Savagely vindicated ... again

I first wrote about it on 28 July 2004, marking it down as "another blunder of Eurofighter proportions".

This is the £16 billion FRES programme, which I have consistently opposed, writing over 100 pieces about it. Yet I was almost a lone voice, stacked up against an indifferent and ignorant media, with only Booker for support in the media, and the tenacious Ann Winterton in Parliament.

On the other side of the divide, its greatest supporter has been General Sir Richard Dannatt, with the wholehearted approval of the Defence Committee and the Tory defence team.

But now we learn that FRES is dead in the water. "It's a dead duck. It is the definition of everything that is wrong with the MoD's procurement process," says a senior Ministry of Defence source. Actually, this isn't a procurement issue - it is a definition problem - the Army simple couldn't get its act together and make a coherent case for its future needs.

Fortunately, the project has not gone so far down the acquisition path that it is incapable of being cancelled. And, although I say it myself – because no one else will – that is in no small measure due to the opposition of this blog. Such was its reach and its sister blog DOTR, that we had the then procurement minister coming onto our forum to plead the case, after I had written this.

This I remarked at the time was when the blogosphere came of age, when a blog was setting the agenda and forcing ministers to respond. We in turn responded with this - a case which was never satisfactorily countered.   Few people know the effect that piece had on the defence establishment, and why. I do.

You can read much of the background in Ministry of Defeat, still the only book that gets near telling the story. It has a recent review here.

Yet it is the Gen Dannatt who is lauded as the great expert, doyen of The Daily Telegraph - the man who "knows". This is the man who would have lumbered us with that useless pile of junk called FRES, and its lifetime costs in excess of £60 billion. By contrast, this blog won't even get a look in, shunned by the great and the good for telling the inconvenient truths.

Even then, the media doesn't get it. That idiot political editor Patrick Hennessy, who writes the piece about FRES being ditched, states: "The decision will mean that the Army will be forced to fight in Afghanistan and in future conflicts with its existing fleet of ageing vehicles, some of which first entered service in the 1960s."

In his little Westminster bubble, the world passes him by. Has he not heard of the Mastiff, Ridgeback, Wolfhound, Ocelot? How you can be that ignorant and still be a journalist is one of those modern miracles. No wonder they think Dannatt is an expert.

COMMENT THREAD

Dog should eat dog

Rather amusingly, The Guardian is letting Monbiot off his leash to have a go at The Times, telling the world that its "exclusive" tale on EU climate targets is "gibberish".

Although Moonbat is largely a free agent, there must be an element of policy involved here, as most newspaper editors are reluctant to allow attacks on other journals. The view is taken that "dog shall not eat dog" in an informal arrangement that binds together the media as a self-serving (and mutually supporting) club.

In that sense, it is good to see Moonbat break ranks – even if one cannot agree with all he writes. Climate change aside, another good place to start would be the defence coverage, breaking into the low-grade and ill-informed coverage that we see all too often. And, once again, The Times would be a suitable target, with a story that could easily qualify as "gibberish".

The headline claim of this story – which sounds so terribly plausible – is that the MoD "has spent £207 million on an armoured vehicle that has yet to leave the drawing board, despite seven years of development." This, it tells us, is the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES) which "was supposed to provide soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan with better protection against roadside bombs but its development has dragged on and costs have continued to rise."

Here one must admire the skill of the journalist, David Robertson, in getting so many things wrong in such a short passage. Firstly, while the MoD might have spent £207 million on FRES, the very name should warn the unwary journalist to be careful.

The key is in the last letter of the acronym, the "S", standing for "system". FRES is not an armoured vehicle, but a system – one which is extremely complex, sophisticated and innovative. Agree with it or not, the overall procurement budget is provisionally set at £16 billion and, for what is supposed to be part of a revolution in military affairs, the sum of £207 million so far spent is relatively modest.

Secondly, FRES vehicles were never intended to give protection against roadside bombs – neither in Iraq nor Afghanistan. The whole concept was of a lightly armoured, air-portable force which relied on advanced sensors and stand-off weapons to neutralise threats, rather than weight of armour. In fact, it is largely the IED which has so far scuppered the FRES concept.

So keen is The Times to develop its theme of "waste", however, that it then drags in the mine and IED resistant Mastiffs and Ridgebacks, noting that the MoD has spent more than £1 billion on new armoured vehicles such as these, but "these are seen as temporary solutions and FRES was meant to be the long-term answer and become the backbone of the Army’s vehicle fleet."

This is an issue we have rehearsed many times – for instance here - and while it is true that the Army originally sought to make the mine protected and FRES vehicles an either/or issue, they have emerged as entirely separate categories, each with their own distinct operational niches. The Times is offering a distorted and incorrect view.

Interestingly, the paper then goes to the MoD for a view on FRES and then, separately, to 13th Century Fox, as if he was still a member of the opposition. Dr Fox has been firmly in favour of FRES – wanting it introduced more quickly – so he tells us that: "The whole FRES programme is just another example of a procurement programme going over time and over budget. This is yet another reason why the procurement process needs radical reform that only a new government can provide."

And there lies the final inadequacy of a wholly inadequate piece. Where there are indeed problems with FRES, these are not primarily procurement failures. There are serious definitional problems, which will continue as the Army consistently fails to work out what equipment it really needs. If Dr Fox does not understand that – and he mostly doesn't – only the ignorance of The Times is going to get him off the hook.

Unfortunately, on that he can almost certainly rely – unless the media grow some and start picking apart some of the garbage such as this piece represents.

COMMENT THREAD

Unacceptable attrition

Reflecting precisely a comment on our forum, we have Lt-Col William Pender (rtd) in the letters column of The Daily Telegraph today, making the essential point about the war in Afghanistan: either we fight it properly, or not at all. More specifically, he writes:

The fundamental question, both for the Government and for Nato (if it is to remain a meaningful alliance), is whether defeat of the Taleban and establishment of a stable, long-term democracy in Afghanistan really is a vital interest.

If it is vital, then since national security is the prime duty of any government, whatever it takes in manpower – but primarily willpower – from all Nato member nations, must be allocated to fulfilling this aim. If this means putting economies on a war footing – fine.

