The Integrated Defence and Security Review.

The UK has recently published its integrated defence and security review and there are already observations, questions and complaints at the public, senior officer and political levels. The military forces are set to be transformed and modernised to provide a visible deterrent to prevent conflict and to be capable of engagement with a variety of adversaries (from peers to terrorists) across all domains in hybrid warfare when there is one. Of course, every time there is a defence review and the budget is allocated, the ever present inter service rivalry shines through and each seeks a larger share at the expense of the other services. So what will the new force look like?

One of the largest shares of the new defence spending is allocated to the independent nuclear deterrent which consists of four Submarines with Ballistic Missile’s (SLBM). The UK currently has the minimum number of warheads allowed under international treaties and protocols but has announced it will increase its stockpile. This has caused a furore amongst naive disarmament campaigners, but the reality is that our nuclear weapons need continuous modernisation to remain a visible and viable deterrent to other nuclear armed countries who will always be in a position to threaten non-nuclear armed countries with the use of theirs to gain political advantage. Both Russia and China have been increasing the number of and modernising their warheads and delivery systems and have introduced new ballistic missile defence systems. To increase the chances of a warhead achieving its target effect despite these effective defence systems has meant all sides increasing the number of their warheads (and using dummies and decoys) to offset the losses they would incur during any deployment. No one wants to see nuclear weapons used, but it’s the modern and viable deterrent used by all stable countries that have them that prevents this.

New commands will be created and resources allocated, to fight in the domains of cyber and space. Both Russia and China have tested anti satellite weapon systems and other innovative systems to destroy or damage satellites that network centric forces heavily rely on for navigation, surveillance, situational awareness, command, control and communications. Russia and China also constantly test and attack cyber systems of target countries including critical national infrastructure, military, health, political and economic systems not only for the purpose of espionage and to gain intelligence but also ensure that at any optimum point in time they can shut down or degrade them when they choose. To defend against this, the UK will spend money on hardening systems, providing increasing numbers of systems (to provide redundancy) and integrate the military cyber capability with the national cyber defence centre. The issue of attracting, recruiting and employing the right cyber qualified personnel will force a restructure of the armed forces, since these people earn and will expect larger salary’s than the usual low salaries of the military so they will more likely be contractors brought in to work under regular military commissioned officer ‘project managers’.

Since we will be in a constant state of hybrid war with countries projecting power and influence without crossing the threshold into actual conflict, the use of special forces will also expand. The UK has emulated the US SOF system in having ‘tiers’ of SF units that specialise in roles and now have two tier one SF units (the SAS and SBS) to carry out direct action with a global reach in non-attributable uniform or covertly and a tier two SF unit (the Special Reconnaissance Regiment or SRR) whose role is covert surveillance in support of the tier one units in their direct action missions. In support of the SF ISTAR and direct action roles the SF have a support group which is also used to assist with teaching foreign military units. To increase the size of the SF support group, to free up SF operators to be available for global covert direct action tasks, the services are creating a Special Operations Brigade with a ‘Ranger’ unit to provide the training teams for the foreign military units and to create more of a toolbox of different SF capabilities than can be chosen according to both the unit capability and the amount of political risk the proposed mission involves. Creating new units with specialised titles will also aide in recruitment especially given the under manning across the services and will save them from being cut as the conventional forces reduce in strength. The SF command will also expand as they expand their current cyber capability to ensure a larger slice of the defence budget and also so that they remain as independent from non SF unit support as they can.

There will be the enduring requirement for a modern professional conventional force to be both a deterrent and to fight if the threshold is crossed but given that this is less likely due to an increased use of the covert and unattributable intelligence, cyber forces and SF there is a reduced requirement for the numbers of conventional forces and their manned platforms. Even when there is a requirement for a conventional force intervention, this will be carried out by a smaller force with additional mass provided by unmanned systems (whether aircraft, armoured, surface ships or submersibles). This will seek to be more of a pre-emptive decisive engagement that will force an outcome in the shortest span of time and will not require sustainment for any length of time. Having masses of unmanned systems (whether autonomous AI or commanded by other manned systems) will be cheaper (therefore you can buy more of them) and will help overcome the adversaries defences by being more stealthy (manned platforms have a greater signature) and provide an increased chance of getting past denied access areas defended by increasingly sophisticated area denial systems (they will run out of expensive missiles eventually). This investing in modern systems will allow the early retirement of all the old legacy vehicle systems and aircraft that have been constantly extended in service since the 1960’s and 70’s. Any new systems can be brought in that will be more design relevant to operating in the more likely environments of conflict such as urban and arctic.

Given that the protection of our strategic supply lines and ability to project force abroad will be largely in the realm of amphibious forces the Royal Navy will fund both unmanned systems and large surface vessels capable of deploying Royal Marines and protecting them with air cover. The Royal Marines are rebranding themselves away from the traditional Marine role (which as proven in the Falklands conflict can be done just as easily by the army infantry regiments) and focusing on their commando role and their arctic and mountain warfare expertise. Their restructuring will be in line with current SF force structures and will be used in a similar manner to the army special operations brigade but able to deploy rapidly from a coastline. In a similar manner to the creation of the ‘Ranger’ units, the focus on more of their specialist roles will aide in recruitment especially as they compete with the army for recruits. The restructuring into smaller SF type troops will also bring currently undermanned Royal Marine Battalions fully up to strength.

Of course having a modern fleet of vehicles, platforms, equipment and smaller structures will all be for nought without the personnel to man them. Given the increasing technicality of the equipment the services will require increasingly educated people (ie more graduates). Although there are increasing numbers of graduates every year in the UK, the military will be competing with jobs in industry and services that are higher paying, have more benefits and don’t suffer from wage freezes or increases that are paid on the very last day of the financial year to save government money which currently makes servicepeople feel unappreciated. They will also be trying to recruit from a national pool that is increasingly obese and unhappy living in accommodation and working in facilities that has been under invested in for decades. Some barracks have been without working heating and running hot water systems for months on end. The announced downsizing of the services does not mean more redundancies but more of a cutting of posts that are currently unmanned anyway since the services are always thousands of personnel under strength and a large percentage of serving personnel are undeployable due to medical downgrading which only compounds the problem.

The review has certainly caused heated debate and discussion in some quarters, but despite all the complaints and negativity by those losing some of their outdated assets, this is a golden opportunity for the military to get rid of those old, expensive to maintain platforms and unfit to deploy personnel and invest in more educated personnel and world class equipment. To recruit and retain the right people though will require serious investment in basic living standards, modern working and training facilities, meaningful in service education and career opportunities.

Robert Shaw is a former IEDD operator and intelligence operator with operational deployments to Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan and who worked in support of the Airborne forces, UKSF, and the Defence Intelligence Service with a career spanning over 25 years. His post military service has included posts with the United Nations in various missions around the globe and in New York. In his spare time he is a member of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides and is currently writing military history books on the SAS, SOE and the Cold War. Robert has a MSc in Global Security from Cranfield University and has lectured at UCL and Cranfield on intelligence, defence and security matters. He has also provided technical advice and expertise to National Geographic, Channel Four, the BBC and the film industry.