Month: July 2024

I intended to post about the Chief of the Army’s Land Warfare Conference this week, but the news about the wildfires in North America have taken priority. Every time I see the tragic consequences of bush fires around the world I feel deeply for those who have lost their homes and the devastated habitats. Australians have been particularly badly hit, but there is nothing like knowing a place for the effects to touch the soul.

Forty-two tears ago, I spent six weeks in Alberta, with my troops on the Prairie and in the Rockies. We had the most wonderful time on tank manoeuvres and canoeing down the Athabasca River and crossing glaciers in Puffa coats. We made friends in lots of strangely named places like Medicine Hat and Rocky Mountain House, as well as Calgary and Banff, but the best nights were in Jasper, where we received the full Moose and Bear Country experience.

This profound connection has kept with me all these years and so I am shedding a tear for the people of Jasper today and sending them my deep condolences for their losses. Knowing how bitter the winter can be, I am hoping they can restore the town’s infrastructure before the Fall.

Alberta in Happier Times

Like many families, we were seriously affected by the IT meltdown this week that caused chaos in the travel industry, panic in the banking sector and anxiety in the NHS. The botched CrowdStrike update has once again put our reliance on modern technology in the spotlight, but there are many ways to ensure the effects of such a collapse do not lead to total systematic paralysis.

In 2001, I was part of the original programme that identified the risks associated with globalisation and this scenario was high up on the list of possible events that we considered. In designing any software programme, the requirements manager should always ensure that the intellectual property that went into the project is maintained safely and that there is a reversionary mode incorporated in the platform.

We are very good at ensuring our aircraft do not drop out of the sky when there is a glitch, so why do we not put the same effort into human processes? It is not all about imagination and costs; there has to be well-established protocols that are familiar and practised on a regular basis. Time, as ever, is the key resource, but this was NOT an act of nature, so there are no excuses for poor preparation.

The NATO Conference in Washington this week was inevitably overshadowed by the recent elections in Britain and France and the latest Presidential News. It was nevertheless disappointing for commentators that no major initiative was announced to mark the 75th anniversary of its founding.

Ultimately, this is the only credible organisation that can deter Putin’s Russia and protect vulnerable countries from being “picked off” one by one. Talking about expenditure is a complete cop-out because it is military capability, as in high readiness brigades, ships and aircraft, which will earn the respect of our adversaries, not theoretical budgets.

Too often NATO’s members have suggested that other Allies will fill their gaps for them, but in a crisis, each country will look to their own before supporting another Member. We need to get back to counting numbers and matching our potential adversaries with a coherent, long term strategy – as we did twenty years ago.

It will be very interesting to observe how the new government in London deals with the problems of Defence and Security. In the case of British Foreign Policy and Economics, the cabinet will wish to be seen as stable and predictable, so it seems it has been elected on the basis of different people, but similar policies i.e. “change, but no change”. It is certainly the case that historically, Labour Governments have not made dramatic cuts to Defence and I am hopeful this will be the case in the next five years.

The first tests for the new Secretary of Defence will be at Budget time and when he meets his American counterpart. He will need to demonstrate that he can win the difficult argument with the Treasury and that he supports our main Ally, despite a big difference in the approach to the Middle East. I expect there will be a close alignment on Ukraine and Russia, but notwithstanding MI6 paranoia, we will not be quite so adjacent with the US about China. The key issue though will be credible military capabilities. To be taken seriously by the Pentagon, the government will have to put its “money where its mouth is” and a good beginning would be to fund a replacement for our aging tank fleet.

We Need A New Tank