Future Army Policy: A Personal Perspective

I have been thinking about the future direction of policy with regard to the Armed Forces and in particular the Army. I am not going touch more than lightly upon the Royal Navy and the Royal Airforce as I feel these fall too greatly outside my own areas of knowledge.

My starting point is a comparison of broad numbers. The Regular Army numbers 156,940  with 75,110 reserve personnel for a total of 232,050 at present. This number however conceals the very weak cutting edge of the Army.

In military parlance, the military strength of the Army, also known as “bayonet strength”, is carried in the fighting units. These would be primarily the infantry and armoured regiments, of which the Army has 18 infantry and 14 armoured regiments. Each “regiment” in the British Army is in fact a battalion, so I will be using “battalion” in place of regiment for simplicity.

Sounds reasonable? Well, partially. Normally a wartime division is organised around three brigades, each made up of three to four battalions. This would on the basis of thirty two combat battalions mean two divisions of nine or twelve battalions with a brigade or two to spare.

Sounds reasonable still? In the Cold War, Britain could field four divisions, three of which were armoured (meaning the division had a heavy allocation of main battle tanks) and one infantry division. So on a peacetime establishment, we can still field about half the same field force, though this assumes the whole Army is mobilised.

This is where the first weakness become apparent. The Army has just four tank battalions and a total Challenger 2 strength of 227 vehicles. Not all all of these would be concentrated in the armoured battalions. There are others based with the training battalion of the Armoured Corps. Oh yes, and there are NO replacements for Challenger 2. Each tank destroyed in action is lost permanently.

So, the Army could field two brigades with two armoured battalions each, making one partially armoured division. But doesn’t the Army have 14 armoured battalions?

Yes. But one is actually the training battalion at Bovington. The rest are a mixture of armoured cavalry and light recon battalions. Only the armoured cavalry actually have armoured fighting vehicles, the rest are equipped with Land Rovers, Jackals and the like are not intended for heavy combat.

So, the combat strength of the Army is infantry heavy. This is not such a problem if we only expect to conduct peace-keeping or counter-insurgency combat operations. However, we have seen a resurgence of Russian military aggression since 2014 together with threats to NATO allies in the Baltic states and the Russian Army, though not without its own problems remains a much more tank heavy force (2,562 with 12,000+ in reserve).

While the Russian Army is still largely a conscript force and retains much of the same cultural problems which plagued the Soviet Army (officer-dependent leadership as NCOs are largely non-professional) lowering the combat value of much of the Russian Army units, Russia has deep reserves to draw upon and as noted above much greater armoured strength of numbers.

Open war with Russia remains unlikely, however the danger of open war has been rapidly increasing with Russian aggression. We cannot afford to discount the possibility of a Russian invasion of the Baltic nations or even Poland. This would bring our NATO commitment into play. I’ll discuss possible scenarios later but suffice it here to say that a scenario which sees either Russian occupation of NATO territory or which requires heavy garrisons to deter Russian attacks, would stretch the Army to its limits.

With a battalion constituting 550-750 men, anyone familiar with military history of war between two technologically equivalent foes knows that combat strength rapidly leeches during intensive military operations. Assuming 18 x 750 men, the infantry strength of the Army is 13,500.

Now, engage in a thought experiment. Russia has invaded and occupied Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Polish Army is mobilised and being reinforced by NATO battle-groups from the other member-states.

Do not imagine that NATO could negotiate an end to the war. The purpose of NATO is to deter aggression and the Russian Army would have to be expelled by force. A NATO counter-offensive would have to attack from a line Olsztyn – Cizycko – Suwalki north-eastwards to retake Riga, seal the eastern border as well as securing Narva to retake Tallinn. This would constitute an offensive-drive of 500 km, against at least equal Russian numbers.

Assume the operation is successful but incurs repeated heavy combat for British Army units. The British infantry force (assuming total mobilisation) could take 50-75% casualties from all causes by the time the Baltic states are retaken. This would mean infantry casualties in the order of 6,750 to 10,125 men. The latter figure would mean that the entire Army’s infantry strength, the core of the fighting capability of the entire Army would have been mauled. Entire battalions could be reduced from 6-700 men to less than 100.

Am I exaggerating? I don’t think so. Intensive combat operations in WW2, Korea and Vietnam all saw casualties in this order.

But remember the Russian preponderance in tank numbers? Let us first count the number of first-rate MBTs in NATO armies.

