Episoder
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BLUF: This paper proposes the creation of the structures and conditions required to train, lead and deploy a cost-effective Citizen Tri-service Reserve Force at scale during periods of stretch, tension, crisis or war. The Citizen Tri-Service Reserve Force would be available for use.
(1) as a third echelon front line fighting force,
(2) providing rear area and lines of communication security and
(3) in homeland defence, protecting critical national infrastructure.This will be achieved by establishing cadres of experienced ex Regulars and Volunteer Reservists capable of initially training and subsequently leading the Citizen Tri-Service Reserve Force.
Against a changing threat the UK is likely to require more people in uniform than we have now. The Citizen Tri-Service Reserve Force concept utilises those who have already served, putting them in place to prepare thoroughly as training and leadership cadres while saving in the short to medium term the cost of recruiting, remunerating and equipping the bulk of the rank and file (90% of the workforce).
It then sets the conditions to expand when required by having experienced leadership in place to build around.
Strategic background
The threats facing NATO in general and the UK in particular have escalated dramatically following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Furthermore, Eastern Europe is only one of several areas of the world where tensions have risen substantially over recent months and years; any of the others of which (eg Taiwan, Middle East) could erupt so as to distract key allies at a critical moment, potentially reducing their ability to support their NATO commitments in Europe.
Additionally, depending on the attitude of individual NATO members, including a possible future US President, Article 5 of the NATO Treaty may not be quite as binding as is widely assumed.
All of this needs to be set against a context in which the UK has the smallest standing army since Waterloo. Our navy and air force are similarly diminutive. Our Defence remains configured primarily for discretionary campaigning (such as Iraq and Afghanistan) and has not yet fully switched to prepare for non-discretionary conflict against a peer adversary.
The current SDR provides an opportunity to address this necessary change in orientation, which is likely to require the provision of mass in uniform.
Why we need the ability to generate mass
As demonstrated clearly in Ukraine, in a war of any duration, units become worn out and need replacing in the line to rest and recuperate. The UK has no provision for this.
Secondly, if the UK is operating in Eastern Europe in support of its NATO allies, it will have extremely long lines of communication along which its ammunition, equipment, workforce and rations will need to travel. Protecting such lines of communication needs "teeth" units, including infantry, light armour and air defence, especially against drones.
Thirdly, substantial additional resources are needed to support the defence of the UK's critical national infrastructure.
The outgoing Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Patrick Sanders, publicly raised the importance of the UK's ability to create military mass if required in a time of crisis in January 2024.
He was referring to a citizen army (the "third echelon") which history shows is needed to win our wars; under this concept, as in both World Wars, a small core of Regulars (the "first echelon") fight to buy time; the Volunteer Reserves (the "second echelon") then reinforce and help to hold the line; and the citizen army (the "third echelon") concludes the conflict.
Access to large numbers of cost-effective teams and a trained workforce from all three services would be essential in such circumstances. Warfighting assumptions always expect a war to be over within weeks rather than months or years (the size of our armed forces is indeed currently based on this assumption); history, and current events in Ukraine, shows this to be over-o... -
Tradition can be defined as an inherited, established and customary pattern of thought or action that can be transmitted from generation to generation due to their commonly accepted authority. In a military sense, Army traditions encompass customs and beliefs that unite different sets of soldiers. These traditions take form to us as behaviours, doctrine and actions.
The British Army's website states that 'The British Army is a professional and disciplined team, with a long tradition of service to the country'.1Readers can infer that this means the Army does the nation's bidding, whether at war or peacetime, without delay or question. This endures (and has done since 1689) always; we know this from the long standing function of Parliament to authorise taxes for war and defence.
It can be safely assumed then that the 'tradition' of the British Army being ever-present and ready to provide defence for the British people is a good one.
Does tradition hold us back?
But do Army traditions hold us back in other areas of defence? As the Army evolves and responds to current and emerging threats can it respond sufficiently? Valerii Zaluzhnyi wrote recently that technology 'boasts an undoubted superiority over tradition'.2
Arguably he was cornered into this analysis through the rigours of a war he oversaw as the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Army, until February 24. However, Zaluzhnyi's dismissal does not make it a poor analysis; Zaluzhnyi's Army went to war with Russia and faced some of the most extreme fighting in Europe since WW2. They have had to adapt and survive whilst holding off Russian military superiority and they learned quickly that holding on to tradition and current thinking was costly.
Adapting to the threat and remaining fluid is one thing; changing your approach entirely is quite another, but quite necessary according to Zaluzhnyi.
When Zaluzhnyi mentioned 'traditions' (doctrine & processes), he was talking about improving the situation on the battlefield. He went so far as to state that a wholesale redesign of battlefield operations was needed to distance themselves from outdated, stereotypical thought processes that were harming his troops and country's war effort through simply being not up to task.
This redesign, he concluded, would reshape Ukrainian military doctrine on a fundamental level for the better and help Ukrainian soldiers compete with and defeat Russian troops. This would however require substantial buy-in to be successfully integrated. No small task but surely too risky to ignore; the war with Russia was handing out lessons in evolutionary warfare and Zaluzhnyi was paying attention.
Relevance of experience
The British Army has had no such recent exposure or conflict with a peer adversary. The COIN environment in Iraq and Afghanistan taught us valuable lessons in insurgency warfare, counter-IED, ISTAR and medical support which 'had a profound impact on the Army's equipment, training and doctrine',3 but arguably did not find shortcomings in it. Consequently we have no experience of what should be retained and what should be dismissed or updated regarding our approach to warfare and warfighting.
