Defence Cuts: 5,300 Soldiers To Lose Jobs

Do Defence Cuts Weaken Britain?

Updated: 3:30pm UK, Tuesday 22 January 2013

By Alistair Bunkall, Defence Correspondent

There is really just one question to consider when analysing the announcement of the latest defence cuts: will the resulting military be capable of defending Britain against any threat?

Defence of the realm is of course no longer dogfights over Dover or cannon balls in the Channel.

The threat to the UK comes from global terrorism, groups that operate in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, North Africa … the list goes on.

The threat is now terrorism not invasion, although that should go without saying.

Defence is now achieved through attack - that is how the US and its allies approached the threat of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. They went in to seek out the enemy post 9/11.

This article is not the place to get into a debate over the success or otherwise of that intervention but I use it as an example because that kind of approach is how future threats will be addressed, whether in the Middle East, Africa or wherever

Of course, governments would prefer operations to play out along the lines of the Libyan conflict - in and out within months, objective achieved, loss of life minimal.

But a government can hardly shape its armed forces using that model as its guide. It is too perfect and war is never perfect.

And so while we are considering all of this we have the perfect hypothesis - Mali.

The threat in Mali has been apparent for sometime, but French intervention came somewhat out of the blue.

And that highlights an important point: Britain's armed forces need to be ready for the unexpected.

My instinct remains that the UK government will resist temptation or requests to send troops to bolster the French effort. That continues to be the firm government line.

If there is one caveat though, then it would be to reiterate the point that conflicts are fluid.

What starts out as being a stubborn political position can quickly change as a war progresses.

Britain is providing logistical support and I would expect transport aircraft like the C-17s to remain on loan for a little longer.

Intelligence gathering is also an area that Britain could help with, and I believe it will.

It would be no surprise if a Sentinel aircraft leaves its base at RAF Waddington to provide eyes and ears 40,000ft above West Africa for example.

But there simply is not the public or political appetite to get involved in a big way right now, and neither is there the budget.

The threat posed by insurgents in Mali and terrorists in Algeria is of very great concern to the UK government, but they want this to remain a French issue with British help on the fringes.

What if the Kenyan or Nigerian governments ask Britain for support at some point in the future, in the way the Malian government turned to the French?

Then the UK would be hard pushed to keep its distance. What if Syria or Iran demands international military intervention some time down the line?

It is against these prospects that the redundancies must be judged. And we should not just focus on job losses - budget restraints affect equipment too.

Much has been written about the wisdom or lack thereof, of future aircraft carrier capability and the prospect that the new Queen Elizabeth carrier will be without planes to fly of it for some time.

I mentioned 9/11 earlier and that event, like the 7/7 bombings, gives us another area of defence capability to examine - intelligence gathering.

A massive army, air force or navy is not going to prevent domestic terrorism - effective intelligence gathering can.

The Government would be unwise to reduce the capabilities of MI5 or MI6.

A country's security services provide a first line of defence at home and serve as an invaluable source for all matters international. A first class defence set-up must have balance.

Another area of concern that the job cuts raise is the potential loss of experience.

British soldiers have seen more than a decade of continuous conflict which has come at a cost, but has bred experienced troops. Britain needs to be careful not to lose this experience.

It should be said that Britain is far from being the only country to cut its defence budget - most western countries are doing the same, the US included.

And with a long military history, the like of which Britain is very proud, it is especially difficult to witness a respected army being cut to a size not seen since the 18th century.

It does not necessarily follow though that Britain's armed forces cannot retain that global respect.

Defence and political chiefs argue that they are shaping the armed forces for the way they imagine future conflicts will pan out, but no-one likes budget cuts, that goes against simple human nature.

And anyway, what country can ever truly determine the passage of a conflict? Do we really think the US, Britain and others imagined they would still be in Afghanistan when they went into the country all those years ago?

The conclusion I come to is this: it will be the scope of future prospective conflicts that determine the nature of British military intervention rather than what has for centuries been the opposite: Britain pro-actively involving itself in conflicts in an attempt to shape the world.

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