Thin Pinstriped Line

News broke the other day that the UK is on the verge of signing a ‘military technical co-operation’ agreement with Russia. Naturally this led to some newspapers speculating that the UK would soon be ordering Russian equipment, egged on no doubt by mischievous sources in the Russian defence industry hinting that they’d love to see the British Army equipped with Kalashnikovs. This is a good news story, despite some concerns that the UK was jumping into a closer relationship with the Russians after previous difficulties. It is natural for people in both countries to be wary, as despite a long theoretical peace, both nations have hardly been the best of friends for many decades. The UK and Russia have more strategic interests than one might think. Both share concerns over developments in the Middle East, North Korea, the Med, and both  watch with interest developments in the Caucuses and Afghanistan, mindful that developments there will have an impact in their home cities. R...

Browsing the as always excellent ‘Think Defence’ website, Humphrey was struck by a number of articles picked up from around the news on overseas basing, particularly about how the French are looking to expand their network of basing facilities in Africa to help meet the challenges of instability. The specific article can be found HERE , but in summary it says that in future, the French plan to maintain similar troop numbers in the Sahel region, but spread them out into more austere locations and have specific roles for each base. Foreign basing is one of those subjects which seems to crop up a lot on many internet ‘fantasy fleet’ discussions, with posters on forums creating wishlists of the sort of UK military structure they’d like to see, and most of the time it has some kind of permanent basing facility in all manner of odd locations, usually with some kind of grandiose title attached to it (e.g .15 th Imperial Army HQ in Timbuktu). There is a strong association with the ...

Humphrey woke this morning to the news that the former US Secretary of Defence (Bob Gates) has criticised UK defence spending and cuts, implying that the UK is no longer a 'full spectrum military power' and that this in turn calls into question its long term credibility as a major ally for the USA.  Leaving aside the purely coincidental fact that Mr Gates currently has a book out, and is media savvy enough to know that controversial comments playing to well known UK insecurities may be a smart way of boosting sales, these comments are rather interesting and worthy of further thought.  There have arguably long been two constant truths in UK foreign policy assumptions - firstly that the UK has a uniquely special relationship with the USA, and simultaneously that the special relationship may not be as special as we'd like it to be. The simple fact is that on t he global scale the UK and USA enjoy a genuinely close and intertwined defence and security relationship where...

The House of Commons Defence Select committee has published its short report on the steps and progress made towards establishing the next Defence and Security Review in 2015. It can be found here and makes for compelling reading - LINK HERE . Although it gained headlines in the UK for suggesting that unless there was continued investment in defence spending, the UK would cease to be relevant as a power, it is worth reading for its wider discussions on the role of strategy and where the UK should focus its attention in the next review. From the outset the review sought to portray the SDSR of 2010 as a purely cost driven and not strategy driven review. There is no doubt that it had to be though – anyone who was familiar with the parlous state of defence finances in the latter part of the last decade will recall the near permanent state of hand to mouth existence. With the review itself coming on the back of a global financial crisis, placing the UK in a perilous economic position,...

Official photos have been released of the Chinese Navy deploying its first ever carrier at sea as part of a ‘task force’ ( http://china-defense.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/photo-op-of-year-plans-1st-carrier.html ) The images suggest the Chinese Navy had around 11 ships in the force including a carrier, an LPD, six surface ships and three nuclear submarines returning to shore after 37 days away on tirals. On paper an impressive task force which helps demonstrate Chinese capabilities to the world, and once again highlights the growth of the Chinese Navy over the last few years.  But, dig beneath the surface and you see a slightly more complex picture – for starters the carrier does not appear to have an airwing embarked on her of any substance – suggesting that her ongoing trials and development of an aviation capability continue. This is not something that can be rushed, and while trials can continue, it will take some time before a fully worked up airgroup capable of operating 24/7...