has managed to extract some more money out of the Treasury. And, if that is the case, the £200 million which the paper headlined yesterday – to be allocated over two years - will be genuinely "new" money, and not simply a recycled announcement.

The rest of the paper's story need not detain us. Just about all of it is either wrong, or self-serving – although the claim that it is an "exclusive" has some merit – it was the first paper to break the "£200 million" news.

The Financial Times, however, has the substantive story, and had it first. Its line is that Gordon Brown has agreed to let the MoD "free up hundreds of millions of pounds" by breaking one of its main accounting rules.

These are somewhat arcane changes, but of great importance which will have an immediate practical implications. Firstly, the ministry will be allowed to move some funds between the three years of the Comprehensive Spending Review. Secondly, it can use money allocated for annual capital spending for resource spending.

This "freedom", says the FT will allow officials more easily to delay, cancel or reconfigure commitments – giving the MoD a much needed flexibility which hitherto has been denied to it. But – and it is a huge, 24-carat, diamond-studded "but" – there are strings attached. In return the MoD has been "forced" to order a no-holds-barred "examination" of the defence equipment programme.

This – note the terminology – is not a "review", much less a strategic review, but an "examination". Furthermore, it will be a "short and sharp" process. Crucially, the aim is to "prioritise frontline needs and squeeze savings from industry".

In other words, in the ongoing internal battle in the defence establishment between the "future war" advocates and the "current operations" supporters, the latter have taken a significant step forward.

This is very much in line with what Ann Winterton asked of Des Browne earlier this month, when she did not get an answer. Now, it looks as if she has.

In this context, it looks as if the (relatively) small amount of new money on offer is – to use that indelicate word - a "bribe" which, together with the leverage afforded by the new budgetary flexibility, has pushed the military to focus more on winning the battles in Iraq and Afghanistan rather than investing in still more shiny new toys.

Needless to say, the "non-review" will be expected to deliver results, the FT telling us that the Treasury is insisting the MoD use the process to address the estimated £2 billion budget shortfall.

That means that some of the treasured "big-ticket" defence contracts are due for the chop. Amongst this slated for the treatment is the "Future Lynx" programme, as well as orders for more Astute submarines and Type 45 destroyers - and the tranche 3 Eurofighter, if the "colleagues" will play ball on cancellation costs.

What is then expected is that, and surplus generated, over and above that needed to clear the budget deficit, will be used to "rebalance" the procurement portfolio, giving it very a different shape. The clue here comes from an MoD spokesman, who says the ministry is determined to prioritise spending plans "to do more to support our people here and on the frontline".

One survivor, however, looks to be the carrier programme. This is effectively confirmed in a second piece in the Financial Times which asserts that the contract – although not publicly announced – was approved last Wednesday. The formal announcement is expected in the next ten days.

It says something of the FT though that they do not seem to understand the full significance of their own story, its heading declaring: Defence review looks to shorter term”. Interestingly, it could not keep up the legend on the "examination" so the "non-review" gets its real title.

The agenda is most certainly there, the paper telling us in this second article that:

Driving the move is a recognition within the department that it "needs to take stock" and reprioritise. It has to move away from purchasing equipment for the long term – equipment that could already be out of date by the time it comes into service – and concentrate on supporting its troops in the near to medium term.

Historically, the MoD has planned its equipment procurement programme over 10 to 20 years but the continued strain on Britain's troops from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has focused ministerial minds on more immediate needs.

The MoD is then cited in more detail, saying:

We are determined to do more to support our people here and on the front line. To do that, we need to better prioritise our spending plans. The examination of the equipment programme will focus on two issues above all: bearing down on cost increases to the equipment programmes; and rebalancing the equipment programme to better support the front line.

But, as you might expect, the paper concentrates on the implications for defence contractors, the body text reverting to describing the word "examination", suggesting that it "will raise fears among executives that they may face further delays and cuts to big procurement schemes".

For industry, the FT says, the potential impact cannot be underestimated. Defence sources insist that overall, the MoD will not be spending any less on equipment. It will simply be spending it differently. Instead of buying more Eurofighters, a programme that was first begun more than 20 years ago, for example, it may decide to spend its money buying more armoured vehicles.

Despite this, we can expect some ritual squawking from the lobbyists, the former defence chiefs – where there is a difference – and, possibly, the Conservative Party. The announcement of the carrier programme, however, will do much to mute the protests and, given the lacklustre coverage of serious defence issues by the media, there should be little that is politically damaging.

