Art of Strategy

Hammond balances MoD budget, problem solved?

gurby1 — Wed, 16 May 2012 03:41:21 +0000

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05/14/2012 12:00:00 AM EDT |

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Philip Hammond announced yesterday that he has “balanced the books” at the Ministry of Defence and has successfully plugged the £38 billion black hole.

“For the first time in decades we have delivered a credible and sustainable budget and we can now confidently pledge to deliver to our Armed Forces almost £160 billion worth of equipment over the next decade that we know we can afford,” Hammond told parliament.

The announcement comes after months of protracted negotiations as Hammond, whose careful and commendable attention to detail has led him to become fondly known as ‘Spreadsheet’ or ‘Forensic’ Phil by some MoD officials, has tried to balance cuts to the budget without losing significant capability.

Programmes now guaranteed to run include; the £1 billion Warrior upgrade; the £4.5 billion FRES next generation armoured vehicle; building of two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers and the remainder of the Type 26 frigates, type 45 destroyers and the Astute Class and Successor nuclear submarines; continued investment in the Joint Strike Fighter and one C-17 aircraft; and £7 billion investment in a variety of “smart weapons”.

The “last piece of the jigsaw” came last week as Hammond announced that the UK would be reverting to the STOVL F-35 Joint Strike Fighter after initially plumping for the F-35C ‘cats and traps’ variant. With this MoD is expected to save around £1 billion by not having to convert the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers with the CATOBARS configuration required for the ‘C’ variant fighter.

With the news, no new redundancies in the armed forces are expected and, for the first time in its history, the budget has a contingency built-in to account for possible cost overruns.

“For the first time in the defence budget we’ve got a reserve in each year, which means that if something comes up we’ll be able to manage it, drawing on our own reserve rather than having to cancel or postpone equipment,” Hammond told the Times. “We’ve also put a sizeable contingency into the equipment plan, which has never been done before, so that if we do have a problem . . . we can manage it without destroying the rest of the programme or running crying to the Treasury.”

This defence budget, known as Planning Round 12 (PR12), is likely to be the last budget employing this PR method after the system has come under increasing criticism since being implemented by the Labour government in 1998. It will be replaced by a new Annual Budget Cycle (ABC) system, which will be revealed later this month.

“We are considering ways in which we can update our financial management processes, in line with the Levene Defence Reform Review, which recommended an increased delegation of budgets to top-level budget holders, such as the service chiefs,” a spokeswoman told Defense News. “This work, known as the Annual Budget Cycle, is ongoing and no changes will be made until the current planning round is completed.”

Caroline Wyatt, the BBC’s Defence correspondent, said in her analysis that: “Senior military sources have praised the defence secretary’s attention to detail, his thoroughness and pragmatic approach, and for coming up with a “balanced plan for austere times”.

Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir David Richards, said: “Taking tough decisions and dealing with unaffordable projects has given us clarity to plan. We are now on a firm foundation and building the Armed Forces of the future. We are now well-placed to adapt and respond to threats around the world and to deliver the capabilities we need for the nation’s defence.”

“The MoD is an oil tanker,” Hammond said in November shortly after taking office from Liam Fox. “It has 250,000 people and you can’t turn it on a six pence. The [spending] culture is changing.”

Last week the government did a U-turn on the F-35. With the announcement about balancing the books this week, that has the MoD finally done the same?

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Andrew graduated from The University of Nottingham with an MA in History in 2003. After graduating Andrew started his career with a niche armour systems manufacturer, which provided ballisitic and blast armour products for the international defence market. His first major undertaking was to project manage a UOR up-armour programme for an in-theatre MoD vehicle. After completion of the contract, Andrew headed up the research and development department at the company. This involved designing, developing, testing and presenting new armour solutions to defeat customer specific threats to all major European and International ballistic and blast standards.

Following this Andrew moved behind the desk and became Senior Editor at a news and data provider, offering proprietary analysis, intelligence, market research and data on the global security and defence industry. The role offered the chance to write widely on the industry, exploring new technologies and getting to grips with corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions and debt and equity fundraisings.

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Exclusive interview with Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier programme Director

gurby1 — Wed, 16 May 2012 03:40:58 +0000

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05/15/2012 12:00:00 AM EDT |

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Geoff Searle, Programme Director for the UK’s new Queen Elizabeth-class (QEC) aircraft carriers, sits down with Defence IQ to discuss the Aircraft Carrier Alliance and its progress to date as these two world-class carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, begin to take shape. During the interview Searle discusses how the government’s announcement about returning to the STOVL F-35 variant may affect construction, challenges the Alliance has overcome as well as giving us some facts and figures on how big, fast and better these new carriers are. Hint: it’s really, very and a lot.

_________________________________________________________________________________

What is the Aircraft Carrier Alliance?

