On this forum, and elsewhere, there has been much discussion relating to the upcoming SDSR. This thread was intended to be about the ignorance of the public and the media. To what extent will the SDSR be influenced by public opinion, and by the media? How much does the public listen to the ignorance and prejudices of such individuals as Max Hastings and Lewis Page?
A question I asked many moons ago was whether defence and security policy should based on known threats or known vulnerabilities?
I cannot resist posting two links which illustrate that it isn't all about boots on the ground.
1. The story in the
Sun that an
Argentine warship harassed a trawler from the Falklands. They've also been making
unfriendly noises about the UK forces down South. This is discussed
over on ARRSE.
2. This article from the
Mail offers an insight into current submarine activities:
Five days aboard one of Britain's silent warriors, the submarine HMS Talent
It’s easy to think of these boats, built in the Eighties, as expensive and outdated Cold War toys, but they are still perfectly designed for stealthy surveillance and potential attack.
‘She carries some of the most advanced weapons, and is also one of the quietest submarines in the world,’ says Simon Asquith, the commanding officer on Talent.
Just as a ‘bomber’ submarine carrying our Trident nuclear deterrent is at sea every day of the year, and has been since 1968, so too the Royal Navy now always has a hunter-killer submarine such as HMS Talent ‘east of Suez’. They are reticent about exactly where they go, but look on a map and you’ll see Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Iran and Afghanistan.
‘It’s great PR for surface ships if they have a success while doing counter piracy, or if they board a boat and carry out a big drugs bust,’ says Cdr Asquith. ‘But lots of these operations have a submarine input and that’s never discussed, and rightly so.
‘They call us the silent service, but the danger of that is that we become the forgotten service, as very little of what we do can be reported. Even my wife has no idea what we’re doing 90 per cent of the time.’
And...
But they can’t afford to lose too many at a time when submarines are a growing threat. The number commissioned and being built worldwide is rising rapidly. Their lethal potential was shown in March when a torpedo from an unseen North Korean sub sank a South Korean navy gunboat. North Korea denies it, but 46 sailors were killed and it could have escalated into war.
‘Submarines are a surprise growth area,’ says David Ewing of Jane’s Underwater Warfare Systems. ‘India is working on a nuclear sub, which could have a destabilising effect, and currently has one on loan; Brazil is going like mad to build one and the Russians are starting to churn out the things. Iran is also trying to get as many mini-subs as it can, while North Korea has 88 subs.
‘Rogue states are likely to go for smaller subs,’ he adds, pointing to a new danger from smaller conventional submarines using AIP, or Air Independent Propulsion: ‘They have to go slowly but they’re very quiet, can stay down for a long time, about 12 or 14 days, and are perfect for use just outside a harbour when you can pop off anything coming out one by one – get one of those in the Straits of Hormuz and you’re looking at trouble.’