Undermanned, undervalued and overburdened
(Filed: 22/07/2004)
http://www.news.telegraph.co.uk/opin.../22/dl2201.xml
Yesterday the axe finally fell on Tommy Atkins and Jack Tar. After fighting three wars in five years in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq; after peacekeeping in Northern Ireland and Sierra Leone; after dealing with foot and mouth and fire strikes, the Armed Forces might have hoped for a little gratitude from Tony Blair.
Not a bit of it. Any such hopes had been dashed by last December's cost-cutting White Paper and last week's miserly "increase" of 1.5 per cent accompanied by "savings" of £2.8 billion, in the Spending Review. The Services' reward is to suffer even more drastic retrenchment than they did after the end of the Cold War. Geoff Hoon's cuts will reduce their frontline strength to its lowest peacetime level in modern times.
Yet this is not peacetime. We are engaged in a global war on terror, and our thin red line has never been thinner.
This process of strategic cheeseparing has been taking place under a weak Defence Secretary, already notorious in the mess as "Buff"(-Hoon) for his failure to take on the Treasury.
Yesterday, Mr Hoon sought to present his starvation rations as a banquet. New systems mean that fewer troops and platforms are needed, he claimed. But the Eurofighter, designed for the Cold War, is not yet in service; the two new aircraft carriers are still on the drawing board. Mr Hoon made no promises when either will see service.
Meanwhile, our multi-tasking Forces will lose 16,500 - about 10 per cent - of their personnel. The RAF is particularly hard hit, losing nearly a fifth of manpower, four squadrons and at least one big base. The Army, already below its nominal level of 107,500 troops, will be reduced to 102,000. Four battalions and seven Challenger 2 tank squadrons will go.
The unkindest cut of all will be the virtual abolition of the regimental system as we have known it - the goose that lays the golden eggs. The Navy will lose 12 warships, including a fifth of the destroyers and frigates that patrol the high seas. Any savings in the 95,000 MoD "tail" have already been anticipated by Gordon Brown.
With unconscious irony, Mr Hoon's obituary for the military is entitled "Delivering Security in a Changing World". He is in denial about our insecurity in a world that is changing for the worse. There is no clear recognition of the threat from rogue states, perhaps equipped with WMD, and no acknowledgement of the fact that troops went into action in Iraq without proper protection against such dangers - not to mention basic equipment such as desert boots and body armour.
It is fatuous for the Defence Secretary to pretend that these cuts have been driven by strategic rather than financial factors, or for the chiefs of staff to profess satisfaction. Soldiers, sailors and airmen would respect their top brass more if they had put up more resistance to the politicians.
But it is the Prime Minister who has let the Forces down most. At his command, they go to the ends of the earth to fight for Queen and country. He invokes their patriotism, but he is not prepared to pay for it. Under the guise of a strategic defence review, the Blair Government is conducting a policy of unilateral disarmament.
