Getting to the heart of the matter (not)

In an increasingly fraught political environment, it is perhaps significant that the transcript of Tuesday's Jackson interview posted on the unofficial Army forum elicited comments not about the substance of his comments but on his incidental remarks about Army morale.

Yet, the core of Jackson's responses, which he himself flagged up as "important", was far more profound than even the interviewer, John Humphrys, seemed to realise. In fact, without him realising it, Jackson was sketching out the reasons why the Armed Forces are under stress and why there are such problems with "underfunding".

To that effect, the essence of Jackson's thesis was that there is not enough money "to give the Armed Services proper conditions of service and to also look forward into the equipment programme", the latter "to make sure we're paying the right sort of premium into our national insurance policy on defence."

Jackson then elaborated on this by telling Humphrys that the money "may not be enough to do the things which we do now and the things which we may have to do in the future," cementing in the issue which we have identified on the blog – the focus on the "future war" scenario.

It was there that Humphrys lost it. Responding with the question, "are we trying to do too much?" he failed to establish first what it was that we "may have to do in the future" – the assumptions on which the "equipment programme" was based.

Yet again, though, Jackson gave him a cue, referring to the need to take into account, "strategic circumstances", further elaborating with the "important point":

…that the analysis must start in logic, from what it is that the United Kingdom thinks it's part to play in a very uncertain and difficult world. You’ve got to get that analysis right because from that then flows the tools you need, and they’re not all military tools either, but the tools you need to pursue the strategy which you have decided to adopt. That's the right way round.

The only response Humphrys could offer was a "hypothetical", and "ludicrous" notion – an invasion of North Korea – as an example of what we could not afford, completely failing to ask what we could afford, or what we are actually planning to do in the "affordable" bracket.

Yet again Jackson offered another lead, telling Humphrys that you could not "decide what you wish to afford until you've done that strategic analysis." Then, said the former Chief of General Staff, "you start to make some judgements." But Humphrys could not get the point and abandoned the field, leaving the issues hanging, entirely unexplored.

But the point was – and is – that the military (and, presumably, the politicians) must have done their "strategic analysis". Whether they have come to the same conclusions is moot but, on the basis of their joint or separate analyses, they must have some ideas as to the equipment required and the costs involved. And Jackson, at the very least, has concluded that we cannot afford this and maintain the current operations, and support all the other commitments (including improving conditions of service), out of the current budget.

From this we can conclude that – tentatively at least – the current operations and some if not all of the other commitments would be affordable if we did not have the future to worry about. And from that, we can infer that the essential problems of "overstretch" and all the rest stem from the need to fight (or prepare for) not two wars – Iraq and Afghanistan – but three, the third being the "future war".

As to what that "future war" might be, we have no way of knowing. But, as pointed out in an American military manual:

... we must face one absolute certainty: any projection will prove faulty. Despite our best intellectual efforts, the future will remain unknowable. Between now and the focus of this study, the year 2010, humankind's innumerable decisions will interact to form a future far beyond our powers to predict. It would reveal the greatest hubris to claim absolute insights on such a dynamic, multidependent future.

The manual then goes on to say:

This limitation is especially true concerning war. Any projection of future war must contain implicit assumptions of time, enemy, location and purpose. We must know when the war occurs in order to project what kinds of technologies might be available. We must know the purpose of the war in order to forecast what level of effort the Nation will dedicate. We must know the enemy in order to build the most appropriate strategic campaign, addressing both offensive and defensive centers of gravity. Finally, we must know the location of the war in order to define the types and numbers of operational targets. All four factors will interact to define the nature and conduct of any future war. However, because none of the factors are knowable in advance, any vision of future war will be severely limited.

The point, however, is that not only do we not know the unknowable, we do not know what assumptions are being made, or by whom, whether there is general agreement or, if not, what the boundaries of the disagreements are. In effect, therefore, we are being told – by Jackson and many others – that we need more money for an equipment programme to fight a war in an unspecified location (or locations), at some indeterminate time in the future, against an unknown enemy or enemies, with undefined capabilities, all for a purpose that has not been stated.

Sympathetic though we might be to the broad proposition that we must prepare for the future – especially as the lead times for the procurement of new weapons is so long – to accept the lack of detail on offer is simply to agree a blank cheque, drawn on the taxpayer, with no upper limit.

Not is it any use relying on past and even the most recent defence reviews – any assumptions on which they were based have long since been invalidated. But neither is it possible to glean any coherent view from such limited debate that does occasionally percolate into the public domain.

Central to current thinking, we know, is the need to develop an expeditionary capability – but that still begs the question of who are we like to fight and where, with all the other imponderables. We hear also demands for a "balanced force" without any real idea of what such a force might be – with hugely varying opinions as to what constitutes "balance".

Then, within the recesses of the defence establishment, we also hear articulated the idea that the Armed Forces must maintain a ability to deal with a "technologically equivalent" enemy, usually but not necessarily within the context of (unspecified) coalition operations. Yet no one, it seems, is able to offer a credible scenario as to where in the foreseeable future we might meet this enemy, and in what possible circumstances, and with which coalition partners. And whether our partners are working within the framework of Nato, the EU, US-led forces or some other grouping will have a considerable influence on our equipment programme.

On the other hand, our current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – each of them different but with some common characteristics – apparently require entirely different force structures, equipment and tactics from the "future war" scenario for which such a huge resources is apparently required.

If we accept, however, the premise that the "future war" will be different from current wars, then we need that separate capability. But if the premise is wrong, and the future is a series of counter-insurgency operations, more or less similar to the current campaigns, then we may be preparing for the wrong war and wasting our money. In that latter scenario, there is considerably less pressure of the defence budget than is made out.

So much is guesswork, and always will be. But what is also guesswork – and should not be – is our estimation of what strategic analyses have been conducted, and the nature of the assumptions that have been made on the basis of those analyses.

Only with that knowledge can we ourselves judge whether we, as a democracy, are prepared to find those assumptions, or disagree with them and demand a different direction.

A possible counter to that is that war is so complex that it must be left to the military and experts to decide but, as the manual cited above states, "As we look to the future of war we must face one absolute certainty: any projection will prove faulty."

Faulty or not, in a democracy we are entitled to know in vastly more detail what projections are made in our name and have the opportunity through genuine debate to accept or reject them. Humphrys could have pursued that debate, but so uncomprehending of the issues was he that Jackson's comments went straight over his head. Getting to the heart of the matter we are not.

COMMENT THREAD

Mike Jackson interview

There was an interview between John Humphrys and General Sir Mike Jackson on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning. This is the lightly edited transcript:

JH: We haven't been spending enough money on equipping the Armed Forces and we haven't given enough priority to Afghanistan. That's what General Sir Mike Jackson says …

JH: So, to what extent are we underfunding, if that's the right word, the Armed Forces, the Army in particular?

