An officer speaks: defence review could be a 'monumental disaster'

This is not confined to the MOD but rather is indicative of the whole. Promotion is not by hard work nor by ability but by either being a bully or "yes" man; each rung of the promotional ladder stained by the blood, sweat and tears of those who care most.

Sounds like ever other organisation in Britain. Or for that matter in the world.

It takes us no further forward.

We cannot defend ourselves against all threats, real or imaginary. We rely on experts (so called) to tell us what are the most likely threats and whether it is practical to prepare defences against that threat.

What we actually get is people with a vested interest, such as this officer, trying to feather their own nests by blaming someone else and thinking up imaginary threats.

Such is life.

He forgot to mention the obscene amounts spent by brigadiers, colonels etc. on house entertaining. Why is it with armed forces almost a third of the size of the US Marine Corps do we have nearly three times as many high ranking and senior officers.

I feel his sentiments will unfortunatley be correct

What the officer says has a lot of truth in it. Senior staff at the MoD, and the defence industry that supplies it, have a vested interest in keeping things as they are - slow, repetitive and expensive. Large items of equipment, be they aircraft carriers, submarines, fast jets or whatever, could be supplied at about a 30% discount to today's prices if there were the will to do so, but there is not. Who suffers from this folly? Officers and men in the field.

The answer to all these disasters is simple. Maximum public salary 100K, maximum public pension 50K and limited expenses. This will sort out the greedy fat cats and avoid hammering the lowly paid in the publis services.

John Robert---How do you deduce that this officer "is trying to feather his own nest"?

If you can prove that he is being paid large sums of money for his revelations then fine--if not you might like to take heed as its your money that is being wasted at the MOD as well. The expense of equipment that does't do what it is supposed to and of service personnel being needlessly killed or maimed just because some lazy inefficient Minister can't sort out his department and the vested interests therein.

I agree with this officer and firmly believe that frontline services whether they are military, health or education are regularly sacrificed on the altar of utterly ludicrous procurement costs! Change will occur at about the same time that turkeys start voting for Christmas! Those at the top clearly live in a parallel universe.

Dear John Lacy

As it was in the beginning, is now and ever more shall be.

Cut defence to the bone and have a foreign policy that does not slavishly follow those lunatics in Washington. Switzerland doesn't spend huge amounts on military hardware and has no terrorist threats. Share resources with our partners in Europe and stop pandering to politicians egos. Britain is not a superpower and does not need to pretend it is, despite what the overpaid top brass in the forces may say.

The first duty of any government is to make sure these islands are defended. Education and the NHS are very important but defence is more so.

There seems to be an assumption that money is all that's required but effectiveness is the desired end result. If the scandals that Philip Green has uncovered are put right it may not be necessary to cut defence expenditure by much if at all and finish up with a highly effective Army, Navy and Air Force. One thing's for sure; just cutting budgets will leave the UK very vulnerable.

John Robert's comments are interesting: on the one hand he is right, we can't protect against all threats and have to guess-timate what these may be. And yes, this officer's essay does not actually take us any further forward (it stikes a chord though!).

But, like John Lacy, I am at a loss as to understand John Robert's "feathering nest" comment (or his inane reply - As it was in the beginning, is now and ever more shall be?!!).

If there is one thing that all sides can agree on it is that senior figures at the MOD have done an amazingly bad job of equipping our armed forces with the kit required to keep our brave soldiers alive.

Finally, StepM - you may be interested to learn that Switzerland has more main battle tanks than the UK. It would appear that even the most peaceful nations wish to have well-equipped Defence forces....now there's a thought.

Reduce the MOD to the role of financial control only; have the defence forces negotiate their budgets and do their own procurements?

