Charles Grant, writing in Prospect magazine (restricted access), is worried about the EU "unravelling", citing in particular the failures of the common foreign and the defence policies. Had he read Gen Dannatt's speech before he had written his piece, however, he would have been even more worried. Buried deep within the script was one short paragraph, one sentence of which effectively buried the idea of a European Rapid Reaction Force.

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"We need to possess a deterrent scale of traditional war-fighting capability; one that reflects our stated policy of only going to war as part of the NATO alliance or, within a smaller regional context, with an overwhelmingly powerful USA. This scale of capability would be sufficient to avoid traditional military options becoming an asymmetric attraction to a potential enemy, as well as ensure tactical level dominance in regional intervention or stabilisation operations. "

How is that going to defend against Argentina's *stated policy* to regain the Falklands? What about any other territory like Gibraltar which Spain is making incursions into?

You could see off the Argies with a rowing boat at the moment ... that and a few other bits of kit ...

http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/Defen ... klands.htm

A quick (and politicial) conclusion to FRES would be to announce that the winner was the Mastiff. Yes it's a fudge but it would bring it to an end. We know it works. We know it is useful.

We need airlift capacity yesterday. If we wait too long everyone else will be further in the queue for C-17s and Hercules. Leave the A400m project and spend whatever repayments EADS makes on retraining the staff that might lose their jobs.

A quick conclusion to the ERRF would be to leave the EU.

Britain and Europe's sad experiences of wasteful and extravagant defence expenditure and malinvestment in worthless fantasies pales into insignificance compared to America's. Mother Jones at http://www.motherjones.com/politics/200 ... nse-budget has an interesting three part (so far) series called Shock and Audit, Operation Overrun and Where's My Flying Tank?, which shows that the overruns in the American defence budget exceed the entire military spending of the EU. There are comments on the circular relation between the suppliers, the civilian decision makers and the military in making these grotesquely wasteful decisions. The futuristic fantasies are losing political favour. No doubt that inclines the British military to bend to the same wind, and this may explain the changing views of Britain's top generals.

"You could see off the Argies with a rowing boat at the moment ... that and a few other bits of kit ..."


I thought the Iranians had kept the rowing boat,don't know about the iPod.

The effects based approach and FRES are not synonyms. The clue is in the name - one is an approach to operations, concentrating on ends rather than specific means, which could encompass anything from handing out aid to launching cruise missiles, whilst the other is a system of weapon platforms, which may or may not be part of the means to achieve a particular effect.

I beg to differ ... FRES is not a system of weapons platforms ... it is called by its proponents a "system of systems". Watchkeeper, for instance, is part of FRES, as indeed is Sentinel. FRES was the mechanism by which the effects based approach was to be implemented. Over term, the term FRES has been widely misused, not least by the Army, which has narrowed is horizons to encompass just the family of medium armoured vehicles, but the original concept was much wider. The trouble is that Dannatt never really understood FRES ... and still doesn't. All he wanted was some new toys.

I saw the egregious General Sir Mike Jackson on the Weekly Politics last night, talking about the defence shortfall. Needless to say, monster failures such as FRES and A400M were not mentioned. Portaloo was saying that projects such as the future carriers were at risk, which if true would effectively mean the end of the Royal Navy, and cannot be allowed to happen.

Jackson is still arguing for a new Trident force, arguing that it will "only" cost £3.5 billion per year. At this Dianne Abbot rolled her eyes, and for once I agreed with her. Jackson does not seem to get it at all.

The military needs to think laterally. If we wish to maintain a nuclear deterrerent, it must be at the least cost, since it is a doomsday weapon which leaches funds from systems which are actually in use day by day. It seems we cannot get out of buying the final tranche of Eurofighters. Why not designate them as Bomber Command and equip them with nuclear bombs? The RAF will be happy, as strategic bombing was really the only good reason for having an independent air force in the first place. The Eurofighters, which have to be bought, will have some use, and the rest of the forces can get on with doing what they do. Is this as good as Trident? No, but we no longer face a four minute warning from the USSR, and have to cut our coat according to our cloth, something Mike Jackson really needs to learn.

Against a sophisticated air defence system, Eurofighters would not prevail. Any attack must be superceded by air defence suppression, taking out missile systems and radars and degrading command and control systems. That requires a range of assets and a capability which is far beyond that available to the RAF. Acquiring that capability - including the support infrastructure such as air bases - would undoubtedly cost considerable more than an upgraded Trident fleet and its supporting infrastructure. On balance, Trident is the cheapest mechanism for survivable delivery of nuclear weapons.

And who might have that sophisticated defence system? The USSR? Do you remember the German kid who landed his Cessna in Red Square? Iran?

The point is, Trident was the perfect Cold War deterrent, and the Cold War is over. All I am saying is that if we have to buy an extra 60 Eurofighters which we don't need, kitting them out with nuclear bombs and calling them Bomber Command keeps Britain in the nuclear club at least cost. I'm not saying Trident is not an excellent system, but we are approaching a stage when we only have eleven submarines, four of which are the Trident force which do nothing but lurk in the Atlantic, waiting for doomsday. That made sense in the 70s and 80s, but now it is ridiculous to have over a third of our submarine force dedicated to a task which will never happen. If, to finance another four Trident boats to undertake a task which will never happen, we sacrifice the two carriers, which are at the heart of the navy's plans for the next 50 years, and will be of real use in actual operations, then we will have gone a long way down the path to madness.

A question re the A400M......is it fly by wire, like all the other Airbus'..... if so that would make them far too vulnerable, because it is so hard to fly them without the computers and if the plane was damaged the computers could get faulty data which would force the pilots to fly them manually, which is very hard at the best of times, let alone in a war zone under attack.

Faulty data may well be the problem that caused the recent Airbus crash.

To be honest, I think Trident makes rather more sense for Israel right now than it does for us.

My point about using Tranche 3 of Eurofighter as a Bomber Command is not a theological one, as the Prime Minister might say, but merely to point out that we have to think outside the box. Seven SSNs and four SSBNs is a seriously unbalanced force. Having to buy 60 unwanted Eurofighters makes no sense. Spending £20 billion on a new Trident system when our troops in the Stan don't have enough helos or mine protected vehicles makes no sense. I'd say we need a defence review, except that they usually turn into a round of cuts to no greater purpose. What we need is to use our brains, but brains are a rare commodity in the MoD, so I don't think I can suggest that either.

I suppose the Trident missiles could be brought onto land and have the submarines be re-fitted as regular nuclear subs.(And perhaps sold on?) Whether that would be cheaper I have no idea.