MJ: Well there's been quite a lot of comment has there not over recent days and weeks on this subject. But there was the public sector settlement which gave defence 1.5 percent real increase over the next three years, which I understand of course the government making something of that. But I doubt that that is enough to afford what we are doing, to give the Armed Services proper conditions of service and to also look forward into the equipment programme to make sure we're paying the right sort of premium into our national insurance policy on defence. I fear there's some sort of crunch on the horizon. If I'm wrong…

JH: Why didn't you say that when you were in the Army?

MJ: Well, I did say it many a time. But one says it within the constraints which you're under constitutionally. But we’ve moved on anyway. I've been gone now getting on for 18 months and this settlement was made, I think, a month or so ago if I remember rightly.

JH: And the settlement, according to the Chancellor Mr Darling, and I'm quoting him, us the longest period of rising investment in the defence of our country for almost thirty years.

MJ: Well, that may be true, but what is also true and this is never really, this nettle is not properly grasped, that it may not be enough to do the things which we do now and the things which we may have to do in the future. It's not enough just to say it's has been the longest run. Is it enough? That is the exam question.

JH: Well, the other question though ... are we trying to do too much? I mean if you compare our spending with other countries, obviously the United States is a special case and is massively richer than we are anyway, but if you compare it with our colleagues and friends in Europe, we're doing more than they are. We're spending a greater proportion of out national income than they are. Why should we spend even more?

MJ: Well, it is true that we spend more than a European average. But we can't just start by saying we've got that amount of money. What shall we do with it?

JH: Why not?

MJ: Because that ignores strategic circumstances.

JH: But we all face the same strategic circumstances, whether it's France Germany or whatever …

MJ: Well they may be perceived, they may be perceived more sharply here as opposed to there. But … it is an important point, that the analysis must start in logic, from what it is that the United Kingdom thinks it's part to play in a very uncertain and difficult world. You've got to get that analysis right because from that then flows the tools you need, and they're not all military tools either, but the tools you need to pursue the strategy which you have decided to adopt. That's the right way round.

JH: Well, sorry, up to a point. You might decide … Let's take a hypothetical, and it's a ludicrous notion, but let's say that we decided the world would be a lot safer if there were democratic government in North Korea, we wanted to overthrow the government of North Korea. And let us say that that was the settled will of every politician in the land . It would be a massively expensive operation, therefore it couldn't be done. So you can’t always start from the strategic decisions that's made as far as our national security is concerned. You have to say what can we afford to do and let's do it.

MJ: Yes, but you can't decide what you wish to afford - can is another word and I can come back to that in a moment – you can't decide what you wish to afford until you’ve done that strategic analysis. And then you start to make some judgements. But the amount of money spent on defence is of course at the end of the day a strategic-political by the government of this country, no doubt reflecting the wishes of the electorate. But what I'm saying is that I detect, I fear, some crisis ahead in defence spending if things go on as they are in terms of what we do, what we might have to do and the money allocated.

JH: But you might say, might you not, that we have seen this before, a group of retired Generals getting together and staging this kind of lobbying exercise? There’s been a lot of it around recently, hasn’t there?

MJ: Well, I'm speaking for myself. I'm not speaking for anybody else.

JH: I bet you have a chat with people like General Guthrie, Dannatt…

MJ: Well, no, no, I'm speaking for myself. You may conclude that this is a lone or just a few lone voices crying in the wilderness. I'm not sure that this is right because, besides anything else, there is the question of conditions of service of the people in the Armed Forces which are not – which I think is generally accepted are not as everyone would wish them to be in every case. And that I think is much closer to home than … and people understand that much more sharply perhaps than concerns for 15 or 20 years hence.

JH: So General Dannatt's right when he talks about seriously deteriorating morale is he? That's my words not his, but that's the impression.

MJ: Well, I'm not prepared to comment there – it would be quite wrong of me to comment on my successor. But this question of morale is made a lot of in the press. But the funny old thing when I talk to a lot of people serving and a lot of people just back from Afghanistan, that's not what I find. I find a quiet professional pride and satisfaction in courageous actions and Amen to that.

JH: General Sir Mike Jackson, many thanks.

MJ: Thank you.

COMMENT THREAD

Becoming part of the problem

General Sir Richard Dannatt is Chief of the General Staff, professional head of the Army – in which context he would be expected to know a thing or two about the state of the Army he commands.

Thus, when according to The Sunday Telegraph, he is warning that "years of Government under-funding and overstretch" have left troops feeling "devalued, angry and suffering from Iraq fatigue", his words must be given some weight.

And when we are told by the newspaper that he reveals "in a top-level report" that the present level of operations is "unsustainable", the Army is "under-manned" and increasing numbers of troops are "disillusioned" with service life, there is good reason to believe that there is a serious crisis within the Army.

Certainly, this thesis is entirely supported by the unofficial Army forum and, when defence secretary Des Brown tries to support his record as custodian of the Armed Forces, he gets barely a voice in support from the same forum.

Then we get Mick Smith in The Sunday Times who also plunges his dagger into the back of the MoD, his piece claiming that the MoD is admitting that "almost half of Britain's forces are unfit to be sent on operations because of equipment shortages."

We are thus told that paratroopers preparing to go to Afghanistan in April have to train with only six Land Rovers fitted with machineguns, instead of the 110 they should have, while there are only six Challenger 2 tanks available for training in the UK and Germany because others have been cannibalised to provide spares for Iraq.

Altogether, therefore, the picture looks unremittingly bleak, an almost unanimous view that the Army is "broken".

But then we look at the detail of what The Telegraph lists as the pinch points and we see issues such as delays to military inquests, military housing estates claimed as being unsafe and "being overrun by immigrant families".

There are claims of poor food quality, creating a "pot-noodle and sandwich" culture among junior soldiers, concerns about “work-life balance” and allegations that soldiers are "going sick" to get out of the Army.

Adding to the tale of woe is the complaint that leave is often cancelled or constrained "because of operational overstretch", harmony guidelines - the time between operational tours - are becoming meaningless, fitness in the Army is tailing off and more soldiers are medically downgraded and, the coup de grace, the Army is "no longer fun".

Looking at this in the round, this is also the Army where there is intense competition between battalions for Afghanistan deployments, an Army where soldiers on operations no longer have any complaints about personal kit – including the much maligned SA 80 rifle, which has matured into a reliable and effective weapon.

This is an Army which has received a substantial amount of new equipment, including the Mastiff, Bulldog and Viking vehicles, the Osprey body armour, and new UAVs, with more equipment on the way. This allows Browne to point out that the senior British commander in southern Iraq, Maj Gen Jonathan Shaw, said in June: "I have never seen a theatre so well supplied with new kit… this steady trickle of new kit has had real and almost instantaneous impact."

For sure, there are endless problems, and new ones are turning up all the time, but the picture is certainly not one of unremitting gloom that the media is painting.

Even some of the things that are wrong did not start with the current administration. There are, as even Patrick Mercer is prepared to concede, problems that existed ten years ago. Mercer, though, will have it that they should be solved by now and argues that "it is a disgrace that senior officers and ministers have allowed this [current situation] to happen."