The British Army has 227 Challenger 2s. The German Army has a current MBT strength of 250 with plans to add another 100 or so Leopard 2 MBTs. The Dutch Army really doesn’t have any MBTs (having borrowed 18 from the German Army). The Belgian Army has none. The Danish Army has 57 Leopard 2. The French Army has 200 Le Clerc MBTs with another 200 in storage.The Italian Army has 200 Ariete MBTs. The Polish Army has 250 Leopard 2s with another 750 T-72 variants, which will not be counted here. We can also add the US Army’s 1,200 M1 Abrams (there are about 6-7,000 older models in storage), so assuming the US Army deploys the bulk of its armoured brigades to Europe, the NATO total field force would be 2,484 MBTs, assuming no stored tanks are mobilised.

But again, we have to make allowances. Not all the European MBT force would be deployed to Poland. Tanks would have to be brought up to operational readiness, which would be a major headache for the German Army, given its low current state of readiness and which may be an issue for all member-states with the possible exception of the USA.

Also, tanks will have to be left behind both to furnish a pool of replacements and to train replacement crews. So, assuming 10% of the European tank force is left out of battle, the NATO army group is left with 2,200+ first-rate MBTs, though it should be noted that approximately 100 of the Polish Leopard 2 fleet are the old A4 model.

We may also have to allow for deployments to other sectors of NATO territory. Removing another 10% leaves a field force of about 2,000 first-rate MBTs. Still good, given that much of the Russian tank force is older Soviet model MBTs, though again these would not be the poor quality rubbish fobbed off on the Iraqis. The late 1980s models of Soviet tanks were much better armed and armoured than NATO expected when the Cold War ended and the Russians have been quietly upgrading their tank fleet.

Remember that there are no Challenger 2 replacements. The British Army would have to either reopen production, if possible or seek foreign-built replacements. I do not know how many tanks Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW), the German manufacturer of the Leopard 2 is capable of building per year, but my estimate based upon Leopard 2 deliveries in the 1980s is about 100 per year in peacetime conditions.

The scenario also assumes that either the Russian objective is occupation and a dug-in line of defence along the Polish border. It does not assume a continued Russian offensive into Poland proper. It also assumes that Russian intentions could be detected sufficiently in advance to mobilise and prepare NATO forces, not to defend the Baltic states but to reinforce Poland.

Air superiority is a questionable assumption, given NATO dependence upon the USAF. At best, I believe we would have limited air superiority and may have to conduct a counter-offensive under conditions of air-parity, which would place a great burden upon air-defence systems and units, while accepting the risk not just to combat units on march routes but the vital supply convoys of trucks rolling after the armoured spearheads.

Another question is that of ammunition supply. The British tank fleet has a finite supply of Challenger 2 main-gun rounds as the British factory which manufactured this ammunition has long been closed. Once the ammunition supply has been fired off, it’s gone.

The above assumptions may apply to a degree or in different ways to the Russians. We don’t know the state of Russian logistics, so both sides could be hampered by the absence of wartime economies.

The point is that the British Army with two divisions, one of which is armoured, would be able to give NATO a full-strength effort only once. After that, either the British government would have to consider peace-terms or full-mobilisation of the economy and the manpower-pool which would cause great disruption to the country.

The same is true of all NATO countries, except, perhaps the USA.

Given the Russian ability now to deploy in a matter of less than six weeks forces up to 100,000 men on a state-border, we have to give real thought to turning the Army from a neglected child to a real combat force capable of sustaining an initial period of hard-fighting of up to six months before reserve or new formations can be mobilised, trained and deployed.

The first priority is aim to double the combat strength of the Army. Infantry are relatively easy to train. The same is true of the logistical arm but the armoured force must be expanded from four battalions to sixteen, enough to give two armoured divisions a full-weight of 232 MBTs each in four battalions. All no more than one quarter of the combat battalions can be reserve units, given these will take time to train to efficiency and to recall once war is imminent.

The new armoured divisions will need to be supplemented by infantry-divisions. If war is to take place in the East, there will be a premium upon infantry in heavily forested areas as well as to hold lines of communication. Armoured units should not be tied up in this role.

If there are two regular armoured divisions with two reserve divisions, then there should be the same number of regular infantry divisions but with four reserve infantry divisions. This entails expanding the tank fleet from 204 in four battalions to 928 in sixteen battalions with another 100 for training and another 100 or so for replacement.

The infantry arm would expand from a theoretical 13,500 in 18 battalions to 24 armoured infantry battalions (two per armoured brigade) and a further 54 infantry battalions (three per infantry brigade). This would be an armoured infantry force of 18,000 and an infantry force of 40,500. The infantry arm would total 58,500 men, 22,500 in the regular Army, 36,000 in the Army Reserves.

