2021 - The Reasons For Optimism.

The New Year has arrived with more of a whimper than a bang for many, with the world gripped by COVID. There is a sense though that this is likely to be the only New Years Eve likely to be so disrupted, and that hopefully in twelve months tine, the world will be in a very different, and better, place.

For the British Armed Forces, 2021 is likely to be a year of both opportunity and challenge. For this blog, Humphrey wanted to look ahead to the prospects for 2021,and consider the five ‘R’s that may have an impact on how the year pans out.

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

Reviews

The Integrated Review is currently likely to report back at some point in early 2021. This will be the formal unveiling of the long awaited defence and international security review, and will set out the UK’s security policy, the aspiration and ambition of how it will be conducted, and the forces required to deliver this.

Without doubt this will herald a year of change, both positive and negative for large parts of the armed forces. Already it has been strongly hinted that some capabilities will be stood down to provide funding for different approaches.

The loss of older capability is not something we should necessarily decry. While it would be easy to look at a headline that talks of less ships, tanks and aircraft, what matters far more is both the value of those platforms now, and their value and survivability in time of war.

It may be an uncomfortable truth that just because you possess something, this does not automatically mean it is always going to be of use. Keeping equipment in service, paying for it, and running it on, when it is no longer the right solution is not the best use of money, particularly when this could be channelled instead into new technology and equipment.

The Review is likely to major on the move towards technology based outcomes and ORBATS. In other words, what matters is not the platform, but the effect that is delivered. It could be that in future the Royal Navy does not need 12 or 13 Mine Warfare hulls, but instead a combination of autonomous platforms, shore based command facilities, supported by a smaller number of ‘motherships’ or other solutions.

On the one hand, this will reduce the number of ships in commission, but on the other hand, the ability of the Royal Navy to stay as one of the leading navies on the planet when it comes to Mine Warfare will be enhanced. The challenge will be to explain to a public, who are used to measuring their national standing in defence in the metric of units and ships, why they are safer as a result of having fewer ships, but more autonomous units.

Similar arguments will be had about the Army, where it may take tough decisions to step back from some capabilities, in order to fund new technology like robots. This may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but much of this is here now, and it is real – and the chances are that if the UK isn’t working on this, then plenty of nations and other actors that we may operate against are. Is it better to get in early, embrace and understand the technology and learn to use it, or step back and hope that by maintaining older equipment, we can somehow maintain the edge?

The wider outcome of the Review is likely to be much more focus on the Integrated Operating Concept that will redefine how Defence feeds into wider national security objectives. Both the Secretary of State and CDS gave speeches on this late last year, but it perhaps has attracted less attention than it should.

This is a shame because at its heart, the IOC is, if properly bedded in and delivered, going to fundamentally reshape how Defence works within Government. The new focus of working to deter some potentially peer threats, across multiple operating spaces, both physical and digital and beyond, and applying different levels of effect at different times is potentially very exciting.

For example, the concept calls for delivery of deterrence by different channels, and applying different pressures. It could see stepping up of cyber pressure, while reducing military effects, but all co-ordinated as part of a wider messaging operation.

On paper this could be extremely powerful- bringing together multiple parts of the UK state and using them in a truly co-ordinated fashion represents a real strength of the British system – namely the ability to work jointly and collaboratively across institutional boundaries. Foreign Governments are often surprised at just how well UK Government departments can, and do, co-ordinate efforts to a level unthinkable in other countries.

But at the same time the challenge with the IOC will be getting the most from it, and this probably requires an enhanced level of central direction and control to monitor the full picture. This will present an interesting tension with the concepts of empowerment, delegated authority and mission command that often get spoken about.

How Defence manages to balance this off and ensure that it can deliver the IOC without compromising on a level of independent operation and realistic span of command is going to be tricky. It should be deliverable, but in its execution may build the impression of a department that is ever more centralising in its desire to control. Without doubt, there is much to be written on the IOC as it matures.

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

Resilience

The first few months of 2021 will likely feature the thorny issue of resilience. The Armed Forces have increasingly become the ‘go to’ for solving all manner of crises in recent years, and it is hard to think of many areas where they could not be called on to add support to HMG crisis response. From fire fighting to prison guarding to testing for COVID, there are many different ways in which the military can get sucked into supporting the civil power.

