Thin Pinstriped Line

The UK Government has published its assessment on the benefits to Scotland of remaining part of the UK when it comes to defence and security matters (link is HERE ). As part of this review, it highlighted the value to Scotland (and the UK as a whole) that comes from being supported by the existing security and intelligence agencies. The paper rightly noted that Scotland would have to set up from scratch a security and intelligence apparatus in order to preserve their national interests. This would be time consuming and expensive to do. It is worth considering briefly just how significant a change to Scottish security would be if it were no longer able to rely on access to the UK apparatus, and just how exposed this could potentially leave Scottish interests. At present the UK security and intelligence apparatus is built through several different institutions and sets of relationships. On the practical side there is the actual collection organisations – the Secret Intelligence Se...

Of all the continents on Earth, Africa represents perhaps the one with the greatest potential, resources and pool of talent of any. But this is counterbalanced by a hugely complex, often chaotic collection of nation states, intertwined with incredibly complex social, political and economic problems, which often pose a wider challenge to regional and global stability. For the UK Africa remains a continent which has traditionally occupied a relatively low priority in terms of manpower and resource allocation. Yet in the 21 st Century, the UK model of commitment to Africa offers a good insight into how the MOD can help support wider UK goals in the region, on a relatively low commitment of resource, but achieve effects significantly greater than the sum of its parts. There is no doubt that Africa is an immensely complex and challenging region to understand. From a purely military perspective, the continent has everything from barely functioning defence forces struggling to achieve...

Over the years Humphrey has become somewhat cynical of the news cycle about Defence. Most weeks of the year see the same cyclical series of stories about how the UK is no longer relevant, how the RN couldn’t defend Falmouth from a horde of French marines in Pedalos and how the Argentines clearly pose a major threat to the Falkland Islands. The latest iteration in this is the now traditional outburst that the UK is somehow causing a rise in tension in the South Atlantic by conducting routine exercises in the Falklands. While it is easy to get either easily riled at the ridiculousness of the situation, or get worked up at the sheer outrage of it all, the pronouncements on the story perhaps show how weak the current Argentine case is, and hint at desperation measures to get the news story away from internal problems.   Breaking the story down, it is essentially the latest in a long series of claims by Argentina that the UK is attempting to militarise the Falklands – this see...

Its that time of the year again when another report comes out suggesting that the Royal Navy hasn't enough warships to protect our supply lines and that UK national security is imperilled. Ignoring that the article in question suggests that the UK only has 23 battleships (link is HERE) it is a good starting point to consider whether the RN needs more smaller ships. For many decades, arguably since the Type 14s entered service, the Royal Navy has optimised a building programme to keep first rate escort vessels in service, capable of meeting any conceivable level of war fighting challenge. This has led to a deliberate policy of protecting build programmes which delivered high capability warships in smaller numbers over much larger numbers of lower capability. Even where relatively austere designs have been envisaged, they have quickly been upgraded – for instance the Type 23 programme reputedly began life as an austere towed array tug, probably to be built in sufficient numbe...

The House of Lords published an outstanding report into the role of soft power and the UK at the end of March, which set out the value of so-called ‘soft power’ and how the UK could make better use of its resources and influence at a time when it is more vital than ever to do so. Humphrey has long been a proponent of the value and importance of ‘soft power’, the so-called intangibles of international diplomacy, ranging from the value of a Royal Visit through to the discrete whispering of an international development advisor to make changes which save lives. Sadly, in many defence fora it is fashionable to mock soft power as something which is seen as a substitute for what really matters, namely long ORBATS listing every imaginable piece of military equipment going, usually accompanied by extensive wishlisting for ‘fantasy fleets’. To the author though, this approach is less about having effect and influence and more about feeling good about one’s own military superiority. One ...