This calls for a massively expanded budget, just for the Army. The defence budget would have to also accommodate similar expansions and re-equipments in the Navy and Airforce. It would also call for a reform of the MoD, which is long overdue, to return control to the Forces themselves and not the Civil Service.

It would also call, I believe, for the development of a pool of trained manpower in the population. This means we will have to reintroduce a form of national service to reduce the budget and manpower burden on the regular Army. I propose that of the four regular divisions, one armoured and one infantry division be largely manned by national servicemen, leaving two divisions available for immediate overseas deployment.

The Reserve Divisions would manned by those who have completed their national service. Assuming 30,000 young (mostly) young men pass through national service with the Army per year, if these are placed in the Reserves as a part of a national service legislative arrangement for approximately four years after completing a three year national service arrangement, the Army would be amply provided with manpower both active and reserve and in the prime of physical fitness.

If the national service element provides enough young men with a taste for army life, then the Regular Army can be sustained at two full divisions plus the core of the two divisions manned by national servicemen.

Industrial policy will have to subordinated to equipping the Army for war-preparation. This means that we need national defence industries to produce MBTs, AFVs of all types, weapons from rifles to artillery to guided munitions. Above all we need to ensure that we have enough munitions to sustain two divisions in an overseas deployment and a sufficient stock to equip and sustain two more. The Reserve divisions can be supplied out of stepped up war-time production.

NATO states will have to coordinate industrial and procurement policies. Years ago, I wrote about the mess of NATO organisation and defence procurement cooperation. NATO needs radical harmonisation of equipment. I fear for any NATO force in the field given the bewildering variety of spare parts needed for vehicles, the different radio systems and even the different field rations.

Addendum: the Royal Airforce uses the Brimstone air-to-surface missile. Each one costs an average of £135,000 (£100,000 – £175,000 depending if development costs etc are included), which means that a Leopard 2 MBT costing £4,000,000 would be the same as 29 Brimstone missiles. I think a tank is a complementary investment.

This will seem appalling to modern, educated minds but in statecraft, we must face appalling possibilities. The worst of these is war. The only remedy is preparation.

Si vis pacem, para bellum

The LSE and Leftist thinking

A professor at the LSE, James Hughes, in a December lecture said:

I can’t think of a more radicalised government than the Bush administration….well…maybe North Korea.

I cannot think of a more stupid statement from someone of age, experience and learning. Compare this to the Russian doctrine on the use of military force in foreign policy:

Alexei G. Arbatov, The Transformation of Russian Military Doctrine: Lessons Learned from Kosovo and Chechnaya, Marshall Centre Papers 2 (Garmish-Partenkirchen: George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, July 2000).

The main lesson learned is that the goal justifies the means. The use of force is the most efficient problem solver, if applied decisively and massively. Negotiations are of dubious value and are to be used as a cover for military action. Legality of state actions, observation of laws and legal procedures, and humanitarian suffering are of secondary significance relative to achieving the goal. Limiting one’s own troop causalities is worth imposing massive devastation and collateral fatalities on civilian populations. Foreign public opinion and the position of Western governments are to be discounted if key Russian interests are at state. A concentrated and controlled mass media campaign is the key to success.

This is classical Russian thinking, redolent of Clauswitz: massive force, the irrelevance of the question of legitimacy and the need to have an objective and to stick to that aim. The result might be a hard war or massive civilian casualties but the aim of a war fought for clear national interests is to achieve the political objective set. And the result is that Russian borders states, though turbulent in places, are subservient to Moscow’s interests and even Chechnya has seen the withdrawal of Russian troops.

Now compare this to the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both were fought with the aim of overthrowing a hostile regime deemed to threaten US national interests and both were fought to rapid and successful conclusions. The occupation stages saw a transformation of US military tactics and strategy towards a much more decentralised, “boots on the ground” mode in order to defeat a dangerous insurgency, which broke into civil war in Iraq. The US was able to defeat one insurgency and has badly damaged another without adopting the Russian doctrine of massive force.

So how is the Russian doctrine as applied in Chechnaya, Georgia and the salient states less radicalised that that of the USA?  Perhaps the professor was referring to international law?

Well in this case, we can compare Iraq, which is cited as the most egregious example of US aggression and Georgia. Russia justified its intervention on the grounds that the South Ossetians were Russian citizens – yet those citizens DID live in Georgian territory and even if the territory was de facto independent, Russia had no grounds under international law to go to war as this did not count as self defence. By contrast, the US argument that Iraq was in breach of obligations, which reactivated the UN Security Council Resolutions dating back to the Gulf War, made use of international law and precedent.