The challenge in early 2021 is to ensure that the military is ready to support whatever requests are made of it to help deliver support to resolving the COVID challenge. There are likely to be a wide range of requests made, from delivering vaccinations through to the logistics of supporting others. (one has to hope that any military infanteers trained in giving vaccinations don’t inject the needle in the manner of a bayonet into a target dummy though!).

Perhaps the problem is that in some popular imaginations, the military have tens of thousands of bored soldiers sitting around in barracks looking for something to do. There is only a finite number of resources available though, practically none of which are intended for dedicated use to support the Civil Power. This means that when requests come in, it is delivered by drawing down on existing units and forces that will be taken off their intended tasks to support. The reality is that each MACA task, while the right thing to do for the country, also stops the military from doing its job.

Striking the right balance, between supporting the Government, while being able to respond to crises that could come unexpectedly will be a challenge. Deployment of troops on MACA taskings impacts on training, readiness and deployability, and while often politically very popular, can have an impact on longer term unit readiness and training.

For probably at least the first few months of the year, the military will find itself in high demand. With a ‘can do’ mentality, there will be a strong desire to provide as much support as possible, but there are often only finite amounts of resource available. For all the talk, for instance, of military doctors, many of them are embedded in the NHS already, and there are not that many able to be surged who are not already working on the ‘front line’.

That said, the story of early 2021 is going to be one of providing help and support at home. There will almost certainly be more demands for military support and training, and the delivery of military logistical expertise, to solve perceived problems. The story for wider 2021 will be how to recover and regenerate from this.

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Recovery / Regeneration

Once the military step back from their support to COVID and any other associated tasks, then the focus will need to quickly snap back to recovering and regenerating units for deployment.

2020 saw significant disruption to training programmes and major changes to patterns of activity. The armed forces will find themselves throughout 2021 trying to pick back up on deployments and return to a state of operational normality.

This will mean a slow return to major exercises, preparation for deployments and trying to ensure that units pick back up in their training cycle, not just from COVID, but from MACA tasking as well. It means taking leave, restoring stockpiles of equipment that may have been used, and getting back onto good training to ensure readiness is achieved again shortly after.

This is not to say that the military has failed during COVID to train properly – nothing could be further from the truth. One of the quiet success of COVID has been that all three services have kept critical functions going, and supported essential missions like QRA or providing escorts to monitor naval activity. On the 31^st of December the Royal Navy surged no less than five RIVER class OPVs out on patrol, as a reminder of the RN’s ability to deploy to sea at a time, and place, of its choosing, and ensure the security of UK waters.

But, there now needs to be an incremental step up from the more limited activity seen during the height of COVID and return to a more normal pattern of activity. This will include not just home activity, but preparing for return to operational deployments and longer term exercises, such as the planned ‘Carrier Strike Group 21’ deployment out to the Far East.

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Regional Engagements

One of the big challenges facing UK policy makers in 2021 will be to begin to define what a post Brexit British approach to the world is. Having departed from the EU, there are opportunities and costs associated with this decision, and these need to be properly understood to see how the UK decides on future regional engagement.

Trying to define a close working relationship with European states that complements NATO, and ensures the security of more vulnerable nations like the Baltic republics will be important. The UK will need to decide the level of its contribution to NATO and the extent to which it wishes to still play a leading role here, and the likely cost this will incur as a result.

More widely the UK will need to look for opportunities to define what it is that being ‘Global Britain’ means. For all the talk of trade deals and opportunities, it is perhaps hard to reconcile this aspiration to being a global leader with the decision to walk away from holding a leading role in the decision making apparatus of one of the worlds largest economic and political blocs – this will make the UK a less valuable ally in the eyes of many nations, as it no longer enjoys the same level of access or influence.

Where once the UK could point to having three rings of influence (Commonwealth, EU, Five Eyes) where it could act as a genuinely unique single member of all three, it now needs to define what it is replaces the EU ring and how it can add value to other nations diplomatic objectives. This is not to say that there is not opportunity out there, but that it is perhaps not yet fully clear yet what the role is that a post Brexit Britain can play on the global stage.

There is likely to be a shift throughout 2021 into areas neglected in the past, for instance the Asia Pacific region as the UK attempts to focus on wider engagement. This will almost certainly see a shift in military presence as the armed forces deploy more frequently into the region, and work closely with other nations.

This may make itself felt through the strengthening of alliances with old friends like Australia and New Zealand, or by demonstrating to the US that the UK is prepared to pull its weight in the region too.

