Are we trying to fight two wars on the cheap?

The House of Lords has much more experience of defence issues than the House of Commons.  As our average age is older, we have still a number of peers who served in the Second World War.  A fair proportion of us did our national service after the War.  In addition a number of very senior officers, Chiefs of Staff and so on, have been given life peerages.  The result is that House of Lords debates are based on experience, going up to the highest ranks.  It is largely non-political;  retired Generals do not make party points, but they do care about the welfare of the troops.

In the last year there have been increasing expressions of concern about the overstretch of the army, in terms of numbers, equipment, pay and conditions.  I am no expert, but the impression of increased tasks which are not matched by increased resources is inescapable.

I find this concern very strongly expressed by Tom Burns, the Roman Catholic Bishop for the Forces.  He is sending a letter to all Roman Catholics in the Forces to mark Remembrance Sunday.  He writes that “Force strengths have to be sufficient;  strategies realistic;  supplies adequate;  equipment appropriate and apparel proper to the task in hand.  Delay is no excuse.  All improvements are welcome.  These things are owed to our servicemen and women as a right.  Anything less risks lives and is morally reprehensible.”

Bishop Burns is not in the House of Lords, but he is expressing the same concerns.  He is sticking up for the troops.  I assume that he is right, and that the House of Lords is right.  Current Bishops and retired Field Marshals may know better than Ministers.  I would be interested to know whether the experience of Times readers, particularly that of families, justifies the concerns of the Bishop or the Lords.  It would not be the first time in British history that the Treasury was pulling one way and the needs of the Forces were pulling another.

Comments

[g.o.edwards]

On the cheap, yes when it comes to manpower and basic infantry equipment but profligate in provision of the wrong type of ship and aircraft. Also profligate in supporting a protected British supplier when we could buy American cheaper and better.As to our prime minister he wouldnt get beyond Major if he were in the forces and wouldnt get to deputy head if he were a teacher but thinks that his position confers on him the wisdom in those areas which can only be won by real experience.

[Tom Benford]

Well done, g.o.edwards, absolutely well done. In everything you say, you are spot on.

[Robert Boyd]

Well said G. O. Edwards.As an ex teacher and an ex Major I think you were a little over generous.I would say L/Cpl would be more correct(with apoligies to any L/Cpls reading this comment).

[Lord Truth]

Apart from the sudden loss of a child there must be nothing more painful than losing a son or husband in these current military actions.The death rate is in fact low-hundreds of Americans for example are killed in road accidents each month,far more than in action,yet that must make each loss much harder to bear.British forces in particular come often from families with a proud military tradition.That their smiling healthy sons can be struck down by what must be seen as a malevovent fate must produce great bitterness and ultimately anger
Questions immediately are raised-why was the body armour no good -or not available-the armour plating on troop carriers not sufficient-the reinforcements lacking etcetc.
These questions have been raised since wars began and will always be raised since there is no such thing as a perfect military action.Nearly all military actions are,as the Duke of Wellington said after Waterloo-"A damn near thing"
A modern illusion has developed-largely as usual created by America and Hollywood,that modern armies are superbly run efficient fighting machines,where nothinggoes "wrong" in tactics or weaponry.In fact the recent problems in America concerning weaponry are typical of what has always been and was in WW2 nothing more than the traditional American incompetence and ineficiency in its military machine that no one dares talk about. The British,working under more straightened circumstances operate better but there are undoubtedly many improvements to be made.
The suggestion made in some comments that Britain should buy "cheaper and better" weaponry from the American suppliers is rather ironic as only last week on this site I was pointing out that we could buy all our food from the US if neccessary.The question raised is the same-do we want such dependancy on on a foreign supplier whose tricky whims and fancies may not be to Britains interest.Where life or death is involved its different but the question of dependency remains
These matters cannot be discussed here at length but there are certain things that can be raised.Again the image of Western forces is always triumphant-and must be since the total resources behind them is so great but that does not always translate into painless victories
I do not believe for example that America is a truly great fighting nation.Its swagger is based on its victories over the "British" its racial confidence in its superiority over "slaves" and"Indians" and its undoubted industrial capcity.Its ability to sustain losses in battle are another matter however. The present talk of an American "Empire" and "Centurions" is absurdly misplaced and dangerous.
The British Empire was sustained by a simple fact-that the British knew they could put twenty thousand men anywhere in the world confident in the knowledge that within six months half of them would be dead-either from disease or battle.
It is that attitude that sustains Empires-it is not an attitude that America possesses.
Shortly after the end of the first gulf war I was invited to Kuwait by various friends connected to the government, and while there spent a day climbing in and out of the huge amount of discarded weaponry collected from the Iraqis.I was surprised and disturbed to find that however fearsome these tanks etc looked from the outside-and I had once watched a a thousand of them on parade in Gaddafis Tripoli,once close up they seemed distinctly fragile.The squat troop carriers had maybe an inch of plating,the tank turrets a few inches of steel- nothing it seemed to me that a well aimed shell could not penetrate. It suddenly was revealed to me that ultimately it is always the quality of the man that counts in war-driving these tanks and firing-never thinking about being hit-that is what wins battles.
Every effort must be made to ensure our troops are supplied with the best equipment for them to succed in their job without uneccessary loss of life-but we must never fall victim to illusions about our power in war.
"It was just bad luck Sir" will still rattle down the ages-As Kipling wrote previously about Afghanistan "Five thousand pounds of education dropped by a ten cent Afghan bullet"