In the language of the time, Russia was behaving as a rogue state. Yet, it attracted very little criticism beyond a short period after the fighting in Georgia ended. By contrast, the rancour over Iraq has yet to fully cease.

Russia has actively pursued and murdered dissidents and critics around the world including an attempt to kill a US journalist in New York. By contrast, the US since 2001, has actively pursued, captured or killed Islamic terrorists around the world. The differences in these two imperial policies ought to be stark to anyone. The Russians have hunted down internal opponents, including the case of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. The US has pursued active enemies belonging to terrorist groups.

If James Hughes meant internal politics, he could not be more wrong. He accords the US administration under President Bush second place in the most radicalised state on the planet, reserving first place for North Korea. I cannot think of a more stupid comparison or one which reveals his own prejudices more starkly than this.

By radicalised, it is clear that Professor Hughes means “on a path towards totalitarianism”. North Korea is the most totalitarian and vicious state on the planet. The US had the Patriot Act. You could probably number on one hand, the states which are less totalitarian than the USA.

This brings us to the title and the implicit question: why do leftists in general, and leftist academics in particular, view a Republican administration in the US as a totalitarian (radicalised) force?

In part, I believe, this stems from an inability to analyse Republicans in any but the most prejudicial terms. Republicans are characterised as “neocons”, “warmongers” and “Christian fundamentalists” and this attitude is so ingrained in leftist prejudice, that any calumny can be associated with Republicans and believed. For a comparison, note the language used about the Tea Party movement (racist, religious fundamentalist, angry white men etc) and the language used when examining the #Occupy movement (protesters, progressives, grass roots). Both terminological sets are not descriptive but prescriptive: the Tea Party is conservative, it must be racist etc.

The language is motivated by a desire to demonise and the same desire is present in the lazy presentation of the US under Bush as only less totalitarian than North Korea. The aim is not to describe a reality but is one of wish fulfilment. A Republican administration is routinely watched for signs that it is about to turn into a totalitarian fundamentalist regime, hence cries even in 2002 of “Take our country back!” from the radicalised wing of the Democratic party. Note that I am using radicalised in relation to the Democratic party as a reference to the leftist radicals and activists who dominate the socialist/liberal wing of the Party.

A fantasy is being routinely acted out, even by people who should know better (academics) and here I am forced to turn again to Richard Landes’ theme of millenarianism. Demonisation forms a part of millenarian beliefs and doctrinal structures. If believers value the ideas which will lead to a better world (even if these consist of the wished for absence of something), then doubters, sceptics and political and cultural opponents are deeply ignorant (of the Truth) or deeply wicked (for rejecting the Truth).

There is another aspect to this as well. What we broadly call leftist or left-wing ideologies have largely collapsed, though Marxist prejudices retain a very strong hold in academia (especially in the USA) and left-wing political thought is, by and large, reactionary, in the sense that it is against secular developments. So a leftist can be against capitalism or against globalisation or against war, but except in the latter case (a nebulous belief in ‘peace’), this system does not require the believer or activist to be for anything in particular. In a certain way, this is very appealing as it returns the individual to the ‘dream’ stage of political thinking in which the object (political objective) becomes subliminal and thus immune to criticism, even if it remains too vague to articulate.

Thus an OWSer activist in New York can campaign against “the banks” or against “capitalism” and still retain a sense of destiny because what replaces the present wickedness will inevitably be better. However, unlike classical reactionaries, the political object remains future-orientated and not located in a past which is shared both historically and in folk memory. These are not conservative reactionaries. Indeed, one might call them radical reactionaries as they wish for change as an end because they no longer are able to imagine the means without becoming subjected to scepticism or doubt. Analysed through a millenarian perspective, this is a resort to preaching as a format, naming that which is desirable and that which is wicked and calling upon the faithful to take this knowledge into their hearts.

It is possible to understand leftist prejudices constituting a series of articles of faith, forming the basis of a pseudo-religion with a common set of assumptions, prejudices and moral precepts. And as a community bounded by a religious or customary set of moral principles, precepts, abjurations and evocations, the leftist political community is as many other political and civil communities are, partly defined by opposition. Yet, as outlined earlier in this piece, the leftist community places itself in opposition to a vanished or even fantastical opposition and applies the demands of fundamental resistance to its own attitudes towards those who do not share their beliefs. In part, this would shed some light on why leftist political groups are highly inclined towards internecine warfare and splitting into new political factions.