How are we to know if our doctrine will hold up in a large-scale peer to peer engagement? We have banked heavily on the Land Operating Concept (LOpC): 18 months in the making, full of NATO partner consultation input and interrogated by RUSI, ISS and DTsL; it is the doctrine that dictates how we will win future wars. General Sir Patrick Sanders said it is 'the most robustly evidenced and inclusive piece of conceptual thinking that the Army has produced in over three decades.
This places the British Army at the intellectual edge of land warfare, able to lead in NATO and support our sister services across all domains'. 4
The LOpC clearly shows then that as an organisation we are attuned to the need to evolve and adapt to the changing threats around the globe. It highlights the need for need for technological sup... -
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"The Reservist is twice the citizen" - Winston Churchill
Genesis
The Royal Navy (RN) has the Maritime Reserve (MR), a 1* led Fighting Arm (FA), however, it could be argued that it is not taken seriously as a capability and is therefore not value for money. If the RN were to take the Maritime Reserve seriously, the MR would require a directed operational output, a 'head mark', a thought-out function, in conjunction with regular cadre of personnel who are taught the necessary knowledge and experience on how to employ it to enhance naval power.
This article offers options for the output the MR should have in supporting the RN operationally. Its time to move on from the 'fantasy fleets'. Instead, lets discuss NATO-level, UK Defence-wide, and RN-specific strategy statements to derive function and in turn, elicit discussions of form. It will not - unlike a recent RUSI paper - look to use the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) in addressing potential capability gaps in UK Defence.
Though, its potential scope is MR wide, its focus is the RNR, as the largest MR element and the one facing the hardest questions about its future operational utility. Additionally, this paper is written in the spirit of the Chief of the Defence Staff's recent direction on embracing debate from juniors in challenging the status quo.
Function
The RNR/Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) were formed in 1859 and 1903 respectively, to supply sailors in times of war for the RN; the MR now is approximately 3500 people spread across the RNR & Royal Marines Reserve (RMR) and is the only standalone reserve organisation in UK Defence.
The war in Ukraine and recent events in Israelshow that Reserves are still vital for delivering national security; internationally their use also mimics how our own Naval Reserves were used during both world wars. In WW2, 68% of Naval personnel were Reservists of various kinds, who jokingly referred to their regular counterparts as the "caretakers".
Such past precedents beg contemporary questions: could today's RN triple its personnel numbers swiftly in a time of major conflict, and would it need to? Today, the Maritime Reserve is a mere 10% of total RN personnel - but if the RN embraced use of reservists as Australia does (30%), could this alleviate personnel gaps too, while being better value for money?
The UK is not currently under an immediate existential threat (barring a catastrophic escalation of the war in Ukraine or entanglement in a US-China conflict). However, the function of the RNR and wider reserves should be designed around a framework that recognises the possibility of direct interstate conflict - not just the precursory stages such as competition and crisis to ensure our continued national security, as articulated in the most recent Defence Command Paper (the 2023 'Refresh').
The utility of the RNR to the RN is primarily to supply Surge in war while being affordable and Niche in peacetime. Yet the recent cancelling of training on financial grounds (the infamous "In-Year Measures"), effects from COVID, and Maritime Reserve "Transformation" (a euphemistic label for various top-down reorganisations) has lowered morale, seeing an exodus from the trained strength.
In NATO, there are four recognised types of reservists.
Niche(specialist) capabilities that do not exist, at all or in sufficient strength, in the regular forces.
Complementary. This is a capability - at the lower end of the operational spectrum - for which the full suite of military competencies is not needed, freeing regular forces.
Supplementary. This is a capability at the higher end of operations to rotate or reinforce the regular forces.
Surge. This is an expansion base for mobilisation in a large-scale defence emergency, the traditional Reserve role.
In the Future Reserves 30 paper, the role of reservists is articulated as.
The Reinforcement Reserve - reservists that routinely support defence output and activity, more akin to auxiliaries.
The Operational Reserve - ... -
Introduction
Since the Gaza war began nearly a year ago, Israel has conducted dozens of airstrikes against Iranian-linked targets across the Middle East. There is a widespread concern that the ongoing low-level conflict may escalate into an all-out war between the two nations. Nevertheless, Tehran, for its part, does not seem inclined to escalate into a full-scale war. There are six pivotal reasons for Iran's strategic impasse.
Fear of a Regime Change
The first reason relates to Tehran's prioritisation of regime preservation. Iran knows that the Islamic regime itself may become the primary target for removal in a conflict. Iran's economy is strained due to long-standing sanctions and domestic economic challenges. A direct conflict with Israel would worsen Iran's economic troubles.
Moreover, ethnic minority groups within Iran, such as the Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, and Baluchis, have long been exasperated with the Iranian regime and there is a genuine risk that Israel may engage with these groups.
Potential US Involvement
A second factor is that a war between Iran and Israel would likely draw the United States, Israel's historic ally, into the war. The power asymmetry between the US and Iran is striking. The US stands unmatched in its capabilities. Conversely, Tehran's efforts to modernise its conventional forces have yielded limited success due to the country's defence economics problems.
Regional Interests
Tehran's direct war with Israel would certainly jeopardise its regional interests. Iran strongly emphasises advancing its sectarian geopolitical ambitions within regions traditionally considered part of the Iranian/Shia sphere of influence. A direct conflict with Israel could potentially provide opportunities for Saudi Arabia, a key antagonist seeking to counter Iran's growing influence in the Middle East, and its allies to exploit the situation to their advantage.
Strategic Culture
The Iranian army has not faced a large-scale war since the Iran-Iraq war. The bitter experience of the war with Iraq led Iran to move away from conventional warfare tactics. Iran has opted for asymmetric strategies instead of engaging in a direct war with its adversaries. Iran supports Hezbollah, Houthis, and Hamas due to their shared objective of opposing Israel. This allows Tehran to pursue its objectives while minimising the risk of direct and large-scale retaliation from Israel.
