Withdrawal from Afghanistan ‘Could’ Reduce Western Terror Threat

A study, released by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), has stated that a less visible security presence in Afghanistan could reduce extremist attacks - but it would appear that Britain and America will both have to pay between £4.7 and £8billion a year for over a decade to keep Afghanistan from sliding back into chaos.
 
The study, named ‘Afghanistan: To 2015 and Beyond’ comes at the end of two years of research by IISS military and intelligence experts who have studied the probable repercussions of what ‘will happen’ when Western troops withdraw in 2014. The study paints a disturbing picture of the two most probable outcomes where either ‘slow uneven progress’ or ‘a relatively rapid descent into disorder’ will eventually occur.


An expert at the IISS and former Deputy Head of MI6, Nigel Inkster, states that ‘a reduced US presence, whether the military in Afghanistan or CIA in Pakistan, represents the best option for lowering the temperature and creating circumstances in which the countries of the region can best address the threats they face from militancy.’ He goes on to warn that ‘policymakers will have to assume a different calculus of risk in respect of terrorism and to accept that some residual threat will continue to emanate from Afghanistan and Pakistan for the foreseeable future, particularly towards the US.’

As part of the study the IISS provides an assessment on the survivability of the Karzai Government as opposed to the violent end of the Najibullah regime three years after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. The general conclusion is that Kabul would prevail ‘because the central government has probably amassed sufficient power to ensure that the centre will hold.’

The report highlights that despite progress in the south of the country the eastern part of Afghanistan ‘is likely to be an ungoverned territory up to 2014 and beyond’. ‘It is further considered that ‘with control contested between warlord factions it will become a base for attacks on Government controlled territory and a recruiting ground for militants, as well as an area of increasing opium cultivation.’ It is also considered that the area could ‘potentially be a base for international terrorist groups.’


The study also indicated that only 13 of the Afghan Army’s 20 brigades are ‘semi capable’ with the possibility of ‘getting the majority of them acting independently by the end of 2014,’ a task that will probably prove to be a ‘race against the clock for NATO’s trainers.’ Even if the NATO trainers succeed in ‘their race against time’ it is considered Afghan security forces could well split along ethnic lines.


According to Nigel Inkster ‘the key to any peace process is the position of the Pakistani supported Haqqani network of militants that control the eastern approaches to Kabul.’ He described the head of the network, Jalaluddin Haqqani, as ‘al-Qaeda’s main patron’ but added there was ‘little evidence to indicate what Haqqani wants to achieve and what, if anything, the group might regard as an acceptable resolution of the current conflict short of all-out victory.’

Photo © 2011 isafmedia, Flick

Royal Marines Test CB90 Combat Boat

In a never ending search for excellence the Royal Marines of 11 (Amphibious Trials and Training) Squadron are ‘trialling’ the Swedish CB90 Combat Boat. The high speed boats, designed to protect Royal Navy vessels from fast-attack craft, are being evaluated at the Royal Marines base at Instow in North Devon.

Driven by water jet propulsion units and weighing approximately 16 tonnes the CB90 has a top speed of about 50mph. The vessel is similar in size to the smaller landing craft used by the Royal Marines , can carry up to 18 fully equipped Commandos and mounting heavy machine guns can provide accurate and effective firepower. The manoeuvrability of the CB90 is acknowledged to be outstanding and, because of its unique water jet propulsion system, can literally ‘turn on a sixpence.’


When describing the capabilities of the CB90 Combat Boat the Officer Commanding 11 Squadron RM Craft Trials Wing, Lieutenant Colonel Simon Guyer RM, said:


“There’s no real comparison with what we operate at the moment – it’s a completely different beast. It’s a basic boat, you can really throw it about and it keeps coming back for more. That’s the sort of thing we like.”
To date the trials have tested CB90’s basic handling, operation alongside other landing and assault craft currently in use, safe CASEVAC handling and in the Commando assault role.


It is anticipated that trials will not be completed until the end of 2013 by which time CB90 will have carried out exercises with Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels and ‘worked’ in and out of HMS Bulwark’s dock.

Colour Sergeant Ian Gibbons, a Royal Marine with 13 years of landing craft experience, said that the high speed CB90:

“Is very easy to drive – if you can drive an Offshore Raiding Craft, you can drive one of these”.