But, if one takes the forces' accommodation (for troops and families), the issues are by no means straightforward. For sure, there are substandard billets but not a little of the problem is that even Privates are no longer prepared to live in barracks, thirty to a room, and are demanding single rooms – en suite - a standard to which not even junior officers could aspire as recently as thirty years ago.

Similarly, spouses and partners are no longer so willing to subordinate their aspirations to those of the Forces. Many wives – in Services which are still predominantly male – want to work and have their own careers. They do not take kindly to frequent postings and the disruptions that are inherent in marriage to Service Personnel. And neither are they so willing to pack their children off to boarding schools while they follow their husbands on the diminishing number of accompanied postings (and nor are they fully funded to do so – one of the more insensitive "cuts" in allowances that has done incalculable harm, done, incidentally on the Tory watch).

Without dwelling on this at too great a length – although we will, no doubt return to these issues – there are problems here that are far more complex and nuanced than is given credit for, and which would have any administration struggling to deal with. Not least is the fact that the Armed Forces are, by their very nature, huge, inflexible bureaucracies, which are slow to respond to change and are often insensitive in the way they treat people.

In short, therefore, by no means all the stresses and strains in the Army are as serious as they are made out, and by no means all of them can be resolved quickly or easily, even with massively (or any) increased spending. Many have their roots in society changes which lie outside the control of the Armed Forces.

Furthermore, when it comes to the role of Dannatt, we have to remember that, although he wears a uniform, he is primarily a politician, in competition with the other Services for his share of funding. He has his own agenda and will not be adverse to playing all the cards available to him, to favour the Army against its rivals.

Dannatt, though may be playing a dangerous game, courting the media in the way that he is – not least because the other Service chiefs have their agendas and will not be kindly disposed to what amounts to institutional queue-jumping.

But, while one might expect all the Service chiefs to fight their corners, an even darker game is being played by the media. Capitalising on the failures, the stresses and the problems in the Armed Forces, journalists are making no attempts to identify the subtleties, the diverse responsibilities and the fact that problems in any Armed Forces will be constantly emerging, to be dealt with as and when they arise.

Instead, the media is focusing on the politicians, turning defence issues into a simplistic "biff-bam" drama, using any and every failure (perceived or otherwise) as a stick with which to beat the government. By this means, the Armed Forces have become a political football. There is no real interest is identifying and solving specific problems – just a search for anything that can be used in the attack, even issues which have long since been resolved.

Therein lies great danger. With such unremitting gloom projected by the media – aided and abetted by the entirely negative agenda of the opposition parties – the overwhelming impression is one of doom and disaster. Over term, this cannot help but sap morale, as the troops and their families are led to believe the situation is worse than it is. Thus, the very problem which the media are so quick to highlight, is in danger of becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy.

If we are not already there, we are getting to a stage where the activities of media are actively undermining the morale of the Armed Forces. Having moved beyond reporting, they are becoming part of the problem.

COMMENT THREAD

A lucky escape

The MoD website tells a tale of how alert British soldiers in Afghanistan defeated a Taliban suicide attack on their convoy as it was returning to base.

The soldiers, from the 473 Special Observation Post Battery, 5 Regiment Royal Artillery, were heading back to the camp in Gereshk after a reconnaissance mission when a white Toyota Corolla suddenly pulled out and attempted to drive into their convoy of Pinzgauer vehicles.

Suspecting a suicide car bomber – correctly as it turned out - the first Pinzgauer swerved to avoid the car and the top cover sentry, Corporal Lee Wilbor, fired a single shot through its window, causing the driver to collapse at the wheel. But the Toyota carried on, swerving erratically into the path of the rear vehicle, whose soldiers opened fire causing the car to veer out of the way before it dramatically exploded.

The patrol leader, Captain James Ashworth (son of John Ashworth, of "Save Britain's Fish" fame), later said that his first thought was "what is this guy up to?", as the local traffic usually pulls over. He then shouted a warning and his top cover sentry, Corporal Wilbor, "fired a single well aimed round". The rear vehicle then opened fire on the target and the bomb detonated. Luckily the car was between our two vehicles and they were sufficiently far apart from the blast not to sustain any serious injuries.

Despite the closeness of the blast, it caused only slight damage to the vehicles and some of the patrol sustained minor blast injuries like nose bleeds. Unfortunately, an Afghan motorcyclist who had been trying to pass as the bomb was detonated, was not so lucky. Catching the full force of the blast, he had died instantly.

This type of incident, however, is all too common in Afghanistan and is redolent of the attack in Kandahar on a Royal Marine Commando WIMIK in December 2006. Then, three Marines were injured, one seriously, and a number of Afghan civilians were killed in the ensuing gunfire from surviving Marines who thought they were under attack from Taliban gunmen.

The difference between this and the latest incident, however, is that that the crews in the latter survived with only minor injuries and the only civilian casualty was caused by the suicide bomber. That explained why the media gave considerable coverage to the Royal Marine incident, but there has also been some limited coverage of this incident, in The Daily Mirror (which claims an "exclusive", although publishes on-line only) and in some of the regional newspapers.

However, the incident raises another point, one which we rehearsed when the Royal Marine WIMIK was struck – and many times since – the fact that the British Armed Forces are still using dangerously vulnerable vehicles, which cannot protect them from IEDs – unlike the Canadian RG-31s, the picture of which we have seen before.

Although it is interesting to note that the Pinzgauers in the picture have side armour sheets attached to them, these vehicles, if anything, are considerably more vulnerable than WIMIKs, especially when it comes to mine strikes and buried IEDs.

That notwithstanding, the crews survived the attack and this highlights an important dimension to the debate about better armour. Arguably, the top sentry in an open-topped vehicle would have had better "situational awareness" than men hunkered down behind layers of armour and was thus – as events have demonstrated – well positioned to detect and take action against a suicide bomber.

On the other hand, had the top gunner failed to intervene, it is unlikely that the crew would have survived uninjured whereas the crew of an armoured vehicle might have.

This, though, is not the full extent of the issues which need to be taken into consideration. The vehicles attacked were part of a reconnaissance unit, the duties of which take it into rough terrain, for which the cross-country performance of the Pinzgauer is admirably suited. A MRAP-type vehicle such as the RG-31 might be less suited this role. One could, therefore, be trading better protection for worse off-road performance, the lack of which could compromise the mission capability.

Where the balance of advantage lies in any particular case is impossible to determine without better knowledge of the specific factors but, if dangerously vulnerable vehicles are to continue in use, the Army needs to make the case that missions would indeed be comprised by better armour. So far, that case has not been made.

Thus, in all respects, we must indeed regard this latest incident as a lucky escape. But the Army should not be relying on luck alone.

COMMENT THREAD

The Saturday "toy"

An atmospheric picture of US Marine Corps amphibious assault vehicles. They are launching from the landing ship USS Juneau (LPD 10) on 14 November 2007, during a joint training exercise with the South Korean military, in the Sea of Japan.