The relative success of these methods has reinforced Tehran's commitment to an indirect approach.
Nuclear Program
The fifth reason influencing Tehran's unwillingness to confront Israel is its progressive advancement in its own nuclear program. Iran has been enriching uranium to higher levels, developing more sophisticated centrifuges, and enhancing the range and payload capacities of its ballistic missiles. Initiating a full-fledged war against Israel would risk undermining this progress, given that it could provoke strikes on Iranian nuclear personnel and facilities.
Winning Strategic Battle of Perception
The last point worth mentioning is Tehran's belief that engaging in a direct confrontation with Israel would eventually benefit Israel at a time when global opinion is turning against it due to the significant civilian casualties and suffering in Gaza. In contemporary wars, military victory is no longer solely defined by battlefield success, as in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict. It is possible that Israel could face a similar destiny in Gaza.
Therefore, Iran is very likely leveraging Israel's aggressive response against Hamas to undermine Israel's and, by extension, the United State's credibility.
What Might Come Next?
Iran is confronted with a challenging situation: it must find a way to respond that upholds its reputation while mitigating the risk of escalating to full-scale war with Israel, a scenario in which Tehran stands to lose more than it stands to gain. Choosing inaction or a feeble response could erode the domestic unity of the Iranian regime. Iran's d... -
Introduction
On 23 August, the Houthis, a Yemen-based rebel group, attacked a Greek-flagged vessel in the Red Sea, causing an oil leak and threatening an environmental catastrophe in one of the world's most frequently used waterways. On 2 September, the group attacked a Saudi and a Panama-flagged oil tanker in the same sea area- using a combination of missiles and one-way attack drones.
These attacks are part of a broader campaign carried out by the Houthi rebels since Israel's war on Gaza that involve hybrid maritime warfare.
Since October 2023, the Yemen-based group has attacked more than 100 commercial and military ships in the Red Sea. The Houthi movement claimed that they viewed any vessel connected to Israel or heading to or from there as legitimate targets. However, in practice, they have conducted indiscriminate attacks on ships from various nations.
Hybrid Maritime Warfare
The Houthis' actions perfectly align with what leading US defence intellectual Frank G. Hoffman once called hybrid maritime warfare. Hoffman has defined hybrid maritime warfare as 'a form of warfare combining asymmetric naval tactics, sophisticated weapons, and terrorist activity'. He argued that Iran and Iraq's systematic attacks against merchant vessels in the late 1980s, which became known as the Tanker War, exemplified maritime hybrid warfare.
A non-state armed group, the Houthis, has now adopted this method of warfare. The Houthis possess advanced military capabilities, including anti-ship cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, aerial drones, and uncrewed naval drones. The group has primarily targeted commercial vessels in their attacks, with these actions against Red Sea shipping clearly constituting maritime terrorism. They have also attacked military ships.
In early March, the rebels used naval missiles and drones against several American and allied warships in the Red Sea. Such attacks can be classified as guerrilla warfare at sea.
The group's combination of advanced conventional capabilities with asymmetric naval warfare tactics - characterised by surprise attacks on enemy ships and efforts to avoid military response - represents a hybrid maritime threat. But who are the Houthis, and what drives them to pursue such a campaign?
Who are the Houthis?
The Houthi movement, also referred to as Ansar Allah (supporters of God), is a Yemen-based armed political and religious organisation associated with and acts on behalf of the country's Shia Muslim minority, the Zaidis. The Houthi rebels captured Yemen's largest and capital city, Sana'a, in 2014 and have since waged a fierce and protracted civil conflict against the Yemeni government, which is itself supported by the Saudi-Arabia-led Sunni alliance.
The Houthis currently wield substantial political power in Zaidi-majority areas of Yemen.
Why are the Houthis attacking ships at the Red Sea?
The Houthis, alongside various non-state actors, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and Kata'ib Hezbollah, identify themselves as part of the Iranian-led 'axis of resistance' against Israel and the United States. Since Israel's war on Gaza, the rebel group has fired more than 200 drones and cruise missiles at Israeli territory to show its solidarity with Hamas.
Houthi leaders have repeatedly warned of escalating and more sophisticated military assaults against Israel, calling for an end to Israel's brutal war on Gaza. As previously noted, the Houthi rebels have also carried out attacks against dozens of merchant and naval vessels in the Red Sea, regardless of their connection to Israel or its allies.
These actions aim to disrupt international shipping and create anxiety among countries that support or at least do not contradict Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip.
The Houthis and Iran
The main factor giving the Houthis access to advanced weapons is their close ties with Iran. The Houthi movement engages in sectarian geopolitical projects in alignment with Tehran's pursuit of regional hegemony. In return, Iran has large... -
Terminology versus motivation
Reluctance, risk aversion, and the wrong centre of gravity
Useful scenarios
The Army does not have the luxury of being able to ignore criminal actors
Feature image credit: MOD -
"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting"
~ Sun Tzu
Why didn't Russia deploy amphibious forces to the shores of Odesa in the spring of 2022? At that point, Russians confronted the failure of the drive to Kyiv and challenges along a long front. A potential landing might have turned a flank or presented hard choices to Ukrainian leaders. Unarmed with first-hand evidence of Russian decision-making but well-served by hindsight, the authors assess that the amphibious flanking attack didn't happen because it was infeasible.
Ukrainian maritime defenses were unexpectedly effective. Sustaining forces ashore would be precarious. Isolated Russian troops ashore would be more liability than asset, and so the expected payoff from any landing was low. Russian commanders faced an acute area denial challenge.