As we are a small island and have no empire left we only need an armed force to suit. We do not need to fight any wars and neither should we be doing so, anyone who believes we should be fighting terrorism anywhere other than within the UK is out of touch with reality. Of course the MOD is wasteful & fairly useless like most government departments, they are massivly inefficient, overmanned with have a great deal of deadwood, far too many chiefs and more than enough indians. Just to cap it all they are headed by ministers who do not have the ability to run any sizeable organisation let alone the armed forces.

The Armed Forces as with other Goverment Services should have Salaries/Benefits capped at £100,000 per annum. Anyone who has the gifts to earn more than this should be doing so in the Private Sector to generate wealth for our Country. Yes, the Goverment might need to employ these gifted people occasionally to consult, but certainly not in any full time capacity. This would be a start........

I am ex military, currently in Afgahanistan as a civilian worker/contractor.. How sad would it be to hear of another military death in Iraq or Afgahnistan, which is down to 'Poor or lack of the correct equipment'!!????

Sorry I havent read the full article, so I apologise if my comments are out if context. Poor internet conection.

What price do we put on our military lives???

Bin some nuclear hardware and new carriers, buy cheap Blackhawks from the Americans, cuts can be made, but doint depardise lives of our boys in the field. Surely we owe them that much.

Hi all again, finally read all coments.

I agree, we do not need to fight wars further afield than UK. Terroism is the biggest threat, intellinfgence is the best weapon, which donest cost an aircraft carrier. Days of Imperialism are gone, we need to protecdt UK, not USAs intersts, or be a puppet to the US Goivernment either. Make cuts by reducing the hightly paid generals. reduce wages of the upper tier, not witht he boys and girls on the ground, please. I dont want to readin the pappers that 'Our son died because he didnt have the correct body armour,'

What is the answer to cuts?? No idea.. If only I had a crystal ball.

30 years in this area either as civil servant , a serving officer or in Industry has led me to be very sceptical of the 4 strategic reviews I have witnessed.

Reviews have always in my experience have been driven by the desire to reduce costs rather than address the wider strategic issues.

The core issue that faces us today (one you wont see our political leaders asking the public to consider because they probably wont like the answer) is what should our international role be as a nation in the 21st century and what type of threats do we wish to meet and how. There are real threats out there and there will be others in the future that will surprise us, that 30 years in this area has certainly taught me.

Realistically defence is like insurance the more risk you cover the higher the premiums. If you lower your premiums something is bound not to be covered. Also you need to check the small print especially on alliances!)

The grown up debate we should be having in public (no sign of that being encouraged by the coalitions leaders) should revolve around questions of commitments, threats and foreign policy. Decide those in a public debate then decide to re shape budget and our armed forces accordingly.

Of course such an approach as I advovate is far too logical and also requires our political leaders to start a public debate one that would be really sound but would take a year and delay cuts. The treasury as everyone knows wont wear that.

The realist in me tells me the anonymous officer is right this review will be a mess the optimist hopes for a better deal for the armed forces. The sceptic in me tells me that the 3 services will as always have spent more time on infighting both within and between services than on working how to think laterally and coherently to outmaneouvre their common enemy the treasury and politicans !. I find it really disheartening that for an organisation that stresses team work the services are remarkably poor at it when it comes to joined up or Purple thinking at middle and senior management.

Lets hope for the best

And how many innocent Afghans men women and children have you killed?

State sponsored murder.

This was an off the cuff comment.

You, I presume are a tax payer, and our taxes help fund the govenment, and the miliatry, which buys military hardware for the military, so you are indirectly funding the 'PROTECTION of our lands!!! And according to you, is killing innocent civilians. (another topic really!!)

Stick to the topic of Defence reviews Mr John Roberts!!!

I could add ot your comment, but as you dont fully understand the situation here, I wont bother!! stick to watching films!!

As someone who worked in the MOD, there is some highly speculative and inaccurate comment here.

I would certainly accept that the system is extremely cumbersome and expensive, but the main cause is that every "Operational Requirement" is passed round (sometimes) hundreds of offices and external experts, who try to future proof the item in question - for example trying to design a main battle tank that can be en-trained through a NATO railway tunnel in 2050.

