Friday, July 24, 2009
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/
You know it makes sense
James Delingpole is in The Spectator, writing about Iraq and Afghanistan. If you want the full story, he tells us:
... read Richard North's Ministry of Defeat, which will make you so angry you'll instantly want to rush out and strangle an awful lot of people. Top candidate would be Tony Blair, whose championing of the ludicrous European Rapid Reaction Force (mainly, suggests North, as his consolation prize to the EU for having failed to drag Britain into the euro) siphoned off truly eye- watering sums from our defence budget on mostly stillborn or pointless projects. Over ten years, joint European projects cost the MoD £8.8 billion. With that kind of money the MoD could have bought a hell of a lot of useful helicopters and improvised explosive device (IED) resistant vehicles.He continues:
The indefatigable Richard North calculates that 50 British lives in Afghanistan alone have been lost as a result of insufficiently protected vehicles. Lt Col Rupert Thorneloe, for example, was killed by around 30 kilos of homemade explosive (almost certainly made using fertiliser provided to local farmers by the British). Had he been travelling in an MRAP, rather than a Viking, the vehicle would scarcely have been dented.Good stuff.
So while the Americans have just spent $1.2 billion procuring a fleet of highly mobile, mine-protected vehicles for their men in Afghanistan, we continue to let our men die needlessly. Yes, I appreciate that our casualty rate is negligible compared with, say, the world wars; that these days we seem to make more fuss about the loss of one man than in the old days we would have done about an entire company. Those, though, were wars of national survival where it was much easier for everyone to comprehend the purpose of the sacrifice. They were also of limited duration, with clear aims. The one in Afghanistan could run and run, and how are we supposed to know when we've won?
COMMENT THREAD
Is this is what it's about?
Thomas Harding in The Daily Telegraph is reporting that the major British offensive in Afghanistan (Panther's Claw) that has led to a large loss of life and many wounded "has strengthened Britain's battered relationship with America".
This is according to a "senior defence source" who is telling us that: "It has shown that other people are making the sacrifice and sharing the burden. American has been through their Golgotha moment and they admire a country that steps up to the plate and does the heavy lifting."
Once again, it seems, the shadow of Iraq looms, with the British Army highly sensitive about its performance there, even if it is holding the line with its public pretence that the campaign was successful. A big "push" in Afghanistan, therefore, is seen as a way of restoring the Army's reputation.
We wrote about this in April, when the call for 2,000 more troops was first gaining traction. With a flood of US troops due into Helmand, there was no great strategic sense in adding a much smaller number of British troops to the fray, especially as the supporting infrastructure – such as protected vehicles, helicopters, UAVs and the rest – was already inadequate. What was very clear - as we then wrote - was that the Army was playing games:
Confronted with its own inadequacies, it has therefore - in the time-honoured fashion of bureaucracies since the dawn of time - raised a cry for "more resources" as the answer to all ills, not least because when they are not delivered the fault (and blame) can be transferred. It then "briefs" heavily to its friends in the media, to ensure its version of events lodges in the public consciousness, thus establishing its alibi for when things go "belly-up".We returned to this theme in early June, noting how the Army "line" had evolved into a "warning" that the reputation of the armed forces would suffer in the eyes of senior American commanders unless an autumn surge was authorised. Our "senior commanders" are saying that such a surge would signal Britain's intent to "pull its weight".
Now it is that, for precisely that reason – it seems – theatre commanders have embarked on a risky and costly adventure, with uncertain effect and dubious strategic benefit, merely to salvage the tarnished reputation of the Army brass.
And dubious it is. Watching recently a Canadian journalist in Kandahar, describing the coalition air effort, I saw him explain how helicopters were so vitally necessary. Such was the poor condition of the road network that a journey to the area of operation, which would take no more than 20 minutes on good roads, could take four hours or more. And, as we know, mobility is further hampered by the inability of roads and bridges to take heavy traffic, limiting movement of certain types of vehicle.