The Falklands are British. No argument

1982 Liberation Memorial in Stanley

"The people of the Falkland Islands, like the people of the UK, are an island race. Their way of life is British; their allegiance is to the Crown. They are few in number, but they have the right to live in peace, to choose their own way of life and to determine their own allegiance."

Margaret Thatcher

This year is the 30th anniversary since Argentina lost the Falkland War, after they mistook British sentiment and invaded. Sadly, they don't recall they were soundly beaten (at the sacrifice of 255 British Soldiers, RIP) and lost 700 of their own.

Why are Soldiers Awarded 1% Pay Increase while MoD Civil Servants get Huge Bonuses?

The Daily Mail has reported that at a time when front-line soldiers are facing bullets and bombs in Afghanistan, massive redundancies and only a 1% pay increase for the next two years civil servants at the Ministry of Defence are being paid large bonuses .

While serving in opposition both the Tory and Liberal Democrat parties stated their intention to ‘deal with the bonus culture at the Ministry of Defence’.


The article states that ‘MoD bureaucrats were paid £38.4million in bonuses in five months in 2011-12 meaning that the cash-strapped department [MoD] is on course to eclipse the £43.5million handed out in the whole of 2010-11’. The article went on to say that ‘figures showed that senior officials shared £505,000, averaging £9,000 each with junior staff being handed a total of £37.9million, typically taking home £697. One civil servant pocketed a £69,459 bonus’.

These bonuses are paid while a new Army recruit risks life and limb on the frontline in Afghanistan for a basic salary of £17,265 and, with an expected ‘pay-rise’ of only 1% over the next two years, the average soldier expects to have less money to spend when taking inflation into account!


The 1% ‘pay-rise’ has led to allegations that the Government – and the Prime Minister in particular - is breaching the Military Covenant by expecting those who place themselves in harm’s way to accept such a paltry pay-rise.
Outrage at the bonus payments has come from across the political divide with Jim Murphy, the Shadow Defence Secretary, saying ‘any such payments should only be paid in exceptional circumstances’ and that ‘right now our priority must be looking after our men and women on the front-line’. The Liberal Democrat MP and Defence Minister for the Coalition, Nick Harvey, said the pay-outs were ‘scandalous’.

Former Army officer and now Tory MP, Patrick Mercer, said:
“It raises questions about our priorities when bureaucrats get richer on bonuses while those on the frontline are being asked to take what is effectively a pay cut”.

Commenting on the MoD bonus culture defence analyst and editor of the British Army Guide, Major Charles Heyman, said:

“To the soldiers sitting in a hole in Helmand, being attacked by the Taliban day in, day out, it must damage morale to know that someone sitting on swivel chair behind a desk doing a pretty cushy job is getting their pay packet bumped up”.

Lance Bombardier Ben Parkinson’s mother said she was ‘appalled at the payouts’. Ben is considered to be the most severely wounded British soldier to have survived an attack in Afghanistan – an attack that saw Ben suffer horrendous injuries and lose both of his legs.

Long Term Sustainability for Injured Personnel in Doubt. It's a con isn't it?

A Commons Defence Committee has said there are doubts over whether the ‘Government has fully understood the scale of demands to be placed on services in the coming years’ when bearing in mind the number of casualties requiring on-going treatment for injuries received in current conflicts.

The Defence Select Committee report on military casualties praised ‘the first class medical treatment’ available but questioned whether it was sustainable bearing in mind the ‘moral obligation’ to support Service personnel as set out in the Armed Forces Military Covenant. It went on to urge the Government to ‘act as a matter of urgency’ to exclude Armed Forces compensation paid to injured personnel from consideration when ‘means-tested’ benefits are assessed.


It was acknowledged by the committee that while the MoD provided ‘outstanding care’ in many areas ‘this cannot always be said for the support it gives to families’. It was also critical about the lack of support given to children following the death or serious injury of a relative and urged the department to ‘look again’ at its support services.

The committee also said that Government reforms of the National Health Service will affect the future care of soldiers injured on the battlefield and requiring on-going treatment.

When discussing the significant contribution made by Service charities the report suggested that charities could well be paying for projects that should be funded by the MoD. The report said it was important for the MoD and charities ‘to work even more closely together to explore ways of ensuring that new capital projects provided by charities can be sustained into an era when current levels of donations may no longer be relied upon [after the withdrawal from Afghanistan]’.

