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The future for the UK in military terms probably lies with the “Anglo Sphere” of English speaking countries with British roots, where political values are held in common and therefore joint understanding and positive action more likely to happen.

The Anglo Sphere countries are obviously, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK with the potential for many others with a Commonwealth background to join according to their national interests at the time. Although bound in some cases by formal military alliances, the real bond is really cultural in the broadest sense rather than treaty based, in simple terms we understand each other well on a very wide spectrum of issues.

A British Contribution

In this context Britain’s military spending beyond just home defence should be based upon delivering added force capabilities to compliment joint actions. Whilst home defence requires an “all arms” capability, offensive actions are less so because in realistic terms, the UK will never fight on a global scale by itself again, inevitably it will only do so alongside the USA. Bearing this in mind and accepting that at every level – numbers, technology and logistics, the United States has the most efficient conventional war fighting machine ever seen, it makes little sense to duplicate that, we will not be going to war with the US as our opponent !

We need to provide our allies with resources that are “numerous”, a lot of one or two things rather than ‘some’ of many things. For example, if the British had been able to supply and sustain an army of 50,000 soldiers in Iraq, British influence on strategy would have been greater which “may” or “may not” have led to a better outcome. The force levels we were able to contribute might have provided some political window dressing for George Bush but as the American’s knew they were going to have to shoulder the Lion’s share of the burden, they decided the strategy and made some mistakes at outset that still resonate to this day.

Not Just a Naval Solution

Rather than building 2 carriers that just mimic existing US capabilities, the UK should concentrate on unmanned aircraft and especially sea launched ones. Instead of 2 super carriers, we should build much smaller ships that can launch and recover UAVs and have many more such ships in service perhaps 12-20 each capable of handling perhaps 20+ UAVs in simultaneous operations. Such ships would have far smaller crews than the 1,500 required for super carriers, cost a lot less to build and operate providing they are not over specified with every imaginable gizmo. In terms of manned aircraft there would be a few helicopters in addition to the UAVs, plus multiple crews for each ship to ensure maximum potential days at sea for the ships and a reasonable ‘home life’ for the sailors during peacetime.

I am writing this in the context of an “aircraft carrier” design as we know them to be but the reality maybe very different, with ships more the size of a minesweeper or large trawler, we could throw away conventional thinking start with a blank sheet and think differently. Just take the concept of speed, a Frigate or Destroyer must be able to steam at 30 knots but if you deployed ships in Flotillas with complimentary capabilities and deployed many Flotillas globally, perhaps endurance is more important than speed.

Learn form History

We can describe naval ships as “major capital assets” and it has always been true even in the days of timber built vessels, that it took a long time to build and commission them which is why in the 18^th & early 19^th Centuries, captured enemy ships were often renamed and reused as British men of war. However the world even of war then, was a lot slower paced than today and we need to face the harsh fact that if the UK became involved in a global and pan-national conflict against a conventionally armed enemy, what we start with, minus the losses in action, is what we will end with because there will be no time to replace them.

In simple terms it is a numbers game, if you start with a numerically larger fleet than any potential adversary and your fleet is technically flexible, even allowing for losses, you can deny your enemy sea room. The Battle of Jutland during the First World War in terms of losses inflicted on the enemy, was won by the German Fleet however, in strategic terms it was an outright victory for the British because thereafter, the German surface fleet was bottled up in harbour for the rest of the war and incapable of influencing the course of events.

Strangely though, on the outbreak of WWII, the Germans had great faith in their “Surface Raiders”, highly sophisticated pocket battleships that could out gun and out run anything put up against them but the loss of just two ships, the Graf Spee and the Bismark resulted in an end to that policy. The most effective naval vessels the Germans had during WWII were submarines – U Boats and the E Boats or motor torpedo boats both of which inflicted losses, in the case of the U Boats, very heavy losses on the Allies.

Unmanned Ariel Vehicles – UAVs

Although I use pictures of the American Predator UAV, this is really just an example to illustrate the point so let us outline the potential a bit.

These planes do not fly that fast but they don’t need to and can stay airborne for 12 hours at a stretch. The ‘pilots’ can be sitting thousands of miles away on land in a command centre and be working in shifts. They are capable of being just intelligence gatherers, provide aerial battlefield live feeds to ground forces but also, can carry missiles and have been used effectively by both the Israelis and Americans in pinpoint ground attacks.

The cost arguments too are very persuasive: One Joint Strike Fighter will probably be around $100 million, a UAV $5 million a copy and unlike the JSF, UAVs could be mass produced. But the big argument lies in the fact that there is no pilot inside the aircraft whilst on a mission and therefore, there is no pilot to lose. The reality is that even if a manned aircraft like the JSF could be mass produced, the pilots can’t be and such a machine without a pilot is just useless junk.

But in terms of providing pilots, the USA partly because of a bigger economy, greater population and its military structures, has a greater capacity through the National Guard to supply and replace aircrew, the UK doesn’t, we no longer have a part time pool of combat trained pilots in a volunteer reserve. We do however through computer gaming, have a virtually endless supply of young men and women who could fly and fight UAVs.

Although I have built this argument around one particular UAV – the Predator, that is not the only game in town as one ship might carry a number of different types of aircraft, each designed for a different purpose and type of mission. Although a small carrier type vessel maybe be restricted to flying only 10- 20 aircraft at a time, it could easily have another 20 crated ones below decks for assembly and launch as required and as loss replacements in the field.

In summary, by concentrating on UAV technology in a multi-function role and with the means to deploy, sustain and replace hundreds of these aircraft both on land and at sea, we do bring a valuable resource to any alliance plus, the technology involved is ideal for the defence of our small islands with their extensive coastlines.

The British Army

Perhaps the greatest demand in terms of an asset that any alliance would appreciate most is fighting ground troops (infantry) however, unless a new form of National Service is introduced, just how likely is it that immediately following peace time, we could send a professional British Expeditionary Force of 100,000 to give help as we did in 1914 when a BEF landed in France ? The answer must be no chance at all.

We do have a number of relatively small deployments in numerical terms right across the world but our two main ‘war fighting’ one’s currently are Iraq and Afghanistan. Between them, a deployment of 12,000 is the maximum that we can currently sustain which frankly, is little short of pathetic and lays far too much responsibility on our troops as the constant fighting in Helmand shows.

If we cannot expand the Army to provide sufficient “garrison” troops then we need to convert half of it to “Special Forces” type units dedicated to aggressive assault operations, intelligence gathering plus an efficient logistics tail dedicated to sustaining and supporting them in the field. I don’t see that this is the only option, there are others which I will explore further separately.