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Alexander Yermakov

Research Fellow at the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations under the Russian Academy of Sciences, RIAC expert

On November 23, Prime Minister David Cameron was in Parliament to present the latest update of the Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR), the document that lays the foundation for the defense policies of the United Kingdom in the decade to come. Contrary to prevailing expectations, the paper is openly belligerent. Britain is on the way to revive its world-class military status.

On November 23, Prime Minister David Cameron was in Parliament to present the latest update of the Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR), the document that lays the foundation for the defense policies of the United Kingdom in the decade to come. Contrary to prevailing expectations, the paper is openly belligerent.

The previous version of the SDSR was released in 2010 with the aim of optimizing and cutting the national forces after the active phase of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan had been completed. Following these economically exhausting wars, thriftiness came to the forefront and the British elite decided to sacrifice defense spending. London planned to bring its forward deployable contingent to 30,000, whereas at the beginning of the Iraq war, it had been 50 percent larger. Reductions in the army after the withdrawal from Iraq in 2009 were of course reasonable but the cuts in hardware, primarily in the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, have produced long-term negative effects on the nation's defense capabilities, increasing the need to rectify the situation with the new strategy.

Among other things, in 2010, the British decided to ditch all Harrier II VTOL aircraft used both by the Navy and the Air Force, which effectively deprived the HMS Ark Royal light aircraft carrier, the Royal Navy flagship, of its air group. The ship was decommissioned in 2011 despite its remaining service life and plans to keep it operational until its replacement by HMS Queen Elisabeth aircraft carrier and multipurpose fighters F-35B Lightning II in 2016-2018. As for the new ship and F-35s, a peculiar proposal was made to rebuild the second ship of the HMS Prince of Wales series to install catapults rather than ramps for aircraft takeoff, and thus purchase the catapult-type F-35Cs with somewhat better specifications. At that, the first ship under construction was planned for use unchanged during several years as a helicopter carrier and training vessel, and then for scrapping or selling, although it happens to be the newest and the largest ship in the history of the Royal Navy. This absurd idea was up in the air until 2012, when it was discarded with least £100 million spent for research and development..

www.generaldynamics.uk.com
Ajax tracked armored vehicle

One more blow to the Queen of the Seas came from the shutdown of the program for the development of the Nimrod MRA4 patrol aircraft. This project was known for major delays and horrendous overruns but still reached the stage of small-scale production and was about to jump into the readiness status. So, its closure meant that £3.6 billion, enough to build another Queen Elisabeth-class carrier, went down the drain.

As a result, the island state was deprived of core patrol aircraft, after which the mission was supposed to move towards helicopters and frigates. However, the helicopter range and flight time from ground airfields turned out to be too short and frigates were too few in number, and the British had to apply to allies if suspicious submarines were reported..

By no means less exciting is the decommissioning of the half of Challenger II tanks.

Hence, in early 2015, the British military power was visibly emaciated if not undermined. At the same time, the world was hardly calm, with terrorism ravaging on an unprecedented scale sufficient to form a quasi-state in the Middle East and the West plunging into a crisis in relations with the dynamically rearming Russia. As such, the developments have pushed the United Kingdom towards the path of a defense buildup.

Royal Army

wikipedia.org
Challenger II main battle tank

The Royal Army is again getting ready for overseas operations, as manpower cuts are suspended and the strength is to be kept at 82,000 soldiers. The army reserve will grow by 5,000 to reach 35,000. Existing units will receive intensive training and be reconfigured for counterterrorist missions and deployment in countries in need of stabilization.

On the whole, the Army will rely on the proven hardware upon modernization, overhaul and life extension, with substitution through new systems to take place. Upgrades are exemplified by elevating 50 Apache helicopters to the standards of the U.S. AH-64E Guardian through the installation of new engines and avionics and extending their life to 2030.

The key equipment-related and structural novelty implies the creation of two strike brigades with Ajax tracked armored vehicles previously known as Scout SV. The Ajax is not easy to classify under the existing standards but it appears closest to armored reconnaissance vehicles like Russian BRM-3K Rys’. But the mass of 40 tons and protection make it also related to basic tanks. The deadliest version is armed with 40-mm automatic cannon, while others use machine guns. The outfit is sufficient to destroy practically any piece of enemy hardware except for key tanks.

