Difference between revisions of "Globalisation:First Defence Documents"

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degree of public criticism by the former First Sea Lord which it would be perilous to
 
degree of public criticism by the former First Sea Lord which it would be perilous to
 
ignore.
 
ignore.
 
==The SDR Blueprint==
 
 
In July 1998, the Strategic Defence Review promised the replacement of “our current
 
carriers from around 2012 by two larger, more versatile carriers capable of carrying a more
 
powerful force”. On the other hand, it was decided to reduce the number of attack
 
submarines “over the next few years from 12 to 10” and the destroyer and frigate fleet
 
from 35 to 32. It was also decided that “22 modern Sandown and Hunt class mine-hunters
 
will be sufficient rather than 25 as previously planned” (paras. 115-6). The then First Sea Lord
 
reluctantly accepted these reductions, given the promise of new carriers.
 
In a supporting essay to the Review, it was concluded that “the ability to deploy offensive
 
air power will be central to future force projection operations. But we cannot be certain that
 
we will always have access to suitable air bases” (Essay six, para. 26). Therefore, the two
 
proposed new carriers would constitute a seaborne base from which a combined force of
 
RN and RAF aircraft would be able to operate.
 
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The reduction in the destroyer and frigate total to 32 was based on the numbers needed
 
for “two concurrent medium scale deployments, which is the most demanding
 
requirement for the destroyer and frigate force”; and the loss of two boats from the
 
12-strong attack submarine force was excused on the basis that:
 
“All ten attack submarines will, however, be equipped to fire Tomahawk land attack
 
missiles to increase their utility in force projection operations (this compares with
 
previous plans to fit only seven submarines for the Tomahawk system) … This
 
rebalancing will be matched by adjustments to peacetime tasks where necessary to
 
ensure that overstretch is addressed. At the same time, we will take action to remedy
 
longstanding undermanning within the Royal Navy. In the first instance, most personnel
 
released by the changes set out above will be redeployed across the Service to
 
ameliorate current shortfalls. Once manpower problems have been solved the net effect
 
of the Review on the Navy’s Regular manpower requirement will be a reduction of some
 
1,400.”(Essay six, paras. 24-5)
 
 
==The Hoon Excuse==
 
 
In December 1999, a Defence White Paper duly noted that the Type 22 frigates HMS
 
Boxer, HMS Beaver and HMS London had been paid off – after only 16, 15 and 12 years’
 
service – and that the submarines HMS Splendid and HMS Spartan would follow suit in
 
2003 and 2006 respectively. Subsequently, the destroyer and frigate force was quietly cut
 
from 32 to 31, on the grounds that the greater power and time at sea of the remaining
 
vessels would compensate for the extra ship which had been lost.
 
This devious technique was elevated into a doctrine by the Secretary of State, Geoff
 
Hoon, in a lecture at the Royal United Services Institute on 26 June 2003. He concluded
 
that “advances in technology” and “the astonishing speed with which we can
 
increasingly operate” meant that:
 
“Measuring the capability of our Armed Forces by the number of units or platforms in their
 
possession will no longer be significant”. (RUSI Journal, August 2003)
 
 
==The Plan Abandoned==
 
 
In December 2003, another Defence White Paper – entitled “Delivering Security in a
 
Changing World” – again stressed the role of the Royal Navy in projecting force “from
 
the sea onto the land”. It predicted that:
 
“The introduction of the two new aircraft carriers with the Joint Combat Aircraft early in
 
the next decade will offer a step increase in our ability to project air power from the sea.
 
The Type 45 destroyer will enhance protection of joint and maritime forces and assist
 
force projection.”
 
However, a hint of what was to come was clearly visible:
 
“Some of our older vessels contribute less well to the pattern of operations that we
 
envisage, and reductions in their numbers will be necessary.” (Cm 6041-I, para. 4.10)
 
A supporting essay to this White Paper – entitled “Scales of Effort and Military Tasks” –
 
conceded that:
 
“Since SDR our Armed Forces have conducted operations that have been more complex
 
and greater in number than we had envisaged. We have effectively been conducting
 
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continual concurrent operations, deploying further afield, to more places, more
 
frequently and with a greater variety of missions than set out in the SDR planning
 
assumptions. We expect to see a similar pattern of operations in the future, with the
 
emphasis on multiple, concurrent Medium and Small Scale deployments. A major lesson
 
of the last five years is that the Department and the Armed Forces as a whole have to be
 
structured and organised to support a fairly high level of operational activity at all times,
 
not as a regular interruption to preparing for a Large Scale conflict. (Cm 6041-II, para. 2.9)
 
… Building on the methodologies used during SDR New Chapter, we now divide military
 
capability into six key capability elements: Maritime, Land, Air, C4ISR, Special Forces (SF)
 
and Logistics. (Cm 6041-II, para. 2.11)
 
… Our analysis suggests that in some respects – particularly for enabling assets such as
 
deployable HQs, communications and deployed logistical support – several Small Scale
 
operations are potentially more demanding than one or two more substantial operations.
 
