(The Pioneer) : Blindly acquiring military hardware is not going to help as the nature of threat has changed radically. A Strategic Defence and Security Review would help.
Done last year, Britain’s first comprehensive Strategic Defence and Security Review since 1998 is far-reaching. It is bold, honest and innovative, entailing analytical risks to extricate the armed forces from the Cold War mindset to face the new ground realities, including cuts amounting to 38 billion pounds over 10 years. It informs of the limits of British power — of what it can do alone and in partnership with allies. Pax Britannica no longer rules the waves. It is high time India carried out a similar full-scale review involving all departments of Government to produce both a macro and micro picture of the security situation.
Paraphrased, Britain’s national security strategy which flows from its Strategic Defence and Security Review has put the protection of people, territory and ways of life from major risk uppermost, followed by shaping a stable environment to reduce threats to national interest at home and abroad by tackling potential risks at source.
The high priority risks identified for the next five years are terrorism, including the use of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons; cyber attacks by other states; major accidents or related hazards; and, international military crises like the one in Libya. Britain has renewed its commitment to success in Afghanistan with a condition-based withdrawal commencing in 2015.
The most striking feature of the Strategic Defence and Security Review is the admission that Britain will no longer be able to undertake combat missions on the scale of Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Against the 45,000 troops deployed in Iraq in 2003, it will now be able to field only up to 30,000 troops for limited periods and with sufficient notice. For protracted operations over several years, the maximum deployable force will be 6,500 as against 10,000 currently committed in Afghanistan. These are significant shrinkages in combat capability, forcing joint or collective defence.
The shift from high-end conflict to low-intensity operations is removing the Cold War mentality of tank-on-tank battles with heavy artillery in the Fulda gap to counter terrorism in Afghanistan.
The strategic parameters are also changing. Although the Trident submarine fleet will remain till 2016 (when its retention will be reviewed) to maintain an independent nuclear deterrent, a joint nuclear capability with France is being considered. The strategic dialogue with France extends to creating joint and integrated defence capabilities like combined joint expeditionary force, maritime task force, joint military doctrine, joint acquisition of military equipment, etc.
The decision to retain one of the two new aircraft carriers with option to field the second has been made in recognition of the salience of stand-off air power. The existing Harrier fleet has been retired as no aircraft carrier will be operational till 2016. Even then the carrier-based version of the joint strike fighter will become available only in 2020. While British forces will remain deployed in Afghanistan till 2016 at the very least, in the interregnum, compatible allied aircraft could take the deck of the British aircraft carrier. These are big calculated risks which the Government of Britain is preparing to take.
By 2015 the Army is to be reduced by 7,000 to 95,000 troops with cuts in tanks and artillery. Manpower reduction will be compensated by Special Forces and Territorial Army who are doing exceptional work in Afghanistan. Similarly the Royal Navy will be down by 5,000 to 30,000 sailors, main losses being in the frigate fleet and Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft. The RAF will be downsized by 5,000 personnel to 33,000 and many aircraft will be retired. The Government has come to the conclusion that future air wars are unlikely and the RAF will have its fast jet fleet based on two advanced aircraft: Typhoon and Tornado.
Britain’s Future Force 2020 will have two aircraft carrier, five multi-role brigades and an adequate Air Force backed by a minimum effective nuclear deterrence. The non-military pillars of security address conflict prevention through building stability overseas, counter-terrorism and counter radicalisation, creation of a cyber crime strategy, a national crime agency, a maritime information centre and a special security policy. Long-term cooperation with France is the cornerstone of bridging the capability gap while maintaining its role in the European Union and allied security architectures like Nato.
Viewed strictly from the military prism and set against the future character of conflict, the Strategic Defence and Security Review has initiated a total transformation of the armed forces. The emphasis is on precision fire rather than suppression and to combat specific challenges like improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan. The Strategic Defence and Security Review virtually rules out conventional war. including air battles. It believes in partnership of shared capabilities, including a minimum effective nuclear deterrent. Transformation entails risks of capability voids which are to be filled by allies.
The Strategic Defence and Security Review’s impact on Britain’s defence industry is significant. It earns 15 billion pounds annually and employs 355,000 people. Already 7,000 jobs have been lost through suspension and cancellation of programmes, including a 14-billion-pound centralised training academy in Wales.
Accompanying transformation will be the turbulence among combatants made redundant like pilots from Harrier and Nimrod fleets and foot soldiers returning from Afghanistan in a severely recession-hit British economy. Retooling its military has had other consequences. Besides rebasing of 20,000 troops from Germany, a task force set up to scout for forgotten imperial outposts across the world on the payroll of Britain’s Ministry of Defence has traced 20,000 British citizens in locations as exotic as yacht clubs in the US.
Britain ordered its first major strategic reconfiguration in the 1960s in what was called the East of Suez drawdown and political vacuum. The current Strategic Defence and Security Review cuts the cloth according to Britain’s size and stature as a middle level power.
India should draw lessons, the most obvious being ordering a whole Government review of existing capabilities, threats and opportunities and future forces to cope with the challenges. The Indian Army is engaged in an ad hoc transformation which is ‘uplinked’ with the other two services. The Indian Air Force and Navy’s numbers of aircraft and ships have gone haywire as their long-term re-equipment plans never materialised due to bad planning and funding support. Consequently India is already the world’s biggest importer of weapons and will spend $ 100 billion in the next decade.
Britain has cut costs and capability through a defined review mechanism. India is to boost military capabilities which must derive from getting the character of future conflict right without dissipating resources on the fashionable ‘full spectrum of war’. Identifying critical missions and affordable risks must come from political foresight, good generalship and deft diplomacy. We must not duck the review at any rate.
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