The New Warfare

A couple of years ago I bought Rupert Smith's excellent "Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World" in which he argues - clearly in my view - that the structure of the armed forces at the moment is completely wrong for what he called fighting "asymmetric wars" where the enemy is of almost pre-industrial capability. Examples abound: the Iraq insurgency, present day Afghanistan, the Intefada in Palestine and so on where the enemy is not the forces of some nation state but rather they arise from within the populace.

The old heavy army (tanks, big guns etc) for example is not suitable for either the insurgency type of warfare nor for police actions (a mistake that the Israelis have made on more than one occasion) and so I was not surprised to see in today's Telegraph a long discussion about the forces that Britain actually needs.

The most interesting point is a diagram (not sadly on line although the article is here) which contrasts what we have with what is needed (at least according to the Telegraph) :

What we have:

• 2,700 artillery pieces
• 1,000 snatch Land Rovers
• 575 Warrior APCs
• 386 Challenger Tanks
• 343 Combat Aircraft
• 85 Warships

Now what the Telegraph reckons we need are:

• 600 Armoured Diggers
• 300 All-terrain protective vehicles
• 60 Light reconnaisance aircraft
• 40 Light helicopters
• 36 Super Tucano light attack aircraft
• 30 Hermes drones
• 25 Herc "J"s
• 20 extra Chinooks
• PLUS another 4,000 troops

This would provide a much more balanced force for the sort of warfare we are fighting - but given the entrenched positions of all the services (and also within the services - do you think the Tankies will like losing their reason for existing?) it will have a cat in hells chance of succeeding.

One noteworthy thing: The Telegraph's restructured forces has a vastly diminished role for the RAF : all helicopter operations could as easily be performed by the army or navy where appropriate as indeed could heavy lift operations.

They are not going to like this (esp the ghost of my father - RAF Squadron Leader) but is it time to reconsider having the RAF as a separate service?