The Aircraft Carrier Alliance is a unique partnering relationship between BAE Systems, Thales UK, Babcock and the UK Ministry of Defence. The Aircraft Carrier Alliance has been formed specifically to deliver the aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales to the Royal Navy.

What stage are you currently at with the project?

HMS Queen Elizabeth is now firmly in the assembly phase. Sections constructed at yards across the UK are making their way to Rosyth where assembly is taking place. Currently (as of May 15) there are 13,000 tonnes of HMS Queen Elizabeth already assembled in the dry dock at Rosyth. That’s equivalent to more than one and a half T45 destroyers!

HMS Prince of Wales is well into its construction phase, and elements are being built at yards in Portsmouth and Glasgow.

Has the project been successful to date in terms of time and budget?

It’s well-known that alterations to the requirements have resulted in several changes to the programme, and although these have meant changes to scheduling and budgets, I am very proud of the way teams across the Aircraft Carrier Alliance have responded. The entire project, despite being massively complex, is running well and the build of both ships is progressing apace.

What has been the biggest challenge in the construction of the carriers so far?

The aircraft carriers are a new class of ships, requiring an entirely new approach to shipbuilding and are on a scale unlike anything constructed for the Royal Navy before.

Developing the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, and in doing so creating an environment where different companies can work with each other and alongside the customer has been a huge success. But that sort of change doesn’t come naturally. It required a considerable change in thinking and approach, but it’s a credit to everyone involved that we continue to put the alliance first. The progress made over the last few months in particular stands in testament to that.

Did the delay over the F-35 variant decision make any difference to the carriers’ construction – will reverting back to the F-35B STOVL jet cause any significant difficulties for you?

The ships were always designed to be able to be adapted for either STOVL or CV operations and they are already being built in the STOVL configuration. The decision to go with the STOVL aircraft means we can now firm up the plans and we are now working with MOD to re-activate our plans to develop both ships as STOVL-capable.

How different are the QE class carriers to the ones they are replacing? What’s the most significant change?

The most obvious change is their size. But the power and propulsion units and the mission systems which will bring the ship to life will help create a new level of military capability. Of course the F-53B aircraft they will operate will represent a step change in capability too. By building the ships with two ‘islands’ – one for ship control and one for air traffic control – we can ensure they are as effective and efficient as possible when it comes to mounting future operations. They will play a pivotal role in the UK’s defence strategy, while also providing a platform for humanitarian aid.

How many people are working on the construction effort?

There are in the region of 10,000 people directly involved in the delivery of the Queen Elizabeth Class, and more than 300 UK companies providing everything from mission systems to microwave ovens.

Just how big are these carriers – could you give us some perspective?

The Queen Elizabeth Class are the largest warships ever constructed for the Royal Navy, by orders of magnitude. Three times the size of the Invincible Class, they will give the UK four acres of sovereign territory and require 1.5 million metres2 of paintwork, which is slightly more than the acreage of Hyde Park. The picture to right is of HMS Queen Elizabeth in Rosyth Dockyard, beside HMS Illustrious, which shows just how large the ships will be in comparison.

What’s been your proudest moment while working on the project?

Not surprisingly, some of the most visual moments really stand out, the arrival of LB03 and the Goliath crane’s first lifts were particularly memorable. But the most important thing for me has been the team of people I have the privilege to work with. None of us have operated in an alliance environment before, but everyone has risen to the challenge. Teams across the alliance continue to work incredibly hard to deliver their objectives time and again.

I was also particularly proud to see the programme achieve one million man-hours without a single reportable accident last year. Without a doubt ensuring the health and safety of the workforce is a top priority for us all.

What about some stats – the weight of the carrier when it’s completed, length, how fast will it go, number of engines, number of decks, how many aircraft will it be able to hold?

The ships will be 65,000 tonnes at full displacement
Length: 280m
Width: 70m
Range; 8,000 to 10,000 nautical miles
Each ship has two propellers which together will generate 80MW of power – enough to run 1,000 family cars or 50 high speed trains
56m from keel to masthead, which is four metres taller than Niagra Falls!
The distribution network on board will generate enough energy to power 300,000 kettles or 5,500 family homes (a town the size of Swindon)
1.5 million m2 of paintwork, which is 370 acres, or slightly more than acreage of Hyde Park
Each ship’s two propellers will weigh 33 tonnes each – nearly two and half times as heavy as a double decker bus and one and half times as high
Each of the two huge aircraft lifts can move two Joint Strike Fighters from the hangar to the flight deck in 60 seconds. They’re so powerful that together they could lift the entire ship’s crew
Weapons: Designed to receive the latest generation of the Phalanx close-in weapon system for defence of the vessel. Each ship is also designed to receive 30mm guns and mini-guns located to counter asymmetric threats
Power: 2 x Rolls-Royce MT30 Gas Turbines and 4 x Diesel Generator Sets giving total installed power of 109MWe
110MW power station on board each ship – that’s enough to provide all of Portsea Island with power
The ship’s Long Range radar is the same size as a large mobile home
The anchors will be 3.1m high, each weighing 13 tonnes – almost as much as a double decker bus
Water treatment plant onboard: The ships will produce over 500 tonnes of fresh water daily
£1.3 billion worth of sub contracts for work on the QE Class have now been placed with companies across most regions in the UK

What’s the next big milestone?

