https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a...oved-bc2zbqm2h
Army ‘to be cut by 20,000’ if No 10 plan is approved
Royal Marine commandos may vanish as Cummings backs cyber-warfare and shoots forces chief ‘down in flames
’Defence chiefs have drawn up plans to slash the army by a quarter and reduce the Royal Marines to a bit part as part of Boris Johnson’s defence and security review.
The drastic cuts, which would also close airfields and take helicopters out of service, were drawn up in response to Treasury demands that Whitehall departments map out cuts of 5% or more as part of the government’s comprehensive spending review.
In the worst-case scenario:
.
..
- Army manpower would fall from 74,000 to 55,000
- The Royal Marines commando brigade would be disbanded, losing its artillery, engineers and landing craft. Royal Navy minesweepers would also face the axe
- The RAF would shut several airbases and shed its fleet of Hercules transport planes and small Puma helicopters.
Threatened cuts to key capabilities that then do not materialise are known as “shroud-waving” in Whitehall, where they are a common feature of defence reviews. But this time security sources say that Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s senior aide, is attracted to the proposal to slash the size of the army and pump money into cyber-warfare, space and artificial intelligence.
Cummings has already flexed his security muscles, driving through a plan to spend £400m buying a 45% share of bankrupt satellite company OneWeb last week. John Bew, who is supposed to be running the security review in No 10 did not even know about that plan.......
Cummings held a “getting-to-know-you” exercise with the service chiefs last month, when sources say the “personal chemistry” was “ a disaster”. General Sir Patrick Sanders, who as Commander of Strategic Command is in charge of all the MoD’s special forces and intelligence units, “boasted” about his work on cyber-warfare but a source present said Cummings “shot him down in flames” leaving Sanders “humiliated”. No 10 disputes this.
Whitehall officials say the ousting last week of Sir Mark Sedwill as cabinet secretary and national security adviser will allow Cummings to take charge of the defence review because David Frost, Johnson’s chief Brexit negotiator, will not take over as national security adviser until the autumn.
Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, last week held an away day for service chiefs at the Tower of London to thrash out the MoD’s approach to the review. Two sources say General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, head of the army, was open to a manpower cut, offset by the introduction of robot vehicles and artificial intelligence, but this was resisted by Wallace and General Sir Nick Carter, the chief of the defence staff, who want to keep army numbers at about 72,000.
The list of cuts prepared for the Treasury was not discussed. Instead Wallace presided over a discussion of “the threat”. But another source said the defence secretary would have to get Tory MPs to protest to Johnson if he wished to win the argument with Cummings in the long term: “Wallace’s only hope is to mobilise the Tory backbenchers.”
A No 10 spokesman said: “It is false to say No 10 plans to cut defence. We will fulfil our manifesto commitments, including to increase the defence budget above inflation. We do not recognise the accounts of the alleged meetings.”