[Kenneth Armitage]

G O Edwards, "profligate in provision of the wrong type of ship and aircraft". Pray tell us where you discovered these facts? Have you actually served, have you served in the MOD, do you know what type of ship or aircraft the 'professionals' in the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force want or need to fulfil their role? I suspect not, in which case your comment is crass. I suggest you talk with a few more with experience. As to your comment on what level the Prime Minister might have achieved if he had had the nous, the gumption, the ability and the commitment - perhaps you are being a little unfair, although I suspect there have been other Corporals in history whose ego was bigger than their eventual ability.

[donkykemore]

unday, February 11, 2007

Bush 's yearning for war with Iran.
As a social theorist rather than a historian the academic of tomorrow will look and wonder how America went blindly into Iran.
It is searingly obvious that as each day passes their president is pulling more demonic rabbits from the hat; yesterday is was that Iran had nuclear arsenal ; today it is that Iran supplied the insurgents in Iraq with weaponary to shoot down US soldiers.
The irony is probabaly thet the weaponary which has thus far slaughtered most US combatants is US made , having been supplied to Saddam when he was the putative puppet , and his was the regeimen thought to cause most menace in the Middle East in the US 's favour.

Future generations will judge us all less kindly as we in the West have presided over this disturbed president and his deluded machinations . It is within the grasp of Congress , one hopes to at least refuse to finance any overt move against Iran; we can only pray that they will be more resolute in their determination and decline to facillitate Bush's latest percieved mission .
But the wory escalates by the day ; Now Bush is turning to Lebanon again to aportion blame for the unrest there on Iran; it may well be that Iran has it's many sympathisersw in the Shiite community ; so much the pity but the Lebonese elected the Hammas party to rule ; and this must be factored in to any political resolution; Even the Saudis appreciate that to take the Bush line and keep taggeting Iran in Lebanon is just tautology .
It is more ; it is tendentious .
It is the mercilless beat of the war drum .
Could Israel be persuaded to carry out a preemptive attack ? It would be convenient for the administration , but with Israel still smarting from its recent debacle in Lebanon it would seem to be an unlikely development .
With a Russian Putin desperately trying to throw up a smoke screen over his alleged involvment in the killing of his former spy Litvinenko with polonium in London it seems probable that he will supply Iran with some hardware ; most likely planes in order to counter US air supremacy in the region.And this in turn may feed in to the president's paranoia , which may for a time seem justifiable.
Again and again we must face that axiom that war is the failure of politics, diplomacy , civilisation.
But this time we are edging closer to a conflict which will spread far beyond the Midddle East , will destabalise oil supplies, and in turn world economics.
It may even be of such a scale as to eclipse the concern about global warming for a generation.
Who said '' I dont know what the next war will be fought with ; but the one after will be fought with bows and arrows.''