General Sir Richard Dannatt on radio 4

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Minigundiplomat and two's in,

I appear to have sparked an idea in your minds that Afghanistan is easy. This is most certainly not the case and I did not intend to suggest that it involves 'mooching about'. I admire the bravery of those who, on a daily basis, go into FOBs under fire. My point was that we have control of the air in that there is no air threat there and there are no super MEZs composed of high order SAMs to contend with. This gives the coalition freedom of action throughout the whole country to . That does not mean that aircraft will not get shot at hence my reference to small arms, RPG and Manpads. Whether we have air supremacy ("that degree of air superiority wherein the opposing air force is incapable of effective interference") or air superiority ("That degree of dominance in the air battle of one force over another that permits the conduct of operations by the former and its related land, sea, and air forces at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by opposing air forces.") I leave up to you to decide. I certainly do not want to denigrate the daily acts of bravery by our crews.

My overall point is that we need a wide range of capabilities and a balanced force comprising fast jets, SH and AT to meet the threat which could be thrown at us in the future.

Nice Castle, I should point out that I am not an air superiority fighter guy but a CAS pilot yet I still see the need for air superiority fighters in our range of capabilities. In numerous tours in Afghanistan I have not had to worry about air threat and have been able to stay on station providing CAS, ISR and other capabilities to the lads on the ground. In another scenario with an air threat and increased ground threats, without the umbrella of a concerted counter air campaign to kill fighters and suppress SAMs I would simply not be able to do my job in providing such a service to the chaps on the ground. They would then in turn get schwacked by enemy ground forces as well as by enemy air forces.

So I reiterate that the armed forces should not be trying to fight amongst the different capabilities but standing up and pointing out the importance of the different capabilities and how they all tie in together.

I say again, we need balanced air power in the British armed forces to deal with Afghanistan today but also what may be around the corner. Parochial point scoring will ultimately damage everyone.

PS please do not tar me with that staff college theory brush! I know from my own experience in dusty places that underfunding in one's own area is very frustrating and has effect out on the battlefield. In such a situation it is easy to become blind to the wider needs of defence. I am trying to take a look the whole picture and think that we do still need air superiority fighters (never thought I would say that as a mud mover!) but perhaps Typhoon will actually have more relevance in the future as they are swing role aircraft which can switch between air superiority roles and CAS/ISR etc rather than our other FJ aircraft which are either ground attack or air defence specialised. Perhaps one option would be to accelerate the demise of our single role aircraft such as Harrier and Tornado GR4 and F3 and concentrate our efforts on bringing the Typhoons up to a true swing role capability and ensuring that the JSF does come into service. In that way we would have a modern capability which is able to deal with both air superiority and ground attack in a very flexible manner whilst disposing of our older types.