By Patrick Benham-Crosswell – 5 minute read
WITH THE impeccable timing for which this government is becoming known, on the day that Russia (might have) fired an ICBM into Ukraine and (definitely) threatened NATO bases in Europe our Defence Secretary John Healey announced a defence cut. Cloth-eared incompetence remains an aspiration for the Team Toolmaker; while Lammy, Reeves and Rayner are as out of their depth as a toddler in the mid-Pacific. Healey might be better – at least he has retained the cash in the Ministry of Defence (MOD).
The cuts themselves are more a reluctant acceptance of the status quo (Latin for “the mess we’re in”). HMS Northumberland is, or was, a Type 23 Frigate operating well beyond her initial design life, for which Labour can’t be blamed. It seems that routine maintenance revealed structural damage beyond economic repair. It’s a blow, HMS Northumberland is one of the younger (read less ancient) Type 23s and one that had a towed array sonar, making her a formidable anti-submarine platform. The eight towed array Type 23s are being replaced by just five Type 26 frigates, of which the first two, HMS Glasgow and HMS Cardiff, have been launched and are fitting out – to be completed in 2026 and 2028 respectively. How many more Type 23s will have failed hulls by then is an open question.
The two assault ships, HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion are – were – designed to land Royal Marines on beaches. They have been tied up for a year or more, mostly due to the lack of a crew – the Royal Navy has a personnel crisis. They had about a decade of life left so scrapping them is an admission of long standing problems. It also rather pre-judges the outcome of the Robertson Defence review and casts a question over the future of the Royal Marines. Eliminating the Royals would be political suicide for any other government; this one seems to care little for political norms. Healey denied that there was a threat to the Marines, but that too is pre-judging the review he commissioned. Anyway, who believes this government about anything?
The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA), which provides logistic support to the warships of the Royal Navy (and sometimes stands in for them) has even worse crewing problems than the Royal Navy, not least because the Treasury views RFA sailors as Civil Servants, forbidding the MOD to negotiate their pay. The RFA is now intermittently on strike. Without the RFA delivering logistic support, Royal Navy warships are dependent upon other countries for fuel, rations and ammunition.
The early disposal of the two tankers (RFA Wave Knight and RFA Wave Ruler) is small beer compared to the crewing crisis – the RFA has four newer Tide Class “oilers” (as the Navy sill calls tankers). The problems don’t end there though; three Fleet Solid Support Ships are due to be built in Harland & Wolff in Belfast, staring next year. Unfortunately the shipbuilder is in administration.
The Watchkeeper drone has been plagued by problems and some 20 per cent of the fleet has been written off in crashes. Most of the rest are in store and no doubt the Army is hoping to get something better in its place. The Chinooks and Pumas being cut are at the end of their lives. However, without a substantial number of helicopters 16 Air Assault Brigade travels by lorry, as it would have done in 1939. Replacements should start arriving in 2026; next year is one that the MOD clearly hopes will be peaceful.
That might be a tad optimistic. There is no general outbreak of peace in the Middle East. Iran’s proxies may have gone quiet for a bit after the Israeli strikes, but Hezbollah and Hamas still exist. They appear to have friends in high places as our Prime Minister has decided to arrest his Israeli counterpart – a policy that has as much chance of success as hell has of freezing over or (even less likely) Ed Miliband delivering net zero.
And then, of course, there is the war in Ukraine. To ex-cold warriors like me the entire concept of launching ballistic and cruise missiles into Russian territory is either surreal or terrifying. ATACMS and Storm Shadows have delivered a bit of explosive well beyond the reach of the rest of the Ukrainian arsenal. While these strikes may have killed a general or two and snarled up some logistics they haven’t changed the trajectory of the war. Zelensky is at last almost admitting the Ukrainians lack the military power to evict Russia from Crimea. That’s been obvious to everyone except Boris Johnson for months, if not years. Quite what benefit Johnson thinks the British Army would deliver if it could defend Kiev is very far from clear.
Indeed the UK’s aim in the whole proxy war that Johnson leapt into remains a complete mystery. Ukraine can’t win; prolonging the conflict simply kills more on both sides, which exasperates Putin. Those who hoped the West’s economic attacks (i.e. sanctions) on Russia would bring his regime to its knees were wrong. Badly. It’s time to end this war.
While I don’t think Putin intends to nuke anywhere any time soon the West needs to grasp the reality which is that, like the Soviet Union before it, Russia’s nuclear thinking is more flexible than the West’s theories of nuclear escalation. Tossing ICBMs about is inherently risky – how does one know that it’s not nuclear tipped? Even if it is “only” full of conventional explosive an ICBM delivers a large bang – a 500kg warhead’s kinetic energy at 20 times the speed of sound is around the equivalent of three tons of TNT. (That’s the explosive size of some of the larger bombs dropped in the second world war). Shooting such missiles down is nigh on impossible.
At times of heightened tension clear communication and messaging are vital. In the past few days Mr Putin has herd the (inexplicably) still influential Boris Johnson suggest committing British ground forces, had a phone call with Germany’s President Scholz, been abhorred by our Prime Minister, bemused by President elect Trump and ballistically bombarded by Biden. Perhaps his rhetoric is intended to remind the West what the consequences of confusion could be.
In this context Mr Healey’s announcement was unhelpful. While he is using some of the savings from the scrappage to implement a retention package next year, according to the latest figures the armed forces lost 3 per cent of their manpower in the past 12 months. For every 12 people that enter basic training (not all of whom will make it) 15 trained soldiers, sailors and air people leave. That’s an improvement over last year, when 4% left and the leave stay ratio was 16 to 10. It’s not sustainable and it’s not just about pay – service housing is a perennial disgrace. Sooner or later there will be no one trained to defend the realm, no matter how much equipment there is.
That our defence is in a mess can be no surprise, nor is the need for cash to fix it. Mr Healey shadowed this portfolio since 2020 and has now had five months in the job. British service personnel (including the RFA) routinely put themselves in harm’s way and risk their lives. Mr Healey needs to put his career on the same footing and extract more money from Rachel Reeve’s Treasury. If Reeves can find the money for bumper pay rises for train drivers she can jolly well find it for the armed services and RFA. If she can’t, or won’t, then the First Lord of The Treasury, Sir Kier Starmer, should find a Chancellor who can.
If the Prime Minster won’t defend the Realm, so often cited as the first duty of government, what is the point of him?
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Following a decade as an armoured corps officer Patrick Benham-Crosswell spent several years as a defence analyst before migrating into commerce. He comments on defence matters for a number of publications and TV stations, writing a well-received book “The Dangerous World of Tommy Atkins: How Land Warfare Works” (updated 2022). His blog is https://viewsfrommycab.substack.com/
Photo of HMS Albion by Dean Nixon/MOD, OGL v1.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91880738