Rupert Wieloch

The soul of the British Army is under threat. Throughout its history, the regimental system has been tied to local populations because it is well-known that soldiers fight for their mates above all else. Yes, there are flaws in its culture, but when the going gets tough on the battlefield, resilience comes from knowing that the soldier, section, platoon, or troop on your flank will not let you down. It’s all about trust.

This week, the King has praised the effective work of the National Cyber Security Centre. The words used make it sound as if it is on the front line: “defending against attacks”; “protecting critical infrastructure”. However, this is a (very important) rear area capability NOT a combat capability.

We have also read about the potential for a new British Air Defence Capability. My post of 16 August explains the need for this and I fully support the proposal, but NOT at the expense of increasing the numbers of our combat soldiers.

So where are we in terms of building our combat capability and instilling a war ethos in the country? As usual, the Media is silent on this issue and is more interested in the bad behaviour stories, focusing on the Defence Secretary’s announcement about cultural change in the UK Military. I have never met the new Armed Forces Commissioner, but I suspect she will have difficulty in intuitively understanding what is needed to defeat a tenacious enemy on the battlefield and how to turn today’s youth into tomorrow’s combat soldiers. It’s all about trust!

It all comes down to 11 September 2012 when the US Ambassador to Libya was killed in Benghazi. Christopher Stevens suffered from a failure not in intelligence, but in political decision-making. The knee-jerk reaction to pull out all western missions from Libya led to a catastrophic second civil war, from which the country has not yet recovered. The legacy can still be felt all over the world and is the principal reason why Washington has pulled its B-1 bombers out of Gloucestershire.

My family knows RAF Fairford well. We have lots of thank you letters from their children’s school for helping with their education programmes. I have flown from there in C-17s to the Gulf and Afghanistan. Last year I attended a memorial service at Fairford and drove past the arrest-point that has recently been in the news. There is still a lot to come out of the combined intelligence work that led to the arrest, especially the roles played by GCHQ, MI5 and the CIA. However, what is clear today is that Washington decision-makers have not taken the arrests as proof of security, but as proof of a threat.

Ever since Christopher Stevens death. American risk-analysis abroad has been cautionary. What adds to this prudence is if the USA cannot control the outside environment i.e. their security teams are legally prevented from opening fire and their rules of engagement are constrained. US policy abroad is normally to extract any member of their forces or government official if they kill a local. In Libya, there were helicopters ready to pick up their people in the event of a serious incident and fly them out of the country. They simply will not allow local jurisdiction over their spies, or soldiers, as was seen in the tragic case of Harry Dunn in 2019. The calculation is fairly simple: enemy capability + permissive host environment + legal minefield = B-1 pull-out. This is not the end of the story…

Benghazi Attack 2012

I am looking forward to giving my talks at the Battles Through History show next weekend. It’s the third iteration of this excellent show, which is now established as the last hurrah for military re-enactors, vintage vehicles, model makers and living history buffs. What I particularly like about it is the variety; one can bump into a Roman Legionnaire one minute and a Star Wars fan around the next corner.

I will be in the Norfolk Pavilion, with my books, on Saturday and Sunday talking about the Victoria Cross awards in North Africa and Operation Torch (Hard Lessons From Tunisia). I am sure there will also be lots of discussions about the current state of the British Forces and in particular the latest debacle about Ajax. For the full list of authors and activities over the weekend, please refer to the website through the QR code below.

The cordial meeting between the Prime Minister and NATO’s Secretary General this week masked three deepening tensions centred on Defence Spending, Russia and Ukraine.

The first is the Government’s inability to deliver the 2025 recommendations made by former NATO SG, Lord Roberton. The funding gap for re-armament is bad enough, but the real issues are the shortage of recruits and the lack of preparedness in society. The paucity of Territorial Army Centres in Britain’s towns exacerbates the problem and needs to be corrected pronto.

The second is the portrayal of Russia by the Government, which is totally flawed. Putin is neither isolated internationally, nor domestically. His reserves dwarf NATO’s and now are hardened by years of combat. The UK Chief of Defence may have said this week that we are living in the most dangerous period of his service life, but why are MPs silent? They are the ones who should be telling the public about Russia’s European war plans and manoeuvres.

The third dynamic is the skewed reporting from Ukraine. The focus on drone attacks provides a glimpse of the war, but these are like wasps attacking a crocodile. The real business is happening in the Donbas, where an intense ground war continues after twelve years. The Media needs to stop pretending that close combat is a thing of the past.

