Military manoeuvres

Full marks to the Army today for getting its political strike in with Max Hasting's article in the Speccie this week.

They are deploying the - we need the stuff to fight Afghanistan / Iraq counter insurgency wars and therefore its the fast jet jockeys and highly expensive cold war Naval types who should be cut.

• The RAF and Army's cross hairs are firmly targeted on the two new carriers.
• The RAF wants to kill of the Fleet Air Arm.
• The Army wants to kill of the RAF. ( Too much time waiting for clapped out transport Tristars to be repaired and having no helicopters souring the mood a bit ).
• And no doubt the Army will make another bid for the Royal Marines, as it would be rude not to.
• The Lib Dems and Labour unilateralists want to surrender world influence to the US by giving up a functioning Nuclear deterrent, though of course they think they're aiming for something else.
• And everyone does a lot of wishful thinking about Trident.

Looks like chaos to me.

What we should remember is that each war over the past few decade has required a different aspect of the military.

• The Falklands - The Navy
• First Gulf War - The RAF and the pig iron dinosaurs of an Armoured brigade.
• The Iraq was - RAF, Navy (popping of cruise missiles ) and infantry.
• The current insurgencies - The infantry supported by air mobile elements, and with highly expensive delivery of high explosives on mud huts by the RAF .

We need to think long and hard about what our defence needs really are and make choices. Cuts across the board will just lead to us failing at everything.

We will always need the Army, but maybe not armoured brigades.
We need air defence - the Russians are flying super sonic nuclear capable aircraft to within spitting distance of our cost and being only detected when they fly away ( this is very very serious and hasn't got the attention it deserves ).
And thanks to Labour campaign to destroy our traditional culture by mass immigration we can't feed ourselves any more, so we rely on food from over seas and fuel as well - and to guarantee those we'll need a blue water Navy.

Its a mess, and one the Army must not be allowed to exploit for selfish reasons the public support for the troops under fire. In the end we are about the defence of the realm - not inter service rivalry.

There have to be cuts of course - so here are my ideas.

1. Set a near term withdrawal from Afghanistan. Yes deadlines are bad, but we can't carry on and need to recognise that fact.
2. The RAF is over manned - the Israeli airforce manages on far lower manning levels, and they are fighting wars all the time. P45's for many of the guys in light blue - sorry, but at least you all have transferable skills.
   
3. A larger reserve - allowing mobilization in short term, but not requiring the same standing resources. And a corresponding smaller size of regular forces.
   
4. Avoid selling of bases just to raise cash. We need to be ready for war - not running a few airshows, and in war assets will get damaged.
   
5. Cancel the carriers and either lease from the US ( who have their own budget problems and will probably play along ) or replace with smaller carriers again. ( Not ideal - but with drones etc coming in over the next decade this may be smarter than it looks).
6. Build new tactical Nukes. Labour abolished them ( but being New Labour kept quiet about it ). One way to deter people like the Argentines is to have them guessing if their airfields might get nuked if they push us too far. Deterrence pays very dividends in prevented conflict.
   
7. Missiles/Drones are a good idea. We need far more of them. In the Arab Israeli wars the success of missiles has been vastly under reported, and have fought one of the best militaries in the world to a stand still on more than one occasion. They aren't as flash as fighter jets or tanks - but they are deadly and effective. These come at the expense of the manned equivalents - that means less aircraft, pilots and tanks.