If, on the other hand, these aims are merely desirable rather than vital – and with governments led by politicians with no personal military experience, and more concerned with interest rates, credit crunches and unemployment – why, let them say so.

Then the nations that contribute combat troops can resign themselves to long-term attrition of their soldiers committed to an unwinnable war.

For "attrition", read feeding troops into a mincer, sustaining a never-ending toll of casualties for no strategic effect. In such a battle, with our small, expensive Army, we can never win against the unlimited manpower of the Taleban, sustained by a never-ending supply of young men from the North-West frontier. Even at an exchange rate of 1000-1 in our favour, we cannot win.

Iain Dale notes that "politics is upside down" when Sunny Hundal supports the war and EU Referendum says we should withdraw.

For the record, we support the war. But that support is conditional on it being prosecuted effectively, with clear objectives and some prospect of success. None of those conditions currently apply.

In our overnight post, we write of the tragic episodes where three foot patrols in Sangin in the space of just over a month are confronted with the same type of complex IED ambush, each suffering multiple casualties in exactly the same circumstances.

On a smaller scale, the Army response seems to mirror the tactics of the First World War when the Generals, having experienced the carnage of sending troops "over the top" to face the German machine guns – to be slaughtered in their tens of thousands - hit upon the new, "war winning" tactic - of doing exactly the same thing again.

In terms of this war, it is not the machine gun but the IED which is the decisive weapon. And, as in the First World War, we see an Army which is completely unprepared, both physically and intellectually, to deal with the threat.

Faced with the endless attrition arising from sending men out on foot patrol to confront IEDs which have been manufactured and emplaced on an industrial scale, the Army's tactic is simply to do exactly the same thing again, and again and again. We are not alone in being less than impressed with what passes for Army tactics.

The point is, of course, that the Taleban's use of the IED was expected and predicted - back in June 2006, when we arranged through Ann Winterton for the defence minister to be asked what he intended to do about it. The answer was not reassuring.

Only now, three years later, is the outgoing CGS at last taking the threat seriously. In a long interview with ITN yesterday (summarised here) Gen Dannatt "vows" to deliver swift retribution to sneak bombers who attack UK soldiers with deadly booby traps in Afghanistan.

He calls for his troops to be given better "technical" equipment to locate the devices and catch those responsible in the act so they can be eliminated and we are told that the General "has been forced to endure reports of death and injuries inflicted on those under his charge" by IEDs.

"IEDs are a critical issue at the moment. We need more technical equipment to have 24/7 surveillance and the ability to target these people and kill them, if necessary, when they are laying these devices," he says.

The (rhetorical) question is, where was Dannatt three years ago when the threat was being predicted but had not then materialised? Well, as we know, this "honest general" was obsessed with the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES).

Interviewed by RUSI in Summer 2006, he spoke of having "won the argument for the medium-weight equipments," predicting confidently that "we will have them." Even then, with "roadside bombs" ripping the heart out of his army in Iraq, IEDs were never mentioned.

With the Army three years behind the curve, there can be no "swift" retribution. It will take several years to devise the necessary countermeasures, equip and train the troops, deploy the equipment and introduce new tactics. The consequence is that, in the interim, the Army must cede the tactical initiative to the Taleban in order to minimise casualties, or sustain losses which would make continuation of the current campaign unacceptable.

The alternative, as Lt-Col William Pender writes, is to put the UK on a war footing, injecting massive resources into the campaign to overcome the years of neglect. If we had any confidence that this might happen, either under this or the next administration, then our view of the war would be different.

Devoting the necessary resources, however, is as politically unsustainable as bearing the current casualty rate. Brown is not going to do it, and neither is Cameron. For want of that, therefore, we must withdraw. There is no way out, other than to resign ourselves to long-term attrition of our soldiers committed to an unwinnable war.

And that simply is not acceptable.

COMMENT THREAD

Blood money

Belatedly, the media are beginning to take an interest in the Future Lynx – now improbably named the Wildcat - with The Daily Mail today complaining that:

Britain is buying 62 Lynx Wildcat helicopters from AgustaWestland at a cost of £27 million each but they will not be available to equipment starved troops until 2012 at the earliest - four years after they could have had cheaper US helicopters.

While we can applaud the fact that, at last, a newspaper is actually taking some interest in this issue, with some exasperation we note that we actually first wrote about this in June 2006 when there was an equally pressing need for helicopters in Iraq, and it was in April 2007 that we drew attention to the extraordinary cost of running the current Lynx fleet, and the availability of cheaper and more effective alternatives.

Now that the Future Lynx contracts are in place, and it is far too late to do anything about them without incurring massive cost penalties, we have the media taking an interest – effectively three years too late. Nor indeed has the Mail even begun to understand the complexities of the Lynx story, some of which we have been following on this blog.

Rather than deal with the issues, the Mail picks a political "line" with its deputy political editor Tim Shipman telling us that British soldiers in Afghanistan are paying a "blood price" over a deal for new helicopters, after the MoD handed a £1billion pound contract for the helicopters to a company that then hired the department's top civil servant.

The civil servant in question is Sir Kevin Tebbit, permanent secretary at the MoD when the Future Lynx deal was struck in 2005 (it was actually "struck" in 2006). He later joined the boards of two of the companies building the helicopter. Firstly, as the Lynx deal was being announced in June 2006, Sir Kevin was signed up as a member of the Smiths board. Then in May 2007 he was asked to be chairman of Finmeccanica, the company which owns AgustaWestland, a post he took up that July.

Company records, Shipman tells us, suggest that Tebbit is now pocketing in excess of £100,000 a year in his role as chairman of Finmeccanica and another £52,000 from Smith Industries.

This political angle comes from Tory MP Douglas Carswell, who seems first to have raised the Lynx issue in parliament in October 2007, reiterating many of the complaints raised in this blog (without acknowledgement, as is his habit), but has since raised it in parliament (according to the Hansard website) only twice.

This compares, incidentally, with the nine questions raised by Ann Winterton, who has been persistently probing inadequacies of the Lynx without the flashy, self-aggrandisement for which Carswell has become notorious.

In fact, the Tebbitt issue is irrelevant to the Lynx story. The idea that one man – even one of such high rank - could steer this contract in a particular direction is absurd. And, as the MoD points out, Sir Kevin was not involved in the decision to buy the helicopters. It was taken by ministers on the advice of the MoD Equipment Approvals Committee of which he was not a member.