Amphibious warfare strategy, it seems, is in need of some exploration because, after a deterrence failure in February 2022, Ukraine used tools of sea denial to deter the Black Sea Fleet from an amphibious landing in March.
This snapshot raises a question and points to an answer. What can you do with amphibious forces given current area denial, especially sea denial, measures; particularly in Europe? Those tools of sea denial mean that fouling the waters is easy but clearing them is hard. Because of this, sea denial is easier today and sea control is growing more challenging. Threats to large landing ships make traditional amphibious assaults - called forcible entry operations in the American vernacular - riskier.
Simply using amphibious forces to do ground operations in a new patch of land is too hazardous. On the other hand, a divergent model has promise to contribute to sea control.
Concepts designed for the Indo-Pacific have value in Europe
Specifically, deploying multiple, distributed, mobile cohorts of NATO marines ashore will support a broader effort. To gain and maintain sea control will be long, resource intensive, and entail a complex mix of complementary measures. In Europe, NATO can marshal potent amphibious tools, but will need new employment models to use them effectively. The traditional model expects a methodical sequence of actions to set conditions for landing.
A new "outside-in" model uses small landing forces preemptively to establish sea and archipelagic denial. This is most valuable for deterrence, but counts also as insurance in case that deterrence fails.
Four factors have the most impact on how allied amphibious forces can operate in today's operational environment:
1. First is the spread and variety of threats to maritime transit. Ukraine's successful strikes on Russia's Black Sea Fleet and the Houthis' parried attempts to disrupt Red Sea commerce illustrate the same point. The latent potential to strike ships at sea is widespread. Beneath the surface and out of view, sea mines, torpedoes, and other nefarious but subtle instruments of destruction or disruption abound.
2. Second, an accident of geography places many key geopolitical flashpoints of today along narrow waterways. Any list of potential triggers for major armed conflict between defenders of the current order and its challengers includes territory adjacent to narrow or enclosed waterways such as the Mediterranean, Black, or Baltic Seas.
Regardless of where an adversary might strike, be it in Lithuania, Taiwan, or the contested territories of the South China Sea, maintaining sea control will be critical to defense. Consider that Finland relies on maritime transit for 90% of its imports and exports.
3. Third, NATO's two newest members, Finland and Sweden, have mature and hardened capabilities to frustrate aggressive maritime harassment and targeting. Integrating such skills is a key advantage of their accession.
4. Fourth, sophisticated defenses against aircraft and missiles are possible but costly. What we've seen in the past year in the skies over Kyiv, Tel Aviv, and the Red Sea is that air and missile defense is feasible but no... -
Israel's New Wars is the latest book by Dr. Ehud Eilam. For nearly three decades, Eilam has studied Israel's national security and written widely, including for the Wavell Room, about how the state should protect itself.
In Israel's New Wars, Eilam explores how recent conflict with Iran and its partners has differed from Israel's fighting between 1948 and 1982. It contrasts fighting conventionally and fighting non-state actors, bringing historical perspective andmes. As a book, it is focused more on the tactical aspect of military power but verges on identifying the operational thinking.
Several of Eilam's arguments standout.
How to prepare?
Common with contemporary Western military thinking, Israel's New Wars finds a tension between exactly what type of war to prepare for. The day-to-day operations on the border or major conventional operations? This is a tension that the Israeli Defence Force has been struggling with as they veer from conflict to conflict. This is a trend that is apparent when contrasting the periods of history he uses.
This tension also carries over into equipment. Looking, for example, Israel's armour, he finds a very good system of upgrades for main battle tanks. However, upgrading to defeat one threat means they are less well prepared against others. This seem more consistent with Israeli naval power or air upgrades. There are similar trends in training and how to prepare soldiers for mobilisation effectively.
Whilst Eilam doesn't say it directly, he strongly implies that Israel's inability to prepare for either properly impacted its performance, ultimately leading to multiple draws in recent fighting. Earlier fighting ended in more decisive victory.
Ground holding or precision strike?
The book also explores the tensions of the different military strategies required. For example, conventional wars require large ground-holding operations and/or air strikes. Fighting non-state actions, however, does not. While air power is important to both, he presents an interesting discussion about the continuing utility of tubed artillery and its importance to effective military operations in both forms of operation.
Another theme explored is deterrence. Eilam finds that Israel has a mixed record of deterrence. Israel has been more effective with conventional deterrence, with some success against non-state actors. However, the disparate nature of such actors often means that miscalculation leads to war or splinter groups provoke unneeded responses.
Operational - Strategic
This is perhaps an area where Eilam would benefit from more analysis. The book is generally tactical in its nature. It struggles to view the problems from the perspective of Israel's opponents when discussing why deterrence hasn't been effective. This theme is common in much security writing, and the baseline assumption seems to be that deterrence rests on destroying lots of the enemy. If, as he identifies, it doesn't work well, what does?
Another limitation stems from this: the link between the tactical and operational. Eilam does draw some operational considerations, even some strategic ones. However, they feel underdeveloped. This is unfair; Israel's New Wars did not set out to be a full analysis. Such a task would be near impossible. But focusing on destroying things or holding ground would benefit from a little more strategic thinking.
We suggest that there are deeper considerations for Israeli military thinkers out there when contrasting the wars that he seeks to do. In some ways, Eilam's line of thought is a mirror of Mary Kaldor's infamous 'new wars' theory of the 1990s. Perhaps our thinking should now be beyond that now and we wonder if Israel's New Wars was a missed opportunity to consider how balance the competiting demands of conflict.
From a NATO perspective, Eilam is right to identify the tension and differences in the type of war faced then and now and how they are consistent. A decade after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the military... -
If the war against Ukraine has highlighted any truth, it is that the defense industrial bases of the United States and Europe are woefully underequipped for the demands of high-intensity conventional warfare. The United States was and remains the only country that retained the kinds of stockpiles necessary to support Ukraine's defense and future offense, and it faces competing demands for those declining inventories.
