The decision to retire the Albion-class amphibious assault ships raises questions about the role of the Royal Marines and the way the SDR team is working
Great overview. My main issue with the cuts, as you highlight above, is that they are being made before the SDR; the same went with the decision to go ahead with GCAP, announced the other week.
As to the Royal Marines... frankly, if you ask me, they are in a bit of a mess doctrinally at the moment. A hell of a lot of effort has gone into FCF, and I'm not entirely sure it has been worth it.
Interesting observation. I think it’s a complete mistake but the biggest mistake was letting the Royal Navy get into the manpower crisis it has had. The failure to grip recruitment has been an utter shambles.
The Future Commando Force has always concerned me as a change. They don’t bring any particular mass and I guess that will have to come from the Army - but we don’t see the Army looking to fulfil that role in terms of amphibious landings.
1) What would the Future Commando Force do in a peer conflict - let’s face it they won’t have the necessary aviation lift (distance/speed) in an A2AD environment and the future landing craft program appears to be going at a snails pace. They equally have no staying power and will likely be so focussed on denial yet with the issues described above it doesn’t seem viable.
2) Further I appreciate the aspect of ‘hybrid’, ‘grey’ or whatever the next trend is for limited/unconventional operations. But the Royal Marines previously engaged in such activity at times - is it not the case that decision makers are far too risk averse in utilising the capabilities available. Reminds me of the situation William Slim raised in regards to forces being ‘Special’ with infantry often capable and able to carry out many of the capabilities (such as say raiding).
I’m guessing you’ll be very surprised at the name I’m about to give you of a man who is a potential ally of yours in arguing against defence cuts and arguing for a fully thought through defence review that recognises Britain is now operating in a much more dangerous world that requires real and sustained increases to defence spending
The man’s name is Paul Mason
Yes that Paul Mason of the left wing Corbyn curious variety
Check out his Substack, it’s not a fool Damascene conversion as he was always more traditional labour than Corbynite on foreign policy, but still it really is something seeing the passion and urgency of his writing about the need to beef up defence spending
Always willing to listen to other perspectives. I’m somewhat tribal in my own political identity but I will always engage with anyone who is rational and thoughtful, no matter what their ideological angle. It’s the screamers and the sloganeers I can’t stand.
I’m very New Labour myself so always have opppsed the Corbynite strain in our party (as the old saying goes, in Labour the Torys are our opponents, our enemies sit amongst us’ 😀😀
So I’ve been equal parts intrigued and thrilled to see Mason become a Defence Hawk.
On the politically tribal thing though, I do think in our current environment those of us committed to seeing the non-US western democracies get serious about defence and lobbying for more spending are going to have to find our allies whenever we can find them because both the pro-Russia right and the anti-west Left are going to have no qualms about accepting support from anyone opposed to increased defence spending
I would say about Mason, though his urgency and passion can't be denied, I'm not always convinced by his recommendations and insights. Often somewhat half-baked.
Yeah, I don’t know enough about it to know if his specific recommendations make sense but a voice on the left pushing for increased defence spending has a value in and of itself that outweighs any negatives regarding his specific spending recommendations
Great overview. My main issue with the cuts, as you highlight above, is that they are being made before the SDR; the same went with the decision to go ahead with GCAP, announced the other week.
As to the Royal Marines... frankly, if you ask me, they are in a bit of a mess doctrinally at the moment. A hell of a lot of effort has gone into FCF, and I'm not entirely sure it has been worth it.
Interesting observation. I think it’s a complete mistake but the biggest mistake was letting the Royal Navy get into the manpower crisis it has had. The failure to grip recruitment has been an utter shambles.
The Future Commando Force has always concerned me as a change. They don’t bring any particular mass and I guess that will have to come from the Army - but we don’t see the Army looking to fulfil that role in terms of amphibious landings.
1) What would the Future Commando Force do in a peer conflict - let’s face it they won’t have the necessary aviation lift (distance/speed) in an A2AD environment and the future landing craft program appears to be going at a snails pace. They equally have no staying power and will likely be so focussed on denial yet with the issues described above it doesn’t seem viable.
2) Further I appreciate the aspect of ‘hybrid’, ‘grey’ or whatever the next trend is for limited/unconventional operations. But the Royal Marines previously engaged in such activity at times - is it not the case that decision makers are far too risk averse in utilising the capabilities available. Reminds me of the situation William Slim raised in regards to forces being ‘Special’ with infantry often capable and able to carry out many of the capabilities (such as say raiding).
I’m guessing you’ll be very surprised at the name I’m about to give you of a man who is a potential ally of yours in arguing against defence cuts and arguing for a fully thought through defence review that recognises Britain is now operating in a much more dangerous world that requires real and sustained increases to defence spending
The man’s name is Paul Mason
Yes that Paul Mason of the left wing Corbyn curious variety
Check out his Substack, it’s not a fool Damascene conversion as he was always more traditional labour than Corbynite on foreign policy, but still it really is something seeing the passion and urgency of his writing about the need to beef up defence spending
Always willing to listen to other perspectives. I’m somewhat tribal in my own political identity but I will always engage with anyone who is rational and thoughtful, no matter what their ideological angle. It’s the screamers and the sloganeers I can’t stand.
I’m very New Labour myself so always have opppsed the Corbynite strain in our party (as the old saying goes, in Labour the Torys are our opponents, our enemies sit amongst us’ 😀😀
So I’ve been equal parts intrigued and thrilled to see Mason become a Defence Hawk.
On the politically tribal thing though, I do think in our current environment those of us committed to seeing the non-US western democracies get serious about defence and lobbying for more spending are going to have to find our allies whenever we can find them because both the pro-Russia right and the anti-west Left are going to have no qualms about accepting support from anyone opposed to increased defence spending
I would say about Mason, though his urgency and passion can't be denied, I'm not always convinced by his recommendations and insights. Often somewhat half-baked.
Yeah, I don’t know enough about it to know if his specific recommendations make sense but a voice on the left pushing for increased defence spending has a value in and of itself that outweighs any negatives regarding his specific spending recommendations