What Carswell has done, probably unwittingly, is touch upon a bigger, more sinister problem, where the defence industry routinely buys influence by offering jobs, consultancies and directorships to civil servants, retired officers – such as the former CDS Charles Guthrie - and even former ministers, not necessarily to steer specific contracts but to shape policy and ensure that the industry voice is heard in the right quarters.

This, we came across in the murky tale of the Panther procurement, where the civil service desk officer administering the programme was subsequently given a consultancy by the vehicle manufacturer Iveco.

There is also the unexplained but highly suspect decision to favour the Piranha over the French VBCI for the FRES utility vehicle, while the decisions to purchase the British-built Pinzgauer Vector and the Jackal also smell of insider dealing.

This is not "corruption" in the sense that there are brown envelopes being handed under the tables in high class restaurants. It is more subtle than that, but it amount to the same thing. The defence industry is indeed buying influence, putting its interests above both the defence and national interests.

And, as we have seen, the industry is highly effective in censoring debate, ensuring that its critics are not heard.

Such issues, however, do not address the immediate problem of the Lynx. In fact, the deal is done and dusted, making the Mail indignation somewhat superfluous. But it does point up the vital role of procurement, and the effect murky decisions, made years ago in the corridors of power (and the fine restaurants and bars) do eventually extract a price when our troops are saddled with inadequate kit or, in this case, no kit at all.

Thus, The Mail is correct to write in terms of a "blood price", but one has to say that the media, in its refusal to take procurement seriously, is part of the problem. Neglect of such a vital subject also has its "blood price".

COMMENT THREAD

Getting minced

General Stanley McChrystal, the US military commander in Afghanistan is at least being candid, readily admitting that the Taleban have gained the upper hand in the fighting.

His widely reported statement came from an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Hours after it appeared, the Taleban launched a major attack on a provincial government and police headquarters near Kabul - 10 days before nationwide elections.

This episode rather confirmed McChrystal's view that the Taleban strength had grown as they had moved beyond traditional areas in southern Afghanistan to threaten formerly stable regions in the north and west.

Within the heartland areas of the south, however, the strength is matched by what commentators are beginning to acknowledge is an increased professionalism, with defence correspondent Robert Fox in today's London Evening Standard suggesting that the deadly ambush of the three members of the Parachute Regiment in Helmand indicated a great improvement in their tactical skills.

This is particularly the case in the use of their basic weapon, the buried IED, which emplacers seem to be able to lay at will, using greater imagination and skill in how they lay their traps.

That much is evident in the account of the latest British death, where we are told that Private Jason Williams was caught by an IED as he and his unit returned to the site of a previous ambush in an attempt to recover the body of one of three Afghan soldiers who had been killed. In what appears to be becoming something of a pattern, the Taleban had got there first – unobserved – and had prepared the ground, with devastating results for Pte Williams.

What is also evident is that both the British (ploughing up the desert in their Jackals - pictured right) and the better-equipped US forces in Helmand have been caught out by the scale and inventiveness of the Taleban bombing tactics. Thus, while the British lost 22 soldiers last month, the Americans lost 45. This month, while we have lost five, the Americans have so far lost 18.

Interestingly though, the national responses, seen through the prisms of their respective media, seem to differ. In The Washington Post today, we see staff writer Ann Scott Tyson offering an informative account under the heading "Potent Bombs Slow Marine Offensive", describing the experiences of US Marines in dealing with the IED threat.

The bombs, we are told, have forced Marine commanders to put long stretches of road off-limits, requiring troops to walk instead of drive. Marines on foot patrol must keep a keen eye out for dug-up dirt and "ant trails" that could cover a wire.

All of that, Tyson reports, has made for delays in supplying the troops - and, she writes, as one Marine company discovered in late July when its mission went badly off track, it has also required a diversion of manpower to the mundane but vital task of watching the roads, hoping to ambush anyone who attempts to plant a bomb.

This a carbon copy of the situation vividly described by the anonymous Captain, whose report we analysed yesterday. It is instructive, therefore, to look outside the narrow national perspective of the British media to find that US forces are facing exactly the same difficulties.

On the one hand, though, the Tyson piece points up the utility of the MRAPs, recounting how a Humvee is ripped apart by an IED, despatched to help recover a mine-resistant vehicle that had become stuck in a canal.

The bomb went off under the Humvee as it was returning with chains to hitch to the MRAP, preparatory to towing it out. And in one of those tragic ironies of war, the crew were only riding a Humvee because their own MRAP had been disabled by an IED. Two died and two were seriously wounded.

Had been in an MRAP, they probably all would have survived, was the view of the unit commander, 2nd Lt. Brendan J. Murphy. The battalion's weapons company commander, Capt David Snipes, was shortly to test that thesis when he approached the shattered Humvee, riding an MRAP. It too struck the bomb. The impact was like "hitting a brick wall," Snipes recalled later. The vehicle reared up and crashed back down.

Tyson records that, as Snipes made his way through choking dust to open the rear hatch, he was amazed to see the vehicle's 50-calibre machine gun sitting in the sand. "The 50-cal somehow went from the mount, past [the gunner's] head, and landed behind us," said Snipes. Surprisingly, the gunner was not badly injured.

Even the US forces are struggling with this attrition rate and, it would appear, lack enough surveillance assets to enable them to keep watch over the stretches of road down which they must travel. They too must commit to the manpower-intensive work of keeping watch 24 hours a day.

Seemingly uncomplaining – at least to Ann Scott Tyson, although the Marines reflected with some bitterness over the loss of their friends, and questioned whether many Americans appreciate, or even know of, their daily grind in the windswept purgatory of Helmand – an entirely different "line" is taken by the London Evening Standard.

Here, the paper has John Geddes, a former SAS warrant officer complaining that "futile" vehicle patrols during daylight were leaving troops as sitting ducks for the Taleban and costing lives.

His antidote is to learn the lessons of earlier conflicts, such as Northern Ireland and he thus calls for better intelligence — including gathering crucial information from paid informers — so that targeted night-time operations could be mounted to "take out" the insurgents' leaders. In the interim, troops should be moved by helicopter or only at night in targeted raids.