It is the business of strategists to identify weaknesses in order to counter threats and provide opportunities for success. However, it is the job of politicians to stiffen the resolve of a nation and to ensure that military capability is in place to withstand the first attack. It is time to act.

NATO Photograph

Tehran will be delighted at the outcome of the Brics meeting this weekend; Washington will not.

For the record, Russia, India and China are the 1st, 7th and 3rd largest countries in the World by area; the 9th, 1st and 2nd by population; and the 9th, 6th and 2nd greatest economies by GDP. Brazil and South Africa are leading nations in the two largest southern hemisphere continents.

Brics is usually a disjointed group, which generally follows the lead of the USA, but this year, they have been badly affected by Washington’s economic tariffs and war with Iran. The members are now hitting back diplomatically, with three anti-American messages in their New Delhi Declaration: Stop attacking civilian infrastructure; Return to the Two-State Solution; and Remove unilateral sanctions. Reading between the lines, the implied warning is obvious: if you don’t respect International Rules, then we will not follow your lead.

For Iran, the message is also clear. We will buy your oil and support you in your conflict with the USA. It is no surprise, therefore, that the President warned the military for the long haul and announced this week that his war will continue beyond the November mid-terms.

With news that collective Army training is being curtailed, including tank firing at Castlemartin Ranges and Apache Helicopter manoeuvres, I am reminded of the track mileage moratoriums imposed on the Army in the past. But to my mind, these are vital parts of building military capability, not “nice-to-have” exercises as some ignorant observers suggest. So what will be lost if these events are cancelled?

One of the hardest jobs I had as Head of Defence Training Capability in the MoD was to explain to civil servants, politicians and other services why Army collective training was so important. It is much simpler to describe the consequences of not buying equipment by highlighting the financial penalty clauses written into contracts by Defence Industry and quoting the stark English proverb For Want Of A Horse Shoe Nail.

I used two methods in the argument about collective training. The first was to ask what force was needed by a certain date and then build a picture of the steps from individual competence to battle group efficiency. The force elements at readiness (FE@R) model was hard enough to describe to staff college students, but in London the eyes glazed over very quickly. The second way was to liken the task to cinema production, or the Premier League. This was more successful because there are plenty of examples of Films and Soccer Clubs which fail miserably because they focus on individual stars, rather than the collective. The Premier League analogy is also useful because the consequences of team failure; 20 years ago, the British Army was still one of the top six, now we are in danger of relegation, if we give up collective training.

Collective Training At Its Peak

The death of Ratko Mladic in the Hague cannot pass without a mention of his evil deeds in Srebenica, when I commanded the northern most British troops in Bosnia. There has been much debate about who was more culpable for the war crimes in 1995: Mladic or Karadzic. To my mind, Karadzic had overall responsibility, but Mladic gave the orders to his troops to kill the masses.

It was difficult for ordinary British soldiers to do nothing while knowing that civilians were being slaughtered nearby. But it must be much worse for the Dutch soldiers who were in the United Nations Protection Force at Potocari and stood aside as the Bosnian Serb Army began their genocide. Having visited some of the haunting sites where bodies were being exhumed, I have enormous respect for the forensic investigators, who provided much of the evidence to convict those responsible.

When I returned to Bosnia in 2003 and planned special operations to hunt war criminals, the net was closing in on the two Bosnian Serb leaders. We knew they were hiding over the border, but occasionally returned to see their families. The pressure was maintained diplomatically thanks to the outstanding British High Commissioner, Paddy Ashdown and eventually, they were both arrested in Serbia. Mladic’s death may close a chapter, but we are not at the end….yet.

There has been much discussion in military think tanks about the effects of attrition on Ukrainian troops. The wearing down of morale is only one of the consequences of spending over 200 days on the front line. Loss of friends, exhaustion and perceived mistakes by commanders can erode confidence in formations. It is a challenge for replacement personnel to earn the same respect, especially if they are not quite so talented with their equipment.

The point is that Capability is more than the sum of the people and the equipment. Building an effective fighting brigade while deployed on the front line adds so much risk of failure. The salutary example of 51st Highland Division in World War II is a lesson for all of us. This gallant formation earned a fearsome reputation in North Africa as a bulwark of Monty’s 8th Army, but lost many men and the replacements failed badly after the D Day landings.

The way Ukraine is tackling this challenge provides an important lesson for Britain as it attempts to re-build its combat capability. The reintroduction of unit operational readiness tests covering everything from weapons performance to administration and logistic sustainability is vital, if we are to be more than just a “shop-window” army.