The system was designed to produce the perfect bit of military kit; but what happens is that it is out of date by the time it is produced and way over cost, because of all the "nice to have" add-ons.

The bigger the bit of kit (aircraft carrier?), the longer the delay and the more expense. Multi-national projects are worst of all.

Simple innit?

It is unfortunate that the Royal Navy Senior Command is hanging its hat on the new carriers, they will sacrifice everything for this excessive capability. We cannot even man the small carriers we have now how the hell will we afford the running costs of these 65000 tonne monsters?

The UK imports natural gas from from Oman, it will soon be 400 tankers worth every year, we need small, agile and flexible escorts to protect our shipping (and lots of them) to ensure security of energy supply.

Wake up general public! Another 25 years of this and this country will be forced into wars we cannot choose in order to secure resources, we need to build in resilience so that we can sidestep the energy and water conflicts of the future.

Why should we supply protection for the convoys from Oman. Let the Omanis do it. They are far richer than we are and they need the market.

Oman is not a rich country, it is and has been a great friend to the UK and possibly our best friend in the Middle East. Oman allows our Army to train there, it leads a non aggressive existence and is a very effective buffer from the terrorist infested Yemen. On top of that the Omani people are wonderful,

I'm happy for some of my tax money to go towards helping them lead an independent and terrorism free life, if they need a bit of protection then it should be provided.

The Omanis sell us the LNG they have no obligation to protect the tanker outside of their territorial waters. When you buy a car the dealer is not responsible for the insurance and road tax

The army officer says "that is not to say we do not need carriers. We do" However, like many others, he fails to say for what purpose. Much worse, I have yet to hear a convincing, let alone a legitimate answer to that question from those much higher up in the food chain. Indeed, it is this and related questions the Defence Review will have to answer in deciding what form our Armed Forces should take. A number of writers here are already suggesting answers to some of the questions, by ruling out our government making committements to defend the interests of others, when they have no direct bearing on those of the UK. Which again raises the question, why do we need to spend £15bn on two aircraft carriers equipped with American F35 aircraft, when the only two strategic UK overseas interests that we might need to defend are the Falklands and perhaps Sovereign bases in Cyprus. The Falklands can be defended by submarines carrying torpedoes and cruise missiles, whilst Cyprus position as aircraft staging post will disappear in 2015; with GCHQ reducing the importance of our listening post to the Middle East sitting atop Troodos mountain.

The Trident nuclear deterrent will continue to serve its purpose by upholding the MAD principle - Mutually assured Destruction, which has continued to keep the world safe since the days of the 'cold war'.

The fundamental failing in both the Iraq war and the ongoing war in Afghanistan, is that British troops should not have been put there in the first place. The Iraq war was wholly illegal and even then failed in its sole avowed objective to find and remove WMD that was deemed an imminent threat to the UK. The invasion resulted in an unmitigated disaster for all involved - both the living, the maimed and the dead, with atrocities continuing to occur to this day on a regular basis. Afghanistan,is heading the same way, all in the name of 3000 very unfortunate people being killed on 9/11, by Islamic extremists, who will continue their fight against America and its allies, long after they leave the country.

You are absolutely right.. But the soldiers need there toys to play with just as children do everywhere.

Few realise the immense military flexibilty of the carrier. It can hover in international waters and either launch troops or aircraft, or take off refugees in floods, fire and famine. The carrier is a floating island - a sovereign piece of Britain.

One thing we have learned in the past 65 years is that conflict and crisis never occur where or how we plan for them. Since 1945, there has only been one year, when British troops were not on duty somewhere in the world.

We may plan for a possible war, but 90% of the time we are involved in guarding our nationals and our financial interests in foreign insurrection, internal security, coups and ethnic cleansing.

Britain as an island nation still and will always depend upon trade.

Terence you are absolutely right, it's madness to reduce the effectiveness of our Navy.