Strangely, though, despite the depth of the FT story, it gets very little coverage elsewhere. The Daily Telegraph does a "cut and paste" job, synthesising the main points of the FT and The Sun stories, without adding anything.

For political reaction, we get an Associated Press report which gets the central details wrong, claiming a "move to free up £200 million of defence spending to help secure two new aircraft carriers and equipment for troops".

This is then dubbed a "panic" measure by shadow defence secretary Dr Liam Fox. He is cited as saying: "This announcement is not driven by any rational examination of military equipment needs but by the gaping hole in the Treasury left by Gordon Brown's economic mismanagement." He adds:

Long term planning has been abandoned in a panic attempt to plug the gaping hole in the defence budget. This effectively signals the end of the Defence Industrial Strategy and will add further uncertainty to the defence industry at a time when unemployment is already rising.

This, of course, is moonshine. Having closely read the runes for a prolonged period, the one thing that is self-evident is that yesterday's announcement is the result of months of finely-drawn negotiation and that the outcome is one which has been carefully and deliberately crafted.

Fox's response, therefore, leads one to the inevitable conclusion that, either he does not have the first idea of what is going on, or he is making political mischief – or both. No one, with any political acumen, who understood the dynamics behind what has been announced could even begin to think in terms of "panic", and nor would it be advantageous – other than in the very short-term – to project that idea.

As a measure of the fundamental superficiality of the media, however, the AP report has proliferated like a virus and has been copied out in (at last count) some ninety media outlets, the wording in each identical (see illustration). Repetition, though, does not make it accurate but, as long as so much of the media has not even spotted the fact that fundamental changes are afoot, the MoD will not even have to resort to the classic denial: "Ceci n'est pas une revue".

COMMENT THREAD

Not taking it seriously

Almost a year to the day, we reported the Canadian decision to purchase five Husky mine detection sets, with supporting vehicles, to deal with the rash of IED/mine attacks which were causing so many casualties in Afghanistan.

The "sets" comprising the Husky, a Buffalo and a 6x6 Cougar – which acts as a command vehicle - sweep roadways before the arrival of combat or supply convoys, thereby seeking to ensure safer passage by vehicles which are not mine protected.

The utility of these specialist vehicles quickly became apparent and we were able report with approval that at least the Canadian military seemed capable of learning lessons born of combat experience.

And indeed, they are continuing to learn those lessons. Reported by the Canadian Press, the Commander of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Afghanistan is set to ask his government's approval to purchase another ten sets – known by their acronym EROC, standing for "Expedient Route Opening Capability" system.

What is particularly revealing about this report though are comments from unnamed "defence sources in Ottawa" who, "acknowledge the vehicles in theatre have been beaten up, but are continuing to prove their worth every day." One adds: "They've taken a pounding, but they're designed to go out and take a pounding and clear routes and not have the LAV targeted - or so other less protected vehicles."

Here, it is the reference to the LAV which is interesting – this being the armoured personnel carrier which forms the basis of Canadian Army formations. Although armoured, it is not mine protected and it has proved dangerously vulnerable to mine/IED ambushes.

Thus, before this type of vehicle is allowed to sally forth, the way is cleared for it. What a contrast this is with the British way of doing things, which resulted in the death of Trooper Ratu Babakobau, when his Spartan ACP – armoured but not mine protected – was blown apart by a mine.

Nevertheless, the strategy adopted by Canada is by no means entirely optimal. The military would prefer to transport more men and materials by the ultimate mine protected vehicle, the helicopter – but has been hampered by a chronic shortage of these aircraft.

Yet, while the same shortage of helicopters reportedly affects British forces, and despite the Husky sets being a relatively cheap option (the ten new sets estimated at $60-million – less than the price of one new transport helicopter), there are no signs of the British Army following suit. Instead, we see this ludicrous puff on the MoD website, as the Army unveils its latest weapon in the war against mines – hand-held mine detectors.

Nor, indeed, are helicopters the only option. Reported recently by Popular Mechanics (a surprisingly good source of reliable military information) is a new technique introduced by the US forces in Afghanistan. This is the GPS-guided or "smart" parachute – known as the Joint Precision Airdrop System (JPADS).