The Defence Select Committee Chairman, James Arbuthnot, said:

“We, as a committee, have seen how determined our injured servicemen and women are to achieve the fullest possible recovery from their injuries. They see it as duty to get better and to return to their units if at all possible.

“And we have been impressed by the brave and skillful personnel, both military and civilian, who are providing the medical care that our Armed Forces need.

“But we need to have the confidence that such specific treatment, for injuries hardly ever seen in the general NHS experience, will continue long after an individual’s retirement and into old age.”

In response the Minister for Defence Personnel, Welfare and Veterans, Andrew Robathan, said:

“There is always more to do and we will consider carefully the committee’s specific recommendations as we strive to fully meet and sustain our commitment to wounded, injured and sick personnel under the Armed Forces Covenant.”


*Photo © 2007 Brian Harrington Spier, Flickr*

Is £38bn Defence Deficit Affecting Aircraft Carrier Requirement and Capability?

HMS Ark Royal is verily missed

It will not have gone unnoticed that during the past few days much has been written regarding the National Audit Office (NAO) and Public Accounts Committee (PAC) reports
and the mistakes that – if one believes all that is said – have been made by the Government as far as the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) decision to scrap HMS Ark Royal and the building of the two Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers is concerned.

First of all let there be no doubt that the Government ‘got it badly wrong’ and left itself wide open to criticism for not fully appreciating that aircraft carriers are a necessary evil and can project air power where needed. The recent Libyan operation would have been more cost effective had Ark Royal still been in service with her highly capable Harriers than deploying Apache and Sea Kings from HMS Ocean and flying unnecessarily long and expensive sorties on Tornado, Typhoon, Sentinel and VC10 tanker aircraft from Italy, Cyprus and RAF Marham in Norfolk!. The Government are truly guilty of looking for short term financial gains without looking at the long term requirement and not realising that future defence needs will probably not be dictated by Westminster!


The Public Accounts Committee, chaired by the Labour MP, the Right Honourable Margaret Hodge MP, has accused the MoD of ‘focusing on short-term affordability in drawing up options for SDSR to cover a £38 billion black hole in its budget’ and when referring to the changes being made to the new aircraft carrier programme Mrs Hodge said:


“Once again, a major MOD project will be completed much later, cost much more and offer less military capability than originally planned.


“Changes to the aircraft carriers and the aircraft flying from them in the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review have changed the risks and costs involved in ways that are not fully understood. Rather than two carriers, available from 2016 and 2018, at a cost of £3.65bn, we will now spend more than £6bn, get one operational carrier and have no aircraft carrier capability until 2020 – almost a decade. The second carrier will be mothballed, while the operational carrier will be available at sea for only 150 to 200 days a year.


“On top of that, the technology to enable the new aircraft to fly from the carrier is untested. The newly constructed ship will have to undergo immediate modification and the costs of this will not be known until December 2012.


“In preparing options, the Department concentrated on short-term affordability and the need to make cash savings, and did not focus strongly on long-term value for money. While the Department believes the decision will save £3.4 billion, only £600 million of this constitutes cash savings, with the other 80 per cent simply deferred costs.


“It is of deep concern that our ability to hold the Department to account was hampered by the Cabinet Office’s decision to withhold from the NAO all the information it requested to make a judgement on value for money. We welcome the subsequent decision by the Prime Minister and Cabinet Secretary to make the papers available, following pressure from this Committee and others."


With regard to the NAO and Public Accounts Committee reports it has been said that media sources had reported ‘on inaccurate claims that the full Carrier Strike capability would not be achieved until 2030’. MoD sources said this was not true and answered that ‘the more capable Carrier variant of the Joint Strike Fighter fast jet will begin operating from our aircraft carrier from 2020, with six jets available for operation’ going on to state that ‘by 2023 this number will increase to 12 UK jets on-board and we will be able to work with our allies to increase that number because of the interoperability that the Carrier variant Joint Strike Fighter allows’.


In reply to both the NAO and Public Accounts Committee reports the Secretary of State for Defence, Philip Hammond, said:


"We are tackling the inherited black hole in the Defence Budget and, earlier this month the National Audit Office [NAO] rightly recognised the work that this Government is undertaking to bring the Department's finances back into balance.