Good point John H, but I think when you look at the un-intelligent arguments proposed by the "meat-is-murder-let's-have-no-Armed-forces brigade" (ie John "Guns are toys" Robert and GD-C with his line of "all you need is a cruise missile / nuke to save Cyprus" etc) you'll agree that common sense in this debate is rapidly going out the window.

Worrying.

Our biggest trading partners are the other members of the EU. Cars from germany etc etc.

Do we need an aircraft carrier to protect the Channel Tunnel?

What do you think?

Yes, John - life is exactly that simple.

Do they give you the vote?

Isn't it fun being abusive. Answwer the point.

Please explain why we need an aircraft carrier to protect our trade with our fellow members of the EU.

A rather trite reply.

If Napoleon had crossed the Channel you could be speaking French now, under Sarkosy; or German, if Hitler has invaded as he planned.

Mind you, at least everyone would get to work on time...........

John, well done - take a prize for working out that we don't need a carrier to protect our trade interests with the EU.

Excuse me for making this all rather elementary, but you seem to have missed a couple of rather basic fundamental points:

We cannot predict the shape / location of conflicts in many years to come that we may have to get involved in. There are a lot of 'Bad People' who seek or will seek to do the UK and her interests harm. Carriers are a very useful means of projecting force in far-away lands.

The carriers represent a tiny proportion of our total government spend yet they represent a really valuable future insurance policy - one we will hopefully never need to use in anger.

The days of our far flung empire are over and unless some wishes to invent a few outposts, it has to be accepted that the UK has no overseas interests that need defending by an aircraft carrier or two, costing £15bn, especially when the same job can be done effectively and many times more cheaply by other means. As the name implys, an aircraft carrier is designed to carry a strike force of aircraft, it is not designed to carry large number of troops and their equipment, deliver aid relief, repel illegal immigrants, or fly the flag in the waters surrouding the Isle of Wight. For these reasons alone, aircraft carriers have no role in defending the UK and its interests.

When Matthew deliberately misquotes me and misreprsents my case, I am content in the knowledge that he has lost the argument.

Thank you for the compliment. Please explain why we should wish to extend our power to far off land. We are barely capable of running our own country let alone other peoples.

It is debatable whether Napoleon or Hitler was really that interested in invading the UK. But we will leave that to the historians.

What is clear is that, at least as far as Napoleon is concerned, it would have made virtually no difference to ordinary people who was in charge.

Fact is it was the aristocracy who did not want Napolean to invade. For the rest, no real interest.

At least we would have got rid of our stupid imperial measures

With Hitler not so clear. Certainly tough if you were Jewish. The others who knows. Perhaps we can debate what Britain would be like under Nazi rule.

But that is all a long time ago. There is no threat from anyone at the moment.

There could be in the future. From whom I do not know. Aliens, microbes, Patagonians. whoever it is I guarantee we will not be ready however much we spend on defence.

Hard to see what they would gain in our internet joined up world. They can come as tourists and be welcomed.

Good thing John robert is not Minister of Defence. If the Iranians, Russians or North Koreans heard about his plans they would be over here to invade in days.

As for his distasteful flippancy about Napoleon and Hitler, anyone with half a brain can understand what life under Hitler would be like. Jr needs reminding that thousands of brave men and women gave their lives for our freedom and I'm disgusted that he uses that freedom to express such stupid views.

So far as I am aware the Americans and others are threatening Iran (we want their oil) Naturally Iran, which is surrounded by nuclear powers, wishes

to defend itself.

Please tell me what life under Hitler would have been like. We can compare the situation with France which was under Hitler for several years.

As for our freedom the people of the Soviet Union died in their millions and that is the reason we have our 'freedom'

And what does freedom mean? A state sector with 52% of the economy. Tax levels of well over 50%. CTV cameras everywhere. Money laundering legislation. Health and safety.