The next stage is moving the programme into Dock Cycle B.

There are three cycles in the assembly phase. Dock Cycle A – the assembly of LB03 and CB03 and sponsons – is almost complete. Dock Cycle B involves integrating the blocks that make up the forward section of the ship. So the arrival of sections LB02 later this month, and CB02 in early June, will signal the start of the next phase in the construction of HMS Queen Elizabeth. But also this year we start the vitally important activities of setting the ship to life as we power up the electrical systems and set equipment to work – the start of the process that will lead to trials and acceptance over the coming years.

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Former Taliban chief decries propaganda, NATO to up Information Operations efforts

gurby1 — Wed, 16 May 2012 03:40:26 +0000

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Mullah Abdul Satar, former Taliban commander, recently spoke to U.S. Army Lt. Col. Anthony Ulrich, commander of the PRT Civil Affairs group , about his decision to join the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme.

“My reason for being in this program is whenever the Taliban were arresting people and beheading them for no good reason, I was totally against it and it wasn’t fair to me,” said Satar. “The second reason is for destroying the clinics and schools, which I am totally against. Caring for my family and having food is the main thing. Programme officials kept talking to me and telling me good things.”

During the sit down, Satar revealed that Taliban propaganda is playing a crucial factor in keeping some Afghans on side.

“The Taliban are getting weak, but their propaganda is still strong,” said Satar according to an ISAF article. “They are ten, and say they are one hundred.”

Perhaps the key for NATO forces then is to step-up its own Information Operations campaign.

“We were permitted to do anything to achieve our mission, even using women and children as shields. I asked the other Taliban ‘What are we doing?’, because whatever they are doing it’s not for the Afghan people. They went to a civilian home, they shoot people, they beat the children or the woman, and they strip everything looking around for weapons for the Talban. They beat the children if they need any information from them. To me, this is not fair. It’s not for the Afghan people.”

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Hammond’s other U-turn: Changing MoD culture, balancing the budget

gurby1 — Tue, 15 May 2012 03:33:03 +0000

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05/14/2012 12:00:00 AM EDT |

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Philip Hammond will announce this week that he has “balanced the books” at the Ministry of Defence and has successfully plugged the £38 billion black hole.

“In the next few days we will be in a position to make the grand announcement that I’ve balanced the books,” Hammond told the Times.

The announcement will come after months of protracted negotiations as Hammond, whose careful and commendable attention to detail has led him to become fondly known as ‘Spreadsheet’ or ‘Forensic’ Phil by some MoD officials, has tried to balance cuts to the budget without losing significant capability.

With the news no new redundancies in the armed forces are expected and, for the first time in its history, the budget has a contingency built-in to account for possible cost overruns.

“For the first time in the defence budget we’ve got a reserve in each year, which means that if something comes up we’ll be able to manage it, drawing on our own reserve rather than having to cancel or postpone equipment,” Hammond said. “We’ve also put a sizeable contingency into the equipment plan, which has never been done before, so that if we do have a problem . . . we can manage it without destroying the rest of the programme or running crying to the Treasury.”

Last week the government did a U-turn on the F-35. With the announcement about balancing the books this week, that has the MoD finally done the same?

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Leveraging our greatest asset: Information

gurby1 — Sat, 12 May 2012 02:32:25 +0000

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Padraic McCluskey

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05/11/2012 12:00:00 AM EDT |

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As a decade of operations begin to wind down in Afghanistan, it is clear that the military’s insatiable demand for timely, secure and high quality information will continue to grow exponentially. Some estimates forecast a near 1000% rise in information generation before 2020.

Afghanistan has shown that severe challenges exist in how information is gathered, exploited and shared in the global battlespace. While recent multinational and national networks have gone some way in alleviating a number of these challenges, it is far from certain that future mission networks will not suffer from the same problems.

The continuing proliferation of remotely piloted aircraft, satellite based intelligence, handheld devices and a whole host of networked devices means that the amount of information rocketing around the theatre will only but continue to rise. One thing is clear: More than bullets or bombs, information will remain militaries’ greatest force multiplier.

No circle, full circle

In yester year the warfighter couldn’t gather enough information, but now the issue is coming full circle as the data that military devices and platforms are able to collect, store and analyse increases in both volume and quality.

Industry solutions have raced ahead of the military on the front lines, back at HQ, and within its rigid organisational structure. Information is being churned out at a rate and at a quality that is overwhelming the military’s capacity to handle it, meaning it is often duplicated, lost or simply unused.

