|
|
|||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
News Search
|
|
7-8-2003 Scotsman ARMY IN THE LINE OF FIRE By Gethin Chamberlain JUST before Admiral Sir Michael Boyce stepped down from his post as Chief of the Defence Staff in April, he warned that Britain would be unable to undertake any further major military operations for at least 18 months without "serious pain". His point was that the country's armed forces were now stretched so thinly that if those who had seen service in Iraq were allowed the period of recuperation they needed, there would be no-one left to take their place. It was a point driven home by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), which cautioned against committing more British troops to Iraq for fear of what it described as "overstretch". And it was a point picked up by Sir Michael's successor as Britain's most senior military officer, General Sir Michael Walker, who told the Commons defence committee that it would take time to get people, equipment and supplies sorted out. But Sir Michael had another, more ominous warning for an army already operating at 5 per cent below strength. With the number of 16 to 24 year olds who might potentially be available to the armed forces due to drop sharply by 2009, Sir Michael said that action needed to be taken quickly to head off the looming recruitment crisis. There is no disputing that decades of cost cutting have reduced the size of the British army dramatically. It currently has about 102,000 servicemen and women (5,000 short of full strength), nearly 50,000 fewer than when the Berlin Wall came down. As one observer noted this week, the British army is now smaller than at any time since the 18th century. According to the MoD's own figures, there are currently 2,601 reservists serving in the Gulf, with another 232 operating outside the region on related duties, amounting to more than a quarter of the British force of 10,700 men and women. At the height of the campaign, hundreds of reservists working in the NHS were called up to provide medical cover. The number of reservists called up this time round is in sharp contrast to the first Gulf war, when only 1,500 were drafted in, but even then the Commons defence select committee was warning that planned defence cuts meant Britain would be unable to mount another Gulf-style operation without much greater dependence on reservists. In August 1991, the preliminary report on the operation to liberate Kuwait noted that British forces were "stretched" and if the cuts went ahead, it would only be possible for the UK to mount a similar operation again if it relied far more heavily on reserve forces. Labour's defence spokesman at the time, Dr John Reid, observed: "Our contribution to the Gulf war was only made possible by stripping the rest of our armed forces to the bone in terms of spares and personnel." At the same time, Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, was warning against the government's plans to reduce the regular army to 116,000 - 14,000 more than its current population. Britain's defence policy was lurching into the 1990s with no clear political direction, he said. Even those who believe such heavy reliance on reservists is justified would accept the position has been reached out of economic necessity. Now, with the dust from the war in Iraq still settling and the lessons of that conflict still being assessed, a new round of cost-cutting looms. In the next couple of months the government is due to publish a white paper on the future of the armed forces. This is expected to detail a radical shake-up in the way the British Army operates. Already there have been dire warnings of cutbacks and speculation about the abolition of historic regiments, although no decisions have yet been taken on where the axe will fall, if anywhere. Some experts believe what will happen is a reorganisation that will actually increase the number of infantry companies available for deployment, while cutting back on administrative functions. But the feeling in army circles is the point is rapidly being reached at which the cost-cutting must stop if it is to be able to operate effectively. Charles Heyman, the editor of Jane's World Armies, believes there will come a time when the soldiers themselves have had enough and will vote with their feet. "The army can always take slimming down, but what the army can't take if you slim it down is taking more jobs on," he said. "It's a vicious circle - in a regular military force, people have to be at home for some of the time. It is debatable if guys will sign on if they are away from home for more than four months a year and if they are doing too much and they are away too often, they just don't sign on again and you have these terrible, terrible recruitment problems." The Treasury, however, is reluctant to use financial incentives to attract recruits to the army. While an analysis by the Tories of figures from the Office of National Statistics this week suggested that within three years the average wage for a worker in the public sector would be GBP 28,490, a soldier can expect just GBP 11,152 on joining the army. But according to Mr Heyman, it is not the relatively low level of pay which soldiers receive, but the refusal to equip them for life outside the army that is the biggest problem: "For the last 30 years, there have been recruitment problems and they will continue until they have some sort of enlightened recruitment policy. At the moment, they are still locked in the Dark Ages where they think someone is going to sign on for three years and then they are going to sit quite happily as a beggar in London." The answer, he said, was to do what the United States did, and agree to pay for some form of further education for recruits once they leave the army. "It has been proved time and time again that the most important element in someone joining the armed services is his or her mother," he said. "She will say 'You've got to get a trade' so they go into the signals or the REME or they join the air force as mechanics but if you are going to go into the infantry, you have got no trade, so mother will say 'Don't do this'. But if you said OK go and join the infantry for three years and they will fund you at, say, half pay through schooling and you will still be on the reserve then mother will say that's a good idea." Unless the army can address its recruitment crisis, its problems will continue whatever the defence white paper recommends. Not one of the Scottish regiments is operating at full strength because, Mr Heyman suggests, those responsible for recruitment won't accept the world has changed. "Traditionally, the infantry, the artillery and the cavalry recruited from people who found it very difficult to read and write and had no real options anywhere else, but the number of people like that has diminished, no matter what the papers say about schooling," he said. The white paper is likely to recommend a more mobile army, with greater emphasis on the ability to deploy lighter forces quickly, in locations far from their home bases, in accordance with the thinking of the US department of defence.
|
|
||||
|
................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
|||||||
