Wars of the future will be short, sharp and bloody
The UK's top soldier, General Peter Wall, has been interviewed:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...rmy-chief.html
Of note are his remarks on recruiting for military cyber warriors:
Quote:
The education and personal qualities of our cyber warriors are likely to be a challenge to more linear military behaviour and we therefore need to consider how we recruit.
British Generals in Blair's Wars
The highly respected British military historian, Hew Strachan, has edited this small volume, thinner as officialdom prevented six serving officers contributions appearing and makes some pithy comments:
Quote:
Like many armies in the past, the British army struggles to foster effective debate within a hierarchical command chain.....for fear of reputational damage and political controversy....The MoD has got to get real … Differences and debates need to be properly gone over. Otherwise we are none the wiser
If this is what retired officers are writing, as this review puts it I am not surprised controversy results:
Quote:
An underlying theme in the essays by former generals and senior British staff officers is the almost complete lack of preparedness and failure to provide enough resources, in terms of both money and men, in Iraq. The failures, the authors write, were not learned and were repeated in Afghanistan.
Link to review:http://m.guardian.co.uk/uk-news/2013...als?CMP=twt_gu
Link to publisher's website, where John Nagl comments:http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409437369
Found elsewhere a review by Sir Michael Howard, a historian who in his senior years remains sensible:
Quote:
This collection must be almost unique in military history. Seldom if ever have senior military commanders discussed so frankly the difficulties they have faced in translating the strategic demands made by their political masters into operational realities. The problems posed by their enemies were minor compared with those presented by corrupt local auxiliaries, remote bureaucratic masters, and civilian colleagues pursuing their own agendas. Our political leaders should study it very carefully before they ever make such demands on our armed forces again.
From:http://ccw.history.ox.ac.uk/2013/05/...n-blairs-wars/
Amazon.com, with no reviews:http://www.amazon.com/British-Genera...Blair%27s+Wars
Amazon.co.uk: not available yet (ho-hum).
British Political-Military Relations, 2001–10
A very short Chatham House briefing paper (less than 30 pgs) and IMHO sits here: Depending on the Right People: British Political-Military Relations, 2001–10. The summary starts with:
Quote:
There is a widespread view that Britain’s politicians should bear the main blame for the country’s military difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan. In particular, they are accused of failing to heed professional military advice and of launching over-ambitious missions with insufficient resources. Recent evidence, including from the Iraq Inquiry, shows that this view is too simplistic.
Instead, Britain seems to have suffered a wider failure of the government system, with politicians, senior military officers and civil servants all playing their part.
Link:http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/de...deWaal1113.pdf
For reasons lost on me the author, a UK diplomat on study leave, remarks:
Quote:
Britain must learn from US experience and from its own mistakes.
Another article to read one day.
Gates: British Military Cuts Limit Scope for US Partnership
Gates: British Military Cuts Limit Scope for US Partnership
Entry Excerpt:
--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.
British National Strategy: Who Does It?
Catching up with my reading backlog I have finally read Hew Strachan's Parameters article. It is an easy read, ten pages long:http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute...an_Article.pdf
Apologies if posted before, not sure where and when I found it!:wry:
A 'war weary' public needs short conflicts
Philip Hammond, the UK Defence Secretary, has warned short conflicts are the only way to win over 'war weary' public, at the Munich Security Conference.
Within his reported speech are some very odd phrases and words which hardly endear him to the listening public, probably some fellow MPs too. In particular that:
Quote:
..in Syria that we are creating a new hotbed of international terrorism....public opinion in Western countries is not yet persuaded that military intervention will be justified or in their own self interest.
No, Mr Hammond, 'we' are not creating this hotbed, nor have you persuaded me that military intervention - which was over CW use by the regime - not international terrorism was justified and practical.
Quote:
There is a climate of skepticism about engagement in failed or failing countries, a fear of getting entrapped in longer term, deeper forms of engagement....Increasingly we need to present intervention as time limited and with strictly defined ambitions. We are at a point in the public opinion cycle in the UK where there is a war weariness after ten years of engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is definitely a fear, quite irrational in some cases, that any engagement anywhere will somehow lead to an uncontrollable commitment to large numbers of troops, a large amount of resources and a long term intervention.
We are finding not always as persuasive as we would like it to be...It is very clear to those of us looking in horror at this emerging situation in Syria that we are creating a new hotbed of international terrorism, a new base from which international terrorism will operate that will probably rival any of those we have seen in the last decade or so.
We are allowing this to happen and yet public opinion in Western countries is not yet persuaded that military intervention will be justified or in their own self interest.
It will be a long time before anyone forgets the mistakes of Iraq. Dismantling a security infrastructure when there is nothing to put in its place is clearly a mistake and short term compromises are inevitable if we are going to maintain something of a secure environment.
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...Secretary.html
The strategy of external Western intervention appears alive and well in the UK Ministry of Defence.