Once again, therefore, we see a one-dimensional approach to a complex problem, but with an added sour twist. Geddes blames the military's failure to adopt such tactics on interference from "grubby politicians who think they are generals".

This theme is expanded as Geddes argues that the fundamental problem is poor tactics. He adds: "Don't waste fuel on high-visibility patrols that turn into Taleban bomb runs; better spend the money on paying informants, so we can target the Taliban in their beds."

"Get their identities, the location of their arms caches and the co-ordinates of their encampments then go after them, turning the terror tables the other way round," he advises. "Carefully planned, covert night-time raids on known targets should replace the endless patrols."

Geddes then claims that the failure to pursue a more effective approach is because military chiefs were being restricted by political meddling. "Untie the hands of the army and unleash them on the enemy," he demands.

It is this willingness to focus blame on the politicians, or the amorphous MoD which seems to mark out the British "debate". This latter target comes under fire in The Daily Telegraph, which has Col Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, attacking the MoD for keeping hundreds of armoured vehicles "parked up doing nothing" in Ashchurch. "You have to ask why our troops are still running around in Vikings, when they could be using the types of vehicles parked up in Gloucestershire," he says.

This focus perpetuates the narrative which, in its most simplistic form, paints the black and white picture where "Our Boys" and their gallant commanders, are the good guys, much put upon by the heartless bureaucrats of the MoD and the uncaring, penny-pinching Labour politicians.

Not for one moment does the narrative deviate to allow that, under no circumstances, do politicians interfere with Army tactics – as Geddes alleges – or that, when it comes to the paucity of mine-protected vehicles in theatre, this as we have reported is most definitely the results of decisions made by the Army high command, in defiance of the politicians' wishes that the protected vehicles should be deployed early.

Such is the power of the narrative though that, for want of informed comment, The Daily Telegraph enlists the ever-willing renta-mouth, Patrick Mercer, to blame "cost concerns". "This is outrageous," he shrieks. "I have been talking to men who are out in Afghanistan. They are crying out for these armoured vehicles." Then we get the narrative: "The vehicles are not being sent where they are needed because of tight defence budgets – no more, no less than that."

In truth, both the US and the British military have been caught out, in what was an entirely predictable development. Once again, we have to recall that, in June 2006 – over three years ago – Ann Winterton asked the defence secretary:

As our forces appear to be winning the firefights in Afghanistan, does he expect those who oppose our troops there and in other theatres to revert to the use of improvised explosive devices? If so, what vehicles are our forces to be equipped with to counter the threat?

The answer then was a classic in studied complacency. Defence minister Adam Ingram responded:

We have been very effective in Afghanistan. We have a potent force in the Apache attack helicopters. We are up against intelligent and capable enemies, whether in Afghanistan or Iraq, and we know that they will continue to look for ways to attack land-based vehicles or air-based platforms. We have a lot of measures in place. The hon. Lady will understand that it is not appropriate to discuss all the detail, but where we identify a threat - be it a new or technological threat - we identify a quick way to deal with it. Sometimes that takes time as we come to understand the threat before developing the technical response. Our focus at all times is the protection of our personnel, whether it involves fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, land-based systems or maritime systems.

Then, in November 2006, it was being openly acknowledged in the media that "Taleban minelaying tactics [are] worrying Nato" (above left - click to enlarge), when it was all too clear that this was the direction the campaign was going to take. Three years down the line and troops of both armies are getting "minced".

Of course, the man in charge of the British Army at that time was General Sir Richard Dannatt. Yet it took him until July of this year to say that: "It is time for expenditure on counter IED to move from UOR to core business. If we accept that we will be in Afghanistan for three to five years and beyond, there is no doubt that this is now our core business."

This is the man who, in support of his FRES project had, to that date, resisted including IED protected vehicles in the Army's "core business". Now that IEDs are indeed "core business" (certainly of the Taleban), we are paying the price of three years of neglect.

COMMENT THREAD

A nation at war

Of more than usual importance, given his high public profile and the state of flux in the Afghan campaign, the outgoing Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, gave his valedictory speech last week.

By tradition, the speech is actually written in close consultation with the successor, in this case General Sir David Richards, and his senior advisors, in order to maintain continuity and to avoid "poisoning the well" for the incomer. Thus, while Dannatt's offering has a personal component, it is also a reflection of the "Army view" of the current defence situation, of events past and of its aspirations.

It was, said Dannatt, a contribution to the defence debate and, as a shot across the bows to the media, he warns that "defence of the realm must be the stuff of considered debate and not just of catchy headlines." That debate, he adds, must be conducted in such a way that "prevents some comments being taken out of context, and becoming tomorrow's headline."

Since the main preoccupation of the media is precisely to look for the rounded "sound bite" in order to craft a catchy and preferably controversial headline – for want of which nothing gets reported – Dannatt is immediately on a loser here. And the likes of the Daily Mail do not disappoint, demonstrating that the MSM are not – and are not about to become – serious players in the defence debate.

That said, the speech is complex and full of detail and it would be impossible within the framework of the contemporary media to do it justice. In days gone by, the likes of The Times might have published the whole thing, following which there would have been weeks of discourse in the letter columns. As it is, the speech is already yesterday's news, the content largely ignored and unappreciated.

Nor indeed, by its very nature, can this blog do justice to the speech – a full review would be unreadable, and thus unread. Nevertheless, we hope it will invite an ongoing debate on the forum, and we will undoubtedly return to the issues raised.

What leaps out though is something about which we have been vaguely aware, but on which we have never really focused specifically, which explains a great deal about why we are in our present predicament.

This comes early in the speech when Dannatt takes a backwards look at the New World Order post the Cold War and Blair's concept of liberal intervention. There was, says Dannatt, a belief that this could be conducted on the basis of "Go Fast, Go First, Go Home". After all, he says, it seemed to work in Sierra Leone, East Timor, a small intervention in Macedonia, and even after 9/11 with our first experience in Kabul.

If there was anything which pre-conditioned the lack of preparedness in Iraq, perhaps it was that, where the idea was that, after the successful (from the military point of view) invasion, the troops could pack up and go home, leaving the grateful Iraqis to rebuild their country in the absence of dictator Saddam, with the assistance of civilian agencies and generous foreign aid. There was no military planning for the occupation because, under the doctrine of "Go Fast, Go First, Go Home", there was no need.

