Thin Pinstriped Line

I started this blog in late 2011 as a response to the levels of debate which surrounded many issues impacting on Defence and wider UK security policy. I felt a keen frustration that all too often the debate quickly descended into poor reporting, tired clichés (e.g. more admirals than ships) and a general sense that the UK was a declining nation with good armed forces who were being betrayed by the MOD. In starting it I wanted to try to address some of these myths, try to put across an alternate viewpoint  and suggest that actually the UK remains a relatively influential nation with capable armed forces and that there is often very logical reasons why things have been done as they are. In other words, I wanted to put across that it is possible to be very positive about Defence in the UK and that there is a remarkably good story to tell. In the intervening two and a half years, nearly 200 articles, over 2600 comments and over 650,000 page hits later, I feel that hopefully some o...

It will have escaped few peoples notice that the security situation  in Iraq appears to be worsening by the day, as militia members affiliated to the Islamic State Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) continue their advance south towards Baghdad. Already several key towns have fallen, with reporting indicating a particularly hardcore Sharia law being imposed in its wake. Where the forces have contacted the Iraqi Security Forces, the outcome has been one-sided, with the numerically larger and better equipped ISF routing in short order. With senior Shia clerics making almost unprecedented calls to protect their people, and the Kurdish forces occupying Kirkuk, and with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing, the situation in Iraq appears on the brink of near total collapse. This is perhaps the most serious security situation in the Middle East in decades. The response from the West has been mixed – a combination of well intentioned aid donations, verbal gestures of support, but little ...

The Daily Telegraph ran an article today suggesting that the UK was relying on a so-called ‘Dads Army’ to understand the challenge posed in relationships with Russia and their current actions, particularly in the field of linguists and analysts ( LINK HERE) . It’s an interesting article as it really sums up the difficulties faced by the military in providing appropriately qualified personnel at the right time, and balancing this against resources. For many decades the threat posed by the Russians drove UK defence policy and structures. Entire careers were built around understanding the Soviet threat, and people became ‘Kremlinologists’ able to understand things as subtle as the placing of individuals on a Red Square parade and how that impacted on their influence within the system. The end of the Cold War really brought this system to an end, and since 1991 there has been a substantial decrease in people specialising in the sort of skills and languages needed to understand Russia...

Now able to make full use of Twitter, Humphrey was intrigued to read comments on one Twitter feed linked to discussion about the Royal Navy which was looking at the deployment of 9 Merlin helicopters onto HMS ILLUSTRIOUS. The debate swung on three main areas – the fact it was good news this was happening, it was a travesty that the paying off of ILLUSTRIOUS would lead to a capability gap which running her on could avoid till CVF was in service, and that it was down to ‘Government cuts’ that the Royal Navy found itself in this situation. To Humphrey's mind, there is more to this argument than a debate over cuts, and its one which is very thought provoking. If one looks back to the genesis of the CVF project in the late 1990s, the original concept called for two carriers to enter service in the 2012-2014 time frame (with a follow on delay for trials) ahead of full capability some two years after. At the same time the plan for the Invincible class remained constant, confirming th...

Another day, another depressing story about the decline of the UK Armed Forces into being just a ‘defence force’ (according to the rent-a-quote senior retired offer used), and this time the story is about the size of 16 Air Assault Brigade. The Daily Telegraph is running a story so exclusive and based on ‘internal briefing notes’ about the order of battle changes, that the documents can be found on the British Army website. (Story can be found HERE ). The charge made is that there are major cuts coming to what is seen as the ‘premier’ formation of the British Army, and it will reduce in size from 8000 to 5000 troops over the next few years, as units, capability and troops are reduced in number. This is seen as a bad thing, and is apparently a damning indictment of all that is wrong with the MOD today. The truth of the matter is somewhat different – this change is perhaps better seen as a key part of the reforms under Army 2020 which will deliver a more balanced structure to the Ar...

The author has finally gotten around to establishing a Twitter account which is used to retweet some of the best defence articles out there, and occasionally engage in debate or answer questions. Feel free to follow Sir Humphrey over at @pinstripedline!

There has been significant coverage of the loss of the Yacht Cheeki Rafiki which has sunk in the North Atlantic and where four sailors remain missing. The combination of the decision to call off the search after 53 hours, coupled with the sense that the UK didn't have any specialist assets to contribute, in sharp contrast to the contribution for the search for Flight MH370 has led to a situation where there have been many questions asked. The first thing to realise is that the sea is a very harsh environment to work in, and that even the best preparations can only buy so much time. The author has many vivid memories of having to conduct sea survival training over the years (which usually always seems to happen in particularly cold winters!). On entering the lake to swim to the life raft barely 100m away, and dressed in full survival gear, it was still incredible how quickly one felt the first tingling signs of hypothermia. In the environment the yacht was in last week, with ...

For the first time the UK has published its National Strategy for Maritime Security, a document which sets out in one place the entirety of the challenge facing the UK when trying to protect UK national security interests in the maritime domain. The full document can be found at this LINK .  There were some comments suggesting that the piece did not fully focus on the role of the Royal Navy, placing it at the centre of UK strategy, whereas to the author the document serves as a timely reminder that maritime security is about so much more than just your nations navy. Humphrey wanted to do a short piece to set out why this paper is important and why it is worth a read. The paper is important as for the first time it sets out how complex maritime security is, and the range of stakeholders who have a part to play in protecting the UK. While many people traditionally associate the Royal Navy with this role, in fact the Border Force, Police, Department for Transport, Fisheries and a...

In the first part of this article, Humphrey took a look at the current laydown and commitment of UK forces in Africa, and what sort of engagement is currently undertaken. In this part, he intends to focus more on what future engagement could look like, and some thoughts on what is, or is not, a likely model of future UK interest in the continent. Stand Off? As noted originally, the UK has long since moved out of its permanent bases in Africa – while a small training footprint remains in Kenya, this is very much a training location, optimised for supporting pre-deployment exercises and not operations. When there is a presence, it is very much built around a temporary deployment and not permanent basing. The UK as a whole has also tried to avoid significant intervention in the continent, with only two substantial military interventions involving kinetic operations (Sierra Leone and Libya) occurring since the end of UK colonial rule, plus the deployment of a variety of training tea...