The brigade buildup is still to worked out, but the strength is expected to reach 5,000 with a lot of existing and new armored vehicles. Taking into account the Ajax delivery plans, the brigades should be ready in 2019-2020 at the earliest. The strike brigades are meant to make up the core of the radical reinforcement process, so that the forces will be prepared for rapid deployment abroad. Their strength should rise from 30,000 (by 2020 according to the SDSR-2010) to 50,000 by 2050 [1].This figure exceeds that for the British contingent in Iraq in 2003, which implies that London may be preparing for a war on a similar scale in the next decade.

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19 Light Brigade British Army

The creation of highly mobile and heavily equipped brigades with medium-class armored vehicles brings about the once highly popular revolutionary ideas of retired U.S. Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor. At the same time, there are some differences. Colonel Macgregor would like to provide his Reconnaissance Strike Group with the German infantry fighting vehicle Puma with a cannon for killing tanks. But the Ajax with a tank gun seems to remain on paper, at least in the near future. The British strike brigade will rely on plentiful reconnaissance assets and heavily equipped infantry. Besides, it seems to be fit only for an asymmetric war, while Colonel Macgregor's concept is intended for use against the Russian army.

Royal Air Force

Aviation is the favorite Western armed service, although after the SDSR 2010, the British Air Force has definitely been in dire straits with quite gloomy prospects.

A key issue of the SDSR 2015 is found in the level of cuts to be made for deliveries of U.S.-made stealth multipurpose F-35B Lightning II fighters featuring short takeoff and vertical landing, which is the only aircraft fit for deployment on future Queen Elisabeth-class carriers. Initially London planned to purchase 138 planes divided almost equally between the Navy and the Air Force, with their service affiliation to be made formal since all squadrons were to be ready for deck-basing.

The purchase reduction due to economic constraints was considered finalized, especially since several countries, among them from Italy, did so. The likeliest scenario prompted a cut to about 70 aircraft, as was stated in the alternative SDSR 2015, published by the Human Security Centre two weeks ahead of the official paper. This number is sufficient to deploy two carrier groups for a major prepared operation or one group combined with a ground expedition group [2].

However, the SDSR 2015 unexpectedly confirmed plans for purchasing all 138 planes. So far, Britain has received three F-35Bs placed in the United States for training British pilots and technicians, as well as for testing British systems and weapons. One more aircraft for the same purposes is being completed for commissioning in 2016. All in all, the previous year plans envisaged thepurchase of 48 planesby 2020. Anyhow, by 2025, Britain is to have two F-35B battle-ready squadrons, while the Lightnings II of the later deliveries will be replaced in the Air Force by the early Typhoons.

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Eurofighter Typhoon, UK

The life extension for the Eurofighter Typhoon was also high on the agenda. Before the SDSR 2015 was released, plans had been made for 53 initial fighters as early as 2018-2019, which appeared highly extravagant, because the planes made in the 2000s could still boast a long life and their decommissioning would cause a lengthy shortage of combatant squadrons, especially in parallel with discarding the remaining Tornado bombers. But now a decision was made to delay the Typhoon decommissioning, so that those could be used to set up two more squadrons with a simultaneous addition of newly purchased planes. The Typhoons of the initial series are most likely to be used for air defense. In combination with the ongoing upgrading for expansion of the strike capabilities, the step should alleviate the difficulties caused by decommissioning of the Tornados.

As far as aviation is concerned, the most sensitive issue for the security of the British Isles seems to be the lack of proper antisubmarine aircraft. The importance of this is underlined by the fact that the entire British nuclear potential is kept by the SSBNs Vanguard carrying Trident II ballistic missiles. In absence of capabilities for tracking foreign submarines even in coastal waters, one can hardly defend the Vanguards on patrol missions.

The British mulled several versions to replace the Nimrods by their own new vehicles but finally chose the American P-8A Poseidon and now plan to purchase nine of them for operational readiness by 2023. The Poseidons will be based at the Lossiemouth airbase in Scotland, protecting the key Royal Navy facilities in the north of the country.

The use of strike UAVs will be also expanded, with ten U.S.-made Reapers to be replaced by over twenty Protectors jointly made by the British BAE Systems and French Dassault. The document also confirmed the continued development of the Anglo-French strike drone based on the programs Taranis and nEUROn.

www.codeonemagazine.com
F-35B Lightning II, UK

As far as the Royal Air Force is concerned, the SDSR 2015 is primarily seen as a correction of mistakes, a retrieval of lost opportunities and a facilitation of future transitions to rule out failures when aircraft are decommissioned in the absence of replacement.