Yet, for a country with a nearly $900 billion budget, it seems unable to get what it needs, when it needs it, and at a scale necessary for what it anticipates as future conflicts, not the least of which is with China over Taiwan.
The issue is, fundamentally, one of acquisition and procurement. The speed and urgency that drives the bureaucracy of the Department of Defense has not kept pace with the speed of innovation that drives Silicon Valley. In the age of the iPhone the Pentagon is using the Blackberry, at best (and not a late generation one, at that). There are shoots of growth through the concrete of the military's purchasing systems.
Groups like the Defense Innovation Unit (; formerly known as the Defense Innovation Unit - Experimental or DIUx) have sought to bridge the gap between Washington and Silicon Valley. Authors Raj M. Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff, the former director of DIU and a driver of its creation, respectively, recount the creation of the Unit, its struggles, and its successes in the aptly titled book "".
It would seem to be a tall order, make Pentagon acquisition a thrilling read, but Shah and Kirchhoff manage to pull it off and rather well.
Filled with anecdotes of how the supposedly technologically cutting-edge services of the American armed forces operated in a surprisingly analogue manner, the authors tell the story of how DIU and others sought to match the warfighters' needs with Silicon Valley's innovations."Unit X" rightly focuses on the challenges of rapid innovation and rapid ingestion of new technologies. This is something for which the Pentagon, as the authors demonstrate, is not designed.
"Unit X" is not a story of nifty new technologies alone. It is really about the challenge of how the United States stays ahead of China, the pacing threat in strategic competition. Here, the Chinese Communist Party enjoys considerable competitive systemic advantages. A vertically integrated authoritarian-capitalist system, Beijing can better direct resources - human or capital - with rapid efficiency and arguably fewer bureaucratic hurdles.
China's aggressive corporate and military espionage campaigns have allowed it to leapfrog generations of innovation and trial and error. More alarmingly, the gap between theft and indigenous innovation is rapidly closing, with China able to develop more novel, domestic technologies at a greater rate than once anticipated.
The authors close "Unit X" by focusing on Ukraine (as is de rigueur today), which for many is seen as the standard-bearer for technological innovation, testing, and deployment. Senior military leaders on both sides of the Atlantic look to Ukraine wistfully, as a model of how they wish they could innovate and ingest new technologies - they want the war-time acquisition system without the war. That last part is key - in the absence of a clear driver of change, change is not forthcoming.
The problem is Ukraine is not the model they often think it is - that rapid adoption of new technologies is by consequence, not design. Those impressive and haunting first-person-video drones are used at such rates due to insufficient quantities of conventional artillery (which the United States and Europe are still failing to deliver). Those drone videos are also only the successful strikes.
The ratio of failure to success decidedly favors the former over the latter, especially as Russian electronic warfare improves. Ukraine's naval successes are deeply impressive, but miss key that when included make the lessons of the Black Sea unapplicable to other thea... -
The 6.8mm Elephant in the Room
The United States Army has made the biggest change in a generation to its small arms fleets by replacing its standard infantry rifle (the M4) and Light Machine Gun (SAW) with a 'Next Generation Squad Weapon' (NGSW) multi-calibre system based on a new 6.8mm round with high-performance technology to be more lethal at greater range. Some NATO governments are scratching their heads about what this means for the bedrock of NATO interoperability.
This decision butts up against three important contextual factors:
1. More than two years of war in Ukraine has seen an unprecedented focus on the Russian threat and subsequent multi-lateral gifting programmes to arm Ukraine, and emergency NATO memberships for Sweden and Finland.
2. The 5.56mm 'SS109' round has been the cornerstone of NATO interoperability since 1980, when it was adopted by most NATO countries, while a few influential members have recently procured new 5.56 assault rifles including France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.
3. Since the drawdown in Afghanistan, there has been a growing movement questioning the effectiveness of 5.56 on the modern battlefield.
Putting aside the classified details of the original US Army requirement for the Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) programme, the Americans took a logical approach: start with the threat (the target) and work back to the weapon (the ammunition) and finally the delivery platform (the rifle/gun). This may sound obvious, but the reality is this approach is truly not the norm for military small arms procurement with NATO governments for a variety of reasons.
It is commonplace for the choice of ammunition nature not to be central to the requirements simply because in-service ammunition natures have a very long service life - it is hard to change them.
This article explores the major implications of the US Army's NGSW programme to future NATO small arms procurements to both dispel some myths and assist the NATO community in understanding the situation and the NGSW.
Show us the money!
In 2017, Lt Gen Mick Bednarek testified on the issue of what happens when a 5.56 round hits someone with body armour to a Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on small arms (Verger, 2024):
"The US is facing adversaries with L2-3 body armour that precludes our lethality…regardless of range."
"Our capability to eliminate this threat at medium or long range is almost gone, so we must have small arms systems that can stop and can penetrate that increased enemy protection."
"I think the US Army universally realizes that the 5.56 bullet can't defeat Russian body armor."
In the same article, Col Jason Bohannan (Programme Executive Office [PEO] Soldier, US DoD) is quoted referring to the NGSW programme:
"…people get myopically focused on body armor…but there's a series of target sets in the battlefield that will exist for 10 years. And we're trying to balance all of that to put [the] US Army [and the DoD] at large, in an advantageous position."
Fast forward to 2022 when the US Army determined the old standard to be inadequate for the modern battlefield and disrupted the foundation of NATO interoperability by introducing two new squad weapons based on a new ammunition cartridge.