It can be used by high-flying transport aircraft to make precision drops of supplied to isolated outposts, reducing the need to use ambush-prone vehicle convoys and avoiding the hazards involved in helicopter re-supply. So successful has been the technique that the USAF delivered 313,824 pounds of supplies between August 2006, when the programme began, to September 2007 – keeping an estimated 500+ convoys off the roads.

In July 2007, the RAF acquired this technology, the first air force outside the US so to do, but the latest news of reduced C-130 capacity cannot assist in ensuring that maximum advantage is gained from its availability.

As a final option, the Army could, of course, ensure that troops were provided with mine-protected personnel carriers. After the first Canadian deaths attributed to IEDs, occurring outside Kabul on 2 October 2003 when a lightly protected Iltis jeep rolled over a mine, the Canadian Army procured RG-31s to protect their troops – with very great effect.

However, while belatedly the MoD is supplying mine-protected vehicles, the Army still content to send its soldiers out in ill-protected vehicles - despite more than adequate warning about Taleban intentions.

There can be no doubt, therefore, that British forces in Afghanistan still suffer from a huge capability gap. At the very least, we need mine detection vehicles, more helicopters, more transport aircraft and more mine-protected vehicles. But hey! Never mind! Harry got his medal for not being blown up in his Spartan. He was lucky not to get a state funeral.

What makes you think the government is not taking this war seriously?

COMMENT THREAD

The beginnings of a debate?

One would like to think that – given the torrent of publicity on the inadequacies of the equipment procured for our Armed Force – the media could afford a little more space for the Defence Equipment report produced today by the House of Commons Defence Committee.

In its 116 pages – including a transcript of the oral evidence – there emerges something of the debate for which we have been calling with, inter alia the committee suggesting that we should reconsider whether to continue with the carrier programme and whether we should cut our losses with the Nimrod MR4 programme.

One immediate response to the views of the committee on the carriers could be "better late than never", although it is perhaps a bit late to be considering the fate of a major programme such as this, only days before the final deadline for construction contracts to be issued. It would have been better had there been a full and open debate as to the need for such carriers before the project had got so far.

The main point made by the committee, however, does not seem to be based on strategic grounds, but simply the need for the MoD to rein in expenditure "which will lead to a realistic and affordable Equipment Programme." Thus, the committee is thinking in terms of "cutting whole equipment programmes", rather than just delaying orders or making cuts to the number of platforms ordered across a range of equipment programmes.

This is something that has most definitely been mooted within the MoD and it is here that the battle lines are drawn. But the danger is that, without any strategic overview, of precisely what we want of our Armed Forces – contentious cuts will be made without any clear ideas on how this affects our overall capabilities.

It was this need which Prof. Hew Strachen articulated, on which we reported yesterday, without which defence expenditure becomes a matter of bookkeeping rather than an exercise in delivering stategic choices.

Needless to say, the media approaches the committee report on a one-dimensional level, The Scotsman for instance, homing on the implications for local jobs if the projects are scrapped.

The Times is not much better, reporting on the factual, headline elements of the report, focusing specifically on the possibility of scrapping the MR4.

As to the carriers, with so much focus on the ships, less attention is being given to the provision of the aircraft – the overall cost of which is perhaps three or four times the cost of providing the platforms. And here we see an article in The Financial Times plus an interesting post on this blog which sheds some light on the delays and problems on the JSF programme – to say nothing of the spiralling costs.

Almost certainly, should the carrier programme go ahead on schedule, the ships will sail without their complement of new aircraft which means they will be operating – if at all – with Harrier GR9s.

An interesting thought occurs that, if the aircraft programme is delayed and we need an interim replacement for our existing carriers, then the USS John F. Kennedy (pictured) has just been decommissioned by the US Navy. If asked nicely, I am sure the US government could be prevailed upon to sell the ship to us, and our MoD could happily lose a few billion in upgrading it, while we think about whether we really need it.

Just a thought.

COMMENT THREAD

Thus are we so ill-served

One really does despair at the media and (with a few honourable exceptions) their journalists – but then you knew that.

The latest cause for despair is the effluvia produced by political editor Andrew Porter in The Daily Telegraph as he steps into defence territory under the headline, "Defence projects threatened by cash crisis".

