Thin Pinstriped Line

  There was a surprise announcement on Friday 29 Jan that Sir Stephen Lovegrove, Permanent Under Secretary (PUS) over at the MOD was to become the new National Security Advisor (NSA). This was a surprise move, as Lord Frost had only recently taken on the role, and he will instead focus his attention on Brexit and setting up an International Policy Unit for No10. This may sound like a relatively dreary subject, but in fact it is a fascinating insight into Whitehall machinations, and understanding how national security is handled and covered in Whitehall, and an insight into wider leadership changes. The role of the NSA is one of the less well understood jobs in Whitehall. While it is without doubt one of the catchiest job titles, the function is less well defined. At its heart, the post is about being the individual who leads the Secretariat that co-ordinates national security policy making, and provides co-ordinated advice to the Prime Minster on policy and crisis response. The...

  Commentators in the UK have begun their 4-yearly ritual of worrying about their relationship status with the USA. Despite no reason for there to be any change from ‘in a relationship’, some in the UK seem to think that it may be time to change things to ‘its complicated’ – this is entirely normal and happens every four years. The cause of this angst is linked to the arrival of President Biden, which in turn has led to lots of articles about how the UK doesn’t matter, or how the UK can be a great friend, or how the special relationship is doomed and so on. It’s a curiously British obsession with trying to work out just how into them the US President actually is. Lots of airtime is given to focusing on the first phone call, the first visit, the first talks (but hopefully not the first kiss), and perhaps less attention is given to asking whether the relationship between President and Prime Ministers actually matters all that much? Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright ...

  A few years ago now, there was a letter published in the papers by someone who reported that they recently visited many country pubs shortly after opening time. On arrival, they enquired ‘is the Major here yet’, to which the response was almost always ‘not yet, but he’ll be in shortly’. This most British of titles is something that cuts to the heart of many peoples identity. For a not insignificant number of those who have served, there is a strong desire to retain titles earned, often in desperate circumstances, and be identified for life by their service. Many pubs had their own Major. Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright This is perhaps more visible in the generation that grew up after WW1 and WW2, where suddenly the rapid expansion of the military led to a great number of people gaining commissions during wartime. For many, the holding of rank, often surprisingly senior rank at a young age (e.g. a mid 20 something Lt Colonel) became one of the defining characterist...

The RAF has been accused of potentially putting national security at risk by its plans to introduce an aircraft into service that was, in a former role, used by a Chinese airline. Does this plan, intended to deliver the new ‘Wedgetail’ AWACS capability on time, really count as a risk, and is UK national security in peril as a result? It is important to note that the story, marked in the Sunday Telegraph as an ‘exclusive’ is anything but. It follows the time honoured pattern of stories floating around in the specialist press, before being picked up. In this case, the story seemed to have emerged on 2 January on twitter , before being picked up by ‘ The Drive’ on 4 Jan. Its taken the Telegraph another two weeks before picking the story up and falsely claiming it as an exclusive. Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright The Wedgetail programme is the plan to provide 3-5 aircraft based on the Boeing 737 airframe to replace the existing Sentry aircraft. The role will be to monit...

  The National Audit Office has released its latest annual assessment on the viability of the MOD’s equipment programme. Assessing how credible the plans are to spend nearly £200bn of public money over the next 10 years on equipment, and how likely it is to make the books balance. Sadly, the NAO has, for the 4 th year running, concluded that the Equipment Plan (EP) is unaffordable. The British Armed Forces benefit from possessing extremely capable armed forces, capable of operating globally and being able to carry out a wide range of missions, from peacekeeping to warfighting. The equipment that they use is particularly good, and often some of the best in the world for the job at hand. Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright The span of interests that must be looked at ranges from the production of armoured vehicles or upgrades to tanks and artillery, through to developing cutting edge aircraft, nuclear submarines and also space and cyber capabilities. One of the challe...

The British Army has launched the latest in its series of annual recruitment campaigns, aimed at trying to convince modern youth to join up. Over the last few years these campaigns have caused an outcry as people moan about ‘snowflakes’ and ‘PC gone mad’. This is because they’ve tried to adopt entirely new messaging that reaches to modern audiences. Who’d have thought that the idea of perhaps doing some market research, understanding your audience and realising that posters of tanks or saying ‘be the best’ doesn’t always work would be a winner? Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright The campaigns have, without exception, been extremely clever – they have tapped into the hopes, dreams and fears of a new generation of recruits. These recruits see the world in a totally different way to their predecessors, in no small part due to the way that they’ve grown up almost organically fused with their smartphones and web access. Understanding that a new approach was needed was cru...

  The Telegraph has published an article about HMS PRINCE OF WALES (POW) suggesting that that she has spent barely 90 days at sea in two years. This is apparently because of ‘leaks’ and is apparently a bad thing. Is this really the case though, or is there more to this than meets the eye? In a word, no, there isn’t an issue – its actually pretty much normal business to be honest. The article is concerned at the length of time that the ship has spent in Portsmouth, worrying that she seems to have spent very little time at sea. But, this is entirely normal so early in her operational life. Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright All Royal Navy ships are run according to a carefully planned programme of events. This is scheduled to ensure that the Royal Navy knows what military tasks it has to do in order to meet Government objectives, what ships will be needed to fill those tasks, and how they can be made ready in such a way as to meet this. For example, if you look at...