Royal Navy

Britain has traditionally taken great pride in its Royal Navy, while after the Second World War it became second to the American fleet, and in two decades after massive decommissioning with no adequate replacement to major aircraft carriers, its key strike asset, fell third after the Soviet naval force. But now, for the first time in several decades, the Royal Navy seems to on the rise and ready to struggle for the respected second place and lagging only behind the United States. The decades-long dream of new aircraft carriers, this time not the lightweight surrogates, has at last come true as the program for the construction of two Queen Elisabeth-class ships minor in tonnage only to their American counterparts. Despite their specifics, if not bizarreness, these two will provide Britain with strike power unmatched in Europe. Only French nuclear-powered carrier Charles de Gaulle appears comparable and to some extent superior, although plans for the construction of the second one for the French Navy are quite obscure. The commissioning of HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales is expected in 2017 and 2019 accordingly, so the SDSR 2015 contained no fresh news on the matter.

On the whole, the maritime portion of the paper seems rather the confirmation of current plans, with the sole novelty to be found in the destiny of future Type 26 frigates – the final five ships in the 13-ship series are to be built according to a simplified export-orientated design, supposedly in order to increase the number of large surface ships in 2030, However, the first Type 26 frigate is to be commissioned only in 2022, which means that plans for later ships are too far away to be seen as rigid. Details are expected in the national shipbuilding strategy to be released in 2016.

In the decades to come, Britain will definitely focus on the development of a replacement for SSBN Vanguard that is currently referred to as Successor and should enter service in the 2030s. Four new submarines are to come up instead of four decommissioned ones, so that at least one of them could be kept at sea. The ongoing design stage should cost £3.6 billion and production will go at about £31 billion. Of course, Britain will closely cooperate with the United States which is engaged in designing the replacement for the Ohio-class strategic submarines.

wikipedia.org
Type 45 destroyer

In the near future the Royal Navy will acquire a formidable strike capacity, which is virtually nonexistent now, as well as a more responsible role in projection of force, with the aircraft carriers rightfully dominating expeditionary assets of the future.

Rule, Britannia?

Led by David Cameron, Britain is on the way to revive its world-class military status, as it plans to spend £178 billion on new hardware and servicing in the next decade. No wonder, London’s defense spending will remain at two percent of the GDP as a minimum, with only a few NATO states sticking to the pledged rule.

Britain is allied primarily with the U.S.A., with France coming next in the line, as the two countries are implementing a host of joint defense projects and are also bound by the Combined United Expeditionary Force panned for operational readiness in 2016.

Britain should remain active in the joint BMD program and keep investing in the modernization of the ground-based missile warning radar at the Fylingdales station, which is part of the American BMD system. London is also mulling an upgrade for Type 45 destroyers to be employed as BMD ships. Along with defending the motherland, the British also want to allocate £300 million for strengthening the defense of the Falkland Islands, although these are hardly threatened by the financially depleted Argentina which needs a lot of time to recuperate and thus gives the Royal Navy sufficient flexibility for reinforcement.

The SDSR also covers Russia, although ambiguously. On the one hand, London is castigating Moscow for Ukraine and insists on containment, presumably to pacify the East Europeans and, what seems more important, advance the creation of a NATO Very High Readiness Joint Task Force. Besides, Britain is simultaneously building its own international Joint Expeditionary Forceto incorporate Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian contingents that should be operationally ready by 2018. The list clearly points to the target area, i.e. the Norwegian, North and Baltic seas. The program seems to reflect the region’s traditional fear of an imminent Russian invasion that Britain wisely exploits.

wikipedia.org
HMS Queen Elizabeth during fitting-out on
1 December 2014

On the other hand, the rhetoric towards Russia in the SDSR 2015 is hardly hostile in reality. Russia has not been labeled as a direct threat to Britain but rather as a violator of the European order, since the need for containment is supplemented by appeals to cooperation on international security on the bilateral level and in such organizations as the UN and OSCE, primarily in countering international terrorism and the ISIS.

Britain appears to be preparing for combat overseas in the 2020s on a scale matching the 2003 Iraq operation. The creation of the inter-service expeditionary force, i.e. the Joint Force 2025, makes the basis of the SDSR 2015. When the time comes for the next general election, most of the processes should be underway and thus somewhat protected from the political power play. However, the point lies in the global environment that hardly seems to become safer or more peaceful.

1. In all cases the figures cover all services, primarily the Army.

2. Since battle ships are usually kept for lengthy servicing and repairs, both aircraft carriers are not likely to be ready for sailing. The availability of two ships creates a good opportunity for having at least one ship operationally ready.

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