Porter is reporting that, "a review of Britain's defence capabilities has begun amid a budget squeeze that could lead to major defence projects being shelved or delayed" and he then adds that, "A £1 billion programme for Lynx helicopters - vital for missions in Afghanistan - could be shelved. If the aircraft carrier project is delayed it would put at risk up to 1,400 jobs at Clyde, Rosyth and Portsmouth."

The "review" in fact has been going on for some months now but we can put that aside. Mere political editors would not know that.

Nor, it seems, does Porter know anything about the joint Army/Navy “Future Lynx” programme. If he did, he cannot possibly have asserted that the helicopters were “vital for missions in Afghanistan”.

These machines, at best, will not enter operational service with the Army until 2014 – some six years away – which makes their immediate impact on current operations rather irrelevant. In six year's time, anything could have happened, especially as the need is here and now.

Nor, really is Porter focusing on operational needs when he tells us that the "Future Lynx" project was signed with Agusta­Westland three years ago and was hailed for securing jobs in the company's Somerset plant. The plan, he writes, was to build 70 helicopters at the Anglo-Italian firm's Yeovil factory, which employs 3,000 staff – all of which suggests that he has been the subject of special pleading, either from within the MoD or from the contractors.

What completely escapes him is the price which, as we pointed out when the contract was actually announced in June 2006, works out at an average of £14.2 million each.

For sure the Army helicopter will cost less than this but the MoD is being extremely coy about the actual unit price but, compared with the cost of the US Army's Black Hawk helicopter at $5.9 million (£3 million), it is bound to be steep.

Therein lies the paradox. With the media screaming about shortage of cash for the MoD, this is a classic "pork barrel" project, aimed more at keeping jobs going in the Augusta Westland factory at Yeovil than it is providing our Armed Forces with the equipment they need.

And nor is the Lynx precisely what the Army needs. The airframe size is optimised for Royal Navy antisubmarine warfare operations from small frigates, which means it cannot carry a fully-equipped section yet is unnecessarily large and expensive for battlefield reconnaissance. The choice of a common airframe has been made primarily to enable the Navy to keep the costs down for their dedicated antisubmarine helicopter – and to keep the last British helicopter manufacturer in business.

By any measure, the cancellation of the "Future Lynx" would be good news for the Army, as long as it then meant that cheaper, off-the-shelf helicopters could be purchased and brought into use quickly – which is actually the intention.

The current Lynx helicopters have been an expensive disaster and, as we have pointed out, many times, the Army is urgently in need of a more capable replacement.

Equally, although the carrier project seems to be going ahead, a delay of a few years probably would do no great harm. The short take-off/vertical landing Joint Strike Fighter, which will equip the new carriers (maybe) are undergoing delays and cost over-runs which could, in the longer term call into question the carrier design itself. If an alternative aircraft has to be sought, then a major redesign will be needed.

Nevertheless, from this political editor, all we get is, "Military leaders have told the Prime Minister that the Treasury-driven cuts could handicap the fighting ability of the Armed Forces and they insisted that major projects be preserved."

The one good bit of good news, however, is that Porter tells us that, "Whitehall sources said that in order to make such major savings they could not simply 'salami slice' existing projects." With 80 projects being examined, this is a much more optimistic picture than we were painting a few weeks ago, and should be the cause of some relief, if the defence budget is to be rebalanced.

But, as always, The Daily Telegraph has its own narrative and is clearly incapable of sensible reporting or analysis. Thus are we so ill-served.

COMMENT THREAD

Lovely new aircraft carrier, sir...

"Money is squandered on equipment that is useless in either Iraq or Afghanistan - or in any foreseeable theatre," writes Simon Jenkins in The Sunday Times today, under the heading, "Lovely new aircraft carrier, sir, but we're fighting in the desert".

For such heresy, he gets a good kicking on the unofficial army forum, not least as some of the posters are able to pick him up on points of detail which dilute the effect of his comments.

For instance, they say, in the early days of the Afghan conflict when the infrastructure to support large numbers of land-base combat aircraft did not exist, troops relied for their close air support on US carriers out in the Indian Ocean. Even today, US Navy and Marine carrier-based airpower continue to provide support in Afghanistan, with a little help from the USAF which suppliers the air tankers.

