IT’S defence cuts time again and rumours are rife that one of the Yorkshire Regiment’s regular battalions may be in danger.
Former general Lord Dannatt has warned cutting the Army’s personnel to 82,000 will mean Britain will not be able to run campaigns on two fronts – which, as he said, is fine if things stay peaceful in the coming decade.
However, the Government announcement of a further £1 billion to upgrade Britain’s nuclear submarines doesn’t suggest it’s entirely confident about world peace. So I wonder if there’s a different potential mistake being made here, about the form future wars may take.
I’ve made the point before about the uncertainty which abounds when people try to predict future threats, but there’s a specific issue here which troubles me. I suspect at least part of the justification for the cuts is that modern warfare doesn’t require large numbers of “boots on the ground”.
Indeed, an article in The Guardian earlier this month included the assertion: “The likelihood is that future conflicts will rely more on drones, precision missiles and small groups of special forces on the ground, rather than large numbers of ground troops.”
This is probably a fairly widely held opinion, and not an entirely unreasonable one. After all, haven’t recent conflicts illustrated the remarkable impact of air power and how the “hi-tech”
combatant or the highly trained and equipped force will always prevail?
To which the answer is, of course, “up to a point”. The use of modern military hardware brought spectacular success for the US and its allies in Gulf War I and the initial stages of Gulf War II and in the 2001 Afghan intervention.
But technological superiority proved less effective when faced with insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it’s also debatable whether American air power was quite as decisive in bringing the Balkan conflicts to a close as its proponents claimed.
But my main worry about relying on technological advances and small specialist forces for our security is based on our experience from a period of all-out, total warfare.
In the Second World War both the British and Americans, perhaps influenced by memories of the 1914-18 slaughter, sought to spend cash rather than blood by concentrating on great navies and their most modern weapons, air forces.
There was a lesser emphasis on ground forces, and the British thought when they did fight land battles it would be with modern weapons – primarily tanks – and relatively small specialist units.
The western allies focused on mass production rather than mass armies, and when their troops were bested they tended to claim it was because the Germans had produced better weapons. In fact, while the Germans did have some particularly effective weaponry, their successes were usually down to superior tactics.
They incorporated modern equipment into traditional “all-arms” fighting methods, so their tanks worked in a team with infantry, anti-tank guns, artillery and close-support aircraft.
It took the British a long time to realise battles were not being won by tanks “blitzing” the opposition by themselves, but by working with other units, and that infantry played as vital a role in this as anyone else.
Of course, the western allies were right to create great navies and air forces, which made a huge contribution to victory, and they were also right to ensure their land forces had the most modern equipment.
But even though it was the Russian mass armies that defeated the bulk of Hitler’s ground forces, “boots on the ground” were still needed in North Africa, Italy and north-west Europe to complete victory in the west.
They were needed too in Burma, Korea, in the Falklands 30 years ago, and on many occasions since, for despite all our techological advances there were vital tasks machines couldn’t do without sufficient numbers of well-trained and equipped humans. We forget that at our peril.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel