2 Old Assumptions, New World
Role of the
Armed Forces
17. From the 1998 Strategic Defence review to the
2010 NSS and SDSR the UK was focused on "the end of the Cold
War". The Foreword to the NSS stated that the UK was "more
secure, in the sense that we do not currently face, as we have
so often in our past, a conventional threat of attack on our territory
by a hostile power".[20]
Instead, the National Security Strategy insisted "twenty
years after the Berlin Wall came down, the equipment we have available
is still too rooted in a Cold War mind-set". The NSS categorised
"a conventional attack by a state on another NATO or EU member
to which the UK would have to respond" as a tier three (or
lowest) priority threat.
18. The 2010 Security and Defence review, which was
produced on the basis of this NSS, "set", according
to General Sir Peter Wall (until November 2014 Chief of the General
Staff), "a lower level of ambition for UK involvement in
global security than ever before."[21]
Specifically, the SDSR did not plan for deployment against a well-resourced
conventional state, nor envisage a return to large scale European
standing or enduring commitments. Nor did it emphasise the conventional
deterrent role of the Armed Forces, (the ability to deter potential
adversaries through the demonstration of capability and the willingness
to use force should the need arise).
19. Instead, UK Strategy focused on different threats,
defined in the opening section of the 2010 National Security Strategy
("the security context") as terrorism, instability and
"lawless regions", nuclear proliferation, organised
crime, and natural hazards. The security section of the NSS concluded
that "our most urgent task is to return our nation's finances
to a sustainable footing."
20. On the basis of this assessment in the NSS, the
SDSR categorised future military operations as either:
· Standing commitments: permanent operations
essential to UK security or to support key UK global interests;
· Intervention operations: short-term, high-impact
military deployments, such as the deployment to Sierra Leone in
2000; and
· Stabilisation operations, longer-term
mainly land-based operations to stabilise and resolve conflict
situations primarily in support of reconstruction and development
and normally in partnership with others, such as the UK contribution
to coalition operations in Afghanistan.[22]
21. 'Intervention' and 'stabilisation' operations
were generally intended to respond to crises in 'fragile states'.
They could be 'humanitarian' in nature (Bosnia, Sierra Leone and
Kosovo), or respond to threats of terrorism (Afghanistan) or concerns
for the regional order (Iraq). Because, these missions were often
'expeditionary', (taking place far from sovereign territory),
aircraft carriers offered a useful platform for 'intervention
operations'. The primary force, however, in both 'intervention'
and 'stabilisation' was anticipated to be infantry, who, after
the initial intervention (or 'regime change') worked with the
aim of ending a conflict, and restoring governance. Their tasks
extended from securing population areas, to demobilising militias,
training local security forces, and supporting local government.
22. The overall troop numbers and time commitment
required for stabilisation operations was believed to be very
considerable. US doctrine argued that achieving stability, or
defeating an insurgency, required up to 20 soldiers for every
1000 members of the civilian population,[23]
and the task was expected to take over a decade. Such operations
in Iraq and Afghanistan absorbed a very high proportion of UK
capacity, but the UK still provided the minority of the overall
coalition deployment (with the majority coming from the United
States). The Future Force 2020 concept was designed to be able
to sustain only 6,600 British troops in a single 'enduring stabilisation
operation'—between 5 and 7% of the total numbers in recent
interventions (in Iraq, there were 130,000 international troops;
in Afghanistan over 100,000). The Future Force structure put a
strong emphasis on the brigade, as opposed to the division or
battle-group, as the central unit of future enduring operations.
23. If, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, the international
troops faced an insurgency, they were to be reinforced by remotely
piloted air-systems, precision-bombing, surveillance and Special
Forces. But their adversaries were likely to be 'technologically-inferior
or lightly armed': they would not have the capability of sinking
coalition ships, or shooting down coalition jets.
24. Even the US—which dwarfed by a factor of
five any other coalition contributor—could not be expected
to have the resources to conduct more than two operations of this
scale and intensity, at any one time, and in fact, in practice,
it strained to sustain even two. The unstated assumption was,
therefore, that 'interventions' or 'stabilisation' operations
would happen sufficiently infrequently, for the UK and its allies
to tackle them in turn.
25. In line with these expectations, the US Defence
budget which had amounted to 4.7% of GDP in 2010 fell to 3.8%
in 2013. The UK Defence budget fell from 2.4% of GDP in 2010 to
2.2% in 2013. On the basis of current spending plans and growth
assumptions, UK spending is expected to fall to 1.7% of GDP by
2020-21.[24] The spending
of other European countries had already fallen more steeply, so
that by 2015, the reduced US Defence budget, accounted for 70%
of the total NATO budget—with the other NATO countries,
whose combined populations and economy were larger than the US,
contributing only 30%.