Where all these critics go wrong, however, is that, in picking on the details, they miss the main point of Jenkins's piece – that money is indeed being squandered. Here, Jenkins has a certain amount of insider information, which he shares with us. He writes:

What is clear is that this government made a colossal error on coming to power in 1997-8. In the Strategic Defence Review (on whose lay committee I served), George Robertson, the then defence secretary, and John Reid and John Gilbert, his junior ministers, flatly refused an open discussion. Having been told to "think the unthinkable", the review's authors were told that the three biggest and most contentious procurement items inherited from the Tories were sacred.

They were the Eurofighter project (£15-£20 billion), the new aircraft carriers (£4 billion) and their frigate escorts, and a replacement for the Trident missile and its submarines (£20 billion). These pet projects of the Royal Navy and RAF were protected so new Labour would not appear soft on defence. There was no consideration given to the equipment needs of Tony Blair's more interventionist foreign policy. The government decided, in effect, to pretend that it was still fighting the Russians (and possibly the Germans).

Those decisions locked the procurement budget for more than a decade. Above all they shut out the army, on which British defence activity has depended ever since. The army’s unglamorous but urgent need for battlefield helicopters and armoured personnel carriers was ignored. So, too, were supplies of such things as grenade launchers, field radios, body armour and night-vision equipment. This year the Eurofighter, carrier and Trident projects all came on stream at £5 billion annually between them and the defence budget has hit the predictable wall.

This historical perspective raises interesting questions, as to whether in 1997 the newly appointed Labour government had really thought about defence, other than in terms of avoiding criticism from entrenched lobbies and side-stepping a protected political fight.

However, Jenkins does rather seem to neglect the effect of the St. Malo agreement in December 1998, when Blair – amongst other things committed to ensuring that, between them, the French and British governments would have one battle-ready aircraft carrier group at sea at all times.

With the parallel commitment to the ERRF, primarily dedicated to expeditionary warfare, this – as much as anything – set in stone many of the expensive procurement projects which are currently dragging down the defence budget.

Although Jenkins avers: "There was no consideration given to the equipment needs of Tony Blair's more interventionist foreign policy," at that early stage there is no sign that Blair had then formulated what was to become the defining policy of his tenure. In fact, it was his "European" policy, as well as the carry-over of Conservative-initiated policies, that is creating many of the current problems.

Whatever their genesis, however, Jenkins is undoubtedly right when he states that, whenever "cuts" are in prospect, "The first to howl are the chiefs of staff." Thus, he tells us:

It is customary at such times for them to stand as one, arms linked like Roman legions in a square. Yet they will never adjudicate on priorities. An admiral will not doubt (in public) the RAF's need for more jet fighters. A general will never question the need for carriers. An air marshal will cast no aspersions on Trident. All they will do is sing in unison, "No defence cuts".

For some time now, it has been apparent that the equipment plans for the armed forces were unsustainable. Now that the forces are committed to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, much of what is on order or is coming though is indeed "useless" for either theatre.

There were, therefore, two options to bring the procurement budget back into balance. One was to make deep cuts, cancelling one of more of the major projects, thus eliminating the overspend and making money available for operations. The other was to make cuts across the board, downsizing all or most of the projects and/or delaying their timetables in order to spread the financial burden over more years.

Although the first option would have been preferable, Jenkins indicates (as does his colleague in the business section) that ministers have taken the second route. "Every cut is across the board," Jenkins writes, adding:

Gordon Brown has let it be known that there must be no talk of cancellations, only postponements. Carriers may be delayed, Astute-class submarines may be reduced from eight to four and Type 45 destroyers from 12 to six. The number of Eurofighter Typhoons on order may be slashed. Strategy can go to the wall but not politics…

From there, Jenkins addresses much detail. Some of his assertions are questionable and others debatable, but his net conclusion is on the right tracks: "Money is squandered on equipment that is useless in either theatre - or in any foreseeable one. For want of that money, equipment vital to victory is forgone."

"In a sane world," he argues, "this might be cause for a revision of priorities within the defence establishment. Instead, the brass hats continue to squabble to protect their precious toys and politicians lack the guts to bang their heads together."

Thus, without any serious or intelligent debate, dominated by demands for "no cuts" and "more money", it seems the worst of all possible decisions has either been made, or is in the process of being made – effectively a determination to spread the misery equally, to avoid major confrontations.

That would mean that the defence budget continues to be saddled with useless projects, while there will be no pool of the cash that is needed to re-equip and restructure operational forces to meet the very special needs of counter-insurgency operations.

This is the worst of all possible worlds.

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