Before we get into the detail here is a big caveat up front - the US 6.8mm GP projectile (the XM1186) is owned by the US Department of Defence, while the hybrid case - the key component to achieving the high velocity that delivers the lethal punch for the NGSW- is owned by American producer SIG Sauer Inc.
Therefore, if NATO governments want to know specifically what this projectile does, they should dust off their bi-lateral defence sharing agreements and speak to their US counterparts; but the capability behind NGSW comes from the hybrid cartridge.
The SIG Sauer hybrid high performance cartridge is a lighter brass-steel composite that allows increased loads and delivers approximately 20-25% more barrel pressure and therefore muzzle velocit... -
Introduction
The current picture
It's beneficial to acknowledge our men
Are our wellbeing offerings outdated?
How can we help our men?
How can men tell they might be unwell?
What are some barriers to help-seeking?
The 'problems' with talking
Culturally, we must do better
Feature photo by Daniel Reche via Pexels -
The video of a Russian soldier executing a comrade is circulating on social media. To analyse what this execution means, we'll examine another example.
On 30 January 1968 the Tet Offensive erupted. It proved a turning point in the Vietnam War. The decisive psychological blow to American public opinion was expressed in CBS anchor Walter Kronkite's famous 27 February broadcast:
'To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.
On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy's intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honourable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.'
No image contributed more to the growing sense of repulsion over America's commitment to South Vietnam than the street execution of a captured Viet Cong fighter: Nguyễn Văn Lém.
The event took place on 1 February in a panic-gripped Saigon. Hanoi's hope of a popular uprising had failed spectacularly but Viet Cong gangs roamed the streets. Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams had spent a fruitless morning with an NBC journalist and Vietnamese camera crew looking for action. They were in the vicinity of the Ấn Quang Pagoda in downtown Saigon and preparing to leave when they noticed a commotion.
A captured Viet Cong in plaid shirt and shorts was being manhandled by a group of marines. His hands were cuffed behind his back. The unfortunate Lém was brought to police chief Nguyễn Ngọc Loan. In Adam's words:
'When they were close - maybe five feet away - the soldiers stopped and backed away. I saw a man walk into my camera viewfinder from the left. He took a pistol out of his holster and raised it. I had no idea he would shoot. It was common to hold a pistol to the head of prisoners during questioning. So I prepared to make that picture - the threat, the interrogation. But it didn't happen. The man just pulled a pistol out of his holster, raised it to the VC's head and shot him in the temple.
I made a picture at the same time.'
Lém collapsed, a jet of blood spouting from his skull. It was all so matter-of-fact and quick.
Adams at first tried to pass off the importance of the photograph. It was just some guy shooting another guy. But it was so much more than that. Americans wanted to believe they were fighting a just cause. Loan's revolver blew away that illusion.
Loan ended his days as a one-legged pizzeria manager in Virginia, passing away at a relatively young age from cancer. President Jimmy Carter personally intervened to stop his deportation (pressed by House of Representative members on the grounds he had committed a war crime). Adams grew to lament the photograph that won him the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography: 'Two people died in that photograph.
The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera.' Today there is an Italian furniture shop near the spot where Lém was killed.
Fifty-six years later…
Fifty-six years later, three Russian soldiers were jogging on a dirt track near Robotyne in occupied Zaporizhzhia. They were spaced apart, maintaining a short distance between each other. Only the first and last soldiers were armed. Unbeknown to the trio, a Ukrainian FPV drone pilot had them in his sights. He decided to attack the unarmed soldier in the middle.
This author has viewed scores of these YouTube videos. If the drone strikes the body it splits open the torso like a carcass in a butcher's shop. Heads fly off. If the warhead detonates near the limbs, one or both legs are ripped off. Or limbs are left i... -
The 2024 RUSI Land Warfare Conference's ambition was unavoidably hamstrung by the forthcoming Strategic Defence Review announced by Kier Starmer's incoming Labour Government.
Although many strategic and operational imperatives were explored, little substance was provided on how Army doctrine will evolve, how it will be re-organised and re-equipped, what this means for industry, and how these elements will together enable the future force to deter / counter the quartet of threats posed by Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. We have yet to see the Army's revised plan resulting from 2023's Integrated Review Refresh.
We will now have to wait until at least late 2025 before a more current and meaningful blueprint is released.
This is disappointing given the current geopolitical landscape. Two years ago at the same conference, General Sir Patrick Sanders refuted the idea that Russia's invasion of Ukraine would be short-term minor skirmish. Rather, he saw it as something that could foreshadow a larger and wider European conflict. Describing it as our 1937 moment, his call to arms went largely unheeded. At this year's Land Warfare Conference.
Speeches by the new Secretary of State for Defence, John Healey, and the new CGS, General Sir Roly Walker, left us in no doubt about the gathering storm. An unequivocal warning provided by retired Ukrainian General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, now Ukraine's ambassador to the United Kingdom, set the tone for the entire conference: "Evil has drawn near and it is out to kill."
Conscious that time and resources are limited, CGS made his objective clear: the British Army needs to be able to defeat a force three times its size. To do this, he aims to double its lethality by 2027 and to triple it by 2030. The most important point General Walker made was that there is no inexorable path to war. Conflict can be avoided through deterrence.
We must become the porcupine that, through an impressive array of pin-sharp quills, makes any efforts by predators to eat it so egregious that they pre-emptively decide it's not worth the effort.
The most important quill in the UK's defensive shield is its nuclear deterrent. But our conventional forces have been so hollowed-out over the last 14 years that there is a risk of nuclear weapons being our first and only response to unexpected aggression. However, the cataclysmic effect of a nuclear exchange makes it something we should avoid at all costs. This is why restoring conventional combat power across all three services is paramount.