John robert, you probably struggled at school a bit didn't you? All those complicated issues in the history class that the other kids somehow managed to grasp just left you flummoxed, didn't they? Never mind, now - thanks to Citywire - you can gob off your half-baked views and feel awfully clever (I must admit, John - your latest post about France under Hitler is a triumph of ignorance, even by your own low standards).

Keep up the good work John robert - if ever I need quick reference to an childish point of view, you're right there like a loyal (but dim) labrador.

Woof woof, way to go Matthew!

Abuse is easy.. Answer the issues.

BY the way, 50 million npeople died in World War 1. Was it worth it?

50 million people died in World War 2. Was it worth it.?

And millions more were injured.

Dear John Robert,

It's just that some of us have a fixed aversion to being part of those 50 million - hence "defence" - geddit?

Jr, If you are attacked you can either fight back or surrender. Most people, apart from a few misguided hippies, would fight back, that's why we need strong defence

The meek shall rule the earth - but only if that's OK with everyone else.

So we have fewer battle tanks than Switzerland. How many are operational in Afghanistan? There are fewer trenches than there were in France in 1918 and many fewer bows and arrows than at Agincourt.

Interesting point, Bernard. You are right, very few main battle tanks are in use in Afghanistan (because it's not an environment where MBTs would add much value). As such you can expect to see the number of MBTs that the UK keeps operational to fall dramatically come SDR. That actually seems quite sensible and there's no harm in 'moth-balling' a large number and in fact this has been happening for years.

Your suggestion that MBTs are outdated is, however, incorrect. The UK is fortunate to have a world-leading MBT in the form of the Challenger 2 and in a 'conventional' war they are hugely effective - invaluable in keeping the 'poor bloody infantry' alive.

My point regarding Switzerland was that a nation is best placed to persue a peaceful foreign policy with capable and effective Armed forces held in the background. I would dearly love the UK to be doing exactly this. Think "Talk softly and carry a big stick".

Since our main trading partners are out fellow members of the EU, why on earth do we need aircraft carriers, trident and battle tanks?

Will they stop the French and Germans buying our companies. selliing us their wonderful cars, providing train service sa cross Europe, marrying our girls. ? Will they?

Where is this country likely to fight a conventional war needing battle tanks?

They played a crucial role in the great plains of northern Europe, but were much less in evidence in many parts of the east. Japanese troops invaded Singapore from the north on bicycles, for tanks would have made no headway in the jungle; the great defensive guns were useless, for they were pointing out to sea. Tanks would have been of little use in an invasion of Japan, a very mountainous country where flat lands were devoted to growing rice; the same applied to other countries in that area. In fact tanks played little part on either side in the pacific war.

They would be effective in the deserts of the middle east, but as we learned in the early 40s even there they were vulnerable to the vagaries of the desert and are of course sitting or even moving targets for modern forms of artillery, tactical nuclear weapons, mass guided missiles or drones.

They have little effect in opposing guerrilla attacks unless you are ready to destroy the villages and towns and kill the residents as in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mass tank battles are strategies of the past just as cavalry faded out in Flanders. They soon will be as obsolete as aircraft carriers. Don't forget the

catastrophic revelation of the march of time in the destruction inflicted at Pearl Harbour.

The most potent weapon of the future will be one that can destroy the electronics of your enemy without damaging your own.

Every general should learn from the past when generals failed because they continued to apply the strategy and tactics of their previous war.

John robert - welcome back after the weekend. I had missed your daft and illiterate contributions, so I was delighted to see this latest post. I had never before considered the impact that the UK's fleet of tanks would have on allowing Brits to marry continental girls. Keep up the good work.

Meanwhile, back in the adults' corner, Bernard - I reckon that you are right about the long-term future pre-eminance of 'cyber weapons' but the tank ain't dead yet. Without getting bogged down in the issue of whether invading Iraq in 2003 was the right or legal thing to do (no and yes, respectively in my view for what it's worth) - tanks were essential during that conflict. That was just 7 years ago.