Photo courtesy of the US Department of Defense, taken by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class David Didier, US Navy (Click the pic to enlarge).

Into the premier league!

Now, two days after The Daily Telegraph broke the news, brief details of the British Army operations in Musa Qala have finally hit the MoD website.

But the fact that only the Telegraph ran the initial reports, from an embedded reporter, shrieks of a deal, the MoD trading exclusive coverage of an event in exchange for a guarantee of publicity. Thus it is that news of a major British operation is deemed to be the property of the MoD, to be traded for favours offered by a commercial company – in this case The Daily Telegraph - to exploit for its own financial gain.

Clearly though, if information about British military actions is a tradable commodity, the MoD (and its predecessor) has been missing all sorts of opportunities. Just think, the War Office could have given exclusive rights to, say, The Daily Express (then the biggest seller) for coverage of the 1944 invasion of Normandy. Bids for Market Garden, the ill-fated Arnhem operation, could have been put up for auction and, of course, a premium might have been expected for the crossing of the Rhine.

But why stop there? The possibilities are endless. The MoD could get press organs to sponsor different battles, encouraged by opportunities to place their logos on the armoured vehicles and advertising slogans on personal armour. The Sun would really go for that. That newspaper might even sponsor a new Predator UAV, which the MoD could arrange to tow an advertising banner over the battlefield.

Even then, the creativity should not stop there - why limit this to deals with the media? With a bit of imagination, the MoD might get some interest from MacDonalds, with prominent slogans on the soldiers' rations, and exclusive interviews with victorious troops who could be schooled to extol the virtues of "chicken McNuggets" as a war-winner.

However, in the interests of fairness, one must not forget the enemy. With a little bit of careful negotiation, the Taleban could perhaps be persuaded to share the TV rights. The battles could then be carefully orchestrated so that live coverage could be beamed to the UK to coincide with prime-time television. The highest bidders could also be offered post-battle interviews with both sides, while the rest would be given action-replays of the highlights, at reduced fees.

Come to think of it, if the MoD really got organised, it could arrange "premier league" battles and run a whole season of them. There could be a cup for the victors, the "finals" being fought out at the end of the campaigning season. These "premier league" battles would, of course, attract long-term sponsorship deals, with the sponsors' logos embossed on the SA 80s and air support provided exclusively by B&Q Eurofighters.

Therein, obviously, lies the counter to defence cuts. Once the commercial opportunities of British operations have been fully exploited, the military could become wholly self-financing.

And, as historians write of the Barclay's battle for Musa Qala, fought by the Clydesdale Bank Guards and the 40th Vauxhall MasterFix Commandos in their Subaru Vikings, we could rest in the comforting knowledge that, at last, the British Army will be properly kitted out. Furthermore, we look forward to seeing the cup winners welcomed home after each successful season, to do tours of their home towns in the Carlsberg open-topped bus.

I think the MoD is really onto something here.

COMMENT THREAD

Do they protest too much?

"Troops get rough deal, says Chief of Defence", proclaims The Daily Telegraph, heralding an "exclusive" interview with Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, chief of the defence staff.

The trouble is that we do not get the transcript of the interview, but journalist Con Coughlin's version of it. This means that the "framing" and general emphasis is dictated by the newspaper and does not necessarily represent the priorities of the interviewee.

With that said, the message conveyed by the paper is that the covenant between the Armed Forces and the British people is under growing threat from the poor conditions and lack of understanding shown to troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is the first time Sir Jock has spoken publicly on the issue and he is apparently complaining that "troops who have put their lives in danger on the front line have to accept poor standards of accommodation and a lack of appreciation from the public when they arrive home." And, we are told, "he backs the growing campaign for returning regiments to be rewarded with parades." He is also quoted as saying:

Some of them come back into accommodation that is less than salubrious, they come back to relatively short periods at home, they don't get to spend enough time with their families, they don't get enough time to spend training and all of that creates an enormous amount of pressure for them back home.

Equally they are concerned the British public does not appreciate or understand what they do. We need to express that a bit more visibly. I welcome recent efforts to do that. We need to have a little more tangible and visible expression of our appreciation.

These pronouncements follow a long line of interventions from former and now current Service chiefs and, so regular are they now becoming, that one wonders whether a point might be reached where they actually might prove counter-productive.

In this, one turns to the general public perception of farmers – an oppressed minority if ever there was one, if only by its own account. In fact, and especially now, farmers – or, at least, livestock farmers, are having an exceptionally rough time of it. But so embedded in the public mind is the vision of the "grumbling farmer" that their complaints have very little impact.

There lies the danger for the military. Undoubtedly, there are some hard cases and there are enormous stresses on certain parts of the military. But the pressures are not uniform and, for many, a career in the Services is a challenging and relatively well-paid experience.

Furthermore, neither are the operations creating as much stress as the media might make out – not as long as regiments are actively competing with each other for deployments in theatre, and individuals actively seek out active service. After all, for many, it is the prospect of such service that many people actually join the Forces.

But the more substantive point is that, if Sir Jock is complaining (or relaying complaints) that we "lack of understanding" of what the troops are going through, perhaps he needs to recall his own interview with The Times in October, where he spoke of the failure of the government, as a whole (military included) to communicate the strategic prospects for southern Iraq.

As we observed at the time, that failure of communication was not limited just to a single episode, which puts us back in familiar territory, the failure of the military and the MoD to communicate effectively with the general public. To an extent, therefore, if we the public "lack of understanding" of what our Service personnel are doing, it is because we are so poorly informed about them. Some of that must be laid at the door of the very people who complain about our lack of understanding.

This is the point we made again in our last piece and, while there are obviously intensive operations being undertaken in Afghanistan, still the MoD has not seen fit to inform us directly of what is going on, and what our troops are going through.

In this "communication age", where the message must in any event compete with the torrent of information and entertainment that assails the public, the military (and the MoD) must begin to understand the reality – that it cannot expect, as of right, that its message will he heard unless it makes it accessible and uses an array of media techniques to rise above the "noise" level.

This may be unfair and unjust, but that is indeed the reality. I suspect that the unmitigated flow of "hard done by" stories without a more imaginative, balancing flow of information might eventually do no more than put the military in the same bracket as farmers.

COMMENT THREAD

Good news is no news …

Out of the blue this morning we learnt from The Daily Telegraph that the British Army was mounting an major operation aimed at recovering Musa Qala from the Taleban.

This was the town in the centre of the northern sector of Helmund province, controversially abandoned by the Army in October 2006 after a deal with the tribal elders of the town, only to have the Taliban move in shortly afterwards.

Although there was speculation in March of this year that Nato forces were poised to recover the town, with the launch of "Operation Achilles", which involved over 4,500 coalition troops, plus 1,000 soldiers from the Afghan National Army (ANA) nothing came of it, or subsequent operations until late October, when coalition forces moved back into the area.