With a drive underway to extend networks down to the tactical level, forces’ battlespace agility and speed should increase but it also opens up new avenues for more information to bloom out of.

Industry continues to promise that its solutions will make the information gathering, exploitation and sharing process more seamless and less over-burdening but challenges still abound.

Solutions using commercial technology, existing architectures and commercial levels of security have made great in-roads into the problem. However, industry has not yet managed to convince militaries that its solutions, often with hefty price tags, are the answer to their problems.

Not only an industry solution

While it’s fair to say industry solutions have not quite reached a level of operational relevance for the military yet, there are also other issues that need to be resolved.

Organisational structures within the military have often contributed to the problem as rigid and antiquated operating procedures have meant that critical information has often not been shared with the right people at the right time. In turn, countless operations have been unable to utilise their most important asset: Information.

Operation Unified Protector has recently shown that some nations often had to revert back to commanders very high up the chain before information could be shared, with the delay marring the effectiveness of the information.

Former ISAF commander General Stanley McChrystal encountered these same organisational strictures during his time in Iraq. His approach to reduce delays in sharing information throughout the chain of command across a wide area of operations is something that has now started to be incorporated more widely.

If such an agile structure could be transposed into the multinational environment then it would go a long way to rectifying a growing problem.

A mixed approach

The solution then does not then lie in the military, political or industrial realms alone. A balanced approach will be required so that nations can make the most of the information that is out there.

Industry needs to provide solutions that are simple for people to use, can handle and exploit increasing volumes of data, and not cost the world. Militaries and their political superiors must start to take a serious look at the organisational structures and procedures they employ on operations.

There will be little value in adopting future technological advances if they are met by antiquated structures that constrict the flow and utilisation of information.

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President of U.S. Army’s Info Ops contractor addresses allegations

gurby1 — Fri, 11 May 2012 02:24:25 +0000

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05/10/2012 12:00:00 AM EDT |

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Leonie Industries publically reasserts its stance as Information Operations community attacks mainstream press.

The head of the Pentagon’s chief Information Operations (IO) contractor has personally defended allegations made about his company in the press during an interview with Defence IQ.

Ed Negrelli, President of Leonie Industries, spoke out this week in response to ongoing debate about the utility of businesses centred on strategic communications.

In February, USA Today published claims that there is “little proof” that IO campaigns are effective, and that IO contractors employed by the US military – and Leonie, specifically – are able to measure their own success.

Following the editorials, reports emerged that several websites and social media accounts had been established under the names of the journalists responsible for the article, some of which were drawing attention to previous editorial mistakes made by these same journalists, as well as other negative accusations.

A Gawker journalist suggested Leonie was to blame for the ‘disinformation’ campaign against the reporters, a claim that Leonie vehemently denied in their blog and subsequently prompted Negrelli to make a direct counter argument in a podcast interview with Defence IQ.

“We have always been respectful of journalists and the media,” said Negrelli.

“[USAToday reporter] Tom Vanden Brook reached out to Leonie in conjunction with his coverage, and we were always responsive and very respectful in answering all of Tom’s questions truthfully and openly.

“In response to the story about the disinformation campaign, we found this troubling, and we launched an internal investigation. There is no indication that any Leonie employee was involved in the negative postings about Tom Vanden Brook and his fellow reporters. Leonie does not condone that kind of activity at all.”

Commenting on the original allegations that IO professionals have free rein to judge their own performance, Negrelli was also quick to correct the issue.

“I think what the reporter meant to say was that Leonie is required by contract to measure the effectiveness of the media campaigns that our clients conduct in support of the Afghan people,” he said, pointing out that the capacity to do this was in fact one of the reasons that Leonie had won the contract.

Negrelli went on to say that he was proud of the work that Leonie is currently carrying out for the US government and that it will continue its focus on these duties, stating that the episode “cast a negative light on the entire IO community”.

Others in the IO domain have also been critical of the mainstream media’s coverage of their field, such as in its interchange of the term ‘information operations’ with the term ‘propaganda’, which many argue is incorrect.

Psychological Operations specialist and attorney Lawrence Dietz recently admonished Rolling Stone reporters in his blog for implying that those in his field are “endowed with mystical powers to control people’s minds” and challenged that USA Today had in this instance not consulted with reliable sources.

Joel Harding, another seasoned strategic communications expert who often works as a consultant with the US government, recently pointed out in his blog:

“Why don’t we see press reports about running water, electricity, new crops, new equipment, new businesses, new technology, better food, assistance with better living in Afghanistan?…Because it doesn’t sell newspapers, it doesn’t draw readers and viewers to websites and, therefore, it doesn’t make money.”

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Richard de Silva reports on defence and security at DefenceIQ.com. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Creative Writing and Film and a Master’s Degree in Film from Kingston University, London.

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The Defence IQ Blogging Awards 2012

gurby1 — Fri, 11 May 2012 02:24:14 +0000

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05/10/2012 12:00:00 AM EDT |

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After an overwhelming response in 2011, Defence IQ is proud to announce the Blogging Awards 2012 which recognises and rewards the hard work defence and military bloggers put in to ensure that information reaches the masses.