If you take the view that Britain's Armed Forces should be for self-defence, then by you own admission (you say "tanks played a crucial role in the great plains of northern Europe") then we should be keeping a heavy armour capability for the forseeable future in our little Northern European island.

We had hoped that northern Europe had cured itself of self-destructive wars. Is there any prospect of our having to send an expeditionary force back to Germany in fear of the Russian tanks? There are logistical factors - the supply of natural gas by Russia - it threatened the Ukraine - could it threaten western Europe?

The troubling aspect is that war appears to be a valuable stimulus of industrial production. The UK would be poorer without the exports of its armaments industry. Rearmament in Germany, and later Britain and the US helped us out of one depression but in the end put us back on the bread line.

It promotes employment without fear of a slump from consumer surfeit.

I suspect that the carrier project with its curious fragmenting of production across the country was devised to increase employment (and votes) in depressed areas.

It is a form of QE - unproductive investment on a huge scale and inherently inflationary. As I remarked elsewhere, it reminded me of the building ot the Queen Mary in the 30s in time to become a troop ship. But since these are oil-fired they will increase our dependence on oil imports at a time when the price will be inexorably rising. No-one in Whitehall seems to have considered what that will mean in 6 to 10 years' time - especially if a vital oil supplier became an ideological enemy. .

You are right. War is the best form of public works, much beter than quantitative easing.

And it gets rid of surplus population.

As we cry crocodile tears over the dead 'heros'

I am really enjoying this.

Where are the threats to Britian in the plains of Northern Europe. Now you can drive from Calais to the Russian border without a passport and without being stopped at a border.

I know, I did it two weeks ago. I did not see any threat.

The threat is for Afghan invaded by the USA and UK. Having their women tand childen killed n=by nthese invaders. The richest most powerful country i the world, and its lackey, invades one of the poorest counties in the world and loses.

You could not make this up no matter how hard you tried.

Generals like their toys just as much as any man.

Occasionally one comes across people whose arguments defy all sense, forethought and logic; they are the John Roberts of this world.

George Santayana once said that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." He also said "Only the dead have seen the end of war,"

John Roberts: There is a third saying that you would do well to remember with the above; "When in a hole - stop digging"

Liam Fox this morning confirmed what I have been writing here for several days. But the solution is now descending into farce - carriers with no aircraft, except visits by those of France and the US. Reports that one will be sold to India.

James Naughtie grilled Liam Fox, but still didn't explain why the BBC didn't take this line two years ago, before contracts were signed..

Our aircraft carriers can be put to good use (instead of cruising round the world for no particular reason).

The can house the homeless.

Hi John robert! Good to see the illiterate and idiotic contributions are flying off your keyboard again today. I cease to take anything you post seriously because you have the intellectual capacity of an amoeba, however please do try to be careful with comments like "As we cry crocodile tears over the dead 'heros' (sic)" because they can be rather offensive to people who have a considered view on death in war.

I await your next post with (hardly) bated breath.

If anybody is still interested in this farcical situation, here is part of report issued earlier this year. To use the cliche - it beggars belief - but I assure you it is genuine. The carriers will be built in bits round the country, transported by sea to Rosyth for assembly. I cannot say what will happen if one of the bits doesn't fit - will it be sent back again by sea to be put right?

"MoD officials said the two new aircraft carriers would form the cornerstone of the UK’s naval capability and would be the largest, most capable and powerful warships built in the UK.

The HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are due to enter service in 2016 and around 2018 respectively at a cost of £5billion.

The ships will be built at six UK yards and each block will be transported to Rosyth for final assembly in the number one dock, which is the largest dry dock in the UK.

Work is already going on at shipyards in Devon, Glasgow, Portsmouth, Rosyth and Tyneside, with Merseyside starting work on the Queen Elizabeth this summer."

Why do we not buy an old American aircraft carrier. Much cheaper and we know it work.

I have lost the will to live, on this thread