This came with the pacification of Sangin, largely attributed to the intervention of the Warriors, and it is now clear that the Army is better positioned for an assault on what has been called "Afghanistan's Terror University Town"

The Telegraph majors on British forces capitalising on a Taleban "split", with one of the four senior Taliban commanders in the area, Mullah Abdul Salaam, in negotiations with the Afghan government, indicating that he wishes to defect with up to a third of the forces defending Musa Qala.

Not stated by the paper, which did not cover the recent successes, the weakening of Salaam's resolve must surely be partly influenced by the new potency of the British Army. But such issues do not register with the Telegraph which – like most of the media – is wholly failing to develop a narrative account of Afghani operations.

A newspaper can, of course, please itself about what it covers, but totally inexcusable is a similar lack of narrative – and a complete absence of urgency – on the MoD website. While the Telegraph has at least covered the current operation, not so the MoD, which has not added to its website on Afghan operations since 6 November.

We have remarked before about the what Nicholas Soames called the "Ministry of Defence's dismal performance in respect of telling the story of the astonishing achievements and activities of British troops on operations" – and here we have yet another example.

There are no security issues involved in the MoD publishing its own account of the current operation, otherwise the Telegraph could not have published. An alert MoD publicity team would have had their own version of events up on the website, linking to the Telegraph story to coincide with its publication.

Had the team been even more on the ball, it could have made an arrangement with the Telegraph to put the MoD site link on their own story, with a live link on their online version, to the story it could have run, exploiting the synergy created by such an opportunity.

As it is, on reading the Telegraph report, any reader turning to the MoD website for more detail and additional photographs would have found nothing. And, as any blogger will know, if there is nothing relevant up on the site, many people will not bother returning. In this context, a piece up days or even hours after the Telegraph story is a wasted opportunity. The moment has gone.

Elsewhere, my colleague writes yet again on the importance of winning the propaganda war and, once more, the MoD is found wanting. Despite all its resources, when it come to good news, all that seems to mean to this sluggish department is simply no news.

COMMENT THREAD

The Brown paradox

Gordon Brown's enthusiasm for the new EU treaty – or at least his stubborn resistance to holding a referendum on it – has the hallmarks of a rabid Europhiliac. But, according to The Financial Times he is by no means buying into the whole package, reportedly resisting France's attempts to rejoin Nato as a full member.

Full membership of Nato is at the heart of Sarkozy's newly minted Atlanticism, and a central part of the pitch he made in a speech to a joint session of Congress during his visit to Washington last week.

However, at the same time, he is making fuller participation conditional on the European Union acquiring a greater capacity to deploy troops and manage crises, alongside Nato, which is apparently causing concern in Downing Street. Senior officials in Paris interpret this as a deep-seated reluctance in Gordon Brown's government to adopt any big European initiatives.

The suspicion is probably well founded, as any further engagement by France in Nato is undoubtedly motivated by an ambition to become the lead European power, leading to the prospect of a Nato run by France.

Sarkozy, though, has invested a great deal of political capital in this scheme, intending to make defence one of the main priorities for French EU presidency, which starts in the second half of 2008. He wants, we are told, to kick off a debate in the summer about ways of boosting the EU's defence capabilities, with decisions by the end of the year.

This will have enormous symbolic significance as it will mark the tenth anniversary of the "ground-breaking" defence agreement in St Malo in 1998, between Chirac and Tony Blair, launching the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF), when there are high expectations of taking European defence integration to the next stage.

Brown's reluctance, though, seems more than skin deep. The expected defence "cuts" are an indicator, especially if they are seen more in the context of a re-prioritisation of defence policy.

If they lead to a greater focus on supporting current operations, and a reduction in the expeditionary capability which lies at the heart of the ERRF concept, then it will be a significant distancing not only from the European “defence identity” but from the legacy forged by Blair in the early Europhiliac phase of the New Labour government.

This may explain why former CGS General Guthrie has come out of the woodwork, demanding a commitment to greater defence spending. Known to be strongly supportive of UK involvement in a Euro Army, part of his tenure as CGS - from 1997 to 2001 - coincided with that of Europhiliac Geoff Hoon as defence secretary. They pair between them did much to drive forward the European defence agenda in the British forces.

The result was that, however, with the commitment to the ERRF, British defence policy was split between the Euro-centric expeditionary concept and the need to support current operations, alongside the United States. This the UK could not afford, without substantial extra spending which was not forthcoming. That tension created many of the financial stresses that are current affecting defence.

If the policy realignment is leaning in favour of current operations – as seems likely – the only way Guthrie can rescue anything of the European agenda is to force more money of the Treasury, which seems extremely unlikely. But that does not stop him trying.

Therein lies the paradox. Brown, the prime minister who is actively supporting the biggest extension of European political integration since Maastricht (if not before), seems on track to be the prime minister who brings Blair's grandiose plans for European defence integration (which is also a central part of political integration) to a grinding halt.

This is certainly the way it looks, and it does not make sense.

COMMENT THREAD

The sharpening of knives

To any serious defence analyst – and even this blog – the signs of impending defence cuts are unmistakable. Something is in the wind, as we remarked last Friday.

And so it is that The Sunday Telegraph today headlines, "MoD in £1bn battle to stay within budget", while The Sunday Times has, "MoD planning massive cuts to plug £2bn gap".

In its own self-regarding way, The Telegraph could not resist having its defence correspondent, Sean Rayment, preening that, "The Sunday Telegraph has learnt," in order to tell us: "Military chiefs plan to shelve some of the country's costliest military projects to stave off a financial crisis …".

Nevertheless, the information is useful, as we learn that, "The Ministry of Defence needs to save about £350 million annually for the next three years to stay in budget, which is only possible if projects are shelved or cancelled." But that, even from this garret in West Yorkshire, 200 miles from the seat of power in London, is a statement of the bleedin' obvious.

The rest is speculation, with Rayment writing that, "The RAF and Royal Navy look poised to take the brunt of the squeeze with the possibility that projects such as the Eurofighter programme, the RAF's Future Strategic Tanker and the Trident replacement programme could be axed." He adds that, "Many senior officers believe that the funding crisis would be solved by cancelling the contract for the final 88 of the RAF's 232 Eurofighter aircraft, which would save £4 billion."

The comment about the Eurofighter is probably true, but as we pointed out, cancellation is not going to be that easy. Not only is there a strong industrial lobby supporting the purchase, the multi-national structure of the contract is such that cancellation penalties might actually cost more than buying the aircraft.

Turning to The Sunday Times, one gets a sense of the way the battle will be fought, with Mick Smith writing that, "The government is planning big cuts in an attempt to plug a £2 billion black hole in the defence budget…", with him adding that, "All three services will be affected, with at least one major programme axed and reductions in vital ships and ground attack aircraft."

One could take it that Smith intends the qualifying adjective "vital" to apply to both the ships and the "ground attack aircraft" and he is undoubtedly referring to the Trache 3 Eurofighter contract. Vital, in our view, it is not – it is a millstone around the neck of the Defence programme - but there are plenty of people prepared to argue otherwise, and we can expect a succession of "shroud waving", warning of the dire consequences to "our boys" if these hideously expensive white elephants are not bought.

