ISTAR 04

 

Memorandum from Lee Bruce and Dr Robert Crowcroft

 

This is a submission from Mr Lee Bruce and Dr Robert Crowcroft. Mr Bruce is an expert on counter-insurgency strategy and defence having completed a research thesis in History at the University of Leeds on British military and political policy in Northern Ireland. Dr Crowcroft is an expert on British political parties, defence and international affairs. He recently received a doctorate in History from the University of Leeds on British politics and statesmanship during the Second World War. He has published articles in learned journals.

Summary

§ Government expenditure should be focused principally upon human intelligence rather than technological platforms. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are important in target acquisition and shaping both battlefield and intelligence environment. However, it is crucial to recast thinking about Governmental expenditure toward a more coherent policy for properly exploiting the existing superiority of our armed forces in the combat environments within which they presently function.

§ UAVs cannot provide information about the mindset, attitudes and assumptions of the enemy or the dynamics of their organisational structure. This poses serious issues about the penetration of actors' intentions rather than their capabilities, and should have ramifications for expenditure on ISTAR.

§ Nevertheless, UAVs remain a valuable instrument for UK armed services. Yet their proper exploitation necessitates much greater commensurate investment in the weapons platforms - specifically attack aircraft and missile systems - required to act promptly on the information that UAVs garner. Insufficient aircraft and weapons pose the risk that valuable intelligence cannot be acted upon swiftly.

§ Given the ever-increasing pressures on the defence budget, difficult choices must be made. It is absurd that the War on Terror continues to be fought without reliable human intelligence capabilities at the disposal of our armed forces. Before Government devotes resources to capital intensive platforms, it should guarantee that basic human intelligence structures are embedded within the UK armed services.

§ At a time of heightening international instability the failure to articulate what UK armed services are intended to achieve signifies serious neglect. This is evidenced by the recent conflation of climate change and globalisation as challenges comparable to Islamic terrorism as a threat to the security of the British state.

 

How the information/intelligence collected from current UAVs is used and what factors are limiting the most effective use of this information/intelligence

UAVs are employed for a range of target acquisition and battlefield intelligence operations. To utilise them to their proper potential now demands that the armed services be granted more robust Rules of Engagement which permit them to engage and destroy enemy positions less handicapped by political obsession with 'collateral' damage. Such concern is arguably a product of public and Westminster perception that warfare is inherently about peacekeeping, and contrasts starkly with the Clausewitzian mantra that 'Given the same amount of intelligence, timidity will do a thousand times more damage than audacity'.

 

Unless the Government invests substantially more resources in aerial weaponry, particularly military strike aircraft and missile systems, the UK will be unable to properly utilise UAV capabilities. Lacking sufficient airpower to engage and destroy enemy forces immediately upon their location, the value of this knowledge, and by extension the value of the expenditure on the UAVs, is limited. An example of the successful utilisation of UAVs operating in tandem with airpower was the June 2006 acquisition of the location of Al-Qaeda in Iraq commander Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his prompt liquidation by US warplanes. At present so much information gleaned by the UAVs could be rendered worthless by the lack of sufficient aerial assets to exploit the intelligence in a timely fashion. The seriousness of this deficiency would be greatly magnified if the UK became embroiled in conflict with a technologically sophisticated enemy capable of forward engagement with UK or allied forces. The danger is that low-intensity operations mask British vulnerabilities.

 

At a time of increasing threat from a multitude of global challenges including the growth of renewed Russian bellicosity and Islamic terrorism, it is disconcerting that the Government is cutting the defence budget in real terms. No manipulation of fiscal rules or 'spin' can obscure how poorly funded the UK's armed services have remained since the end of the Cold War. It is absolutely vital that leadership be demonstrated by investing heavily in both ISTAR and a plurality of weapons capabilities.

 

Whether the MoD is exploiting fully the ISTAR capabilities offered by UAVs  (including drawing on the experience of its allies)

As outlined above, the UK is incapable fully utilising its ISTAR capability due to a lack of investment in military assets. Such funding is unlikely to be forthcoming under present circumstances due to both the failure to express a coherent concept of what UK defence policy is intended to achieve and the Government's political priorities. On the other hand, a determined and robust application of an interoperable armed service has led to significant breakthroughs in Iraq by US forces.

 

How the current and future ISTAR capabilities offered by UAVs is informing the MoD's overall approach/direction relating to ISTAR

While the importance of UAVs is clear from the information above, nonetheless it is critical to rebalance ISTAR expenditure and planning to produce more effective human outcomes on the battlefield. The most basic concern of ISTAR planning should reside with the cultivation and development of human intelligence resources. This should necessitate a dramatic increase in both Arabic and Pashtun speakers embedded within the armed forces, thus reducing the UK's current dependency on employing indigenous individuals as linguistic experts. The loyalty of such people can be bought and sold; basing a key part of UK operational planning during sustained and medium-scale wars upon non-UK, non-armed forces personnel is illogical. Given the high probability that the current state of affairs will persist for several decades, the continuing failure to properly integrate trained linguistic experts within the armed forces units conducting counter-insurgency operations represents a fundamental failure in ISTAR planning.

The UK military must be restructured to enable the embedding of Arabic and Pashtun experts within armed forces on the front line. In particular, the UK should build-up a large and indigenous reservoir of personnel with such skills as a matter of urgency. It is difficult to conceive how counter-insurgency and ISTAR operations can be effectively conducted without direct and reliable communication between UK armed forces and locals in which British personnel control the flow of information and conversation.

Often it is asserted that the UK has an exemplary record in counter-insurgency operations, the evidence for which is the success of conflict resolution in Northern Ireland. Yet one lesson from this conflict that is presently being ignored was the interaction between the army, MI5 and the local communities of both ethnic divides. The real reason for success was the capacity of the intelligence services to infiltrate and manipulate insurgent groups. If the UK is to reverse the trend of failure that it is currently experiencing, especially in Basra, the military must re-engage with the local populace. But this can only be done if the armed forces are properly structured for the task of communication. Again, this is not an impossible goal as the shift in strategic direction conducted by US General David Peatreus continues to demonstrate real gains. Human intelligence appears the most potent, effective and, in fact, in financial terms probably the cheapest, form of intelligence gathering. The benefits accruing from it should not be arbitrarily dismissed.

 

Conclusion

Successful utilisation of UAV capabilities is crucial. But the UK government should be concerned with a commensurate expansion of the capabilities necessary to exploit it, namely aircraft and aerial weapons platforms. Simultaneously, it is a matter of concern that perhaps too great an emphasis is being placed upon technological solutions and the basic ISTAR capabilities - most seriously linguistic experts within the military - continue to be overlooked. Whilst UAV technology can illuminate an adversary's location and capability it conveys little to UK armed forces about intentions and broader strategic concerns. Both the technological and human intelligence aspects to ISTAR must receive greater emphasis; but it seems self-evident to get the basics right first.

In failing to provide clear doctrinal guidance upon which defence acquisitions can be made, the Government continues to articulate an incoherent defence vision. This makes it a near impossible task to judge the success or otherwise of defence expenditure. The basic duty of the state is to protect the lives of its citizenry. Given the gravity of the threat posed by other states, and non-state actors, the UK should now consider the need to radically increase its defence spending. ISTAR capabilities would benefit from such investment.

16 April 2008