This also explains the Army obsession with FRES and the air-mobile rapid reaction forces which were very much in the vogue, these being the physical assets which were needed to implement the doctrine. The whole idea of the "long war" seems to have been discarded in favour of this new paradigm.

That Dannatt – and by no means him alone – then misread the signs is revealed by a later passage in his speech, when he declares that, "... with the Iraq campaign seeming to be progressing well in the early years, in the south at least ... Tony Blair announced in the middle of 2004 that we would return to Afghanistan in greater numbers in 2006 - a strategic move to assist our senior partner in the coalition."

"This," says Dannatt, "was a very reasonable decision at the time, but its strategic and operational consequences proved to be considerable." The "Go First, Go Fast, Go Home" as a mantra became history. The current decade has been characterised not by short, sharp interventions but by protracted campaigning in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That, effectively, is now what the current debate is about. Having been locked into a flawed "mantra" – as even Dannatt admits it was - the armed forces geared to be able to deliver on this basis, now to find that they are faced with "long wars” for which they are neither equipped nor trained – nor fully understand.

To all intents and purposes, that is the core what amounts to a confession. Dannatt, in a highly coded form, is admitting that the entire defence and political establishment got the post-Cold War paradigm wrong, and are now having to go through the process of a defence review in order to re-orientate the thinking to meet the realities of warfare, which actually have not changed that much since the Second World War. The "long war", then as now, is still the predominant mode of conflict.

To deal with that says Dannatt: "We should be under no illusion: we are at war and if we want to succeed, which we must, we must get onto a war-like footing - and as I said to the Officer Cadets being commissioned from Sandhurst last Christmas 'you enter an Army that is at war - even if not everyone in our nation realises that'".

It is certainly the case that we are a nation at war and, if any comfort can be drawn from what Dannatt says, it is perhaps that, at last, the Army seems to realise this, and may be beginning to gear up for it - the war that actually exists. Whether the MoD has quite caught up remains to be seen.

COMMENT THREAD

A little out of date?

The latest vehicle casualty, whom we speculated could have been riding in a Jackal, turns out to have been the driver of a Scimitar – one of the CVR(T) series (pictured after a mine strike).

This was Trooper Phillip Lawrence of the Light Dragoons, who was killed on 27 July while part of a patrol in Lashkar Gah district, helping to ensure the security of an area cleared earlier as part of Operation Panther's Claw.

As a light tank, procured for reconnaissance duties, this vehicle is very lightly armoured and provides little protection to IEDs and mines. Thus, like much of the other equipment fielded by the Army in Afghanistan, it is far from optimal.

That certainly is the view of Patrick Mercer, who has told a local Lancashire paper that the vehicle is "hopeless". Despite it still looking quite modern it is considerably aging and outdated, he says, arguing that the forces need new a generation of armoured vehicles "to better protect our troops."

From there, however, the gallant Mercer seems to go off the rails. The Scimitars, he says, "were due to be replaced by a Fres System - Future Rapid Response System - a few years ago but this was abandoned as it was too expensive."

The man, of course, means the Future Rapid Effects System, which, "as the replacement programme," he adds, "foundered due to mismanagement acquisition by the armed forces." We are now left, he claims, "with a generation of older vehicles badly needing incremental improvements."

Here, Mercer seems to be referring to the utility vehicle programme, which was never meant to replace the CVR(T). In part, this series was supposed to be replaced by the Panther, and he might have a well-founded complaint about the delay and expense, but he cannot say this vehicle has "foundered".

Furthermore, he seems to be completely unaware that a further CVR(T) replacement is well in hand, with the announcement made in July, with the bidders to be confirmed in September, with new vehicles in service from 2014.

A five year delay to replace an unsuitable armoured vehicle which is already 35 years old is something of a scandal but not the picture Mercer paints.

Further comments also seem somewhat awry as Mercer then goes on to opining that: "The trouble with an armoured vehicles is you can take a bank vault and put it on tracks and this will not be pierced by an explosion but it will be thrown in such a way that everyone inside will be killed."

"The shear (sic) kinetic energy from these explosives makes travelling by vehicle extremely dangerous," he adds.

Somehow, one gets the feeling that life is passing by Lt-Col Mercer (Retd), with the developments in blast protection having escaped him. We have never been particular fans of the man, not least because he seems to flying on autopilot, relying on past reputation.

As an MP with claimed expertise in this area – and one never reticent to share it – one would expect a little better from him. Rather like the Scimitar on which he comments, though, he seems a little out of date.

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

The Americans understood ...

In the Mail on Sunday is an op-ed from veteran journalist Philip Jacobson, under the heading "The Americans understood the danger of IEDs – why didn't we?"

That statement is not without irony as today we learn that four US soldiers were killed on Saturday in an IED explosion in Helmand province, apparently in two separate incidents - the number now reduced to two killed, after officials reported there had been a double-counting error.

Whether two or four, these latest US death underline the deadly peril of this weapon and, in getting Jacobson to write about it, the Mail on Sunday has chosen well. He is not new to the subject and wrote a long piece for The Sunday Times Magazine in September last year, called "The success of the home-made bomb." Even after this elapse of time, it is still fresh and worth reading.

In his current article, Jacobson revisits his previous work, telling us of Lt-Gen Thomas Metz, director of the US Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), the organisation established in the summer of 2005 when the IED threat was growing to epidemic proportions in Iraq. While Metz's organisation currently enjoys a budget of $15 billion, Jacobson charges that our soldiers in Afghanistan are "facing a tough, resilient enemy with demonstrably inadequate resources".

To develop his thesis, Jacobson reminds us of the Snatch controversy, noting the "start contrast" between the US "no-expense-spared programme” and the reluctance of the MoD to provide a sufficient number (or any) armoured vehicles capable of surviving heavy IED blasts.

This remains a burning issue, he writes, recalling how in 2004, the US Marines were enthusing about an RG-31 which had sustained severe damage from an IED while the crew had escaped unharmed. Jacobson's memory is faulty here, as the incident happened in early 2006 (as late as November 2005, the Marines were still mainly concerned with up-armouring Humvees) but he recalls correctly that the incident was brought to the notice of the MoD by "Conservative politicians" (via this writer), only to be told that the RG-31's "size and profile" did not meet their needs.

