An Olympian Task – the MOD and the Olympics
It will have escaped few
peoples notice that the Olympic Games have begun in London. Across the great
city, thousands of supremely fit, well trained and highly motivated individuals
have begun to move in and complete their roles – namely the provision of a
safe, secure and successful games.
In an ideal world the two
weeks of the Olympics will be the most boring that the military has ever seen –
if the job has been done well, then nothing will happen, and the true measure
of success will be headlines in various newspapers suggesting that the UK had
overreacted with far too much security.
The Olympics were always going
to have a military presence, although this has grown over time as other events
have unfolded. From the day the torch arrived at RNAS Culdrose, through to the
winning of medals by members of the Army, the military was integral to the
Games. The point of this piece though is to look at some of the wider
implications for the Armed Forces of the Olympic commitment, and see what this
means in the medium term.
Multiple Commitments from a Whole Force construct
Right now nearly 20,000
military personnel from across the Regular and Reserve components of all three
Services are based in London or Weymouth in support of Olympic duties. This is
in addition to nearly 9500 troops in Afghanistan, plus several thousand more
committed on operations and garrison duty around the world. When one considers
that a further 9000 troops or so are currently in the work up for OP HERRICK,
and assuming that there has been no ‘double tapping’, then well over 50,000 UK
troops are on Operations right now.
In other words, looking at the
total force of some 100,000 Army, 40,000 RAF, 32,000 RN, plus roughly 30,000
reserves (give or take a few thousand as redundancy settles in), roughly 25% of
the UK military strength is committed to operations or preparing for
operations.
There are two ways of looking
at this – firstly, one can be worried that the entire military seems heavily
committed in support of operations, or alternatively one can be concerned that
even at maximum tasking, there is still significant flex in the system to
provide numbers. It is hard to imagine the UK taking on further military tasks
right now – we’re operating at our maximum envisaged level from SDSR in terms
of troop employment, and although there is obviously short term pain in terms
of gapping, and normal business not being conducted in order to do the
Olympics, it is clear that there is sufficient flex in the system to generate
troops if required.
This will come as a welcome
relief to the Secretary of State, who will be able to use this as evidence that
even with cuts, the manpower exists to meet two large tasks (one military, one
arguably resilience based) and still have sufficient capability in the system
to continue with other Military Tasks and discretionary tasks.
It is unthinkable that the
military would have failed to deliver – arguably the reason that Defence so
often is seemingly shafted in spending settlements is the view that it has
sufficient manpower and resources to deliver the job when required. If it has
not failed to deliver, then why does it need more money? The continued success
of providing manpower, even at a likely considerable cost for missed work,
gapped training and other problems means that it remains hard for Defence to
argue for a funding uplift. Why throw extra money at something which works,
when there are plenty of things which seemingly don’t work?
One reason this has worked
though has been the prodigious use of reservists to meet some commitments. This
is in itself a strong vindication of the whole force concept, and the idea that
reservists can be used to support UK resilience work in a sensible way.
Previous roles, such as the Civil Contingencies Reaction Forces (CCRF) suffered
from an inability to mobilise on time to meet the needs of the day. It now
appears that the Reserves are far more employable in this sort of job, which in
turn increases the flexibility of the military.
It will be interesting to see
the level of employer support for those reservists who have been compulsorily
mobilised for the Olympics. Will there be more support for those staff who have
served their nation here at home in a non conventional military role, or will
it be seen as more acceptable to see reservists mobilised for this sort of
duty as opposed to tasks overseas? This
is the first major use of reservists in this way since the war, so Humphrey
suspects a lot of work can be done on seeing how the lessons from this
experience can be applied in the future.
One key concern on the reserve
manpower front though is that by drawing on the pool of reserves, it will have
‘reset the clock’ meaning that they cannot be compulsorily mobilised for some
years now. One has to hope that no emergency arises which requires any
specialist skill sets in the next 2-3 years, as having drawn on individual
Reserves in large numbers, it is legally not possible to do so for some time.
The Regular force, and willing individual volunteers will have to carry the
burden for the next big operation.
Rapid Responses
One key aspect of all the
Olympic commitments which seems to have been overlooked is the sheer speed at
which the UK military was able to respond to the tasks at hand. This may sound
obvious, but how many military forces in the world would be able to find
themselves sustaining a near 10,000 person combat operation thousands of miles
from home, and then rapidly being able to set up and deploy nearly 20,000
personnel, mainly at short notice, onto the streets of their capital.
This may sound a minor point,
but actually it hides a lot of useful facts. Firstly it shows that the military
are able to respond quickly, and at short notice to a multitude of tasks – even
after the SDSR has reduced manpower. Secondly, it’s not just about the manpower
– the military have been required to put together the logistics support package
to make this happen. While much of the operational side has been exercised for
the purposes of ‘exercise play’, testing every conceivable scenario going wrong
(usually all at once), the UK didn’t test deploying and sustaining 20,000
personnel on the streets. To put the life support arrangements in place, and
have a working operation going within days shows the importance of investing in
unglamorous, but essential logistics capability.
HQ SJC(UK) comes of age.
The operation thus far has
been run by the not hugely well known ‘HQ Standing Joint Commander (UK)’ from
HQ LAND. This organisation has traditionally been the much, much smaller
version of PJHQ, and optimised to deliver a ‘home battlestaff’ to manage the
complex world of UK resilience operations. For the last 10 years or so, the UK
MOD has spent a lot of time trying to extract itself from the world of MACA,
MACP, MACC and a brace of other acronyms. Despite the military being used as
the preferred system of last resort by governments of all political persuasions,
the MOD found itself increasingly being used as a disaster relief plan. Its not
exaggeration to say that many local authorities business continuity plan was
quite literally ‘ring the Army’. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 changed all
this, and for the last few years, a lot of work has gone into making the military
step away from the provision of civil aid and operations in support of
government authorities.
