Thin Pinstriped Line

Well the weeks of speculation are over, and the results of the Spending Review (SR) were finally announced in Parliament today by the Chancellor George Osborne. As expected all departments bar those previously confirmed as having secure funding received cuts. The real question on most people’s minds though were ‘how bad is it going to be’? In simple terms the MOD appears to have done remarkably well out of this settlement compared to previous public expectations of doom and gloom. It is no small feat to emerge from a bruising spending round with a relatively small cut to the overall budget, and with a commitment to keeping capital expenditure on a flat (i.e. real terms small decline) basis. That this has   happened is perhaps testimony to the remarkable efforts by the MOD to bring its budgets under control in recent years – the realism measures pushed through, the efforts to close the black hole and the persuasive case made that major cuts to the budget would force structural...

Humphrey was very disappointed at the news today about the ruling by the Supreme Court that widows of soldiers killed in Iraq are able to sue the Government for negligence. What follows here is a very personal viewpoint as to why he feels this decision is not the correct one. From the outset, it should be clear that Humphrey has the most enormous sympathy for the families of those killed or injured – the pain they are going through cannot be conceived, and the natural desire to try and right a self-perceived wrong is fully understandable. But, his firm belief is that this is not the right decision and could make life more challenging for Commanders in the field and actually cause more deaths.   The challenge we have in today’s Western society is that there is a deeper reluctance to take unnecessary casualties. While this author believes that as a whole we remain a ‘warrior nation’ able to absorb a steady stream of casualties, as a whole there is a greater effort to try and r...

    Humphrey has recently returned home following an extended period of travel. In his absence it is clear that a great deal is going on in the world of Defence judging by the plethora of articles in the media about the MOD. Most contentious of all has been the current spending round, and it is clear that there is one going on for the media is full of the usual round of stories about how cutting X from the budget will lead to various apocalyptic circumstances. A cursory glance on ARRSE or elsewhere shows that the debate is clearly in full flow, although no decisions have yet been taken.    H umphrey has a very strong rule that it is utterly pointless to write about scenarios or views expressed in the media during the run up to spending rounds. The public and media are bystanders and unwilling participants in a vicious war conducted internally by spreadsheet, emails and whispered briefings. The fact is that every government department at present seems to h...

Humphrey is currently away travelling on business, so opportunities to update are few and far between. Normal service is likely to be resumed in the next week or so! In the interim there are plenty of outstanding sites and blogs out there well worth a look, and which contain some excellent articles on modern defence. In no particular order, three that the author finds invaluable as sources of information, inspiration and examples of really good writing are www.thinkdefence.co.uk  - the Think Defence website http://cdfai3ds.wordpress.com/  - Canadian Defence blog which provides a lot of good insights into North American defence matters, particularly on the arctic and naval procurement challenges. http://defencewithac.blogspot.co.uk/  - Chris B's site - a really good location for some thought provoking deeper articles on defence and security. http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/  - An excellent site for thinkpieces on the security challenges in Australia and the w...