Readers will recall the hostility and prevarication we encountered then, over three years ago, when the Army's idea of a protected vehicle was a Pinzgauer Vector. This has continued undiminished, where the Viking's mobility was seen as far more important than keeping soldiers alive and where the Jackal again elevates mobility to supreme status and relegates protection to a poor second. Now we see the substandard Husky being chosen in preference to the better-protected Oshkosk M-ATV and the even better Cheetah.

Jacobson argues that it is crucial that we adapt to the real threat we face and regards it as not merely unintelligent, or negligent, that a "front-rank industrial nation" cannot do better for its endlessly gallant soldiers. It is criminal, he says. Yet, the "criminals" continue in place, and the men will keep dying, while the politicians attempt to "park" the issue in the hope that it will go away.

It won't.

(The pic, incidentally, is something the MoD got right-ish – despite the panning of the media. It is an armoured JCB High Mobility Engineer Excavator, blown up by an IED while it was digging a culvert. The driver survived. Pic courtesy of El Tirador Solitario.)

COMMENT THREAD

A paradise lost?

One of the reasons, we are told, why Lt-Col Thorneloe and his driver Trooper Joshua Hammond could not have travelled in a better-protected Mastiff and instead were killed in a fatally vulnerable Viking was that the bridge network across the Shamalan canal, where the fighting is at its heaviest, was in poor repair and too weak to bear the weight of the heavier vehicle.

The Ministry of Defeat has now released a picture of one of the bridges (above) and simple inspection confirms the poor state. If the other bridges spanning the canal are in anything like a similar condition, then it is not at all surprising that the 23-ton Mastiff could not be used.

One would have thought, therefore, that the bridge network would have been a high priority for redevelopment funding, contributing not only tactical mobility for the Army and the Afghan security forces but also the local population who need a better network to move their equipment and goods.

But that is to reckon without those geniuses in the Department for International Development. Although they have been extremely busy in the Shamalan canal area, they have had slightly different priorities on which to spend British taxpayers' hard-earned cash.

To the utter bemusement of the local Afghanis, DFID has invested no less than £420,000 on a f****** leisure park for Women, complete, you will be pleased to know with a f****** Ferris wheel – (pictured below).

Called Bolan Park, when it was completed just over a year ago, it had "puzzled residents" asking why so much money was being spent on leisure when the most pressing problem – security – was getting worse by the day. Said Amir Mohammad, 44, "If the international community wants our country to be prosperous, they should first worry about peace and security. Then we can have parks."


As to the idea of a park for women, Mohammad Zaher stated the obvious: "The problem is that men are not accustomed to going to parks along with their women. And they won't let women go on their own." Abdul Halek, 22, agreed. "Although our house is very close to this park, we will never let our women go there," he said. "This park will be only for men."

Gul Mohammad, 35, a farmer, had a more pressing reason why women – or anyone else for that matter – would not use the park. He said, "For two years now, there have been remote-controlled explosions on the main Bolan road. I think mines will be laid in this park. That will keep people from going there."

But those brave chaps from DFID nevertheless persevered, trilling away that the nearly 20 acres would provide fresh air, fountains, flowers, picnic areas and recreational facilities for Lashkar Gah's estimated 100,000 people.

As for the IEDs that have been killing "Our Boys" – many of them now home-made using agricultural fertiliser - the aid agencies thought about that as well. Very helpfully this season, they have supplied the Taleban Afghani farmers with a total of 4,749 metric tons, conveniently packaged in 25-kilogram bags.

With such wonderful, intelligent support from our gifted civil servants, we cannot possibly lose the war in Afghanistan. We can look forward to moving from triumph to triumph, allowing the Afghani citizens to revel in their paradises of fresh air, fountains, flowers, picnic areas and recreational facilities provided so generously by British taxpayers.

COMMENT THREAD

FRES lives ... sort of

We are informed that the MOD is to invite two British companies to tender to supply reconnaissance and reconnaissance support variants to replace the aged Scimitar and Spartan vehicles now on operations in Afghanistan.

The two companies are BAE Systems Global Combat Systems and General Dynamics (UK), who will be bidding for a project grandly named the Future Rapid Effect System Specialist Vehicle (FRES SV). In reality though, with the FRES utility vehicle dumped for the foreseeable future, this is simply a much overdue replacement for the CVR(T) series which should have been scrapped many years ago.

General Dynamics will, no doubt, be offering a version of the Piranha, configured on similar lines to the Canadian LAV-25 Coyote - arguing for commonality with the proposed Utility Vehicle, if it is ever purchased.

BAE Systems may be submitting a version of the Swedish-built CV-903 Mk III, recently purchased by the Danish Army (pictured), on the basis that a tracked vehicle would be more suitable for the role.

Whichever platform is chosen, the likelihood is that it will be fitted with the French-designed Nexter CTA-40 caseless ammunition gun, together with the BAE System turret which is being used for the Warrior Lethality Improvement Programme (WLIP).

Although the prospect of a replacement for the CVR(T) series is good news – which should always have been put ahead of the utility vehicle – by the time the MoD nannies have finished with their procedures and integration programme, it could be some years before we see any new kit in theatre. By then, of course, it will be the Tories who will have to pay the bill.

COMMENT THREAD

No invite to the debate

Simon Jenkins takes up the cudgels on defence spending in The Guardian today. When he focuses on specific issues, rather than advocating complete withdrawal of our forces, he usually has quite interesting things to say, and this is one of those times.

His general theme, borne out by the title, "As soldiers die, the MoD is stockpiling for the cold war," is summarised by the strap which declares that: "Defence ministers are too concerned with showing off their military muscle to provide what fighting forces actually need."

Generals, writes Jenkins, are always teased for preparing for the last war but one. "They laugh. Not us, they say. Then they go out and prepare for the last war but one." Now they are preparing for the cold war.

We could argue with the details of what Jenkins then has to offer, but not the thrust of his argument, that far too much is being spent on "glamour kit" and not enough on fulfilling actual operational needs.

Jenkins notes that one of problems is that what defence ministries buy has nothing to do with what fighting soldiers need. It is rather to do with what the arms industry wants to sell, illustrating Eisenhower's famous warning in 1961 against "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power … of a military/industrial complex".