To see the results from the Blogging Awards 2011, click here.

New for 2012!

This year we will be making the Awards bigger and bolder in an attempt to highlight the best blogs on a range of topics. Therefore, there are six categories in which to enter your chosen blog in to:

Information Operations
Cyber (Security, Warfare, Strategy)
Counter Terrorism
Maritime Security
Regional Defence
Defence Industry

Entries for the Defence IQ Blogging Awards 2012 are now open, so if you write or read a blog which you believe deserves special recognition – get in touch now!

To enter a blog, provide the URL, a short description of why the blog is great and what category you want to nominate it in to and email it to samantha.tanner@iqpc.co.uk or let us know on Twitter @DefenceIQ.

You can enter as many blogs as you read or write but hurry – nominations close at 14:00 GMT on Wednesday 6^thJune 2012.

The winners will be chosen by the Defence IQ panel and announced on Thursday 14^thJune 2012.

If you would like more information on the Defence IQ Blogging Awards 2012, please email samantha.tanner@iqpc.co.uk.

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Samantha Tanner specialises in defence and security technology at DefenceIQ.com. She holds a degree in journalism from Kingston University and has previous experience in public relations, social media and blog journalism.

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F-35: The verdict is in

gurby1 — Fri, 11 May 2012 02:24:04 +0000

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Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has finally announced that the UK will be reverting to the jump-jet F-35B variant of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme after costs to modify the Queen Elizabeth-class (QEC) carriers for the F-35C fighter jet began to spiral.

“The 2010 SDSR decision on carriers was right at the time, but the facts have changed and therefore so too must our approach,” said Hammond in a statement to parliament this morning. ”This Government will not blindly pursue projects and ignore cost growth and delays.

“Carrier Strike with ‘cats and traps’ using the Carrier Variant jet no longer represents the best way of delivering Carrier Strike and I am not prepared to tolerate a three-year further delay to reintroducing our Carrier Strike capability.”

The announcement comes as little surprise after numerous reports surfaced about the growing debate over the contentious JSF programme. Under Gordon Brown’s administration, the UK originally signed up for the Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) F-35B fighter but after the coalition government came to power it opted for the F-35C “cats and traps” variant following the 2010 the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR).

Reverting to the STOVL variant will restore the UK’s carrier-strike capability by 2018, two years ahead of schedule. This continuous Carrier Strike capability was the key element of Hammond’s statement today.

“This announcement means we remain on course to deliver Carrier Strike in 2020 as a key part of our Future Force 2020.”

Hammond said that, however inconvenient, this decision shows that the government is “doing what is right for Britain.”

Costly political move offset by sound economic sense

The decision has led some to criticise the coalition government over its handling of the JSF programme, with Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy saying “this is a personal humiliation for David Cameron who will to return to Labour’s policy, which he previously condemned.”

However, amongst the bluster and backlash in the national press over the last few weeks a number of articles have made it clear that, although controversial, the decision to revert to the B variant does have widespread support.

One unnamed MoD official told the Times that: “It [a reversion to the F35B] is fully endorsed by the Chiefs of Staff, importantly including the Royal Navy and RAF.”

“There will be short-term pain for the Government, but in the long run it is by far the best option. Adapting the carriers is skewing the defence budget out of shape,” another paper said.

One piece simply concluded that, “reversion would have a political cost, but it would be backed by top military officers.”

Cameron was keen not to make a snap decision on this, which is why he delayed it until after Parliament’s Easter recess. The PM knows another defence procurement quagmire will not be tolerated, so with that in mind, Cameron must be confident that this is the right decision. He can’t afford it not to be.

The Navy Campaign, an independent body borne out of the SDSR, has been working closely with the government as it weighed up which F-35 variant to buy. Here’s the conclusion it released this morning:

“We’ll get the obvious out of the way now – the F-35B does not have the capability of the F-35C. That said, it is still more capable than the Harrier and infinitely better than the current capability gap.

“The Government has repeatedly stated that by reverting to the STOVL jet, both carriers will become operational sooner than the one ‘cats and traps’ carrier would. We look forward to seeing both carriers in service.”

A question of class

The intense focus of the media attention has been on the Joint Strike Fighter itself. And why wouldn’t it – the supranational fifth-generation fighter jet is the largest defence procurement programme in the world with development costs topping $1 trillion.

But the carriers shouldn’t be overlooked; remember that it is their inflexibility over the Catapult Assisted Take Off Barrier Arrested Recovery (CATOBAR) configuration that is at the root of this procurement pickle.

Con Coughlin argues that the seed was planted when Gordon Brown authorised the building of the two 65,000 ton behemoths in 2007.