26. All these planning assumptions, embedded in the
National Security Strategy and the Strategic Defence and Security
Review, have been challenged by the re-emergence of a conventional
threat from Russia, and an ever-expanding list of fragile states,
many dominated by terrorist-affiliates. In the words of General
Sir Peter Wall:
The 2010 SDSR did envisage a reasonably benign
security environment for this decade, once we had completed our
combat role in Afghanistan. Alas, unpredicted events have cast
a shadow on that expectation. Chaos across North Africa and the
Middle East in the aftermath of the Arab Spring continues to cause
some serious strategic and military dilemmas; so, too, the state-on-state
confrontation in Europe initiated by Russia in the aftermath of
the Sochi Olympics. Both are complex, long-term issues that pose
considerable threats to UK interests. In an era of moral and physical
disarmament the West has been caught napping.[25]
The threat from Russia
27. For the first time, since the Second World War,
a technologically advanced European power has expanded its own
territory by force, rejecting international borders, and posing
fundamental questions about NATO's ability to respond to Russian
aggression, and to defend NATO member states.
28. As we have outlined in detail in our report Towards
the next Defence and Security Review: Part Two—NATO
Russia's new actions reflect Moscow's belief that NATO is a strategic
adversary.[26] Russia
has demonstrated the intent to push back, by force and subversion,
what it perceives as Western interference in countries bordering
Russia. It has demonstrated in Georgia, and through a cyber-attack
on Estonia, a willingness to use violence to achieve its ends.
And most markedly, in Crimea, a willingness to annex territory
of another sovereign state, expand its own territory, and challenge
the borders of Europe.
29. It does so with a Defence Budget that will be
close to 100 Billion dollars for 2016,[27]
a commitment to radically increase Defence Spending, an upgrade
of its conventional nuclear capacity. It has also shown through
the Zapad 2013 exercise the ability to mobilise over 150,000 troops
at 72 hours' notice[28]
and, in operations in Crimea, formidable command and control skills,
and ability with asymmetric or ambiguous warfare.
30. The current conventional wisdom is that a Russian
attack on a Baltic State would be a low probability, high-impact
event. But this is predicated on NATO's willingness and ability
to uphold its Article 5 commitments; and on the assumption that
Russian actions would not be kept deliberately 'below the threshold'
of Article 5. So far, at least, economic sanctions, and the collapse
of the Russian economy, the oil price and the rouble does not
appear to have weakened President Putin's resolve or popularity
(which currently still stands at almost 90%).[29]
Putin's particular combination of nationalism, sense of grievance
at the collapse of the Soviet Union, paranoia about NATO intentions,
authoritarian power, political skills, and flexible opportunism
makes him a dangerous and unpredictable opponent.
31. This was acknowledged on 19 February, by Rt Hon
Michael Fallon MP, the Secretary of State for Defence, who said
that Russia represented a "real and present danger"
to the Baltic States. He added that
You have tanks and armour rolling across the
Ukrainian border and you have an Estonian border guard being captured
and not yet still returned, […] When you have jets being
flown up the English Channel, when you have submarines in the
North Sea, it looks to me like it's warming up.[30]
20 A Strong Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The National Security Strategy,
Cm 7593 Back
21
Article: The Telegraph, Don't play politics with defence, 10 March
2015 Back
22
The Strategic Defence and Security Review Cm 7984, October 2010,
page 18 Back
23
A Historical Basis for Force Requirements in Counterinsurgency, Steven M Goode Back
24
Professor Malcolm Chalmers, The Financial Context for 2015 Strategic
Defence and Security Review, RUSI Journal. Back
25
Article: The Telegraph, Don't play politics with defence, 10 March
2015 Back
26
Defence Committee Report: Towards the next Defence and Security Review: Part Two-NATO
Third Report of session 2014-15, HC 358 Back
27
IHS Pressroom, Global Defence Budgets Overall to Rise for First Time in Five Years,
4 February 2014 Back
28
Dr Jamie Shea, Regent's Report 2014, Transatlantic Relations: a European perspective Back
29
Forbes article, Putin's approval ratings nearly 90%, 6 October
2014 Back
30
BBC News UK, Russia 'danger' to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia - Fallon,
19 February 2015 Back
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