This is particularly the case if they are in locations that are geographically remote from each
 
other and the UK. Given the signs that multiple concurrent smaller operations are
 
becoming the norm, our concurrency and endurance assumptions need to focus on each
 
of the six capability elements to ensure that our force structures can cope with this
 
pattern.” (Cm 6041-II, para. 2.12)
 
 
==The Axe Falls==
 
Despite the White Paper’s admission that operations had been more numerous and varied
 
than the SDR had expected, on 21 July 2004 a Supplement to the White Paper was
 
published, slashing the size of the Fleet. Once again, the praises were sung of the
 
yet-to-be-ordered future carriers and Joint Combat Aircraft, as well as the new assault
 
ships, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, and the forthcoming Bay class landing ships. It was
 
then argued that:
 
“In the light of the reduced conventional threat, our revised concurrency assumptions
 
and improved networked capability, we assess that we need fewer … platforms.
 
Consequently we have a requirement for 8 Type 45 destroyers and will need 25
 
destroyers and frigates overall … We judge in the light of the reduced threat that an
 
attack submarine fleet of 8 SSNs will be sufficient to meet the full range of tasks.”
 
(Cm 6269, paras. 2.6-7)
 
The Nimrod MR2, with a less important anti-submarine role, could be reduced from a
 
total of 21 to only 16 – and, because of the anticipated “greater range and endurance” of
 
the future MRA4 aircraft, only “about 12” of these would be required to replace the
 
current Nimrods in their surveillance role. As for the mine counter-measures fleet, the
 
total of 22 set out in the SDR would now be cut to just 16. (Cm 6269, paras. 2.8-9)
 
THE STORY SO FAR
 
The logic of the Government’s treatment of the Royal Navy up to this point runs as
 
follows: all the Armed Forces were scaled down at the end of the Cold War, but
 
adjustments were needed to reflect the strategic shift from a defensive role in Europe to
 
the mounting of far-flung operations from a sea base. This required large strike carriers
 
as its centrepiece and a loss of five frigates and submarines was a price apparently worth
 
paying in 1998.
 
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However, instead of being reduced from 35 to 32, the frigate and destroyer force has
 
been slashed from 35 to 25. Instead of being reduced from 12 to 10, the submarine force
 
is being slashed from 12 to a maximum of eight. The carriers – one of which was
 
supposed to be in service by 2012 – have not yet been firmly ordered, and no target
 
in-service dates are now given by the Government, despite its previous willingness to
 
do so. The 12 Type 45 destroyers which were projected, and which have a key role in the
 
air defence of the sea base, have been reduced to a programme of eight; but only six of
 
these have been ordered and ships seven and eight may never be built.
 
Such massive reductions might have been expected if events since the publication of the
 
Strategic Defence Review in July 1998 had shown it to be over-pessimistic in estimating the
 
future threats to our country and its interests. Yet, the opposite is the case: as was
 
admitted in the December 2003 White Paper, the number and variety of operational
 
deployments exceeded the assumptions of the SDR. What has the Government’s response
 
been? It has been drastically to weaken the Royal Navy by reducing the total of its major
 
warships whilst disingenuously arguing that their replacements need be fewer in number
 
because each of them will be more powerful than its predecessor.
 
Such an argument is wholly untenable, given that the capability of the new generation
 
destroyers, submarines and surveillance aircraft was perfectly well known when the
 
original totals required were agreed in the SDR in 1998 – before the Kosovo campaign,
 
before 11 September, before the invasion of Afghanistan and before the overthrow of
 
Saddam Hussein. In the case of the Type 45 destroyers, in particular, not only may the total
 
be as low as half-a-dozen, but the repeated requests of the Royal Navy for these to be fitted
 
with Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles have been flatly refused by the Government.
 
 
==The Verdict of the Service Chiefs==
 
 
There is only one rationale for the devastation brought by the Government to the size of
 
the Royal Navy: money. The First Sea Lord at the time of the 2004 cuts was Admiral Sir Alan
 
West. In 2003, he told the magazine Warships International Fleet Review that “no matter how
 
good a ship is, it can only be in so many places at any one time” – a specific rebuttal of the
 
Hoon argument that the number of “units
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  

Revision as of 22:09, 17 November 2010

'The State of The Navy' By Dr. Julian Lewis

Summary of the Argument

Eight years after emerging apparently victorious from the 1998 Strategic Defence Review, the Royal Navy is bloodied, battered and on the ropes. An initial sacrifice of three frigates and two submarines has turned into the devastating loss of 14 major frontline vessels – with a prospect of even more being run down or mothballed. There is a serious prospect of 19 destroyers and frigates having to do the work of 30. These reckless reductions have been based on the strategic falsehood – the ‘Hoon Excuse’ – that numbers no longer matter in an era of more capable ships. The reluctant acquiescence of the Admirals has been bought by the promise – as yet unfulfilled – that two Future Aircraft Carriers will be ordered. In the meantime, their target in-service dates of 2012 and 2015 have been abandoned in all but name. Having admitted that the Armed Forces are involved in more complex and more numerous operations than were anticipated in the Strategic Defence Review, the Government have betrayed the Royal Navy by inflicting massive damage to the front line instead of augmenting it. The next step in this betrayal is a threat to close one of the United Kingdom’s only three Naval Bases. The Type 45 destroyer-building programme has been slashed from 12 to eight; only six of these have been ordered; and none is to be fitted with the Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles requested by the Naval Staff. The final size of the future submarine fleet is uncertain, but seems likely to consist of only eight, or for a period just seven, boats – apart from those carrying the nuclear deterrent. This whole sorry saga has provoked a level of concern at the top of the Service unprecedented since the East of Suez controversy in the 1960s, and has led to a degree of public criticism by the former First Sea Lord which it would be perilous to ignore.







Notes


[1]

  1. '[1]'"First Defence website", accessed 16th November 2010