However, as a sign that the supertanker is at last turning, The Telegraph allows the comment that, "But for many senior officers the problem with the defence budget is how the money is spent rather than increasing the amount of cash available." Rayment then cites Tim Collins, who …

…believes the problem lies with the defence procurement agency, the department responsible for monitoring defence spending. He told this newspaper: "Money must be found from somewhere to upgrade the Armed Forces. That doesn't mean there is not enough money in defence: it is just not being spent properly.

"The first thing that should be done is to disband the defence procurement executive. Two 23-year-old women with a defence catalogue could do a better job than those people in the MoD.

"There is enough money to provide a decent defence with a worldwide capability, but it is mismanaged and what we need to do is to stop the waste, and procurement is the biggest waste of money in defence.

No doubt, Collins is picking up the vibes from his pals in the defence establishment, but this is no more or less than what this blog has been highlighting, virtually since its inception – that procurement is the key to defence policy.

Furthermore, after many years of neglect of this vital subject – with the politicians far too willing to pander to the military obsession for shiny new and increasingly expensive new "toys" – it is quite clear that this is where the debate on defence is now focused. The issue is not so much "cuts" but a realignment of priorities. Much blood will be spilt before the issues are resolved, as the different factions fight vicious rearguard actions to save their favoured projects.

It is in this light that we then turn to the Telegraph op-ed, which is given over, on Remembrance Sunday, to the leader of the Opposition, David Cameron. And, in what must be the first time, he writes exclusively about defence.

But, if Cameron is aware of the debate raging throughout Whitehall and the defence establishment, he gives absolutely no sign of it. His contributions to the fighting efficiency of our Armed Forces are a trite reference to defence spending as a proportion of GDP, and a "motherhood and apple pie" injunction that, "We have to spend our money more wisely and get more of it to the front line."

However, all that translates into concrete terms is: "That's why Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, has made it his priority to restore those cuts to the Army, and the three battalions that have been abolished in recent years."

For the rest, Cameron continues his obsession with regarding the Armed Forces as an adjunct to the welfare state, making his personal priority the, "Forces' Families Manifesto." His fine sentiments press all the buttons in the "emotion department" but there is no recognition that it is hard-headed realism in defence spending that saves lives and makes the money available for the welfare improvements that he – and everyone else – wants to see.

It is thus in the "hard-headed realism" department that we have yet to see any steel from the Conservative Party which, again as we have pointed out before, means that it is not even part of the debate.

Unless they wake up to what is really going on, the Party's unfocused bleating will be drowned out by the sound of the knives being sharpened against the grinding stone of realism.

COMMENT THREAD

The eleventh hour ...

... of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month. We shall not forget.

What is this aircraft for?

There has been a flurry of coverage on the Nimrod MR2s deployed on operations in Afghanistan, not least by the BBC which was, at times, running the latest fuel leak incident as its lead item on the radio news.

As before, some of the best coverage came from Mick Smith, of The Times, who reported that the pilot of an RAF Nimrod that suffered a major fuel leak while flying over southern Afghanistan on Monday could not get air traffic controllers to hear his mayday call.

But the story was also covered by the likes of The Daily Mail which is of interest in that it added a comment on the role of the Nimrods, stating: "Their real-time video surveillance intelligence is of enormous value to commanders on the ground."

That providing this intelligence appears to be the main role of the MR2s in Afghanistan has led this blog to question, several times why such an expensive asset should be used for such a role, when it could be done by cheaper aircraft, or even UAVs such as the newly introduced Reaper.

It was that latter assertion which drew a stiff response on the unofficial Army forum with a commentary from a serving RAF officer. One of his substantive points was that Afghanistan "is a big country" and that a Reaper transits at about 200kts. An MR2, however, "can transit considerably faster."

Elsewhere, however, from the same writer we get the comment that "fast jet assets … are particularly useful this respect due to their ability to move around the battlespace rapidly … they lack persistence."

From this, we can infer that the current operational situation requires coverage of multiple sites, for which there are not enough surveillance assets. Thus, such that are available are being used to cover a wide area, overflying different sites in the course of single missions, providing some coverage of each but not available full-time at any of them – hence the lack of "persistence". In that way, the ability to transit rapidly between different sites gives the Nimrod the edge over the slower-moving Reaper.

This raises precisely the issue we have rehearsed on this blog many times – essentially the interplay between quantity and cost. Obviously, for a given budget, the cheaper the asset is to acquire and operate, the more you can afford. On the other hand, higher priced assets mean fewer, which then have to work harder.

But, if working harder means covering more sites at the expense of "persistence", and cheaper assets allow more to be purchased thus allowing coverage of as many (or more) sites, and offering "persistence", then the cheaper assets would seem to be a better deal.

Nevertheless, things are never that simple. While assets such as the Predator would have to be purchased de novo, creating additional demands on the public purse, the Nimrods are already on the inventory, bought and paid for. Furthermore, unless they are to be mothballed or written off, they must be flown routinely to maintain crew proficiency, in the event that they should be needed for their primary roles.

On that basis, a true cost-comparison is between the cost of acquiring the new assets (amortised over operating life) plus the operating costs and the additionalcosts of deploying the Nimrods, together with the cost of intensive as opposed to routine operations. That could, of course, change the balance of advantage, which must then be weighed against the utility of greater "persistence".

Even then, there is another factor. Nimrods, unlike the Predators, provide more than just what is termed FMV (full motion video) although our RAF commentator is less than explicit as to what other tasks they perform. The view taken is, "if you don't know the answer to that, you don't need to know."

However, the RAF website is more informative, noting that, in addition to "electro-optic" IMINT (Image Intelligence), the Nimrods also provide "communications support" to coalition ground troops – presumably acting as a flying relay station to keep troops in contact with their operations centres, outside the normal range of their own radios.

One can imagine also that other functions could be carried out, such as monitoring Taleban mobile telephone traffic and their radio communications, plus monitoring other radio-frequency and infra-red emissions (or signatures) which might give clues to the presence of hidden IEDs. Those functions, though, are more associated with another variant of the Nimrod, the R1 electronic surveillance aircraft, an example of the success of which we recorded last year.

Just to add another complication, while it can be conceded that the additional functions of the Nimrod (whatever they might be) confer added value, it is not necessarily the case that the mission profiles for electro-optical surveillance are compatible with those in which other tasks are performed – i.e., whether the Nimrod performs these tasks simultaneously or separately, at different times in different areas. In the latter event, it might be more appropriate to reserve the additional functions for the Nimrod, and leave the electro-optical surveillance to the Reapers (and/or a combination of other, cheaper assets).

The problem is that, since many of the functions performed are shrouded in secrecy (sometimes needlessly), it is difficult attribute costs to them. Thus, it becomes almost impossible to make informed comparisons between the Nimrods and other platforms – which might also include light aircraft or the long-awaited Sentinel.

