Thin Pinstriped Line

The Daily Telegraph ran an article today suggesting that the UK was relying on a so-called ‘Dads Army’ to understand the challenge posed in relationships with Russia and their current actions, particularly in the field of linguists and analysts ( LINK HERE) . It’s an interesting article as it really sums up the difficulties faced by the military in providing appropriately qualified personnel at the right time, and balancing this against resources. For many decades the threat posed by the Russians drove UK defence policy and structures. Entire careers were built around understanding the Soviet threat, and people became ‘Kremlinologists’ able to understand things as subtle as the placing of individuals on a Red Square parade and how that impacted on their influence within the system. The end of the Cold War really brought this system to an end, and since 1991 there has been a substantial decrease in people specialising in the sort of skills and languages needed to understand Russia...

The Armed Forces Pay Review Body (AFPRB) issued its annual report recently, outlining its case for a pay rise for the armed forces as the public sector pay freeze slowly begins a near glacial pace of melting. The top level recommendation that they receive 1% pay rise and a small increase to X Factor (the figure which provides a compensation for the challenges of service life relative to civilian life) was eventually accepted in full, following a brief political spat and some odd allegations that because the head of the committee was coming to the end of their fixed tenure, he was being ‘fired’. The report is interesting in several ways, not just because it helps reaffirm to all serving personnel they are receiving a pay rise, but also because of some of the nuggets of information it contains about wider service issues. The first take home from the report is that British military personnel are incredibly expensive to employ. Following the implementation of the review, the chea...

  Freshly returned from his holidays, Humphrey has been catching up on the news and defence related matters which cropped up during his absence. Clearly a lot of interesting developments have occurred in recent weeks, and there is much to comment on and consider. As a brief start to taking stock of developments, the author was particularly interested in the strange saga of the Argentine Navy and the US ‘Vulture Fund’ known as NML Capital. The strange story goes back to Argentine economic woes of the last decade, and the use of military vessels as collateral for loans. When Argentina stopped paying up, and defaulted on its debts, the suddenly a whole raft of Argentine assets, including naval vessels, have become legitimate targets in the eyes of NML Capital to try and recover their debt (estimated at some £230m). In recent years the Argentinean government has been struggling to try and prevent loss of assets in this manner. Reportedly President Kirchner does not fly abr...

There was a brief flurry of announcements last week that the Royal Navy would be conducting a deployment into the Med with the Response Force Task Group (RFTG), to conduct exercises with a range of partner nations across the region (the official MOD press release can be found here - http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/News-and-Events/Latest-News/2012/September/27/120921-Cougar-Preview ). This is a not insignificant deployment – sending some 3500 personnel into the Med represents roughly 10% of the Naval Services manpower total strength. At the same time, it is also being done while the RN continues to fill its other key deployments, such as the Atlantic Patrol Task, and operations in the Gulf. While this blog has never tried to put itself across as a ‘fanboy’ site, it is worth noting that there are very, very few navies in the world capable of sustaining on a permanent basis the number of operational deployments and training deployments that the RN does. The news of COUGAR 12 matters...

Travelling on the tube today, Humphrey noted the story in the Evening Standard about 'MPs outrage' that the MOD had spent £1.1m on consultants since the SDSR to advise on disposals http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-24030047-mps-outraged-as-consultants-get-pound-11m-from-deal-to-axe-harriers.do Notwithstanding the fact that the author is outraged just about every time he reads his MPs expenses claim forms, or hears verbatim just badly certain MPs behaved during trips to Operational Theatres (allegedly some very bad behaviour indeed (allegedly)), the question remains, do they have a point in being outraged? Humphries emphatic answer is NO. Its very easy to get worked up when you read about consultants, they tend to be portrayed as the sort of slimy morally absent creatures who are more concerned with sneaking a glance at your watch prior to telling you the time and then billing you for the experience. The idea that public money is being used to get advice from the...

Hello there, welcome to my defence blogging site. This site came about as a result of immense frustration about the lack of sensible, balanced coverage in the media, and on the internet about defence related issues. I've been commenting for some years on sites such as ARRSE, and Rum Ration about the importance of defence, but also trying to put a bit of balance into things too. My aim with this site is to use it as an occasional blog, talking about defence issues of the day, and trying to put longer thoughts together from time to time, which set out things that some media commentators may have missed. I dont know how often I'm going to be able to update this site, but my intent is to do it as regularly as time permits.