Thus, the operation was entirely supported by a constant shuttle of helicopters, making a nine-minute journey to the "front line", leaving the road network under the control of the Taleban, who mine it and prey on the civilian population.
It cannot be stressed enough that the basis of governance is communications – roads in particular – and what we are seeing is the legacy of eight years of neglect, where the Western aid effort has been misplaced, misdirected and badly managed, leaving the road network in a worse condition than when we started. Thus, in the absence of the tactical mobility afforded by that network, we are forced to rely on expensive assets such as helicopters.
The point here is that the fundamental coalition strategy is one of "take, hold and build" – or "shake 'n' bake" as we call it. The idea is to create a "security bubble" in which the civilian development agencies can then operate, implementing their redevelopment agenda.
This is a strategy that has already failed – not least because the "security bubble" is urban-centred, where it is easier to maintain security. It failed because the bulk of the Afghani population is rural – 80 percent or more – highly dispersed, living off the land.
To maintain country-wide security on a "take and hold" basis would require the dispersion of the security forces, putting them in extreme peril, unless there are huge numbers. There, conservative estimates are of 500,000 or more, simply to maintain a basic presence. Clearly, there is no way the coalition is going to put that resource into the field, and the Afghani security forces cannot take up the slack. That simply is not going to happen any time soon.
The alternative is to build the road network, and then police it. It is not helicopters that are force multipliers, as Malloch Brown was saying in September last year – when no one was particularly listening – it is the tactical mobility afforded by helicopters. But these machines are only one mechanism of delivery.
In the "hold" phase of the current strategy, responsibility for security is supposed to devolve to the Afghani forces, and they are not generously supplied with helicopters – or at all. And there are no plans to remedy that situation. It would be hideously expensive even to try, and we are having enough difficulty equipping our own forces.
Therefore, the Afghan forces are going to have to rely on the road network, often using light, unarmoured vehicles with limited off-road performance. If they are to succeed, we have to build a high quality, secure road network. This should not follow the "take" phase – it should be part of it, just as building the rail system opened up the "wild west" in North America.
The communication system brought with it the security – it did not follow it. And, where the US Army Corps of Engineers played a vital part in opening up the territory, so too must the British Army open up Helmand. This can never be achieved by civilian agencies.
It is here, oddly, that helicopters are vital, but not the ponderous heavy and medium lift machines that are so much the focus of attention. Back inNovember 2006, we were writing about the need for small, tactical helicopters that could deliver rapid reaction units quickly, to where they were needed.
The thinking was very much on the lines of the highly successful Rhodesian Fireforce model, where small packets of troops could interdict terrorist movements, disrupting their communications and never allowing them to concentrate their forces or dominate the ground. A good road network, allowing policing by local forces, with the rapid back-up of highly mobile forces on these lines, together with good road security, has been demonstrated time and time again to be a winning formula.
Instead of that, we have large, ponderous formations, ploughing up the territory, "breaking things and killing people", fighting battles which have been described as similar to the conventional "break-out" battle, of a type and tempo known the generals of World War I. The objective is to take territory which we know we cannot hold, and for which there will never be the resources to hold within the context of the strategy so far defined. To assert otherwise is moonshine - this strategy could suck in the entire British Army and it would not make the slightest difference.
The campaign, therefore, is being set up for another of those "heroic failures" at which the British Army excels. We will have been seen to have been "doing our bit", contributing to the "heavy lifting" and spilling enough blood for the Generals to salvage their own pride and look the Americans squarely in the eye.
But as an exercise in counter-insurgency, the Generals might just as well parade their troops in red coats, lining them up to fire their muskets into the tree lines to scare off the natives. At least then they would do less damage and it may be just as impressive for the Americans, who always did have a soft-spot for our quaint traditions. Perhaps we could even burn down the White House again. With Obama inside, that could be as effective as anything "Our Boys" are actually doing in Helmand.