If the British Army is to meet adversaries with devastating lethality, what must it do in practical terms is not yet clear, so this article aims to articulate the key initiatives that will most enhance the Army's combat power. This is not an unrealistic shopping list of new items that cannot be afforded or delivered in two years. It represents projects already in motion or about to start and which are funded by the Equipment Plan.
One - Replace Bowman with a software-defined C4I system.
The current Bowman BCIP 5.6 C4I system is rapidly approaching obsolescence. An ongoing project, the Land Environment Tactical Communication & Information System (LEtacCIS) programme, plans to replace it via the Morpheus sub-programme. The goal is to deliver a fully digitised, open architecture, software-defined C4I system with an upgradable ecosystem able to run a wide range of third-party apps.
A key advantage of a software-defined capability is that, like an iPhone, it can be upgraded on an ongoing basis to maintain system utility and integrity over time. New functionality, such as increased security, AI, machine learning, and algorithmic warfare applications, can be added incrementally with little effort or risk. An open architecture ensures interoperability with our allies. It allows increased technical functionality to be quickly rolled-out.
Unfortunately, Morpheus was derailed by the failure to deliver EVO, a component work stream intended to open Bowman's ... -
Clarifying the People Problem
A thought exercise
Understanding the Why
AFCAS 24 has just been published. The data, as ever, is fascinating and provides an incredible insight into what our people think about Armed Forces life. It also critically highlights pull factors keeping people in service, and push factors which drive people to leave the Services. There are positive and negatives to service life, and AFCAS draws out how our people feel over time. It can give as an insght into which factors have always been there, and which are getting better or worse.
Here are some key extracts to think about:
AFCAS also highlights the parts of The Offer that keep people serving and are most highly valued. Over a number of years now the primary "pull" factors have been Defence medical services, dental services and job security. Are there ways we can capitalise on where we are doing well? Almost certainly, if we are willing to resource a plan to do so.
Do we need even more Data?
A Way Forward
Summary
Feature image credit: MOD -
It's the Policy, Stupid.
Medical Policy
Other Policies
Lessons from America
So, What Can We Learn from the US Army? -
Warfare is changing faster than our military and our military-industrial approach. The warnings of world leaders, including the Prime Minister and Chief of the General Staff, that war is imminent have had little effect on our rate of preparation or adaptation . Almost no one, including those working within it, thinks the speed and scale of change in the UK Defence equipment programme in the last two years are adequate.
If it were, the war in Ukraine and Chinese exercises around Taiwan should have offered little cause for alarm. 'Everything is fine' is a proposition few would defend. Our Parliament states that we are not ready to fight a major war with our current equipment and industry approach. Deterrence exists in the minds of our enemy and ill preparedness undermines credibility; not only does it make us less likely to win, it makes war itself more likely.
If few individuals are satisfied with the status quo, why as a collective have we achieved so little change? Machiavelli would have a suggestion.
"There is nothing more difficult to arrange, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes. The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new. Their support is lukewarm … partly because men are generally incredulous, never really trusting new things unless they have tested them by experience."
Niccolo Machiavelli
Changing the system that retards Defence's ability to adapt incurs the frictions he described centuries ago. To disrupt the dominance of those too comfortable, before the disaster of war falls, this article aims to pick a fight. Cunningham's law states "The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer." This article introduces five provocations.
We hope to provide arguments for the innovators, both inside and outside Government, to use to help drive change. But even here we want disagreement, seeing your own argument played back to you can help you see its flaws. For those that disagree, we hope you'll see that, as John Stuart Mill wrote "the nonconforming opinion is needed to supply the remainder of the truth, of which the received doctrine embodies only a part". Help us improve our arguments with your challenge.
You came here for an argument (channelling Monty Python). We hope you enjoy it.
5 Provocations - what we are doing now is not good enough; we must:
1. Plan for dissimilar re-armament: What we deploy in month three of the war will not be more of what we deployed in month one.
2. Change the equation: move to $ cost to $ damage model:The economics of war have changed; we must too, or we lose.
3. Link frontline to factory: War is a learning competition, and we cannot afford to be in the slow class.
4. Rethink the roles of air power: Particularly control of the air and attack, in an uncrewed age.
5. Accept that the future is uncrewed: The role of humans in warfare, at all levels, will change much more than is generally assumed. We need a plan for uncrewed technology at scale.
Taken together, these measures increase our chances of winning a coming war, thereby making it less likely we have to fight in the first place.
Dissimilar Rearmament.
By month three of the next major war, the aircraft, ships, and tanks that we start the fight with will be reduced by attrition. But we know now that we will not be able to replace or grow the numbers of the key platforms in the current equipment programme fast enough to keep fighting. They will need replacing, and we will need them in weeks and months, not years. We will need dissimilar rearmament.
Neither side will be replacing their aircraft fast enough, but liberal democracies are far more dependent on airpower.
In contrast, one UK drone manufacturer, Callen-Lenz, developed their uncrewed system from concept to deployed capability, with production rapidly and highly s... -
On 17 February, Russian forces finally captured Avdiivka - once a city of 30,000 people - just ten kilometres from Donetsk. 110th Mechanised Brigade had defended the ruins for the last two years without relief. The end came when Russian forces infiltrated the south of the city using a concealed passage offered by a man-sized water pipe feeding Donetsk filter station.
More units advanced from the north in the area of the Terrikon (slag heap) and dachas adjoining the Koksokhim (Avdiiv chemical coke plant). With 80-110 glide bombs landing on the defenders every day, and with the threat of the city being cut in two, the Ukrainian command took the prudent decision to withdraw.
