‘Defence in a Competitive Age’, published on 22 March, is the second in a triptych of defence and security policy documents to be released by the United Kingdom government. Previous defence reviews have been characterised as ‘over-ambitious and underfunded’, and the government’s message is clearly that things are different this time. However, despite an injection of extra money, balancing resource and demand may prove as difficult as ever unless defence procurement and particularly the control of cost growth improve.
This second document is intended to address how the UK armed forces will be ‘modernised’ to meet all the military elements of the government’s more overarching Integrated Review, grandly titled ‘Global Britain in a Competitive Age’, released last week. The 22 March Defence Command Paper, as it is also known, outlines plans to achieve this by implementing cuts to both personnel and ‘legacy’ equipment in the Army and Royal Air Force in particular, to be replaced in some areas by new capabilities in, for example, space and cyberspace.
While much of the analysis of developing challenges appears sound, and in line with the thinking of others, not least the United States, some of the proposals for transformational changes lack real detail, making judgements on the trade-offs involved difficult. A key element of the Integrated Review was a UK ‘Indo-Pacific tilt’. Here, China’s rising power and assertiveness are certainly highlighted as concerns, but the challenge from Russia gets at least as much attention, with the disruptive potential of Iran, North Korea and non-state actors also on the agenda.
More on the maritime
The Royal Navy has arguably gained the most – or lost the least – in the review process. It is clearly envisaged that maritime forces will play a large part in delivering on the plan to have capabilities at greater readiness, deployed more persistently, further afield. How the services will avoid the past problems of what UK Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace has described as being ‘over-stretched and under-equipped’ remains in question. There is a risk that the armed forces are again being asked to do more with the same, or, in some cases, less.
Even in the maritime sphere, plans for enhancements are in places imprecise and a number will clearly be some time coming. The UK’s new Carrier Strike Group is hailed as a ‘symbol of Global Britain in action’, but at the same time it will be ‘permanently available to NATO’. Both of the new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers are being retained. But exactly how they will operate given that the navy can only generate one full group at a time, and the future make-up of their air groups, remain uncertain. The UK government says it will buy more than its current commitment of 48 F-35B Lightning II jets that can fly from the ships, but not how many more – although the navy confirms that the ambition is at least 60-80. That could depend in part on future developments in uninhabited air systems, and the extent to which the carrier air groups are supplemented by these.
The plans certainly foretell a short-term dip in destroyer and frigate numbers from the current official tally of 19, but the ambition is to rebuild to more than 20 by the end of the decade (again, the navy suggests up to 24 by the mid-2030s), with new Type 26, Type 31 and eventually Type 32 frigates, the last yet to be clearly defined as a design. But these may also need to take on new tasks as other platforms are withdrawn and will be hard-pressed to meet all the likely requirements. A new autonomous mine-warfare capability will replace existing specialist mine-countermeasures vessels, but again there is little on how it will be deployed.
Two new ‘Littoral Response Groups’ – one in the Euro-Atlantic area from 2021 and another in the Indo-Pacific from 2023 – will be deployed, including as basing for a more dispersed, flexible Future Commando Force, but also to help maintain a persistent presence. That presence will also include the latest offshore patrol vessels, at least until the new frigates arrive. Whether between them these can deliver a credible commitment in the eyes of allies and partners, let alone potential adversaries, will depend on how they are equipped. Plans for new multi-role support ships to help deliver some of these littoral capabilities will likely have to wait until the 2030s – and the ambitious shipbuilding plan also includes by then a new-generation destroyer, the Type 83, and a nuclear-powered attack submarine design.
The confirmation of a new multi-role ocean surveillance ship is significant and is meant as a response to increased concerns about threats to undersea cables. But there is little on what capabilities this would embody, and a plan for at least one more such vessel is left open.