COMMENT THREAD
The tyranny of the narrative
One the one hand, you get Air Vice Marshall Martin Routledge, still in post, speaking out against what in media terms could be described as a "critical shortage" of UAVs in Afghanistan. Outside the specialist journals, all it gets is a brief mention in The Times and a cut and paste job in The Guardian.
Then, on the other hand, you get Brigadier Aldwin Wight, ex-SAS commander, retired from the Army in 1997, who has been "speaking with friends" and decides to "wade into the row over support for UK troops in Afghanistan", accusing the government of "spin" (shock!) and telling the world: "I do think, actually, the debate should be exposed - the additional troops, the numbers of helicopters." For good measure, he also accuses Labour of spending "the minimum they could get away with" on defence ... like, er ... £1.7 billion on Future Lynx.
The retired brigadier immediately gets a slot on ITN and, via the Press Association, his views can be found in most newspapers today.
It actually does not matter to the media whether we need more helicopters or troops in Afghanistan – whether the tactics are right, whether there are other equipment deficiencies, whether things could be done differently, to greater effect – or cheaper. What matters is the narrative. Talking heads who fit in with it get heard. Those who do not, languish in the wilderness.
This is how the debate is "framed" – how every debate is framed, distorting public policy and priorities. We have a weak minister, in a weak, unpopular government, rushing around "busting a gut" to dance to the media tune, while other issues, of equal or greater importance are ignored or given less attention.
In truth, this situation has probably never been any different, although the effects are possibly now more powerful. With 24-hour news and the multiplicity of media sources, it appears that many voices are clamouring – the multitude with but a single mind. In fact, they are all singing from the same hymn sheet – one statement, one press release and then one agency report, replicated mindlessly, a thousand times or more.
That, is why "spin" is such a central part of modern public administration. Governments not only have to govern, they have to respond to the narrative – they have to be seen to be addressing "popular" concerns.
Where the two are in conflict, "spin" fills the gap. The words are not real, but then neither is the narrative. It keeps the media wolves at bay, until the discrepancies between words and action are found out, generating another narrative of a lying, deceitful government. The truth though is that "government by narrative" would be chaos – which is possibly why we are in such a mess now, as our masters vainly attempt to restore their fading popularity.
Such is its power, that no government dare speak against it. No minister can stand up and say, "this is a load of tosh ... you are all wrong ... what we need to is this ... and I am going to ignore the clamour. " In that path lies political suicide and obscurity.
So, the politicians feed the monster. But it is never sated. They become its slaves and we too become enslaved – and to what? An agenda that has no more substance than the contents of the recycling bin. But we feed it all the same.
COMMENT THREAD
A change of pace
Leaving the travails of Afghanistan for a moment, we have the opportunity to read Antonia Senior in The Times, warning about greens under the bed. "Once the lure of communism seduced the idealistic. Today's environmental ideologues risk becoming just as dangerous," she writes.
Over on Watts up with that, we have a record of an "historic snow event" in South America. We also have unusual snow in the Alps and, here in Yorkshire, we've had to have the central heating on – like it's er ... cold.
The real world, however, is making not the slightest impact on the climate change industry, which seems more and more like the Taleban each day ... both want to crawl back into the stone age, the difference being that the warmists want to do it on a global scale.
Meanwhile, a recent report reveals that the US government has provided over $79 billion since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, foreign aid, and tax breaks.
A similar study in the UK would doubtless show that a proportionate amount had been spent by our own government and, as the US study reports, there are trillions to come. With that sort of money at stake, it is no wonder that the skeptics are having a hard time. It really is the same with the EU and, indeed, the defence industry. Money talks while the truth is dressed in rags.
With that happy thought, we can always revel in the fact that the drug companies are about to make a killing out the 'flu vaccine and major industries throughout the EU stand to make up to £4.6bn from selling carbon permits to power companies, for them to add their costs to our bills. Wind farms are going to add to our grief and, as always, the media has lost the plot.
Ever get the feeling you're in the wrong business?
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