Clockwork Mouse,
A cogent argument, and one that I am broadly in agreement with.
The way we control and conduct operations has changed dramatically in the last couple of decades. ... The fact that those operators are not personally in harms way at the time does not diminish their vital contribution to the firefight and its tactical outcome and that should be recognised.
... The current system of operational medals and awards has not kept up with the progress of delivering violence on our enemies. It is too geographically based, is no longer fit for purpose and needs updating. In principle I am generally in favour of parsimony, as opposed to profligacy, in the handing out of medals. I would not like us to emulate the Americans or North Koreans!
... The situation now is even more complicated and the purpose of operational medals urgently needs reviewing. It should be slanted towards including all those personnel making a direct contribution to a particular operation, regardless of their geographical location ... At the same time there must be a distinct recognition of those in the first category who were actually in harms way during the operation. Above all it should be credible and perceived as fair.
What I would say however, is that your system of tying awards to operational effort vice geographical location does unintentionally run the risk of the profligacy you seek to avoid. If we go down that route, where does it stop? RPAS crews get awards - fine. But then what about the Sqn support staff? Or even Stn staff? Before you know it you end up with all sorts of folk who are doing their jobs but with only tangential impact to live ops getting operations medals. To do otherwise would be divisive, so I can see entire units being annotated as supporting ops when in reality their job would be no different if the sqns were or weren't deployed.
As I've suggested before, I think the answer is straight forward for deployed personnel. Either go down the route of an OSM with clasp / no clasp for service inside or outside the specific area of hostilities. Or a separate award to differentiate between those fighting and those supporting, but all still within the JOA. This could be as simple as a split OSM / GSM, or you could introduce a separate Ops Support medal - I believe the Canadians have done something similar. That way there's a definite distinction whilst recognising those deployed in places like Al Udeid, the Falklands, afloat on Kipion etc.
How you resolve the issue of personnel in the UK or outside the JOA, well that's the harder more divisive issue. But if we say it's awarded for supporting named operations then that's everyone at PJHQ looking for an award along with other similar places like AWC, opening up the issue of profligacy.