ALISTAIR MACDONALD
– Il bilancio Difesa del UK sta subendo i maggiori tagli dalla Seconda Guerra mondiale, -7,5% annunciato ad ottobre 2010, -10% in 5 anni; -40% per i carri armati; -35% per l’artiglieria pesante; nei 13 anni di governo laburista la spesa per il personale era stata ridotta dell’8%.
– Sarebbe stato raggiunto il punto critico, oltre cui il UK perderebbe la propria posizione “leader del secondo livello delle potenze militari”, con il rischio di allontanare ulteriormente dall’Europa l’equilibrio militare globale.
– Il bilancio Difesa britannico è comunque il 4° maggiore del mondo; i tagli e la ristrutturazione della spesa militare dovrebbero ridurre il numero dei militari, ma anche rendere le forze armate britanniche più adatte a dispiegamento veloce, meglio equipaggiate, con forti forze speciali, maggiore concentrazione su intelligence (contro le forze ribelli locali) e pattugliamento, adatte a cooperare con gli alleati Usa e Francia. Negli ultimi anni in Afghanistan è aumentato di circa il 50% il numero del personale dell’intelligence.
– Negli ultimi decenni il UK è stato l’alleato militare più affidabile degli Usa, apprezzato per la disponibilità a missioni estere, in particolare per le guerre in Irak e in Afghanistan dove ha perso 360 soldati, e per le sue forze speciali;
o a seguito dei tagli alla Difesa – evidenziati dall’intervento relativamente modesto delle forze britanniche in Libia, dove il UK è stato il secondo maggior contribuente, dopo la Francia, alla missione Nato – il Pentagono teme che per il futuro le sue forze armate non siano in grado di mantenere la capacità di risposta su un ampio raggio di crisi.
o Alcuni funzionari della Difesa britannici dichiarano di aver avuto dubbi sull’opportunità di partecipare alla guerra libica, temendo che questo potesse ridurre la capacità a rispondere a possibili crisi ritenute più importanti, come in Bahrain, Oman – di cui i britannici usano le strutture militari – e Iran, più destabilizzante.
o Nel 1991 la RAF impiegò oltre 20 squadroni di attacco contro l’Irak; per la Libia solo 6.
o Oggi il UK riuscirebbe a fornire circa i 2/3 dei 46 000 soldati, come fece nel 2003 per l’invasione a guida americana dell’Irak, anche se meglio equipaggiati, e per un tempo limitato. Sono stati ridotti artiglieria pesante e corazzati.
o Non potrebbe neppure attuare un intervento militare navale come quello del 1982 per riprendersi le Falkland dall’Argentina.
o A giugno 2011 esce dal servizio la fregata HMS Cumberland e alcuni caccia Tornado;
o Per 10 anni la GB non avrà più portaerei; delle due portaerei britanniche esistenti una verrà disattivata, l’altra trasformata in piattaforma per elicotteri.
– In certi momenti e fasi operative in Libia e in Afghanistan le capacità delle forze britanniche sarebbero state in tensione eccessiva (maresciallo capo dell’aviazione britannica).
EUROPE NEWS
MAY 14, 2011
By ALISTAIR MACDONALD
LONDON—From Nelson atop his column to Wellington gracing his arch, this city is filled with monuments to the martial glories of an island whose forces once dominated continents and ruled the waves.
Take a look a the British military over the years.
The Harrier jump jet, whose vertical take off technology made it a British icon, made its final operational flight on Dec. 15, 2010.
– Today, though, the relatively modest British intervention in Libya is fueling fresh anxiety here and in Washington about the nation’s shrinking military muscle as the U.K. cuts defense spending in response to a record deficit.
– When Michael Graydon, a former head of the Royal Air Force, commanded no-fly zones over Iraq in 1991, he had more than 20 British attack squadrons to rely on, he says. For the no-fly zone over Libya, he says, the RAF has around six.
– The frigate used to evacuate British citizens from Libya, HMS Cumberland, is to be decommissioned in June, along with some of the Tornado fighter planes spearheading the North Atlantic Treaty Organization attacks. Two reconnaissance planes were saved from retirement to join in the mission.
– The U.K. is in the midst of the most aggressive fiscal tightening since World War II—a process that U.S. defense officials are watching with concern. In October, following a strategic review, Prime Minister David Cameron announced plans to cut the military budget by 7.5% and the head count by 10% over five years, and to retire lots of equipment, leaving the armed forces with 40% fewer tanks and 35% less heavy artillery. The planned cuts will come on top of an 8% reduction in personnel during the 13-year tenure of the former Labour Party government.
