Are we ready for the challenges of Total Defence? - Ben Skipper

First off, I’d like to mention the researcher from a once great Manchester based newspaper who’s been monitoring Fallout’s output. Thank you for your support. If you would kindly acknowledge our work rather than ripping it off, poorly, that would be great. Right pleasantries over, its time to flex the knuckles and prepare for another Skipper swing-a-thon.

So where are we at in the UK? What are we doing? Well not a great deal to be honest. We have the usual political arse covering exercises from previous Minister’s saying they were against cuts to our defence and vital infrastructure as Labour continue to attempt to unravel the mess of the past 14 years. We have a government, who, like their predecessors claim they take defence seriously, but not seriously enough to really invest (jam tomorrow). All of this is allied to a background of a defence industry that is struggling to sell itself as a serious contender against US domination, especially in the air (more on that later). To be fair in terms of defence the UK is not in a great place.

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The current SDR led by Lord Robertson (Labour), the guy who triggered Article 5 on behalf of NATO in the wake of the 911 attacks, has received a serious amount of input from numerous bodies and individuals. I can only imagine the good, bad and indifferent ideas that have been floated. All the while our domestic situation continues to decline in the predictable death spiral of neo-liberalism as the new government are proving to be little more than light blue Tories who genuinely believe private enterprise can solve all our infrastructure ills. It can’t, just look at the water industry to see why.

History has taught us that those who take defence seriously, invariably do well; after all it’s better to prepare for war than appease for an imaginary peace. Recently the House of Lords published a paper entitles Ukraine: a wake-up call. This paper is perhaps the most important work on defence to come out of the UKs upper house in a long time. It makes for stark reading and does not pull its punches, a true truth to power moment. The one key message within it, though is easily missed, is the concept of Total Defence.

In short this is how we should be preparing ourselves. War is coming, the past two and half years have shown that Russia, and its supporters (Axis of Evil 2.0?), will not stop at some pre-ordained demarcation line. They will use any pause in fighting to re-arm, while some in Europe, especially the UK, will continue to believe their political isolationism, and laudable military heritage will somehow see off the beast from the east. Indeed in the UK we have general staff lauding AI as the salve of the future without fully understanding it is not AI in the truest sense of the word and whittling down our Teeth Arms in favour of cyber as directed by SPaDs with no military experience. In the meantime nations such as Poland, Netherlands, France, Germany and Estonia are building their reserve and frontline forces with an increasing tempo. These nations have recognised the peril they now face, which has become more stark as a Trump administration will see the US focus on a strengthening its forces against a possibly belligerent China in the Pacific while casually walking away from its NATO commitments.

Don’t believe this won’t happen, Trump has always been clear that Europe should be able to defend itself and we all know what he thinks Ukraine should do and shouldn’t get. Thankfully the size of NATO today will absorb any US retreat, but it must do so with the understanding that the US defence infrastructure will also slowly evaporate. Europe is capable of defending itself, and already Eurofighter Typhoon II orders are growing while the F-35 continues to struggle. Some nations may well be experiencing buyers’ remorse with the F-35, but they are being pragmatic, and the infrastructure to support the Typhoon II, Gripen and Rafale is all in place with none of the restrictions placed upon those airframes that the F-35 has. So, what does the UK do? Order more F-35’s and ignores the proven Typhoon II of course. The myopia does not stop there, the Army has now passed its entire AS90 fleet onto Ukraine, without a like-for-like replacement in terms of numbers. Meanwhile Poland is partnering with South Korea for the purchase of masses of equipment, France is growing its reserves and Germany is looking to grow its numbers too. In terms of hardware the British Army have merely replaced the turret of 137 or so of its Challenger IIs and called them… Challenger III, and reserve growth? Wait until SDR is released next year. It’s enough to make one scream in frustration.

I have heard the lamentable performance of outside partners defended by general officers who remain blind to the evidence before their own eyes. Men and women who may be excellent at battle space management, sitting at a senior level have proved themselves to be far from commercially savvy as they believe. They willingly hang on every word uttered by inexperienced or out of sector consultants from multi-national management agencies who went to the right school/university, rather than acknowledge the answer to many of their problems is solved from within their own teams and academic spheres of influence.

This leads us to the UKs national infrastructure, including Key Points, and their place in defence. Total Defence requires security of State. I’m not talking men in dirty trench coats lurking furtively around corners of train stations and trying to hide in smoky pub snugs. I’m talking direct management, knowing what’s what and reacting to issues as they arise or preventing them before they do. A nations vital infrastructure; communications of all types and at all levels, power generation, health, education, social cohesion are too sensitive to be in the hands of a few private equity concerns or overseas investors. Without the necessary investment, maintenance and security of these systems required for their functioning we may as well give up. Yes, private industry very much has its place in research, manufacturing, supporting and developing the security needs of a nations Total Defence plan, but it should never a position to be responsible for it. You wouldn’t knowingly give a third-party power over your bank account, so why have successive governments done so to our infrastructure? This gentleman’s agreement level of trust is worrisome in its naivety and leaves the UK open to the type of chaos that a third party can so easily introduce into its infrastructure.

For a nation that thrives on nostalgia we are certainly selective on how we apply the lessons of the past. We want a large fighting force without the investment. We want the prestige of being world leaders while operating behind the isolationism of a potentially compromised BREXIT vote. We want to be safe, but allow ourselves to be driven apart by divisive politics funded from outside the UK. We want security without addressing poverty, the very mother of crime and revolution. We want to be everything we’re not and therein lies the issue. Without a few home truths, hard decisions and a little bit of stubbornness we’ll be in the same place in two years’ time as we are now.

The difference will likely be a war in Central Europe, and we’ll still be arguing over cyber, AI while rewarding corporate failure with extended contracts. We need to start to take the concept of Total Defence seriously and build our national resilience. For Total Defence to succeed we need to accept that neo-liberalism/turbo capitalism is not national security friendly and accept that on somethings we have to be the followers and look to the Scandinavians and others for guidance. we must accept our errors of the past 40 years and seek to never repeat them. Most importantly we must prepare to pull together and face up to and accept the challenges that are presenting themselves on an almost daily basis and prove we are indeed capable of defending ourselves and our neighbours.

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