Nice article and I appreciate the overview. When anyone asks for more resources, one should always ask:
1. Where are these resources coming from? Most governments do not create wealth, so they have to take it from somewhere else and there are always trade offs involved.
2. What is the end state of this revitalization? What specific force structure is required to achieve what goals? This will drive costs and how many ships, aircraft, ground systems, support networks and personnel are required.
3. Can you feasibly sustain this effort politically and financially?
If you do not know where you are going, how will you know when you have arrived (and I would absolutely ask the US Secretary of Defense the same questions)?
Hi Matthew, I read this article last year, it is a thought provoking analysis of the UK's position. Might be interesting, but is pre-Trump when a military relationship with the US was very different so may be a bit dated now. However, the analysis is interesting, and universal because all small militaries face the same issues.
There are two often-conflated things, I think: the additional resources needed to get back to being able to do what we say we can do (which we currently can’t); and then where status quo-plus resources, if I can call them that, should be spent. Two very different questions with potentially different answers.
Incidentally, I wrote an article for The Critic on the global footprint the British Overseas Territories give us. However they came to be so, they exist and are a strategic asset in many ways.
Hello! Yes - very much an issue I will be addressing in the next piece. I would note that the problem is compounded by the UK's inability to decide exactly what the focus of its Armed Forces should be, our tendency to (as you note) fundamentally lie about what we can do, and the habit of pretending that what we have fits sovereign and NATO requirements when it doesn't.
Absolutely. Mixture of aspirations and realism, hoping the latter will somehow reify the former. Plus short-termism. Very much look forward to the next piece.
The irony of ‘people’ being our biggest strength and yet we’re undermanned, under equipped, under trained, and most importantly lacking any cultural national identity for anyone to want to join. This is dangerously optimistic and neglectful of facts. Try this:
While the need for "more" is dire across many domains, I see a couple of problems.
Wokeness at the very top is resulting in attempts to recruit minorities for "equity" reasons eg the RAF pilot scandal. This won't work. The primary source of recruits in the UK is young white men. If recruiting efforts are not aimed at them then the result will be very suboptimal, if not an outright failure. Successful armed forces flow from the quality of the people. Recruiting failures ultimately lead to operational failures.
Also, the financial situation of the UK appears to be rather dire. There is no money to purchase more of anything. Are the people of the UK prepared to sacrifice health/education/whatever to buy more tanks for the army? I'm not so sure, particularly when vast amounts are being wasted on net zero lunacy like the heat pump campaign and enormous wind farms.
I think that is a misreading of the recruitment problem. It is not that people don't want to serve - the Armed Forces receieve far more applications than places - but the process of joining up is extremely inefficient and arcane which leads to applicants dropping off or being dropped in high numbers. Its more of an output issue than an input issue, made worse by poor retention at the far end.
Comparisons are always imperfect, but a reminder that the average RAF pilot in the 1940s was barely twenty years of age.
And the planes went half as fast and there were 1/4 as many knobs and dials in the cockpit.
Matt, your style is brisk and entertaining!
Thank you!
Nice article and I appreciate the overview. When anyone asks for more resources, one should always ask:
1. Where are these resources coming from? Most governments do not create wealth, so they have to take it from somewhere else and there are always trade offs involved.
2. What is the end state of this revitalization? What specific force structure is required to achieve what goals? This will drive costs and how many ships, aircraft, ground systems, support networks and personnel are required.
3. Can you feasibly sustain this effort politically and financially?
If you do not know where you are going, how will you know when you have arrived (and I would absolutely ask the US Secretary of Defense the same questions)?
Hi Matthew, I read this article last year, it is a thought provoking analysis of the UK's position. Might be interesting, but is pre-Trump when a military relationship with the US was very different so may be a bit dated now. However, the analysis is interesting, and universal because all small militaries face the same issues.
https://warontherocks.com/2024/02/the-tip-of-the-american-spear-how-the-united-kingdom-could-pursue-military-specialization/
There are two often-conflated things, I think: the additional resources needed to get back to being able to do what we say we can do (which we currently can’t); and then where status quo-plus resources, if I can call them that, should be spent. Two very different questions with potentially different answers.
Incidentally, I wrote an article for The Critic on the global footprint the British Overseas Territories give us. However they came to be so, they exist and are a strategic asset in many ways.
https://thecritic.co.uk/protect-the-botnet/
Hello! Yes - very much an issue I will be addressing in the next piece. I would note that the problem is compounded by the UK's inability to decide exactly what the focus of its Armed Forces should be, our tendency to (as you note) fundamentally lie about what we can do, and the habit of pretending that what we have fits sovereign and NATO requirements when it doesn't.
Absolutely. Mixture of aspirations and realism, hoping the latter will somehow reify the former. Plus short-termism. Very much look forward to the next piece.
The irony of ‘people’ being our biggest strength and yet we’re undermanned, under equipped, under trained, and most importantly lacking any cultural national identity for anyone to want to join. This is dangerously optimistic and neglectful of facts. Try this:
https://unherd.com/2025/02/the-fantasy-of-british-defence/
While the need for "more" is dire across many domains, I see a couple of problems.
Wokeness at the very top is resulting in attempts to recruit minorities for "equity" reasons eg the RAF pilot scandal. This won't work. The primary source of recruits in the UK is young white men. If recruiting efforts are not aimed at them then the result will be very suboptimal, if not an outright failure. Successful armed forces flow from the quality of the people. Recruiting failures ultimately lead to operational failures.
Also, the financial situation of the UK appears to be rather dire. There is no money to purchase more of anything. Are the people of the UK prepared to sacrifice health/education/whatever to buy more tanks for the army? I'm not so sure, particularly when vast amounts are being wasted on net zero lunacy like the heat pump campaign and enormous wind farms.
I think that is a misreading of the recruitment problem. It is not that people don't want to serve - the Armed Forces receieve far more applications than places - but the process of joining up is extremely inefficient and arcane which leads to applicants dropping off or being dropped in high numbers. Its more of an output issue than an input issue, made worse by poor retention at the far end.