But any increase in engagement is going to draw on the same resources as would otherwise likely be targeted at NATO. Here is a key challenge – what matters more, is it sending troops to the Far East on exercises to build up a defence relationship that will take years, possibly decades to mature, or to use them to train to defend against the threat of Russia to the Baltic States? The days of having large resources to do both are gone – and so tough decisions are needed about what matters more.

Is NATO going to need to be the priority to ensure the UK continues to retain a leading role in European security matters, or is focusing a credible commitment to the Asia Pacific a better investment for long term UK interests?

This is without considering the potential for challenge in the relationship with countries like China, which appears to be pursuing an extremely aggressive campaign of expansionism at present. The likely price of playing a higher more public role in the region will be an expectation by regional partners that the UK helps to counter the Chinese threat.

Is the UK strategic interest best served by deploying forces to the Asia Pacific to counter China, possibly working with the US and others to help deter expansionism, or is UK leadership needed elsewhere – for example the Gulf or Africa? Understanding the length to which the UK wants to pursue a ‘counter-China’ campaign in order to help thicken other relationships is key here.

Whatever happens, 2021 is likely to see continued debates about the UK’s place in the world, and the decisions needed to help shape where it moves in the post-Brexit space. These will not be settled by 31 Dec 2021.

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

Resources

Finally, the MOD will need to continue to consider the resource constraints imposed upon it. Although it has benefitted from a very generous longer term cash settlement in the spending round, it will still need to make short term cuts in year to balance the books.

It is likely that much of 2021 will see difficult decisions taken to try to keep things financially stable and balanced. This may result in some short term pain and could see things done very differently as a result.

Ensuring that people remain committed and retained will be an ongoing challenge – the likely outcome of the IR is that some parts of the armed forces will find themselves out of work, leading to possible headcount reductions or changes in role. Retaining people who do not feel wanted or valued will be hard. Recruitment is likely to be fairly easy, with the armed forces offering a good career at a time of uncertainty but retaining experienced talent will always be a harder battle.

Trying to juggle all of these drivers will prove hard work, and there is likely to continue to be some shortages of skilled people, unexpected resignations and possibly wider retention issues (for example, how many Royal Navy Reservists will not bother returning following the decision to switch off all their activity for a third of the financial year?). This means that it is hard to predict what is likely to happen, except to say that there will almost certainly be plenty of unexpected, and potentially unwelcome, surprises in store.

Conclusion

2021 is going to be a very different year to normal. It is a stepping stone on the return to normal living, but it is going to place real demands on the armed forces that will impact on them and their work.

It has the potential though to be a very exciting year, and one where we can see the genesis for long term structural change begin as a result of the Integrated Review decisions being taken. It will be a year in which the UK tries to change and flex its foreign policy tools and bed in new ways of working operationally and helps to begin to re-engage in a variety of areas.

While predictions are often dangerous, Humphrey will finish with these suggestions about what is likely to emerge by December 2021.

·         The Armed Forces will play a vital role in rolling out the COVID vaccine, and be seen as critical to its successful delivery.

·         There will be a growing challenge in managing public expectations about the limits of what MACA can do, and balancing the desire to ‘do MACA’ with the desire to operate the military as normal.

·         The armed forces will increasingly be seen on the streets to support the COVID roll out, raising public awareness of the people, but not necessarily their real roles.

·         There will be at least one unexpected, unplanned and unpredicted crisis which will see UK forces deployed at short notice somewhere in the world.

·         The Integrated Review will publish a very positive approach to UK defence and security that will, if fully delivered, fundamentally change for the better how the British Armed Forces are structured and equipped.

·         The year will end with plans in place / underway to reduce the size, force structure and equipment levels of all three services to deliver the IR, leading to accusations of defence cuts.

·         The Royal Navy will deploy to the Far East, with a large airwing of F35s embarked on HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH, and yet there will still be comment about ‘carriers without planes’.

·         There will be at least one silly season media story about military personnel which makes seasoned press officials and senior officers bang their heads on the desk about ‘how could they be so stupid’  while serving folks award the accolade of ‘Corps Legend’ to the miscreant, whose actions will no doubt embody all that is good and funny about the armed forces.

This is going to be a busy, challenging and exciting year ahead. May it be, if not necessarily ‘happy’ right now, at least one where things slowly but surely get that little bit better.