The next phase for Russian forces should have been an exploitation of the breach in the defence. In fact, the assault on Avdiivka which had started the previous October quite exhausted the attackers. 16,000 soldiers were killed according to a disillusioned Luhansk separatist. A staggering 531 pieces of equipment were destroyed, damaged or abandoned, including 169 tanks.
It was not until the end of March that Russian forces were able to resume the advance in an organised way (although small-scale and suicidal attacks never stopped across the front lines). This article reviews the action since and specifically examines the battle for the Durna river line.
Ukrainian and Russian dispositions
Ukrainian and Russian dispositions are shown on the map below. For both sides, unit and formation names do not correspond to actual size. A 'brigade' may be a weak battalion. 'Battalions' are commonly just companies. Russian prisoners routinely report how a company may start with 100 men but be reduced to as few as ten fit soldiers. Caution is also needed because units are rotated (withdrawn) when exhausted. This is especially true of Russian forces.
The map therefore represents all reported units/formations and where, but they may not have been present all the time, or in strength.
Russian troops on this front are referred to as 'Centre Group'. They are drawn from Central Military District (CVO) and 1st DNR Army Corps. Commander 'Centre Group' is the 48-year old infantryman Colonel-General Andrei Mordvichev. He has participated in the war from the beginning rising from army commander to army group commander.
CVO has been the best performing military district - ironically - as traditionally it is the reserve district in the Russian Federation and least favoured with resources. Ukrainian command in this sector falls under the Khortytsia Operational-Strategic Group (OSUV). The commander is a General Sodel [Sodol].
It is not possible to estimate troop numbers with any certainty. Both sides are depleted. The Russians continue to commit units to destruction further complicating estimation of strengths. Nor is it possible to estimate equipment numbers. With the exception of the battalion-level attack at the beginning, Russian attacks are typically platoon strength involving 1-2 tanks and as many as four AFVs. The ad hoc mix of vehicle types tells the story of Russian problems with replenishing combat losses.
Ukrainian counter-attacks typically involve a single tank or AFV. Artillery and rocket fire on the Russian side involves single guns or launchers that fire one salvo then scoot. Ukrainian indirect fire has been minimal due to 'shell starvation'. FPV and Mavic-style drones rule the battlefield and both sides go to great lengths to conceal themselves, in the case of vehicles, guns and rocket launchers; or to remain underground if infantry. Camouflage is insufficient.
The only true protection is total concealment. Saturated ECM has also become a prerequisite for survival.
Avdiivka front - Russian operational objectives
Cold War students of the Soviet Army probably remember the concept of immediate and subsequent objectives. This echeloning endures in the modern Russian Army. The immediate objective on the Avdiivka front was the Durna river line, just 10 kilometres from Avdiivka... -
Precision: A History of American Warfare by James Patton Rogers is published by Manchester University Press.
"Precision" is an intellectual history of America's pursuit of the titular objective - how to target adversaries, their militaries, and their infrastructure with pinpoint accuracy while, reducing harm to civilians and non-combatants. Author James Patton Rogers surveys the evolution of the American military's noble ambitions that often outreached its technological capacity and how that pursuit shaped the development and execution of strategy and doctrine.
Beginning with the First World War, Rogers seats the genesis of this pursuit in the horror of the First World War, which saw widespread and in many cases pointless slaughter. Morally abhorrent to American (and indeed European sensibilities), military officers sought to prevent the recurrence of such destruction by instead achieving greater accuracy. The advent of airpower began this uneven march towards a perhaps unattainable desire - to make war clean and efficient.
Military demonstrations against fixed, undefended targets with early airpower gave rise to the perhaps misguided belief that precision was indeed possible with the technology of the time.
The first test of this was the Second World War. In Europe, the United Kingdom's area bombardment stood in contrast with America's ostensible 'precision' campaign. Washington sought to target industries, military facilities, and logistics hubs as opposed to applying pressure to civilian populations. Aspirational again, the efficacy of such campaigns remains debatable given the accuracy of bombsights and the cost associated with waves upon waves of bombers pursuing well-defended targets.
In the Pacific, American military leaders managed to convince themselves and the public that the mass fire bombings of Japanese cities were somehow 'precise'. The apotheosis of this precision campaign was the use of the atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki that helped bring the war to a close.
Whether or not the bombings were necessary is explored by Rogers, the debate over which feeds into questions of precision - a single bomb for a single target (military in nature) achieved a strategic effect for proponents of precision.
The nuclear era that followed was, and remains, Strangelovian in the extreme. Rogers' recounting of the torturous debates about nuclear strategy and doctrine is riveting, if absurd. It is hard to argue that nuclear weapons, especially thermonuclear devices are 'precision' by any measure.
Yet, that destructiveness was the source of its precision for its advocates - fewer bombs or warheads per target, an idea that was naturally undermined by the presence of 'overkill' which would only make the 'rubble bounce' in the end. The American military's efforts to develop a Single Integrated Operational Plan and its component plans for nuclear targeting sought to reduce this overkill and increase precision.
It was not until the Vietnam War that technology arguably began to catch up to the ambitions of precision with the first use of laser-guided munitions. Still in its infancy, it was, of course, overshadowed by the widespread, if ineffective, bombing campaigns such as Operation Rolling Thunder. Where precision truly shined, if at least in the public's mind, was during Operation Desert Storm and the allied efforts to eject Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army from Kuwait.
Even here precision munitions were only a fraction of the total used, yet the widespread coverage on CNN of bombs and missiles striking their intended targets created the impression that the era of precision had dawned.
Precision-strike complex
Perhaps the apotheosis of American precision strike emerged in the wake of the events of 9/11 and the Global War on Terror that followed. America's precision-strike complex saw persistent surveillance and highly accurate missiles and bombs develop an extremely tight kill chain allowing the elimination of individual target... - Vis mere