Given these weaknesses as a community, the sense of oppositional definition in times of weakness is accentuated as a subconscious means of protecting the political community on the Left. Hence, James Hughes described a Republican administration as the nearest thing to a totalitarian regime in the West. A domination of the political world by a political faction which is not a part of their community (i.e. not Leftist) is treated as a catastrophe of gigantic proportions and one which cannot be reconciled with the assumptions, prejudices and beliefs of the Leftist community. Given that Leftists routinely treat conservatives as moral and intellectual degenerates, there can be no questioning of Leftist superiority complexes and the Left must then go over into rhetorically violent opposition, when criticism of a Republican president becomes in the hysteria of the day, an act of patriotism and of “speaking Truth to Power” in which the Leftists fall into two not incompatible roles: those of prophet and of revolutionary opposition.

Yet, given the absence of political programmes and articulated beliefs (it remains my contention that much of what is expressed as opposition is a reaction to another’s rejection of their subliminal political tropes) and in the aftermath of the political emasculation of the Left, all that is available to the Leftists is overt opposition and insistence on the primacy of shared narratives. This can be seen in the fantasy of peace in Palestine, in the dissatisfied sacralisation of international laws and institutions, the reaction to political arguments which do not place the state at the centre of economic and social life and the confusion over collectivism and individualism.

The utopian dreams of the Left have not collapsed as such but aspects of the articulated forms of these have subsided back into the collective unconsciousness of the Left. The appeal is still strong to the believers but the ideas are in flux or increasingly irrelevant to the present. The superiority complexes of the Leftist political community have left them dangerously vulnerable to cognitive dissonance and perilously tempted by a series of sentimental political tropes and certainties which collectively represent a political dead end. I will end with an analogy: even a stopped clock, tells the correct time twice a day. Thus it is with the Leftist political community.

What is worse than war?

Watching your country (and fellow citizens) being raped by an aggresive foreign power. Of whom do I speak? Russia raping Georgia. Don’t worry! The EU has arranged for a surrender akin to marrying a rape victim to her psychotic rapist. It will bring peace, honest!

Right, repeat magic word to get peace…”what do you want and I surrender”. Imagine if this lot had been in charge against Hitler…

They went and surrendered

Excellent article by Gerard Baker in today’s Times, explaining precisely what the EU achieve through “soft power” during the Georgia-Russia war… They went to Moscow and gave the tyrants everything they wanted. And called it peace.
No, John McCain is right. That is not peace. It is surrender.

The West’s reaction to Russia’s aggression

There are only two possible broad reactions to the aggression by Russia against Georgia, which appears in design and intent to be that of an imperialist aggression with the intent of subjugating the Georgians.
The first is to ignore it and blame Georgia for getting into the current situation, in other words, how dare you make us have to choose! This reaction is typified by the Guardian newspaper.
The second is to calmly state to Russia that the aggression will not stand and that unless Russian troops are withdrawn by a certain date and time, then the military nations of the West (USA, Britain, France and those reliable allies) will declare war.

In my view, the second is absolutely necessary and that we should begin preparations for a long war at the moment of the refusal of the ultimatum. In Britain this will mean moving to a war footing in finance so as we can double the size of the army over the next five years, doing the same with the Royal Navy and the RAF. At the same time, we should use our existing resources to strike hard against the vulnerable points in Russia: its civilian infrastructure, the military bases and above all hit the oil and petrol industry to shut down the Russian ability to wage war.
Even if Georgia is lost, we must declare firmly that we will recover that nation’s independence by force unless regular and paramilitary Russian forces and administrators withdraw from Georgia in its entirety. Russia right now is a cross between Tsarist Russia in the 19th Century and the Soviet Union; it is an aggressive, paranoid but vulnerable nation and we must be prepared to pay the price in blood and treasure to defeat that aggression.

Russia declares war on Georgia

We are seeing the opening moves of the attempted Russian conquest of Georgia. This is worrying beyond any exaggeration as Georgia is a free and growing nation. My feeling on this is that Russia will crush Georgia (Especially, if unsupported) and use that as an example to cow the ex-Soviet nations into towing the line, or further territorial demands will materialise.
This could not come at a worse time for helping Georgia, given that the militarily active parts of NATO are engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. We must at least supply weapons and ammunition to Georgia and warn Russia against expanded or future aggression.

Let’s watch the Left either wring its hands and say “war is not the answer”, or take the Russian side but not so as one might look as if one is supporting them.