– At a hearing Wednesday before a Parliamentary defense committee, the heads of Britain’s army, navy and air force said the U.K. would no longer be a "full spectrum" military force—one capable of both low-intensity combat such as counterinsurgency and the kind of major operations required for state-on-state combat.
– Air Chief Marshal Stephen Dalton, head of the air force, said simultaneous battles in Libya and Afghanistan have taxed the military. "There are times and there are phases on the operations where we have stretched the capabilities absolutely to the point where we find it very difficult to do anything else at that particular time," he said.
– The three service chiefs said that the U.K. will still be able to project power on the international stage. The government has said that the cutbacks won’t undermine the nation’s ability to support its allies in places like Afghanistan, although they will result in a smaller military that the nation will be "more selective" in using. The U.K. will still have the world’s fourth-largest military budget, Mr. Cameron has said.
1950–53 Korean War: Britain and U.S. fight together against North Korea and its allies.
– The cutbacks come as broad geopolitical forces are reshaping the global military landscape. The U.S., which also is trying to curtail military spending, remains the world’s dominant military power. China is engaged in a military buildup that has alarmed many of its Asian neighbors. And other NATO members are grappling with budget constraints while keeping a wary eye on Russia and the Middle East.
– The British cuts have sparked concern in the Pentagon about how much the U.K. will be able to contribute to future U.S.-led operations. In recent decades, the U.K. has been its most dependable military ally—valued, among other things, for its willingness to fight abroad (it has lost more than 360 troops in Afghanistan) and the capabilities of its vaunted special forces.
– James Townsend, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy, says it is critical to the U.S. for Britain to remain capable of responding to a wide range of crises, and not to pare back its forces to focus narrowly on one or two missions.
– "We were hoping they would maintain a full spectrum of capabilities," he says. "Whatever the mission might be that would face us in the future, we wanted to make sure they had the capability of being there on the first day, as the U.K. always is."
Thomas Docherty, a member of Parliament, says that in an April meeting at the Pentagon, U.S. defense officials told a group of U.K. lawmakers and military officers: "This is the bottom of the curve. You cannot cut any further," if you want to remain a military power.
– Mr. Townsend notes that almost every other NATO member is facing similar fiscal challenges, and that the U.S. remains confident that even after the cuts Britain will continue to be nimble enough to play an important global role.
– But some former British commanders say the cuts already have gone too far. "If the cuts go on, there is a threat to our position as a leader of the second-tier of military powers," says Charles Guthrie, head of Britain’s armed forces from 1997 to 2001. "We are at a tipping point."
– Some European officials worry that cuts to the region’s most powerful armed force further tilt the global military balance away from the continent. The Libya intervention underscored how reliant the region is on U.S. power.
1990–91 First Gulf War: U.K. is second-biggest contributor of troops to U.S.-led effort to oust Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
– Maj. Gen. Peter Gilchrist, Britain’s defense attache in Washington from 2005 to 2008, says the U.K. would have difficulty replicating its 46,000-troop contribution to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The budget cuts, he says, mean that "we don’t have the same volume of equipment. The heavy artillery and armor has all been reduced."
– A document released in connection with last year’s strategic defense review states that Britain could contribute around two-thirds of its Iraq commitment, or about 30,000 soldiers, to a military intervention, but only for a "limited time." A senior military adviser noted in a interview, however, that those 30,000 would be better equipped than those sent into Iraq earlier.
1995 Bosnian War: British planes take part in NATO campaign against the Bosnian Serb army, and U.K. troops later join peacekeeping force.
– In Libya, the U.K. is the second largest contributor to NATO’s mission, after France. Some senior U.K. defense officials say they were reluctant to get involved, arguing that doing so would reduce the nation’s flexibility to respond to potentially more important crises. They say they worried about potential conflict in Bahrain and Oman, whose military facilities are used by the British, and in Iran, which they see as potentially more destabilizing.
In the wake of the Libya engagement and the wider turmoil in the region, Mr. Cameron is considering minor changes to last fall’s strategic defense review, says a person familiar with Mr. Cameron’s thinking.
Discussions about the U.K.’s diminishing military are especially painful for a nation where military prowess has been woven into the national identity.
– Once the world’s dominant power, the U.K. was eclipsed by the U.S. and Russia after World War II. But its status as a willing and capable combatant preserved its diplomatic clout.
"We are a martial nation," army Brigadier James Chiswell said late last year in an interview in Afghanistan, where he commanded British forces. "We like a scrap. We always have."
