Dannatt does a Gates: Spend on What We Need, Not What We Think We Will Need

Following on from the below article, it appears General Dannatt is proposing the British Armed Forces adopts a frugal approach to defense spending. This will involve ditching 'big-ticket' defense projects and re-focussing defense spending on immediate needs, such as supporting 'stability operations', and away from post-Cold War strategic defense spending.

General Dannatt describes the current British security situation thus:

"We are in an era of persistent conflict. Iraq and Afghanistan are not aberrations, they are signposts to the future. We risk becoming irrelevant if we do not adapt right across the board."

The General also accepts that, wrongly or rightly our reputation as a powerful ally to America and global military force has been "called into question" due to Iraq.

"Credibility with the United States is earned by being an ally that can be relied on to state clearly what it will do and then do it effectively. Credibility is also linked to the vital currency of reputation and in this respect there is a recognition that our national and military reputation and credibility, unfairly or not, have been called into question at several levels in the eyes of our most important ally as a result of some aspects of the Iraq campaign."

Channel 4's Krishnan Guru-Murthy interviewed the General shortly after his speech at Chatham House (click through to the link if the video is not displayed below).



Not surpisingly, General Dannatt is ferociously sharp and his points clearly well considered. The recording of yesterday's speech reminded me more of a presentation by a corporate management consultant, than a military general. Quite fitting I feel, considering once you cut through the euthamisms his proposed solutions are all too common: we must raine in unecessary spending, take stock of our needs and requirements, and focus on what we do best.

GSRD on Evolutionary Defense

Unfortunately I missed this (but for good reason).

A Perspective on the Nature of Future Conflict

Friday 15 May 2009 13:30 to 14:30
Location

Chatham House, London
Participants

General Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff, British Army
Chair: Dr Robin Niblett, Director, Chatham House

In strategic and inclusive terms the speaker will give a view of future conflict, dominated by the concept of hybrid operations. He will explain the implications of this for the land environment in particular, showing how the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have acted as a catalyst for 'transformation in contact' and describe how the Army could continue to evolve so that it can better contribute to defence and security in the future.

The question and answer session in this meeting was off the record.

But you can catch the audio here.

http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/events/listen/-/id/1153/doc/audio/

Embeded

VBS.TV has been at the fore-front of programming that is sometimes clueless but deeply hilarious. and other times crucially . They boldly go where most people don't care to look. This is excellent.

INSIDE AFGHANISTAN WITH BEN ANDERSON
In Inside Afghanistan VBS joins BBC correspondent and former Iranian captiveBen Anderson to review some of the footage he shot on his latest foray to the colossally mismanaged logjam that is NATO's war against the resurgent Afghani Taliban. Here's what Ben had to say about what he shot (we mean with a camera).

"This series is about 24 hours in Helmand, Afghanistan's most violent province. I was with the Queen's Company, British soldiers who normally guard Buckingham Palace. Their job was to train the Afghan National Army while fighting the Taliban, an almost impossible combination. On the day this was shot, we were ambushed late in the morning, then surrounded in a small house belonging to a terrified Afghan family. The battle to get out of the house lasted eight hours. The two most senior soldiers there - both veterans of Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Northern Ireland - agreed that it was the most intense day they had ever experienced. I spent two months in Afghanistan, and I'm sure that what I saw in Helmand is going on in many other parts of the country. We could be there for decades."

PS: If you're in Britain this week, also check out Ben Anderson's Jack: A Soldier's Story on BBC Three.

Watch it here

http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1834373791

11.09.01 / 08.08.08

On the anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, President Dmitry Medvedev drew a direct comparison between 9/11 and the recent war in Georgia/South Ossetia.

"The world has changed and it occurred to me that 8 August 2008 has become for Russia as 11 September 2001 for the United States. This is an accurate comparison corresponding to Russian realities. Humankind has drawn lessons from 11 September tragedy and other tragic events. I would like the world to draw lessons also from these events [in South Ossetia]."

This is one of many Western-Russian comparisons the Kremlin tag-team has been drawing recently. Commenting on the poor diplomatic relationship between the UK and Russia, Vladimir Putin indicated why he thought they were unlikely to improve.

"Why do you allow UK territory to be used [as] a launching pad to fight Russia? Imagine if we gave sanctuary to armed members of the IRA - that's why its not possible to build normal relations with Britain."

Relationships between countries are very much like relationships between people. Each country has it's own specific culture, like each person their own unique personality. Some people's personalities are immediately compatible, due to similarities in taste or attitude, and as a result people become friends. Some people have shared similar experiences or have shared a particular experience, and are drawn together as a result. It is in this way that relationships between people take shape and in a similar manner, so to do relationships between cultures, peoples, and states.

These comparative statements provoke a gut reaction that is difficult to ignore; a rejection of the comparison, the very suggestion showing an unsympathetic attitude and a strong feeling that it is based on a gross misunderstanding of fact. But taking action based on this feeling is deeply wrong.

For decades Russia and the West have understood each other as opposites. 'Democratic capitalist USA' and 'authoritarian communist Russia' - content in themselves, at ease with their polar opposite, and so settled in their relationship. The West and Russia were best understood, as was their relationship, by comparisons. This framework is now obsolete.

Russia is attempting to build a relationship built on similarities and should be implored for doing so. As I have indicated before, I am of the firm belief that a strong Russia can also be a benign Russia. But in their zealous drive for equal friendship, they find a largely sceptical Western audience.

For the West, it is difficult to ignore the rife political violence, the sham democracy, the transparently cynical foreign policy and capitalist gangsterism which has come to define Putin's eight years in office. With no real break from the Putin-era, Medvedev rests on a cursed thrown. And so recent history looms large and relatively recent historical precedent, as irritating as Russia may find it, is quite hard for the West to ignore.

Let us remember, Russia is not the only state to be defined by terrible acts and riddled with hypocrisy. Their old adversary the United States lectures on human rights and liberal democracy while propping up oil-rich Gulf states and running a shameful PoW camp in Cuba. And who, they say, is Britain to tell us of Empire.

How then will these individuals replenish their relationship? Unfortunately, I have no answer only that time will tell.