The 2010 SDSR re-emphasised
that the military still had a role to play in the provision of troops and
capabilities for UK resilience operations, and there has been a steady
resurgence of interest in this area. Anyone interested in UK doctrine on UK
operations should read JDP2-02, which is widely available on the internet.
The role of HQ SJC(UK) was to
try to co-ordinate the military response to the sort of role envisaged in the
post 2004 CCA environment. Run by a small Army dominated cell in LAND, it
provided a nascent planning team which could be bolstered in support of
operations. Originally stood up for the 2007 floods, and various other tasks
over the years, it has never really enjoyed the attention it deserves. The
operations this year, both in support of OP ESCALIN (fuel tanker strike) and
the Olympics have shown that HQ SJC(UK) has now become a much more coherent and
credible team. It is fair to say that the UK now has proven itself able to
stand up two equally effective HQs – with HQ SJC(UK) proving itself to have
come of age, particularly now it is running the equivalent of two OP HERRICKS,
and PJHQ is now a very mature operating construct, able to effectively run ops
overseas.
The reason this matters is
because the existence of swept up HQs, able to generate and run operations
effectively is central to the reason that the UK is good at projecting power
seemingly beyond its weight. Its all very well having thousands of tanks, and
hundreds of fighter jets, but if the means to generate, deploy, operate,
sustain and recover the joint service assets don’t exist, then their collective
capability is vastly reduced. The UK MOD works well because joint operations
have become central to the means of doing business, both in the UK and
overseas. The Olympics has clearly demonstrated that HQ SJC(UK) is a very
capable team indeed.
Force Structures
One interesting observation is
that the naval commitment to the Olympics seems to have justified the not
insignificant investment in littoral capabilities over the last 15-20 years.
The bulk of the RN assets deployed on the operation, such as HMS BULWARK, HMS
OCEAN and a range of landing craft, support vessels and other capabilities are
littoral assets through and through. The RN may lust after frigates and ‘punchy’
warfighting vessels, but it is clear that a frigate would be of far less value
in somewhere like Weymouth, where large flight decks, good C3I capabilities and
the ability to send out LCVPs is of far more value than the ability to
menacingly point a VLS silo in someones general direction.
What does this mean for the future?
Well its possible that sensing the interest in the littoral, the reality that the
RN has got good publicity and also done a very good job so far of protecting
offshore assets, and the realisation that much of the inshore fleet is getting
old and tired, that some funding may go here. The P2000s are due replacement
soon, and the putative replacement class has seemingly not yet been funded. At
the same time rumours are emerging that Portsmouth dockyard may be given a
contract to build some OPVs to keep skills alive ahead of the 2015 commencement
of T26 work. So, its possible that some may wish that having seen good value in
the littoral, funds may be diverted or found from elsewhere in the budget to support
investment in this area. Could one workstream for the 2015 SDSR be to consider
improved funding for the RN in patrol craft and other areas? Also, what does
this mean for the wider fleet, which is conspicuous by its public absence from
Olympic duties? Memories are often short, and the possible danger for the
escort fleet is while it has been doing sterling work across the globe, it has
not been required for the Olympics. One could plausibly see a future SDSR
looking make further reductions or enhancements as seeing extra investment in
the littoral at the price of a further clutch of frigates, as a price worth
considering paying.
Public Attitudes
One thing that has been
immensely clear is the huge public respect for the armed forces stepping into
the breach to rescue the security situation. Although it wasn’t quite as bad as
some of the more hyperbolic media articles made out – for instance no one has
been called off Post Op Tour Leave for Afghanistan, it is clear that the
operation has only been made possible by personal sacrifices, both for regular
and reserve personnel.
The UK military has once again
shown itself to be the first responder of choice for the British Government,
and the difference between national pride, and international humiliation. The
military involvement in the Olympics, from discrete provision of air defences,
through to the involvement in the opening ceremony highlights the huge role
played by the armed forces, and also the immense public support shown for them.
Even the most spectacular
moment of the night involved the armed forces – never forget that the
parachuting ‘Commander James Bond’ is according to his biography, a Commander
in HMS FERRET, home of the RNR Intelligence Branch…
Lust after frigates?
ReplyDeletevery interesting post sir humphrey, i generally enjoy your 'alternative' spin on things. i also disagree with ianeon, i think the swift deployment and professionalism displayed by our armed forces in the g4s c*ck-up have been top notch. i do wonder exactly how long the military hq types knew about it though - did they contingency plan that the private sector might fail us totally re: security and have some ideas just in case (i guess i hope so?).
ReplyDeletere: the navy i think we definitely need new / more patrol type vessels, perhaps even up to small corvette size able to both police and protect our shores (and perhaps beyond, why have a frigate chasing drugs in the Caribbean if we can have 1 or 2 fat patrol corvettes always there instead?). all on the proviso the escort and assault fleets are not cut any more and 20 really is the bare minimum we should have 'fighting ship' wise (ideally i'd like 8 t45s and 16 t26s but i know it's not going to happen) ...
Cheers!
elizzar
Or all the RN, RM and RFA personnel on Ops (ie at sea). Just because there are no sandbags does not mean they are on on Operations. Or the staff at UKMCC or Falklands or - well you get the idea.
ReplyDeleteBoring, boring, boring. What a self-centered egotistical arsehole you are.
ReplyDelete