A strategic crossroads

Friday, June 26, 2009

Britain must make changes to the ways in which land forces operate if they are to succeed in future conflicts, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the chief of the general staff has said.


The Armed Forces must learn lessons from current and past conflicts in order to reform its capabilities and adapt to the changing nature of war and defence in the 21st century, Britain's top Army officer has said in a speech.

Speaking at RUSI's Land Warfare conference in London, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the outgoing chief of the general staff, made the case for a new strategic defence review, saying that it should be the starting point for all future endeavours by the Armed Forces and British foreign and defence policies.

Presently the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan coupled with a troubled procurement programme have left the MoD at "a strategic crossroads" according to Sir Richard. Britain must decide what its place in the world is going to be and what "instruments" it will need to maintain its place and convey power.

Despite the looming £2bn cut to the MoD's budget, a £1.1bn black hole in the procurement programme and alleged interference by the Treasury in current operations, Sir Richard believes that Britain must continue to be a primary actor on the world stage.

"We will retain a global role and will maintain our traditional activist foreign and security policy. This means we need expeditionary Armed Forces that can support that national strategic posture, forces that can meet our responsibilities."

Sir Richard does not explain how this strategy will continue to be paid for given the current budget duress other than the fact that other government departments such as the Foreign Office and DFID must work more closely with the MoD. But he maintains that every major political party and all the services want this to be Britain's primary defence and diplomatic goal.

Achieving this goal will be difficult however. Funding and resources are major issues, but what is happening in Afghanistan and what occurred in Iraq will impact the direction of Britain's military and ultimately its world strategy.

Maintaining a global approach will only succeed if current operations in Afghanistan prevail according to Sir Richard. More is at stake than just defeating the Taliban and preventing terrorism. The logic within the Armed Forces is that their reputation is personally at stake in the conflict. If Britain cannot defeat the Taliban, its standing in the world will flounder in the future.

"Success in Afghanistan is not discretionary and we must do whatever is necessary to deliver that success. Tomorrow starts today and failure today will significantly damage tomorrow," he told delegates.

But progress has so far been slow at best. Only certain areas can be stabilised at any given point in time and the expansion of security zones has been a tedious process. The process is "complex and demanding" and will likely "consume our Armed Forces for the foreseeable future."
To really succeed in Afghanistan and ultimately in future conflicts as Britain maintains a global role, lessons must be learned from past conflicts, specifically, Iraq, according to Sir Richard.

While he stopped short of calling the Iraq War a failure, he strongly hinted that repeating the mistakes of Iraq in Afghanistan will result in an unsuccessful campaign and further damage to the future strategies of the Army and Armed Forces. Three major lessons can be learned from Iraq and applied to future land conflicts.

Firstly, time is a critical weapon. An invading Army must use it to secure a territory as quickly as possible. Rapidly switching to an over watch/peacekeeping role in a newly occupied territory before the situation there is stabilised allows an insurgency to grow and flourish. Britain toned down its operational footing once Saddam Hussein had fled Baghdad and the Iraqi Army universally surrendered, allowing an insurgency to quickly formulate.

Sir Richard argued that the same logic must be applied to newly acquired areas of Afghanistan. Development, reconstruction and domestic security forces can never fully take effect if the areas are not yet free of the Taliban. Britain's current strategy of advance and then withdraw is not progress.

Secondly, commanders must have access to more troops. A land campaign cannot be won with a few thousands troops whose numbers may increase by a few hundred at most, even during the largest security challenges.

"We must take a more flexible approach to force levels through the course of a campaign, being prepared to surge and ebb as the security situation dictates. In truth we failed to maintain the force levels required," Sir Richard said in regards to the occupation of Iraq.

The same philosophy can be applied to Afghanistan. Commanders have repeatedly said that they do not have enough troops on the ground to hold off the Taliban and take the fight to them. The American Troop surge has been widely welcomed in Afghanistan, not just because of the extra manpower but because of the previous success that a surge had in Iraq which allowed commanders to actually secure areas.

Finally, success in Afghanistan, in land campaigns and in the wider world, often comes down to working with the local population and their security forces. Having a locally trained security force is a "powerful force multiplier" that helps to return power and trust to the local people, Sir Richard argued.

In Iraq the British Army made two major mistakes. Firstly it had too much faith in local troops too quickly. Many were ill trained and unreliable. Their loyalties were questionable at best. In the future, the development of a local security force must be done slowly and with care.

The other major mistake was to separate the training of local forces from fighting with local forces.

"The correct model is the one we have always traditionally applied – that of training, living and fighting with the indigenous forces we are mentoring," Sir Richard said.

More troops, more time, more local forces. While these are not universal solutions to securing Britain's place in the world, Sir Richard believes that they can cause a positive chain reaction in a place such as Afghanistan which can ultimately improve Britain's standing in the world

Whether this will be true on such a grand scale remains to be seen, but one thing is clear from Sir Richard's comments; Britain had its share of struggles in Iraq and if changes are not made in Afghanistan, similar problems could occur again among land forces.