A Tempest In a Teacup?

 

The UK has launched a new Strategic Defence Review and within a week there is a political ‘scandal’ as Ministers fail to rule out scrapping the RAF’s next generation fighter aircraft known as Tempest. Cue outrage all round as Ministers refuse to commit to the programme, breathless commentary in the papers ranging from informed insight to articles by Lewis Page, and a general sense that we’re all in trouble. Clearly silly season is upon us again.

For those unfamiliar with UK politics, the summer lull, usually late July to early September is a period when politics and government is paused, with most people taking a well deserved break. The  lull in meaningful business leads to playful news articles and increasingly desperate attempts to fill column inches – normally by taking a random set of statistics, finding obscure reasons to be outraged and then writing about in language that suggests the end times are upon us again.

UK MOD © Crown copyright 2021

In this case it’s a little bit more complex. Not only is silly season here, but the last couple of weeks have seen a major set of defence conferences, including the Land Warfare Conference, the Global Air & Space Chiefs conference and the Farnborough Air Show – a major defence event. There has been a higher than usual number of top level ministerial speeches and engagements that have been giving insight into UK defence policy, and represents the first real opportunity for new ministers to speak about how they see Defence.  This has meant several intriguing hints at thinking as to how the new SDR will unfold and the strategic priorities likely to shape the MOD in coming years.

The first issue though is that much of this genuinely interesting insight has been passed by in order to focus on the future of Tempest (Known as the Global Combat Air Programme). This is the next generation fighter jet and replacement for Typhoon, which is being designed in partnership with Italy and Japan, and which plays a vital role in safeguarding the future of the UK aerospace sector. It is a massive project and one that will be central to the future of the UK’s combat aircraft programme for decades to come.

The problem is that during a Q&A session, the new Minister of State for the Armed Forces (MINAF) was unable to formally commit to the programmes future past the SDR, and nor have other Ministers. This has led to the erroneous speculation that the programme is in trouble. The result has been a lot of media commentary, often deeply speculative and inaccurate suggesting that it will be scrapped – all on the basis of not saying ‘yes’ when asked to offer a guarantee. Does this mean the programme is really at threat? No, not yet.

All defence reviews require difficult conversations and analysis of the programme as a whole. So far all that is publicly known as an outcome of the SDR is that the British nuclear deterrent is safe and will continue. Everything else is on the table. What this means is that there are, at present, no sacred cows and everything can, and will be assessed to see how it adds value to the plans for the armed forces moving forward.

In very broad terms what the Review will consider is firstly what are the strategic threats the UK faces and what are its priorities for defending and deterring against? Secondly, given these threats, do the armed forces as both structured now and in their future plans have the right combination of equipment and support to meet these tasks, or are wider changes needed? Thirdly, how much money is available to fund both the structure of the armed forces now and in the future, and how does this pot of money change if different ideas are tried out, and what does this mean?

For example (and this is an entirely made up scenario!), if the UK were to look at moving to a predominantly ASW maritime defence posture, focused on ships, submarines, maritime patrol aircraft and so on, then this could mean the requirement for the aircraft carrier and tanker force no longer exists. In turn this means these ships could be scrapped or sold now, freeing up people and money in the short term to fund something else. In the medium term it may mean  taking money off the Army and RAF plans to buy tanks and jets in order to fund Navy plans to buy more submarines.

What the whole process boils down to is trying out different scenarios and force structures based on the desired defence outcomes, and seeing what is the right balance to meet the needs of the future force. If you want a good insight into how its done, then go to the National Archives at Kew where a huge amount of material from the 1998 SDR is available including many of the scenarios used, and analysis done both for the review itself and also what became the CVF project. This will help understand the deep level of analysis done to work out what is required, and how different force packages fit together.

UK MOD © Crown copyright 2024

What this will mean is that in the coming months all manner of unpalatable options will be considered and dismissed very quickly. That they are being considered is sensible – it is wise to understand all the options ahead of us, but equally the vast majority will go nowhere. That won’t stop them being leaked though, and it seems likely that many of the stories that emerge as ‘Paras/Marines to be merged into RAF Regiment’ stories that will follow are going to be based on analysis done at this stage of the process. Only a fool would believe them.

In the case of GCAP it makes complete sense that no one has formally committed to it in Government yet. There is a review underway, all the scenarios are being assessed and if you rule one major chunk of the equipment programme as being ‘out of bounds’ for the purposes of the review, you’ve both closed down the thinking and you’ve left lots of other things at higher risk if the money doesn’t add up. Until the whole analysis has been done, its simply not possible to make this sort of pledge.

This hasn’t stopped a lot of silly commentary attacking this, ignoring that this would be a challenge whichever government was in power (noting that had an election not been held yet, then a Defence Review would still have been held next year regardless of who won, and the same issue would have emerged). Expecting massive commitments to be made verbally in a press conference, when there is a review underway assessing this makes no sense – yet many people on social media got very wound up by this. All manner of odd comments about it being a major diplomatic incident or concerning to partner nations unless emergency statements were made  – not really, all governments face difficult decisions and all need to review them properly. To think that this is an issue when a mid ranking minister won’t commit to something he is unable to commit to (noting such a cancellation decision would be taken by the PM) is deeply concerning.

It’s a shame too as all of this pointless coverage has obscured some genuinely interesting speeches by the Secretary of State and Chief of the Defence Staff at the RUSI land warfare conference that have telegraphed far more about the SDR than the Tempest saga. Reading these speeches its clear that the themes under discussion are looking at issues like deterrence in  the round, increasing the lethality of the Army as a whole and a gentle move back to Division / Corps level operations for the Army, while reflecting new ways of operations (e.g. ‘battalion’s of one way drones’ was a CDS line – presumably in the process implying they won’t be operated by the Royal Artillery!).

What seems to be emerging is a vision for the Army that is about placing it at roughly the same size as it is now, but able to credibly deter the Russians as part of a wider NATO force (CDS sensibly noted that there is no point ‘like for like’ comparing the UK to Russia as if we go to war with Russia, we go with NATO as well). It feels that this review is going to be a marked change in unplugging 30 years of defence reviews that focused on global operations and deployments, and instead looks at returning to Europe as a leading ‘heavy’ player in NATO as both an island nation and as a leading army.

UK MOD © Crown copyright 2024

One gets the sense that there is real potential for change ahead, but the challenge is delivering it in a way that both brings about new equipment and keeps people involved and engaged. Its reasonable to say that the last 10 years have not been happy ones in review terms for the Army, which has tried on a variety of different concepts and ‘hats’ and changed its concept and models for the future more times than a RIFLES Officer changes uniforms during the working day. From a global force of strike brigades and robots and drones, to where we are now, which is, to put it kindly, a significantly denuded force given so much of it has gone to Ukraine (for the right reasons), the Army feels that it needs certainty on the vision of the future.

If this review gives the commitment and funding to secure its place as a leading player in a NATO construct, complete with a clear plan to regenerate heavy armour and artillery, and work out how to put the logistics and other vital enablers back in place to let it operate as a genuinely ‘reference army’ then this has the potential to bode very well indeed. But its important that the ‘cap badge mafia’ don’t prevent necessary change through clinging to titles and accoutrements past the point where it makes sense to where it does more harm than good. There is a risk that a focus too much on protecting the cap badges harms the ability to regenerate the areas taken as savings measures for too many years (particularly Logistics, Signals and Engineers etc). It is notable that the speeches contain barely concealed messages to the Army to play the game and not disrupt the process. Let us hope they are listened to.

Finally, on a more personal note, while the direction of travel looks genuinely interesting, and its clear that real change seems imminent, could the author please issue a small heartfelt plea for senior officers to give speeches in plain English? Reading some of the ‘buzzwords’ used in the speeches by other senior officers has been painful. Using lots of jargon to speak about simple subjects doesn’t’ sound impressive, its up there with attending a public reading Vogon poetry in terms of things that are not fun to endure. If you can’t explain in simple terms what you do, how you intend to do it in future and how it all works, then how do you expect the public to understand you when you make the case for the Army in future? Using business corporate speak to make things sound impressive may sound good in the closed circles of ‘top third’ OJAR ninjas, but for mere mortals who don’t speak fluent buzzword bullshit bingo, it makes it a chore to listen to. Please, speak to your audience as if they were human beings, not your syndicate from Staff Course during the final exercise…

Its early days for the SDR, a lot is likely to happen between now and its publication, but its clear that no matter how you look at it, we’re in for a fascinating time and potentially very significant change. Remember, don’t believe all you read in the press, and if in doubt, remember, it isn’t over until the Minister announces it at the dispatch box!