Thin Pinstriped Line

Just when you thought the August silly season couldn’t get any sillier, the Daily Mail has managed to spark an outbreak of outrage over the news that the Royal Navy’s Fishery Protection Squadron hulls were all busy doing port visits, rather than protecting British fishermen in their ongoing spat in what has been dubbed ‘the Scallop Wars’. The situation appears to be that a group of British fishing vessels operating about 12nm off the coast of France (so potentially just inside French waters) were surrounded by a much larger group of French fishing vessels and prevented from fishing for scallops. This is due to a difference of agreements which permits British vessels to fish these waters for scallops all year round, with French vessels heavily restricted in when they can fish for scallops. The ensuing standoff led to a furious outburst from fishermen, feeling they were unable to carry out their livelihood, and led to calls for the Royal Navy to intervene to safeguard their rig...

The latest August ‘silly season’ story has hit the media, in the form of a front page on The Sun (HERE) claiming that Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State for Defence (SofS) has been asking all manner of odd questions that suggest the UK armed forces should look to use old car ferries as amphibious craft, put guns on tractors and apparently create a medal. This in turn has led to frustrated military personnel to brief out against him, worrying about the impact of his antics. Being a Secretary of State is not an easy job, and is one that often requires years of experience, usually derived from working your way up through Ministerial ranks to understand how being a Minister works, realising the very real limitations on Ministerial power (and in turn understanding what can be done that is powerful) and making enough mistakes to learn, but not be sacked. You do all this while also remaining a constituency MP and depending on your appetite for further power, forming alliances a...

The MOD has announced that the crew of HMS DARING who were onboard during her deployment to the Middle East in 2016-2017 will be eligible for a clasp to the General Service Medal (or the GSM if they don’t already have the Medal) for their work in escorting shipping in the Bab-Al-Mendeb straits. This small piece of recognition is well deserved and thoroughly good news for the crew, who worked in difficult and dangerous conditions during their deployment to keep UK entitled merchant shipping safe. Already though people on social media channels have questioned why, and how is this different from doing their normal job? Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright For context, the Bab-Al-Mendeb is one of the worlds most important strategic choke points. Situated in the Southern Red Sea, it is some 45 miles long and barely 12 miles wide. Any ship wishing to use the Suez Canal and avoid an extensive and lengthy detour via Africa must transit these waters. Western economies...

As the nation of Venezuela suffers further indignities, and teeters on the verge of wholesale economic collapse, its population are resorting to increasingly desperate measures to secure the means to exist. Amidst the chaos and confusion of a socialist dystopian nightmare, some are resorting to more blunt means of capitalism to survive. Along the coastline small gangs are putting to sea and engaging in armed robbery of small vessels, and in doing so they have become the new pirates of the Caribbean.   For the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, a former British colony just off the coast of Venezuela the notable increase in piracy incidents represents a not inconsiderable threat to national security. The Washington Post reported this week about the rise in piracy incidents and the growing concern about the risks this poses, particularly given their small Coastguard. ( LINK ). The declining situation has led to some commentators on social media to ask why the Royal Navy i...

The Mail on Sunday has published a story ( HERE ) noting that large numbers of troops are being offered a second chance to stay in the Armed Forces after failing a ‘Compulsory Drugs Test’. Traditionally UK MOD policy was to discharge individuals out of the Service, baring them for reenlistment for failing a test. Today the policy is more nuanced, and under certain circumstances an individual can have a ‘second chance’ if they fail a test. These second chances are used under tightly controlled circumstances, generally applying to younger personnel deemed worth keeping, usually in junior ranks and comes with a heavy penalty in terms of further tests and likely career stalling. This is particularly key given that some 70-75% of failures in the British Army are aged between 16-24– SOURCE . For some years now the total number of military personnel failing a CDT, and then discharged from the armed forces, has averaged about 500-600 people per year (usually 20-30 RN and RAF or 0.1...

One of the most enduring principles in the British Armed Forces is the long held and strictly enforced view that ‘everyone enters the system at the same point’. All new recruits should enter via Recruit or Officer training and embark on a career at the same level of experience. Under no circumstances could it apparently be possible for a trained professional to enter mid-career, skipping the junior ranks and quickly becoming an SO1 or Colonel on the back of their professional careers to date. The strongly held belief in many quarters is that the very business of soldiering is so exceptionally complex, that the culture is so strongly ingrained, that anyone seeking to enter the system at any other point would be an utter failure, and it would be a disaster for the Forces as a whole. This principle is almost uniformly rigidly applied, with the sole exception of the Chaplaincy and Defence Medical Services, where professionally qualified individuals enter the system in different ran...