However, accepting the military assessment of values – staffed by people whose first concern has never been noted to be cost-effectiveness and who have their own agendas – means, in effect, handing over a blank check. From a more general perspective, this also means that there is no obvious mechanism for democratic oversight of military spending. Nor, under such a regime, is it really possible to assess accurately concerns that the military is truly underfunded (as it will always claim).

Yet, as we can see from US experience, where scrutiny appears to be more thorough, wastage and inefficiencies are not uncommon.

But when, as we also see, the use of the current assets – the Nimrods – appear to be putting lives at risk then, whether the military likes it or not, we are entitled to ask, "what is this aircraft for?".

COMMENT THREAD

Straws in the wind

Predictably, the print media today follows up yesterday’s launch of the UK National Defence Association but, with the issues having been well-rehearsed on the web, one almost gets a sense of déjà vu.

It is a measure of the level of debate, though, that some of the papers pick as their headline a comment made by former Tory MP Winston Churchill, asserting that, "We cannot continue to expect the Armed Forces to pay the price in blood for the underfunding of the military today."

This is thus translated by The Daily Mail as, "Armed forces are 'paying in blood' for defence cuts", by The Daily Telegraph as "Forces are 'paying in blood for lack of funding'" and by The Scotsman as "UK troops 'paying price in blood' for inadequate military funding".

The Guardian, however, is more direct, with "Military chiefs demand more cash", echoed by The Daily Mirror which trumpets: "Military chiefs call for cash". The Times contents itself with, "Retired military chiefs join forces to battle for a bigger war chest" and the Independent – which has been so vocal about the "military covenant" - is silent, choosing to ignore the issue.

But, while most of the papers do cover the story, very few seem to have editorialised, one of the few being The Times which focuses the coverage more tightly, arguing that, "Spending for frontline troops must be increased".

Interestingly, this was not exactly the specific line that Guthrie conveyed – he and his colleagues were arguing for global increases in defence spending - but the Times leader instead complains that, "The balance of spending is badly skewed," going on to argue that, "What is urgently needed now is better support for frontline troops."

More in tune with the Demos report, it notes that the bulk of the money is committed to costly long-term projects, pointing out that:

Strategists argue that commitments must be made decades in advance, and that since it is impossible to anticipate the needs of a modern army or navy in 20 years' time, options must not be jeopardised. Increasing defence spending at the expense of domestic programmes is electorally unpopular. And since the "fat" has repeatedly been trimmed, there is all the more urgency for monitoring - and, if necessary, scrapping - of large projects.

That The Times is signalling the scrapping of large projects is possibly quite significant. Often seen as close to the New Labour "project", the paper is sometimes credited with an inside track. Therefore, this "suggestion" may be something more than the invention of the febrile mind of a leader writer, and be signalling a shift in government policy.

Certainly, we saw something of a shift in the recent announcement of the purchase of additional Mastiff (MRAP) protected vehicles, funded directly from the Defence budget. This, we felt, reflected a new realism about the need to ensure exactly that which The Times is advocating – better support for frontline troops.

This also brings into high profile Gen. Dannatt's recent speech at the International Institute for Strategic Studies - one part of which we highlighted earlier - now seems to have considerable importance. Buried towards the end, and given no coverage by the media, he said:

We also need to radically rethink the way that we think about our equipment. We need to start from the bottom by looking at equipping the man first and building the system around him. Too often we have been seduced by high technology, sometimes without really understanding what it can deliver or how it can improve our effectiveness. I would like to see us spend more programmed money in getting the very lowest level right – and, I have to say, we have made great improvements here recently. This will need to manifest itself in buying in bulk those capabilities that we now rely on in our medium scale operations. After all, which government is going to send its troops into harm's way without the best equipment available?

There are other indications that priorities are changing, with the recent urgent procurement of Hermes 450 UAVs - without waiting for the full "Watchkeeper" package, with all its bells and whistles, and the delivery of the Reaper UAV to Afghanistan. Furthermore, with an announcement of additional MRAP vehicles imminent, and some hopes of extra helicopter support, this suggests that the MoD priorities may be centring on those three areas: protected vehicles, UAVs and helicopters.

If that was the case, it would represent a major turnaround from even last year, and perhaps a victory of Des Browne and his advisors, as well as the current CGS Air Chief Marshall Sir Jock Stirrup – all of whom are known to be advocates of better support for current operations.

That leaves, however, the question which – if any – of the "large projects" is most at risk, in order to fund this new realism. The Times identifies the carriers at £3.9 billion, the 150 Joint Strike Fighters at £10 billion, the Eurofighter programme, and the Type 45 destroyers. It does not mention FRES though. Possibly, with that latter project having the lowest public profile – few journalists even able to tell you what it is – the axe might fall here, with compensation offered by way of the protected vehicles that are to be procured.

Such are the straws in the wind though: Dannatt, the Demos report and now The Times - plus much else – that the possibility of a major shift in defence policy seems to be too strong to ignore.

COMMENT THREAD

The grim Reaper

Well, not so grim, unless you happen to be a Taleban in Afghanistan – the first of the RAF's Reaper Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have arrived, (rightly) hailed as "Britain's most sophisticated unmanned surveillance system".

Operated by 39 Squadron, which was the last unit to fly Canberra PR9 surveillance aircraft, the equipment may be very different but their role is the same – providing all-weather, intelligence for commanders and ground forces, now grandly named "Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance" (ISTAR). It is not only defence expenditure which is undergoing inflation, but titles as well.

That aside, the procurement is another "success" for the Urgent Operational Requirement (UOR) system which has brought the Reapers into the field in a mere 15 months. In MoD terms, this is roughly equivalent to Star Trek's USS Enterprise doing Warp 9 – perhaps Drayson's parting gift to the troops.

On a day when Guthrie and his merry men are bitching about underspending and "overstretch", this also represents a real investment is useful technology and a significant enhancement in capability.

With the three machines planned, each with a 42-hour endurance in the surveillance mode, they will be able to provide genuine 24-hour coverage over operational areas when needed. They will thus take much of the load from the ageing Nimrods, which are currently providing much of the ISTAR function.

Had these, or their predecessor, the Predator, been available earlier, perhaps we would not have had the well-rehearsed problems with the Nimrod.

Although the Reaper in RAF service is currently unarmed, it is capable of being armed and the MoD is investigating arming options. Potential weapons fit includes GBU-12 Paveway II laser guided bombs, Hellfire air-to-ground missiles and even GBU-38 JDAM bombs, making them formidable attack weapons.

The betting is, however, that this development will receive scant attention from the media which is happy to report on shortages of kit and its inadequacies, when it suits it, but rarely (as with the Warriors ) reports the good news. We, on this blog – as far as we can – will continue to report both.

Reaper photos courtesy of MoD. Click the pics to enlarge.

COMMENT THREAD

How about value for money?

The soft-spoken, eminently "reasonable" Lord Guthrie, former chief of the defence staff, led the charge this morning, with a long interview on the BBC Today programme this morning, getting an easy ride from the deferential John Humprys – all to deliver a very simple message: give us more money!

