Thin Pinstriped Line

  Yesterday (27 Dec) marked 10 years to the day since the inaugural PSL blog – a short article setting out the site goals. The first detailed article followed on 28 Dec 2011, a riposte to sensational and largely inaccurate claims about MOD spending. It is therefore a curious irony, that 10 years to the day, another article follows debunking sensational and largely inaccurate claims about MOD spending. In this particular case the headline news is that the MOD spent almost £13m on hire cars in 2021. The response from the Unions has been that this represents money that could be spent on payrises, while political opponents have claimed that it is an example of MOD ‘waste’ that could be spent more effectively. Is this really the case though, or is this a classic example of an end of year ‘silly season’ FOI request that makes easy reporting possible? The figure of almost £13m is a dream figure to cover – it is both big and small. It is big in the sense that to the average taxpaye...

  Ten years ago today, the first ever PinstripedLine blog was published. The site was set up in late 2011 as a result of frustration on several fronts. Firstly, the lack of understanding in the media about complex defence debates, which translated into a poor public understanding of the complexity of defence and why issues were not always clear cut. Secondly the blog was designed to counter the narrative that the UK and the MOD is a failure. There was a strong sense at the time that somehow we had magnificent armed forces, but at some indeterminate point in the system this competence vanished and was replaced by incompetents who seemed determined to screw over the armed forces. This was coupled with a view that the UK nationally was an irrelevance, a nation whose views did not matter, and where influence was waning. The UK was seen by many as a failing state without power or influence compared to others. Finally it was a desire to communicate clearly the case for the brilliant ...

  The Royal Navy isn’t currently large enough for the tasks it needs to carry out, and needs to get larger over the next few years. This is an official government view, endorsed most recently in the Integrated Review, which set out a very positive vision for the future role of the Royal Navy. There is no doubt that the RN needs more ships to deliver the full range of tasks it is committed to. Growing the fleet though in a sustainable manner is more than just clicking fingers and rearranging ORBATS in a manner beloved by commentators and fantasy fleet authors. While on paper saying ‘oh lets just double the number of Type 31 frigates, as this will solve our problems’   is easy, in reality it is surprisingly difficult to grow a navy quickly, and takes a lot of time and effort to do.   In this second part of the article focusing on the Defence Committees report on the Royal Navy, we consider the challenges implicit in actually delivering a larger fleet. Image by Ministry...

  The House of Commons Defence Committee has released a report into the Royal Navy, its size, availability, and its future. The report , selectively peppered with nautical phrases and a reworked quote from Jaws, puts across a strong view on both the current state, and the future state of the Royal Navy. The report starts with what feels like the now obligatory assessment that somehow the world has changed, and we’re all about the grey zone now. To be honest reading these constant statements that the world has changed is getting a little bit dull. If you drill into it, has the world really changed, or are we just doing the same basic jobs with different names? If you review the map in the report of the current deployments and tasks of the Royal Navy, the chart shows a series of deployments to global locations that has remained practically unchanged in decades. The ships may have changed, as has the technology, but the core tasks have not. The Royal Navy continues to deliver ma...

After 7 months, 49,000 miles, 44 nations interacted with, 18 different exercises and almost as many pints of milk as No10 hosted parties in lockdown later, the Carrier Strike Group is home. Their return to Portsmouth, Plymouth and Portland (RFA) over the last few days, as well as RNAS Culdrose and Yeovilton and also RAF Marham marks the closing of one chapter, and the opening of a very long book. It has been a high profile and extremely successful deployment, marking the return by the Royal Navy to conducting international task group deployments with fixed wing strike carriers on a global basis. Over the next few days and weeks, there will be a chance to reflect more on what detailed lessons can be drawn from the CSG deployment, but some initial thoughts stand out. Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright Firstly, OP FORTIS has shown that the Royal Navy belongs in that tiny clutch of navies, atop the very pinnacle of global naval power. Able to deploy, sustain and operate ...

  In evidence submitted today to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, a former FCDO official has made a variety of damning claims into the conduct of the FCDO during the evacuation from Kabul. His 39 pages of evidence suggest a variety of deep issues going wrong, and that the entire process was a disaster. Naturally this story has dominated the headlines – there is nothing better to read than a whistleblowing account of someone highlighting incompetence and ineptitude, and particularly when it seems written in a manner designed to offer ‘red meat’ to the tabloid press in terms of vivid imagery of incompetent working from home civil servants unable to do the right thing. There is, of course, an alternative perspective to this, which is that this evidence is the result of an individual becoming deeply disaffected with their employer and choosing a very public way to try to make their point in a manner designed to grievously wound. The individual confirms that they w...