What particularly strikes a chord though is his view that, "The opposition performance here is a disgrace," even if the Jenkins rhetoric about "Tory foreign policy still stuck in the neocon mode adumbrated by William Hague during the Bush/Blair years" is not to everyone's taste.

But the fact is that every one of the "big ticket" defence projects proposed by Labour – including FRES – have been supported by the Tory front bench and, as Jenkins observes, David Cameron seems as eager as was Blair not to be thought weak by the defence lobby.

This issue is explored further by James Kirkup on his blog, where he asks, "what exactly are the Tories promising on defence?" He, in turn, refers to a recent article in the Financial Times which has an account of a private dinner between Liam Fox and the defence industry. It records, in respect of the promised strategic defence review, that "…industry executives have privately been assured that this will not lead to big programmes being abandoned."

All rather smells of back-door deals where, it seems, all interests are being catered for, except the defence interest.

Kirkup speculates that, "at best, the Tories are practising a form of creative ambiguity around defence, avoiding a full debate until they make their minds up and put their suggestions to the voters, the forces and the industry." At worst, he writes "they’re saying one thing to one audience and something different to another," adding that "the lack of clarity is a shame."

There is a good and important debate to be had about Britain's military forces and our place in the world, he concludes, and when and if the Tories are clear about their thinking on defence, they'll find there could be significant rewards for a party willing to join the conversation.

We suspect, however, that the current political calculus within the higher echelons of the Tory party leans towards the view that there are greater rewards in keeping defence out of the political arena. In that, it seems that the Tories have something in common with the military. Us plebs should not be invited to the debate.

COMMENT THREAD

"No plans for a European Rapid Reaction Force"

That is the latest statement from the MoD, which follows on from our story about the demise of the European Rapid Reaction Force, picked up by Christopher Booker in his column on Sunday, bringing the news to a wider audience.

The clue on which Booker relied was last week's conference on land warfare where Gen Dannatt slipped out in coded form that the Army's £16 billion Future Rapid Effects System (FRES), planned as the centrepiece of Britain's contribution to the European Army (aka the European Rapid Reaction Force), was a dead duck. Without that capacity, the UK is unable to make a meaningful contribution to the ERRF.

Booker's piece provoked an almost immediate response from the MoD, lodging its disagreement on its blog yesterday. In typical style, though, it is unable to resist a sneer, in declaring, "Christopher Booker's article displays a lack of understanding of some basic facts." And, according to the MoD, a crucial area where there is a "lack of understanding" is that "there are no plans for a European Rapid Reaction Force."

If Booker failed to understand this, however, he is not alone. In November 2000, when the definitive plans for the ERRF were announced, The Independent was rather full of it, The Guardian was likewise, adding a special report on the development, and the Tories were very unhappy - so it looks as if they all got it wrong

The deal had in fact been agreed at the European Council meeting held in Helsinki on 10-11 December 1999, with the details fully recorded by a House of Commons Library research paper, so it looks as if they got it wrong as well.

This denialist line, though, is typical of the word games the MoD has been playing for some years. In Jan 2001 for instance, then defence secretary Geoff Hoon was still admitting that it was planned, but stressing, "There is no standing EU Rapid Reaction Force."

Actually, that has been the case from the very beginning. The core of the force was always a planning cell and – eventually – an EU military HQ, with forces and equipment supplied for specific operations by member states. There was never any intention that the ERRF should be a standing force.

By May 2003, however, Hoon was embellishing his statements, adding to the then-established mantra that there was "no standing European rapid reaction force", by declaring, "nor any EU agreement to create one."

That, not to put too fine a point on it, is a tad disingenuous. Certainly, the origin of the ERRF emerged from an agreement between Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac at the summit in St Malo in December 1998 but, as Hoon himself stated in May 2003:

Existing national or multinational forces, declared under the Helsinki headline goal, will be made available to the EU on a voluntary, case-by-case basis when required for a crisis management operation. The United Kingdom has made a significant contribution, offering a wide range of capabilities and assets ...

That "Headline Goal", agreed at the Helsinki Council in 1999, was explained by the European Council. It amounted to an agreement by the year 2003 that member states would be able "to deploy rapidly and then sustain forces capable of the full range of Petersberg tasks as set out in the Amsterdam Treaty, including the most demanding, in operations up to corps level (up to 15 brigades or 50,000-60,000 persons)."

It was agreed that these forces should be militarily self-sustaining with the necessary command, control and intelligence capabilities, logistics, other combat support services and additionally, as appropriate, air and naval elements.

Furthermore, the member states should be able to deploy in full at this level within 60 days, and within this to provide smaller rapid response elements available and deployable at very high readiness. They had to be able to sustain such a deployment for at least one year, a commitment that would require an additional pool of deployable units (and supporting elements) at lower readiness to provide replacements for the initial forces.

Thus, the "Headline Goal" was, by any other name, the European Rapid Reaction Force.

Inevitably, there was no prospect whatsoever of meeting this ambitious target by 2003 and that proved to be the case. Thus, at the June 2004 European Council, a new "Headline Goal 2010" was formally adopted. Then, and now, the ERRF concept was not formally abandoned but the "colleagues" introduced the more realistic target of creating "battlegroups" of 1,500 effectives, deployable on 15 days notice, initially for 30 days with a capability to extend to 120 days.

Thereby it came to pass that, on 3 February this year, the Baroness Taylor was felt able to declare, "there is no European rapid reaction force". Strictly speaking, that was true. The EU's immediate capability is limited to fielding a maximum of two battlegroups, a capability that Taylor acknowledged.

On the following day though, then defence secretary John Hutton responded to a written parliamentary question from Liam Fox on the EU Rapid Reaction Force, asking "what the UK contribution is to the 50,000 to 60,000 person military force."

The answer, in accordance with the MoD line, was again that "there is no EU Rapid Reaction Force". But, giving the game away, Hutton added that the UK "continues to support the Helsinki Headline Goal that all EU member states agreed to in 1999, which calls for EU member states to be able to deploy within 60 days and sustain for at least one year military forces of up to 50,000 to 60,000 persons capable of the full range of Petersberg tasks."