The hook for this particular exercise in rattling the collecting tin was the launch of the UK National defence association, which also offers a worthy "founding document" on its website.

Says Guthrie to the uncritical Humphrys, "Defence has been underfunded – I think everybody who's involved in defence really understands that," and one can almost see the sage nod of agreement from the BBC's pre-eminent current affairs guru, as the former CDS lays out his case.

The story is then picked up on the BBC website and rushed onto numerous media websites, not least The Daily Telegraph - and many more.

The Telegraph rehash, however, is interesting in that it juxtaposes the Guthrie story with a reference to a report in today's paper. This retails "fresh doubts" over the safety of the Nimrod after "it emerged that a plane put out a Mayday call over Afghanistan on Monday when crew discovered fuel pouring into the bomb bay." The incident, says the paper, appears to mirror the events that led to the death of 14 servicemen when a Nimrod exploded in mid-air last year, after its crew had found fuel leaking during refuelling.

That story, however – as we pointed out - goes to the heart of the defence spending debate, yet is one which the likes of Guthrie and the media are not even beginning to address – the issue of value for money.

The clue, though, lies not in the Telegraph but in a more comprehensive report in The Times published yesterday. This adds to the detail provided by Mick Smith of the Sunday Times that the pressure to keep the Nimrods flying stemmed from their "capability to feed real-time video surveillance of the battlefield direct to commanders on the ground".


In our comment on Smith's piece, we remarked that the very same capability could be provided far more cheaply by different assets, not least the Britten Norman Defender, three of which were purchased by the Army in 2003 (pictured above), the whereabouts of which are currently unknown.

Now, we do not know the operating costs of Nimrods (although we are attempting to find out) but would be surprised if it was less than £100,000 per hour. Times six – the number based in Oman in support of ground operations in Afghanistan - and that represents a huge tranche of money to provide a capability which the Defenders could deliver, at £1,500 per hour.

This one example puts the whole question of "underfunding" into perspective yet, cited by The Telegraph is Winston Churchill, former Tory MP and grandson of the Second World War leader, who told GMTV earlier today that the shortfall in spending is "…why people are flying in Nimrod aircraft that should have been phased out 10 years ago and why other frontline troops don't have sufficient equipment."

To give another, highly topical example, there is general accord that the operations in Afghanistan are critically short of helicopter lift capacity, to which effect the MoD has acquired six Merlin helicopters, originally sold to the Danish. Even this provides no immediate relief, as they will not be in service until next year and, only now, through the good offices of Ann Winterton, do we know how much they are costing.

According to a Parliamentary answer, the total cost of the helicopters is £176 million, putting the cost per individual aircraft at £29.3 million. At nearly £30 million each – which accounts partly for the huge hourly cost of £34,000 an hour – compare this with the purchase price of a refurbished "as new" Huey of $3.5 million (less than £2 million each) or the operating cost of a Mi-8 (equivalent in load capacity to the Merlin) at £2,500 per hour.

On a completely different tack, we have applauded the MoD and Army for – at last – fielding Warriors in Afghanistan (illustrated below) which, in a very short space of time, have managed to clear the upper Helmand valley of the Taliban. Yet, how many operations have there been conducted in this area of operations – some amounting to 1,000 plus men - which had been unsuccessful, the territory having subsequently been reoccupied by the Taleban. What has been the cost of these failed operations?

And, on that basis, how can the Armed Forces, which are so profligate with their spending seriously complain of "underfunding"?

There are so many other examples of waste and inefficiency in the Forces – which run throughout this blog – that the idea of giving them more money, under current circumstances, is equivalent to giving a drunk more money because he has spent the housekeeping on booze. Give the Services more money and – pound to a penny – they will simply rush out and buy more expensive new "toys" with little thought to their contribution to operational efficiency.

That is the element missing from the current debate, one consistently ignored by the media. We hear so much of the "military covenant" – about what we, as society, owe our troops who risk their lives on our behalf. But there is another "covenant" between the taxpayer and the defence establishment. We pay them but their obligation is to provide value for money.

Thus, General Lord Guthrie, plus Admiral Lord Boyce and Marshal of the RAF Lord Craig, together with former foreign secretary Lord Owen, may think they are doing the right thing in launching their UK National Defence Association. But until they can come forward with some sensible, balancing ideas of how money could be more effectively spent, their campaign for a "major increase in defence spending" lacks credibility.

COMMENT THREAD

Led by the nose

Some 238 articles recorded by Google News about today's Coroner's Inquest verdict on Fusilier Gordon Gentle tell you one thing – that the media have lost the plot.

The point is that, barring a few textual changes and more or less detail, all the accounts are basically the same, recording the unlawful killing of Fusilier Gentle, who died in Basra on 28 June 2004 while riding in a "Snatch" Land Rover.

A contributory factor was, according to the assistant coroner Selena Lynch, the failure of the Army to fit electronic counter-measures (ECM) to the vehicle. "It is probable that the device would not have been detonated if the escort had been equipped with an ECM," she is cited as saying.

In the absence of any further detail as to how Lynch reached her conclusion – the media not even attempting to go down that path – we cannot determine how she can be so definitive, offering a "probable" rather than "possible". There is no information on the method of initiation of the bomb – had it been a command-wire detonation, no amount of ECM would have helped.

But, whether or not detonation could have been prevented, there is one thing that still could have saved Fusilier Gentle: a more adequately armoured vehicle rather than the highly vulnerable "Snatch" Land Rover. Courtesy of the BBC, we see pictures of the stricken Land Rover (top left and right) and, blurred though the images are, it is evidently far less damaged than some of the protected vehicles, in which crews have survived.

The one thing that was not discussed during the inquest, however, was the vulnerability of the "Snatch" Land Rover, and it is here that the media, in writing their stories, display very short memories. There has been one previous inquest in which a "Snatch" Land Rover was involved, investigating the deaths of Pte Phillip Hewett, 2nd Lt Richard Shearer and Pte Leon Spicer.

This was at the end of January this year when the coroner ruled that she could make no recommendation to the Ministry of Defence about the use of the Land Rovers because it is beyond her jurisdiction. And, as with this inquest, the coroner was Selena Lynch.

Through that inquest, we saw a determination of the Army witnesses to play down the role of the Land Rover, that time arguing that because the bomb was an explosively formed projectile, nothing could have protected the soldiers. This time, however, we see a focus on the ECM, and again the vulnerability of the Land Rover was not discussed.

What we are seeing, therefore, is the determination of the Army and the MoD to evade being brought to account over the deployment of dangerously vulnerable vehicles. They are using diversionary tactics to draw attention away from the one thing that could definitely (not probably) have saved the life of Fusilier Gentle and many of his comrades – better armoured vehicles. In this, they are being aided by a compliant coroner who is only too willing to assist in what amounts to a cover-up.

The media, living for the day – with no thought of delving deeper and linking the two inquests – are being led by the nose. They have fallen into line and printed the headlines on offer. And 238 near-identical articles say they can't be wrong. Thus are we served.

COMMENT THREAD