Thin Pinstriped Line

I started this blog in late 2011 as a response to the levels of debate which surrounded many issues impacting on Defence and wider UK security policy. I felt a keen frustration that all too often the debate quickly descended into poor reporting, tired clichés (e.g. more admirals than ships) and a general sense that the UK was a declining nation with good armed forces who were being betrayed by the MOD. In starting it I wanted to try to address some of these myths, try to put across an alternate viewpoint  and suggest that actually the UK remains a relatively influential nation with capable armed forces and that there is often very logical reasons why things have been done as they are. In other words, I wanted to put across that it is possible to be very positive about Defence in the UK and that there is a remarkably good story to tell. In the intervening two and a half years, nearly 200 articles, over 2600 comments and over 650,000 page hits later, I feel that hopefully some o...

It will have escaped few peoples notice that the security situation  in Iraq appears to be worsening by the day, as militia members affiliated to the Islamic State Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) continue their advance south towards Baghdad. Already several key towns have fallen, with reporting indicating a particularly hardcore Sharia law being imposed in its wake. Where the forces have contacted the Iraqi Security Forces, the outcome has been one-sided, with the numerically larger and better equipped ISF routing in short order. With senior Shia clerics making almost unprecedented calls to protect their people, and the Kurdish forces occupying Kirkuk, and with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing, the situation in Iraq appears on the brink of near total collapse. This is perhaps the most serious security situation in the Middle East in decades. The response from the West has been mixed – a combination of well intentioned aid donations, verbal gestures of support, but little ...

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...

Now able to make full use of Twitter, Humphrey was intrigued to read comments on one Twitter feed linked to discussion about the Royal Navy which was looking at the deployment of 9 Merlin helicopters onto HMS ILLUSTRIOUS. The debate swung on three main areas – the fact it was good news this was happening, it was a travesty that the paying off of ILLUSTRIOUS would lead to a capability gap which running her on could avoid till CVF was in service, and that it was down to ‘Government cuts’ that the Royal Navy found itself in this situation. To Humphrey's mind, there is more to this argument than a debate over cuts, and its one which is very thought provoking. If one looks back to the genesis of the CVF project in the late 1990s, the original concept called for two carriers to enter service in the 2012-2014 time frame (with a follow on delay for trials) ahead of full capability some two years after. At the same time the plan for the Invincible class remained constant, confirming th...

Of all the continents on Earth, Africa represents perhaps the one with the greatest potential, resources and pool of talent of any. But this is counterbalanced by a hugely complex, often chaotic collection of nation states, intertwined with incredibly complex social, political and economic problems, which often pose a wider challenge to regional and global stability. For the UK Africa remains a continent which has traditionally occupied a relatively low priority in terms of manpower and resource allocation. Yet in the 21 st Century, the UK model of commitment to Africa offers a good insight into how the MOD can help support wider UK goals in the region, on a relatively low commitment of resource, but achieve effects significantly greater than the sum of its parts. There is no doubt that Africa is an immensely complex and challenging region to understand. From a purely military perspective, the continent has everything from barely functioning defence forces struggling to achieve...

This weekend saw a major recruiting effort in London, as the reserve elements of the Armed Forces came out to try and drum up interest from the public in joining the military on a part time basis. While this was going on, the Telegraph appears to have continued to wage a one paper war against the Government, carrying multiple articles from seemingly ever older, senior and out of touch retired officers to try and push the case for maintaining the Army as it is, and not replace 20,000 regulars with 30,000 reservists. The issue of the size of the Army Reserve (as the TA is to be known) and the wider reserves is one of the most controversial parts of the 2010 SDSR. Cynics see it as running defence on the cheap, while optimists see it as a means of being able to have an army bigger than we could otherwise afford. There are many challenges in meeting this growth though, and it is something that significant political capital has been invested in – failure by the MOD to recruit will proba...

The BBC television show ‘Blackadder’ is arguably one of the funniest and finest comedies of the late 20 th century. Achingly sharp, with jokes that are still funny to this day, it was a four series show which finished with ‘Blackadder Goes Forth’ set in the First World War. Watching the show today, one is struck by how funny it is, and also worryingly how its anti-establishment jokes aimed at undermining the social structure of the time has become the accepted historical record of the First World War. The UK has a very strange ‘love hate’ relationship with its military officers – junior ones are portrayed as incompetent (Lieutenant George), Captains are seen as possibly okay (Captain Blackadder), Majors are usually seen retired and with a snifter in their hand (the Major from Fawlty Towers), while Colonels or heaven forbid Generals (General Melchett) are usually seen as inept, incompetent, who do not have a clue about their profession or what it involves. They are seen as people ...

There was a lot of coverage of the MOD announcement on Tuesday 14 May that the UK would be changing its deployment routine for the final phase of Operation HERRICK (UK ops in Afghanistan). Since the operation began, rotations of the major formations have happened on a roughly six monthly basis, with units relieving each other in country. Originally, when set against the planned timeline for withdrawal, a further three HERRICK rotations were due to occur. Under yesterdays announcement the MOD has now changed its plans slightly, with the three rotations replaced by two longer deployments. In effect each of the last two HERRICKS will be eight months long instead of six.   The news has been met in some quarters with allegations that the Army is too overstretched and that this announcement is a direct result of defence cuts and not other reasons. Frankly these thoughts stand up to little scrutiny. When one looks into the timetable for the next two years, it is clear that the one o...