Never post comments in national papers relying on Word to pick up grammar errors
Especially when you're too tired to proof read them effectively. Hopefully the errors have all been picked up in the edited lj-cut version.
The mismatch between resources and commitments has never looked wider. ...
It is time to ask and answer the questions about what we can spend on our armed forces in the next generation, and what we can expect them to do with what we can afford, rather than forever making it up as we go along. ...
The army's role is today overwhelmingly paramount. The other services perform important support functions, but they are not fighting forces in the same way, as the navy has just dismayingly demonstrated.
While I agree with the substantial proportion of Max Hasting's article, particularly on the lack of strategy, under manning and continued 'making it up as we go along', the article appears unfair to the navy and air forces, and to their top brass. While the air force does not need the manpower ground forces necessarily require, air backup is integral to land-based operations, and the need to protect airspace remains. The navy may not fight the large sea battles commemorated in so many WW2 films but anti-submarine warfare platforms and high-level interceptors do not represent the only strategic need it fulfils.
Apart from a visible global presence in international (so neutral) waters (not possible on land) and the additional transport/lines of retreat together with air support these can provide to ground troops, the navy is a vital way of securing both our coastline and the coasts of areas our troops operate in from unwanted landings. In an era of small-scale insurgent groups having large-scale impact, the ships they guard against don't have to be destroyer size for this to be important.
I have heard a number of high-level military speakers in the last year (predominantly from the navy) and all are aware of the need for the extensive strategic assessment of and planning for possible demands (and on the forces future) to be fed into a reconsideration and reallocation of resources between and within each service. The government needs to decide what it expects its military to be able to deliver. The shape of our recent military involvements in the Middle East cannot be taken to be the pattern of all future wars, any more than planning for the cold war alone provided us with a good model for our needs today.
If we do not have a presence in international waters, at a time when the future of Nato is much debated and the value of other alliances questionable, it is a question of national security whether those filling the space we leave, and those using this vast unpoliced region of the planet, are protecting or harming our interests. It is still not possible for air cover to survey or garrison the oceans - the craft we use today are few, expensive to keep aloft and unsuited to boarding vessels. While the resent episode with Iran exposed ineptitude and was badly mishandled, it would have been more distressing to hear that no vessels were in place to safeguard against the costal waters of Iraq being used as supply or transport routes for the varied insurgent forces.
Last week a naval officer told me Wilberforce’s anti-slavery legislation suddenly placed a new enforcement responsibility on the navy; it took 60 years to put in place resources and structures to fulfil this effectively. It still takes decades from the identification of a large-scale equipment need (whether a ship, plane or missile) to its realization and years (if not decades) to restructure forces and their training. The demands we may be placing on our forces over the next 50 years and how we wish them to meet these do indeed require urgent consideration and decision at the highest levels of government.
The mismatch between resources and commitments has never looked wider. ...
It is time to ask and answer the questions about what we can spend on our armed forces in the next generation, and what we can expect them to do with what we can afford, rather than forever making it up as we go along. ...
The army's role is today overwhelmingly paramount. The other services perform important support functions, but they are not fighting forces in the same way, as the navy has just dismayingly demonstrated.
While I agree with the substantial proportion of Max Hasting's article, particularly on the lack of strategy, under manning and continued 'making it up as we go along', the article appears unfair to the navy and air forces, and to their top brass. While the air force does not need the manpower ground forces necessarily require, air backup is integral to land-based operations, and the need to protect airspace remains. The navy may not fight the large sea battles commemorated in so many WW2 films but anti-submarine warfare platforms and high-level interceptors do not represent the only strategic need it fulfils.
Apart from a visible global presence in international (so neutral) waters (not possible on land) and the additional transport/lines of retreat together with air support these can provide to ground troops, the navy is a vital way of securing both our coastline and the coasts of areas our troops operate in from unwanted landings. In an era of small-scale insurgent groups having large-scale impact, the ships they guard against don't have to be destroyer size for this to be important.
I have heard a number of high-level military speakers in the last year (predominantly from the navy) and all are aware of the need for the extensive strategic assessment of and planning for possible demands (and on the forces future) to be fed into a reconsideration and reallocation of resources between and within each service. The government needs to decide what it expects its military to be able to deliver. The shape of our recent military involvements in the Middle East cannot be taken to be the pattern of all future wars, any more than planning for the cold war alone provided us with a good model for our needs today.
If we do not have a presence in international waters, at a time when the future of Nato is much debated and the value of other alliances questionable, it is a question of national security whether those filling the space we leave, and those using this vast unpoliced region of the planet, are protecting or harming our interests. It is still not possible for air cover to survey or garrison the oceans - the craft we use today are few, expensive to keep aloft and unsuited to boarding vessels. While the resent episode with Iran exposed ineptitude and was badly mishandled, it would have been more distressing to hear that no vessels were in place to safeguard against the costal waters of Iraq being used as supply or transport routes for the varied insurgent forces.
Last week a naval officer told me Wilberforce’s anti-slavery legislation suddenly placed a new enforcement responsibility on the navy; it took 60 years to put in place resources and structures to fulfil this effectively. It still takes decades from the identification of a large-scale equipment need (whether a ship, plane or missile) to its realization and years (if not decades) to restructure forces and their training. The demands we may be placing on our forces over the next 50 years and how we wish them to meet these do indeed require urgent consideration and decision at the highest levels of government.