“The answer lies in Mr Brown’s pork-barrel approach to defence procurement, which focused more on winning votes in the Govan shipyard, where the carriers are being built, than on Britain’s defence requirements,” Coughlin said.

James Bosbotinis, currently reading for a PhD at King’s College London on the debate concerning Britain’s future aircraft carrier programme and British maritime strategy, advocated a rethink of the entire F-35 programme, not just the variant, in his essay ‘The strategic utility of the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers’.

“Due to the increasing cost of and delays to the F-35 programme and the fragility of the British economy and with it the need to seek budgetary savings, it may be prudent to consider an alternative approach to the air group for the QEC,” said Bosbotinis.

It’s all about the money, money, money

Converting the HMS Queen Elizabeth to be equipped with the “cats and traps” required for the F-35C variant was initially costed at around £1 billion by Dr. Liam Fox, Defence Secretary at the time of the 2010 SDSR. However, projections seen by current Defence Secretary Philip Hammond have that figure closer to £2 billion. With the cost of the carriers themselves having already doubled from £3.5 billion to £7 billion since the programme began, this cost differential was central to the government’s decision to revert back to the STOVL F-35 variant.

It’s not just the UK that is suffering from budget issues though. Last month the Pentagon presented a Selected Acquisition Report on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which projected that the programme had taken a $17 billion hit on initial estimates. Last year the total production and acquisition costs of the programme increased 4.3% to $396 billion according to the report.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta underlined his commitment to the programme regardless of the cost implications.

“As part of the defence strategy that the United States went through and has put in place, we have made very clear that we are 100% committed to the development of the F-35,” he said. “It’s a fifth-generation fighter, [and] we absolutely need it for the future.”

Rejecting the F-35 in favour of another aircraft that is more cost-effective is a compelling idea. However, if the UK is to maintain its status as one of the world’s elite defence nations then the government must look to procure cutting edge technology. Buying a fourth-generation fighter, regardless of cost, would signal that Britain was curtailing its global ambition and was willing to step down from the top table of world powers. Only by landing the fifth-generation Joint Strike Fighter will the UK be able to plug that potential capability gap.

Is that being unduly dramatic? Yes, perhaps. But perceptions matter. Quite simply the F-35 is a statement of intent; procuring anything else at this stage would signal the beginning of the UK’s global reticence.

The F-35 programme is unparalleled in terms of cost and strategic significance – look out for further articles that consider this major announcement from all sides on Defence IQ over the coming weeks, including an exclusive interview with Peter Luff, the Minister for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology.

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Armoured vehicle demand driven by Olympics security concerns

gurby1 — Thu, 10 May 2012 02:11:57 +0000

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The iron curtain surrounding London in the run up to the Olympic Games this summer continues to be drawn around the capital as law enforcement and government agencies bolster and reinforce their defences. The latest trend has seen a jump in armoured vehicles sales, primarily to heads of state and high net worth individuals.

International Armoring Corporation (IAC), a U.S.-based manufacturer of commercial armoured vehicles, has reported a 200% rise in demand from the UK due to increasing concerns about a terrorist attack during the Games.

“The UK is one of our two fastest growing markets,” CEO Mark Burton told the Mirror newspaper in an interview.

“In early 2002, Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Olympics just after the September 11 attacks and we saw the same demands and requirements,” he continued. “Local security forces got involved and we are seeing similar interest here from forces who need added protection … They have recognised there is a threat and need to be discreet in what they offer.”

The sight of armoured vehicles driving around London will become a familiar one over the next few months as international dignitaries flock to the city. In a similar vein, with Brazil set to host the Olympics in 2016, the market for armoured vehicles there is expected to blossom during the intervening years. However, for now with all eyes trained on London in 2012, the risk of a terrorist attack becomes that much more pronounced. The security detail must therefore step-up many orders of magnitude in response.

The MoD announced that it would turn residential areas of London into temporary missile bases as all efforts are made to thwart a 9/11-style attack. MoD has freely revealed that the High Velocity Missile (HVM) systems will be placed around the capital; the government is making no secret of its highly complex and multi-layered security strategy, quite the opposite in fact as it seeks to increase awareness in London and dispel intent from terrorist cells.

The government announced last week that Exercise Olympic Guardian, a major military security exercise, would be taking place on land, at sea and in the air in London “to ensure that we are ready for the challenge,” said Philip Hammond, Defence Secretary.

“The majority of this exercise will be played out in full view of the public and I hope that it will have a secondary effect of reassuring the British people that everything possible is being done to ensure this will be a safe and secure Olympic and Paralympic Games,” said Hammond.

But it’s not just physical attacks; the looming cyber threat is on the rise too and presents significant challenges to the UK as the Olympics approach.

Francis Maude, UK Minister for Cyber Security, travelled to Estonia’s International Centre for Defence Studies (ICDS) last week to learn how to better protect against the digital threat. Estonia was subject to a massive cyber attack in 2007 and is now thought to be a leading authority on cyber preparedness.