The U.K.’s willingness to use military force strengthened its relationship with the U.S. and other European nations and gave it greater voice on politically charged issues such as NATO membership, says Douglas Hurd, Britain’s foreign secretary between 1989 and 1995.
– In Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. viewed the U.K. as its most capable military ally, by far. Nevertheless, British forces ran into problems in both theaters.
– In Iraq, critics said, the British rarely ventured off their base outside Basra. In Afghanistan, officials such as Afghan President Hamid Karzai and U.S. Gen. Dan McNeill bemoaned what they saw as the inability of U.K. forces to get a grip on the insurgency in Helmand province, according to U.S. diplomatic cables leaked on the WikiLeaks website.
– British officers involved in both wars, as well as some politicians, say the U.K. army was hampered by poor planning, too few resources, a government that didn’t want to risk casualties and a mind-set rooted in fighting terrorists in Northern Ireland, where force was used sparingly.
1999 Kosovo War: British peacekeepers join NATO campaign to stop abuses by Yugoslavian troops in Kosovo.
A "malaise" had gripped the Ministry of Defence, says retired Col. Richard Kemp. When he was asked to lead British forces in Afghanistan in 2003, he says, he asked around for army doctrine on dealing with suicide bombers. "There was absolutely nothing. Nobody had any idea," he says.
– At first, the U.S. was frustrated with the U.K.’s lack of progress in Helmand, U.S. officials say. But a senior Pentagon official says that view shifted after the U.S. sent Marines into the province in 2009 and encountered strong resistance. The British had struggled there because they had been given too large an area to control with the number of troops they had available, U.S. defense officials say.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said about Iraq and Afghanistan: "Where mistakes were made, lessons have and will be learned."
– The defense-budget cuts come amid a sweeping government austerity program that will see police numbers fall, welfare payments cut and government services pared back. Secretary of State for Defence Liam Fox has said that overspending by the Ministry of Defence and the deficit built up by the last government necessitated the military cuts, and that he "didn’t come into politics wishing to see a reduction in our defense budget."
– Completion of one of two aircraft carriers currently under construction will be delayed, and the other will be mothballed or sold. One of Britain’s two existing carriers is scheduled to be decommissioned, the other turned into a helicopter platform, which will leave the U.K. with no carrier-strike capability for almost 10 years.
Admiral Mark Stanhope, the head of the navy, said at the hearing Wednesday that he regretted the decision to retire Britain’s two carriers and said it will be a "major challenge" to regenerate that capability when new carriers are brought into service in around 10 years, given the loss of relevant skills.
2001 to present, Afghanistan: The U.K. commits 10,000 troops, second only to the U.S.’s 90,000.
The Pentagon’s Mr. Townsend said that the gap in Britain’s carrier capability would have to be managed, and the U.S. would help the U.K. "over the hump."
Alan West, a former head of the Royal Navy and security adviser to former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and other senior naval officials say the U.K. wouldn’t be able to mount the sort of naval operation that retook the Falkland Islands from Argentina in 1982. A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said the Falklands Islands are "better protected than ever before."
– What is likely to emerge from the process is a smaller military more focused on fast deployment to unstable states, with better equipped troops and strong special forces. It will be suited to work in tandem with allies like the U.S. and France.
– Among other changes, a greater emphasis is being placed on intelligence and surveillance, and the capacity to handle it is being pushed further down the chain of command. Once used mainly to track Cold War military technology, intelligence is now needed to understand and counter local insurgencies.
– British officers in Afghanistan say the new-look army is taking shape on the ground there. Even small patrol bases now bristle with surveillance equipment for monitoring insurgents. The number of intelligence personnel in Afghanistan has increased by about 50% in recent years, the Ministry of Defence says.
– At a British base in Nahr-E Saraj late last year, seven intelligence analysts worked at computers and hunkered over maps, collating and analyzing threat warnings from around the Helmand Valley. At a nightly briefing, an intelligence officer described "Iranian style" wiring of a recently discovered improvised explosive device.
2003 Second Gulf War: 46,000 British troops join the U.S.-led force that ousted Saddam Hussein.
British soldiers on the ground say a renewed focus on making sure they are properly equipped has made a difference. Four years ago, Lt. Col. Dougie Graham, commanding officer of the Royal Highland Fusiliers battalion, bought his own boots, gloves, patrol pack, binoculars and sleeping bag for a tour in Afghanistan. Before his most recent tour, he says, he didn’t need to stock up, and his requests for extra equipment such as shotguns were met.