In other words, the ERRF lives on as a concept, still supported by the UK. The MoD nevertheless continues to play its games, its credibility declining with every utterance it makes.

Nevertheless, the new reality – as enunciated by Dannatt last week – is that, four months after Hutton's declaration, the ERRF can exist on paper only as far as the UK is concerned. The loss of FRES makes it so.

As to FRES, the MoD denies it was ever planned to be the centrepiece of our EU contribution. That is as credible as the denials on the ERRF. Central to the whole concept of the force was that it would rely on an air-portable medium weight formation, a capacity that the British Army lacked and intended to fill with the procurement of the FRES medium weight family of armoured vehicles (example pictured – top).

That much was declared in the Defence White Paper of 2003, when the ERRF project was still live.

Then it was announced that, "To increase our flexibility in responding to crises (as in Petersberg Tasks), a new set of medium weight forces will be developed, offering a high level of deployability (including by air), together with much greater levels of mobility and protection than are currently available to light forces." This was to be "based on the Future Rapid Effects System family of vehicles."

Buried in the text also was the injunction that, "We must ensure that we continue to play a leading part in the development of NATO and EU (through ESDP) capabilities better configured to conduct expeditionary operations outside Europe." Our Armed Forces, we were told, "will continue to be prepared and equipped to lead and act as the framework nation for ESDP or similar ad hoc coalitions' operations where the US is not participating."

The two together tell the tale. In denying it, the MoD is fooling only itself. But the irony is that, while plans for the ERRF remain – contradicting the latest statement – Baroness Taylor and Hutton had it right in February. The ERRF does not exist.

COMMENT THREAD

Narratives

It is Max Hasting's turn in The Daily Mail to pick up on General Richards' speech – and much else – using the topical hook of Armed Forces Day which is being celebrated today for the first time.

However, in common with most of the commentariat, Hastings distils complex arguments into a "biff-bam" knockabout routine about shortage of resources and underfunding, laying the entire blame at the door of Gordon Brown as the source of all ills.

It is very much these personality politics which blight the entire defence debate, as they neglect entirely the role of the military top brass in defining the shape of the armed forces and their equipment. Thus in the world inhabited by the likes of Hastings, the politicians are always the villains and the military the blameless victims.

This was the line taken by Patrick Mercer and embraced enthusiastically by James Forsyth, web editor of The Spectator. Commenting on Gen Dannatt's speech but relying exclusively on a report in The Times as his source, he writes on the Coffee House blog with his own views.

There, he gleefully picks on but one issue highlighted by Dannatt, declaring that "Dannatt makes clear that the reason the British operation failed in the south was that there were not an adequate number of troops on the ground." And, on that slender basis does this intellectual giant conclude that:

... we either properly fund and equip our armed forces or we retreat from our role on the world stage. If the Conservative party believes that this country should be more than just a peace-keeping nation, then it will have to be prepared to increase defence spending. The problems in Iraq demonstrate that fighting wars on peacetime budgets is not sustainable.

As it happens, we agree that the original occupation force in southern Iraq was undermanned, but it is not necessarily the case that more "boots on the ground" would have improved matters. As Dannatt himself said on a different occasion, specifically of Basra, "It's a city of huge size, however many British troops or coalition troops have been there we would never have been able to impose a regime and we had no intention of doing that."

Bearing in mind that US forces further north had considerably higher manpower levels, and were no more successful in the initial stages in containing the insurgency, Dannatt does have a point. More British troops might simply have led to more conflict and a higher casualty rate.

What must be remembered, of course, is that when the US finally mounted the surge, the extra troops operated in a different political environment, with new, theatre-specific equipment and to an entirely revised doctrine. Without those changes, it is arguable that the surge would not have succeeded and, as none of those preconditions were present in the early phases of the British occupation, the chances are that more troops would have had no measurable effect.

Here, one must again recall the observations of US General John Craddock, who noted – albeit in respect of Afghanistan - that the priority was 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."

There, was the singular problem with the British in Iraq. With the absence of the right kit, they lost tactical mobility and, even with the troops strengths that they had maintained, ceased to be effective. Yet, when US forces came to the rescue in aiding the Iraqi forces recover al Amarah, they fielded only a fraction of the forces then available to the British.

Despite this, on the rare occasion that sites such as ToryDiary take on the issue of defence, the same trite agenda prevails. We get pleas for more funding (or the protection of current funding levels), with the charge here that Brown and Blair sent our armed forces to war on a peacetime budget, again calling in aid the same superficial analysis of Dannatt's speech, using The Times as the source.

So it is that "underfunding" is locked into the narrative, with not the faintest recognition that, in blocking new equipment for Iraq, Dannatt was in fact protecting a funding allocation of £16 billion for his pet project, FRES – to say nothing of the Future Lynx helicopter. Money was never the problem. What mattered was the way it was spent.

What makes all this so topical and important though is the expectation of a new Conservative administration within a year, which will be confronting exactly the same problems with which the Labour administration had to struggle.

It is Hastings in his Daily Mail piece, however, who puts his finger on a problem of which too many are painfully aware. "There is a deafening political silence about defence, because the Tories do not think the issue wins votes," he writes, adding that: "They have notably failed to hammer the Government as it deserves about its disgraceful treatment of the Armed Forces."

The nostrum about votes should be taken with a pinch of salt. Defence invariably attracts more electoral support that is given credit by the politicians. More likely, the reluctance to engage on defence stems from David Cameron's efforts to re-brand the Conservatives as a "caring" party, hence his determination to avoid hard-edged "macho" issues such as Armed Forces equipment.

But, if in the absence of such engagement, the Tories stand by the narrative of "underspending" – all in the context of Cameron admitting that he cannot realistically plan to increase defence spending when in office - then the option of cutting some big ticket projects begins to look extremely attractive.

Hastings targets the Trident nuclear deterrent, oblivious to the fact that this does not come out of core defence funding. Scrapping this would not necessarily increase the flow of cash to other defence projects.

Whether Trident, or some other project, the big problems will come if the Tories see the liberation of funds by this means as the answer to the current problems in the Armed Forces. We need a much more sophisticated and comprehensive narrative if we are to emerge from the strategic defence review that the Tories are promising with anything like effective Armed Forces.

COMMENT THREAD