“This year’s Olympics in the United Kingdom will not be immune to cyber attacks by those who would seek to disrupt the Games,” said Maude. “We have rightly been preparing for sometime – a dedicated unit will help guard the London Olympics against cyber attack – we are determined to have a safe and secure Games.”

However, we should of course remember that, as Hugo Rosemont, Policy Advisor for Security and Resilience at trade association ADS Group, told me:

“The Olympics is not a security event; it’s a sporting event with a security overlay … We haven’t delivered a successful Games as yet, although clearly everybody expects and intends that to be the case and has high confidence in those plans.”

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The military’s social media challenge

gurby1 — Wed, 09 May 2012 01:55:08 +0000

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The growth of social and new media in the last decade has produced widespread change as new social practices, political strategies, and ways of doing business have quickly emerged to become accepted and integrated features of our everyday lives. The impact of new media on the conduct of conflict is just as important, although the process of adaption has not been as smooth as in other areas. The networked, ubiquitous, and near-uncontrollable communication tools of the new media age present multiple challenges to traditional information environment practices of military actors, as well as new opportunities for engagement. If militaries have been slower to adapt to these new phenomena than other sectors it is because the cost of getting it wrong is so much higher, yet there is a growing consensus that radical changes to military information practices are a necessity in Internet Age conflict.

The primary defining impact on contemporary information operations is the expansion of what is conceived of as the ‘information space’ during conflict. This is not simply to do with new Internet tools, as simultaneous with the rise in impact of new and social media has been the increasing prominence of forms of military engagement in which information is central. Contemporary conflicts are marked by their asymmetry and increasing complexity: from the messy coalition building and fuzzy loyalties of the Libyan war, to the amorphous sprawl of the “War on Terror” from Afghanistan to drone attacks and other military engagements in multiple countries, the ‘information space’ relevant to information operations is increasingly difficult to delineate. The conception of the field of information operations has changed drastically as the concept of “military operations” itself becomes stretched in time and space – accompanied by what Secretary Robert Gates called “the erosion of traditional boundaries between foreign and domestic, civilian and combatant, state and non-state actors, and war and peace”. The controversies over legal and organisational jurisdiction in American information operations and public diplomacy programmes is indicative of the challenges faced in the changing communication environment.

Yet these complications do not diminish the impact or importance of information operations, rather, as Lieutenant General Thomas F. Metz writes, as “the capabilities to move information not only around the battlefield but also around the world have grown exponentially, IO’s importance grows daily”. The impact of new media-enabled information events like the publication of the Abu Ghraib torture photos, jihadi beheading videos, Saddam Hussein’s execution video, and WikiLeaks, demonstrate how intertwined local and global information flows are, and by extension how central information operations are to both current military operations and broader strategic goals. This breadth of impact is underlined by Admiral Mike Mullen, who noted that now “videos and images plastered on the Web – or even the idea of their being so posted – can and often do drive national security decision making”.¹

Furthermore, asymmetric conflicts which pitch strong military actors against weaker state or non-state actors give rise to a situation in which the weaker actor seeks to shift the conflict to the realm of public opinion – to the information space. In the new media age organisational and material strength does not translate directly into information superiority – some of the most effective tools for communication are free, easy to use, and are those which an intuitive grasp of regional culture and social media norms can give the upper hand more readily than any number of trained spokespeople can. Exemplary here is the case of Hezbollah, who, in the 2006 war with Israel, were judged to have outmanoeuvred a militarily stronger adversary through “shifting the centre of gravity into the information space”², thus thwarting Israeli military objectives. This example is particularly important as Hezbollah is a group seen by military analysts as having characteristics that “make the organization a paradigm for future U.S. adversaries”.³

Academics Andrew Hoskins and Ben O’Loughlin have emphasised the importance of information in warfare in the new media environment by characterising the situation as the mediatization of war. Mediatization is a process whereby “social and cultural institutions and modes of interaction are changed as a consequence of the growth of the media’s influence”⁴such that, in the case of war, it affects “practices in which actually coercive or kinetic force is exercised”. The main features driving this process are well known – the ubiquity of cheap, simple recording devices such as camera phones; the ease of access to publication platforms such as YouTube, Flickr, and Tumblr; the declining influence of traditional gatekeepers – from public affairs spokespeople to newspaper editors; and their replacement with a vast and complex global population of networked ‘prosumers’ of information. The new flows of information in the Internet Age challenge all old forms of communication, pushing information operations practices to prominence while challenging their traditional working assumptions.

