By Richard Beedall.
SDSR: Act in Haste, Repent at Leisure
20 March 2011
The decommissioning ceremony of HMS Ark Royal, 10 March 2011
Before anything else, I wish the safe and speedy return home of all members of the United Kingdom's armed forces that are engaged in operations around the world.
This website is not intended to provide "news", however events are unfolding around the world which have a direct effect on the national interests of the United Kingdom, our armed forces, and the Royal Navy in particular. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, has unexpectedly made a decisive stand over Libya, on 14 March 2011 he told the Commons that Colonel Gaddafi was "brutalising his own people" and that:
"with time of the essence, there should be no let-up of pressure on this regime. .... Do we want a failed pariah state festering on Europe's border? Of course we do not want that. .. . Work has been done within the UK to look at options... [A no-fly zone is] perfectly deliverable... [if it is] as widely supported as possible. ... I think we will be letting down ourselves as well as the Libyan people if we do nothing and just say 'this is all too difficult'."
Over the next few days Mr Cameron played a leading and possibly decisive role in the passing of a UN resolution authorising military action, but the Prime Minister was perhaps embarrassed when he revealed to his allies at an emergency summit in Paris on 19 March just how limited would be Britain's military ability to contribution to the enforcement of the 'no fly zone'.
When operations began just hours later, the lion share of the work fell (and will continue to fall) on France and America. France immediately flew a dozen Rafale and Mirage aircraft on missions over Libya, and announced the deployment of an aircraft carrier - FNS Charles De Gaulle - to the area. The USA was - not unexpectedly also a major contributor - with cruisers and submarines launching missiles at targets in Libya, and the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise expected to arrive soon.
By comparison, an MoD statement issued early 20 March 2011 stated:
"We have launched Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles from a Trafalgar Class submarine and Stormshadow missiles from Tornado GR4s. The fast jets flew 3,000 miles from RAF Marham and back making this the longest range bombing mission conducted by the RAF since the Falklands conflict. This operation was supported by VC10 and Tristar air-to-air refuelling aircraft as well as E3D Sentry and Sentinel surveillance aircraft. HMS Westminster is off the coast of Libya and HMS Cumberland is in the region ready to support operations. Typhoon aircraft are also standing by to provide support."
Superficially fairly impressive, this was actually a very depressing press release. By means of a massive air-to-air refuelling operation (using all available VC10's and Tristar's) the RAF apparently managed to get up to six Tornado GR.4 strike aircraft - each aircraft carrying one missile - in to Libyan airspace for a few minutes. To do this required the aircraft and air crew to fly a very demanding 12 hour long mission - Group Captain, the station commander at RAF Marham, describing the effort needed as "Herculean". That is not an exercise that can be repeated even daily for very long. As regards the Typhoon fighters, they do not have the range to perform missions over Libya from their UK base at Royal Air Force Coningsby, and will need to be deployed to Italy to be of any practical use.
The mention of the Sentinel R.1 in the press release will be embarrassing to some in the government as this brand new aircraft was a high profile casualty in last years Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), and is expected to leave service by 2015. And not mentioned at all in the press release is the actual use of Nimrod R.1 signals intelligence aircraft, under SDSR these are due to leave service in ... March 2011.
On the naval side, HMS Cumberland (with her three remaining sister ships) is another casualty of SDSR, and she is currently due to decommission without replacement on 1 April 2011 - although this appears to be delayed until she is no longer urgently needed for operations off Libya.
HMS Ark Royal pictured in early 2010 with Harrier's embarked. Her capabilities are being badly missed by the United Kingdom a year later.
The unnamed Trafalgar-class submarine probably fired only four Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, and is unlikely to be carrying more than another four to six - the UK has a total stock of about 60 of these American made missiles based on published information.
Overall, the embarrassingly limited level of military effort by the UK doesn't augur well for its efforts to retain its position as a UN Security Council member. A key problem for the UK, is that SDSR (published 19 October 2010) was primarily a cost cut cutting exercise which aimed at reducing the defence budget by 8%. The last few days of the review culminated in hasty decisions such as the axing of the Royal Navy's aircraft carrier capability which could only be justified by making risk assessment and planning assumptions which have already been broken. The now evident reality is that interventions are not handily spaced to allow recovery "from the effort involved", and that "sufficient warning" is rarely available for major operations. A memorandum to SDSR says:
"The Government recognises it will have to manage greater risks in some areas due to reductions in capability. Mitigation of risk will take different forms in each case. In the case of Carrier Strike for example we will do so by: maintaining our strategic intelligence capability in order to identify new and emerging military risks..."
Statements such as this now have no credibility. It is almost uncanny how recent events have already invalidated SDSR, and carrier strike is a key example. SDSR decided to "immediately" take out of service the Royal Navy's only strike carrier, HMS Ark Royal, and all the GR.9 Harrier jets that could fly from her - thus 'saving' about £350 million a year in total (the saving is impossible to identify from official documents, I have assumed £100m for Ark Royal and £250m for Joint Force Harrier) . This decision was so controversial that it was ultimately taken personally by the Prime Minister after discussions with the head of the RAF, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton - but specifically against the military advice of the First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope. With almost undue haste, HMS Ark Royal arrived back in Portsmouth to payoff on 3 December 2010, Joint Force Harrier ceased operations on 15 December 2010, and Ark Royal formally decommissioned for disposal on 10 March 2011.
If Ark Royal was still available, there is no doubt that she - like French and American aircraft carriers - would now be heading for the Libyan coast. Indeed the current crisis is a perfect match for the military capabilities that HMS Ark Royal provided the UK with until three month ago. Covered by American, Italian and French fighters, the carrier could have safely operated off the Libyan coast line just west of Benghazi, where her air group of probably a dozen ground attack Harrier GR.9 jets plus four Sea King surveillance and control helicopter would have totally dominated approach routes to the city. The Harrier's could easily have managed 20-30 sorties a day, hitting targets within 20 minutes or less of requests. The RAF's current best efforts are disappointing in comparison.
It may already be too late to reverse the decision (at least at a tolerable cost) to decommission HMS Ark Royal. Unless a foreign sale is expected, her gutting for spares will already have rendered her a hulk. Her sister ship HMS Illustrious could be refitted to again operate Harrier aircraft at a reasonable cost, however rebuilding an operational squadron of Harrier's will be a difficult task.
Reluctantly, the MOD perhaps has to focus on how soon it can regenerate a carrier strike capability based on the new Queen Elizabeth class. The current target date of 2020 surely leaves an unacceptable gap in the UK's carrier strike capability - a capability that nations as diverse as Russia, India, France, Spain, Brazil, Italy and Thailand already have, and China will soon have. [Incidentally, it is hard to see how the UK government can justify providing £300 million a year in foreign aid to India, when that country is spending far more than that every year on both existing and new aircraft carriers and carrier aircraft.]
In February 2011. UK newspapers were full of reports that MoD had to immediately find yet another £1 billion of cuts under Planning Round 2011 in order to stay with in its budget. This sum is more than the annual running cost of all the surface warships left in the Royal Navy, and yet further reductions to this badly depleted force are apparently being seriously contemplated in order to meet immediate funding pressures.
SDSR had become a salutary lesson on the phrase "Act in Haste, Repent at Leisure" where defence is concerned - it is easy to quickly cut military capabilities to achieve small immediate savings, but recovering these capabilities can be very expensive and take many years. It can only be hoped that the Prime Minister and government will now prioritise national security and national interests above meeting arbitrary spending targets, and that some of the worst aspects of SDSR will now be reconsidered.