Army realism
The army structure is to be overhauled with the review bringing personnel and equipment cuts along with much-needed modernisation. If carried through, it should put the army on a sounder footing with a new force structure and appropriate armoured vehicles for high-intensity warfare in a NATO alliance environment. The Strike Brigade concept has been dropped in favour of the more self-sufficient combined arms Brigade Combat Team (BCT).
Army strength will be cut from a notional 82,000 to 72,500 by 2025. The reduction, however, is less than might appear – the Army has been well below its planned personnel numbers for some years. Concerns that the Army might lose its tanks have so far proven unfounded, with the Challenger II main battle tank to be upgraded, albeit only two-thirds of the current fleet, amounting to 148 vehicles. There will be continued procurement of the Ajax scout vehicle and accelerated introduction of the Boxer wheeled armoured personnel carrier. The Warrior infantry fighting vehicle is to be retired, and the mid-life improvement programme is to be scrapped. It is not yet clear how an armoured infantry capability would be provided by the Boxer.
Recent evidence suggested that inadequate funding and procurement delays was leading to a shortfall in the warfighting capability of the Army’s 3rd Division to less than half that of the heavy division of three armoured brigades previously planned. The 3rd Division will now shift its capabilities in favour of both protection and deep battle, reducing its ground manoeuvre capability to two heavy BCTs. It will be the only heavy division of any major NATO army to have fewer than three manoeuvre brigades.
A new ‘Deep Recce Strike BCT’ will combine uninhabited aerial vehicles, improved electromagnetic warfare capabilities with Ajax and guided artillery rockets. A ‘Global Response Force’ will meanwhile combine the existing air assault and combat aviation brigades. Existing ‘specialised infantry battalions’ intended to train, advise and accompany partner forces in high-threat operations will form a new Ranger Regiment in a new Special Operations Brigade and a new Security Forces Assistance Brigade is to be established.
Wings clipped, but smoothed feathers?
The Royal Air Force will retire a number of aircraft and helicopter types, and see reductions in airframe numbers in the near term. This is in part being offset by a £2 billion investment in the concept and assessment phase of the Future Combat Air System programme, with at its core the Tempest, to potentially provide a replacement for the Typhoon from 2035 onward. However, 24 early standard Tranche 1 Typhoon combat aircraft are to be withdrawn by 2025, a decade earlier than planned. Despite the cut, the Air Force still intends to field seven Typhoon operational squadrons.
The air force will also lose its 14 C-130J Hercules medium transport aircraft a decade early. These aircraft had been particularly favoured for Special Forces roles, which will now fall to the considerably larger A400M Atlas. The E-3D airborne early warning and control aircraft is to be withdrawn this year, creating a capability gap, and only three – not the anticipated five – E-7s will be introduced into service from 2023 as replacements. The Puma medium-lift helicopter fleet is also to be retired by 2025 to be replaced by an as-yet-unidentified type, while eight of the RAF’s early Chinook heavy lift helicopters are also to be withdrawn. An additional Chinook procurement is anticipated. The overall reduction in airlift rests uncomfortably with the impetus within the Integrated Review for a greater global presence.
Purple patch
The Defence Command Paper underscores the importance of the role of Strategic Command in leading joint experimentation and the creation of a single ‘digital backbone’ – a high-capacity network across the Defence Ministry and the services. Establishing and securing its role has not always been certain, with single-service issues threatening to undermine its rationale. It is also identified as a driver of innovation.
In support of the nascent UK Space Command, which will take shape during the course of 2021, the paper also flags the national acquisition of an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellite constellation. London has traditionally relied on the US to meet its geospatial intelligence requirements.
The formula of trading traditional hard-power ‘mass’ for novel capabilities is one that many will have to embrace or are already embracing. At the UK’s scale of capabilities, though, when set against its ambitions, there are certainly risks, not least where the Army is concerned. And the vagueness of many of the proposed new developments only fuels the suspicion that, despite official protestations to the contrary, the same old pitfalls and pressures of affordability will soon reassert themselves.
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