"When this Government came into power, the Queen Elizabeth Class carriers were already £1.6bn over budget. As part of an overall package of measures taken in the Strategic Defence and Security Review we have reduced overall spending on the Carrier Strike Programme by £4.4bn over the next ten years.


"The NAO and the Public Accounts Committee have both acknowledged that our decision to build a second aircraft carrier makes financial sense. Converting one of the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers to operate the more capable Carrier variant of the Joint Strike Fighter fast jet from 2020 will maximise our military capability and enhance interoperability with our allies.


"Operating the more cost effective Carrier variant fast jet will, in the long term, offset the conversion costs and provide us with aircraft that have a longer range and carry a greater payload. Until our new Carrier capability comes into service, we can utilise our extensive basing and over flight rights to project decisive air power, as we showed during the Libya campaign”.


When examining the whole aircraft carrier issue it is worth remembering that had there been more control over defence spending in the past there would probably be no £38bn budget deficit and that had that been the case the swingeing cuts made to defence under SDSR may well not have been necessary. This leads us to suppose that the Royal Navy would still be capable of providing the all-important amphibious air wing that the current Government have deprived the country of leading to a lower level of national security and power projection – which is only one part of the whole erosion of defence equation!


Photo © Mike Cattell, Flickr

Benefits of Joining the British Armed Forces: Why Would You?

In a nutshell... why on earth would you join the Armed Forces? It's rubbish pay, and you could get killed.

Not only that, you're a bit left wing and believe in a protest against imperialism (you might even be one of those nutters from Muslims Against Royal Familes or what nonsense they are called) and speaking out for the British common man, therefore you don't want to join the UK Armed Forces. You could be a disaffected former member of the Or you might not believe in war at all despite the UK Armed Forces being primarily an expeditionary defence force for at least the past 250 years. It hasn't embarked upon any sort of conquest for centuries (you might argue Empire existed BUT that was started by trading companies NOT the Armed Forces).

Whatever your objections, and they are many, they'd be against everything you believed in.

Besides, you never voted for the ConDem government nor even deputy Nick Clegg nor even the PM David Cameron. So why should you join?

Well, to put it into perspective - your oath of alligence is to the Head of state, in this case the Queen and your Regiment not to the government. Utter tosh you might say as the British head of state is powerless. The Commons runs things. True.

But none can deny that indeed you do swear your Oath of Allegiance to the Squadron or regiment, most of whom are your fellow Britons; and often in the case of the Army people from the same town or county. These are the good folk that you back and protect in a conflict. Most of which are common men and women. The heart of industry of this country.

Secondly - the money is not THAT poor. It's lower yes initially but not in the long term. Look for an equivalent job as a civilian that has the benefits of the military equivalent and pound to a penny you actually WON'T find one.

A Chef on a cruise ship won't earn £16k PA when they start but one on a Royal Navy ship will - but that's just one insignificant example.

The basic benefits included in most armed forces jobs are:

1. Free medical and dental care

2. Good rent for often decent accomodation

3. Job security which is poor in the private sector. Albeit until 2011 the public sector was safe but ride out this financial storm and things should be right again by 2013.

4. 6 weeks paid holidays plus bank holidays. You'll never find this in a civilian company (maybe if you work in a highly paid financial job in the city or are a banker however).

5. Despite the public sector cuts, Armed Forces still has of the best pension plans on the market.

But be realistic

The UK's Armed Forces are one of the largest in the world in terms of power projection and deployed in a number of serious armed conflicts throughout the globe. It's likely that you might find yourself in one of these conflicts.

Which you may not take to as much as the next person...

Am I Eligible to Join the British Military?

Ever wonder what the different jobs are within the Armed Forces, their specific requirements, and average salaries? We have put together career profiles on several of the most sought after positions, including: Eligibility Basics, Reasons to Join, Civilian Comparisons, Getting into a Service Academy, Benefits Overview, and British Armed Forces Missions.


Recommended resources: Careers Advice, Test Tips, Fitness requirements

10 Steps to Joining the Force

Get the basics on the different types of naval and military careers, how to best prepare yourself, what to study, who to talk to and when to talk to them. Learn how to get your foot in the door and why you need to get fit. Access the guide...


Recommended resources: Careers Advice, Test Tips, Fitness requirements