It is in this new global environment that information operations practitioners find themselves having to adapt and develop effective methods and tools for influence. There are a number of examples in the three conceptual dimensions of the ‘information environment’⁵– connectivity, content, and cognitive – which suggests future paths of development and areas of activity. One element which is found throughout discussions of information operations in the Internet Age is the necessity to be proactive. Concerns about operational security (OPSEC) issues with social media are seen to inhibit proper engagement with new platforms, it is argued that while there are legitimate concerns these can be addressed with proper training and sensible regulation. An institutional shift is emerging which sees the initiative handed to younger ‘digital native’ officers who are “used to connectivity and have learned from it” and who have “reinforced and invigorated a culture of peer learning” through new media tools, in order to overcome the over-cautious, OPSEC-focussed approach of ‘digital immigrant’ senior officers.⁶ This new embrace of connectivity is seen as important in order not to “cede the high ground by ignoring or short changing new media”.⁷

Shifts are also emerging in approaches to military-civilian interaction: information operations now take place on a number of platforms (social media, leaflets, face-to-face, radio, etc.) and should be conducted under a concept, a comprehensive report by the US Army War College suggests⁸, based on the idea of “information engagement” rather than “information dominance” – a now impossible aim. This means a move away from the broadcasting of content and towards discourse, from monologic to dialogic forms of communication. If social media tools are simply seen as another platform on which to broadcast set messages, they will not be seen as credible. This ‘engagement’ imperative also calls for prolonged and consistent engagement with audiences, rather than simply reactive initiatives – this is described by Professor Dennis Murphy⁹as becoming “proactively reactive”.¹⁰ This stresses the importance of developing a latent knowledge of and relationship with audiences so that when more acute interaction is required there is a base of credibility from which to communicate. The message put out as information operations products should not be seen, it is argued, as attempting to dominate the information environment; information operations should aim to analyse the ‘static’ of the communicative space “find messages that are in [their] interests, and figure out how to increase their ‘volume’”¹¹.

New capabilities in quickly analysing the information environment to tailor messages is one of the areas in which social media offers an opportunity to information operations practitioners. Depending on the audience, there is potentially a huge amount of open source information (in social networks and blogs particularly) about preferences, culture, and opinions which can be drawn on to tailor messages and inform engagement. Colonel Thomas Mayfield III for example likens engaging online thorough social media to the counterinsurgent’s imperative to “live among the people”¹². Such engagement allows military units to develop situational awareness, with potential “’social media scouts’ observing, monitoring, and collecting information on the state of the online communication in the AOR” – laying the ground for a beneficial engagement with other COIN necessities such as familiarising combatants with local language and customs.¹³Thus while the new online environment throws up many challenges for information operations practitioners, it also offers opportunities to enhance interaction with audiences at the cognitive level, and develop practices which can harness new social media capabilities.

The pace of change of new communication technologies is something which information operations practitioners are beginning to come to terms with – and new concepts and practices are emerging which attempt to leverage these technologies in the new communication environment. However, as the rapid proliferation of these technologies continues the challenges experienced thus-far may be only the opening salvos in a long struggle in the information environment. With this in mind, the information operations challenges faced by NATO and the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya – where internet penetration had a relatively low influence – pale in comparison to potential conflict in hyper-connected environments. An area of operations as connected as Cairo during the Egyptian Revolution or London during the 2011 riots presents an informational environment many orders of magnitude more complex than anything previously faced. It is this sort of challenge the information operations practitioners look ahead to as they consider the impact of social and new media on their work.

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¹ Mullen (2009), ‘From The Chairman – Strategic Communication: Getting Back to Basics’, Joint Chief of Staffs Official Website

² USAWC, 2008, Bullets and Blogs: New Media and the Warfighter, page iv

³ Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell, Dennis M. Murphy and Anton Menning (2009), ‘Learning to Leverage New Media: The Israeli Defense Forces in Recent Conflicts’, Military Review, May-June 2009

⁴ Hjarvard, 2008:144, quoted in Hoskins and O’Loughlin (2010), War and The Media: The Emergence of Diffused War, p 5

⁵ According to US Army War College’s 2011 Information Operations Primer

⁶ USAWC, 2008, Bullets and Blogs: New Media and the Warfighter, page v

⁷ Caldwell, 2009: 27

⁸USAWC, 2008, Bullets and Blogs: New Media and the Warfighter, page2

⁹ Professor Murphy is the Director of the Information in Warfare Group in the Center for Strategic Leadership at the U.S. Army War College.

¹⁰Murphy, D (2012), ‘The Future of Influence in Warfare’, Joint Forces Quarterly, 64 (Q1)

¹¹USAWC, 2008, Bullets and Blogs: New Media and the Warfighter, page 16

¹²Colonel Thomas Mayfield III (2011), ‘A Commander’s Strategy for Social Media’, Joint Forces Quarterly

¹³Colonel Thomas Mayfield III (2011), ‘A Commander’s Strategy for Social Media’, Joint Forces Quarterly

Contributor:

Roy Revie

Roy Revie is a freelance writer and Phd candidate in Social and Policy Sciences at the University Of Bath. His doctoral research explores the information and communication aspects of contemporary conflict, with particular focus on the changing communication practices of government and military actors as they adapt to the challenges of Web 2.0.

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