March 26, 2012
Rick Mercer updates us on the status of the F-35
March 25, 2012
Time Capsule: Red Mike’s review of Starship Troopers
Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers is still one of my all-time favourite science fiction books. For that reason alone, I avoided going to see Verhoeven’s film “adaptation”. To more than make up for that, here’s a great review of the film … by that, I mean the review is great, not the film:
We start off with a news report from the surface of the planet Klendathu, the bugs’ home world, where you will instantaneously flash on that Korean-war era song,
“Hear the sound of runnin’ feet
It’s the old First Cav in full retreat
They’re haulin’ ass,
Not savin’ gas,
They’ll soon be gone.”Things are bad and getting worse, as a mob of Mobile Infantry types mill about, getting in each others’ lines of fire, screaming things like “Run for your life!” or words to that effect. It isn’t until later in the film that you discover that milling about is the only formation they practice regularly, and aimless running is their chief tactical mode.
[. . .]
Our heroes head to the surface, where they mill about some more. The concepts of formation, organization, and command and control appear to have been lost. They top a rise and stand in dumb amazement, one thumb in their mouth and one in their ass playing switch, as they see giant bugs expand with gas, then lift tail toward the sky and blast a blue-white fart of anti-spaceship gas up to where the fleet is in orbit.
Our guys stand shoulder to shoulder, firing at the mass of bugs, using a set of tactics that hasn’t worked well since Gettysburg. Actually, the guys at Gettysburg were a bit better better equipped for what they were doing, since they had artillery (a concept that has been lost, apparently) and weapons with an accurate range of over eight feet. Other lost concepts that would have proved Really Helpful here include close air support, mortars, air-dropped mines, barbed wire, fire, maneuver, cover, concealment, objectives, and useful orders. (I mean, “Kill everything that has more than two legs” is really neat, but “Go to coordinates XXYY, and set up a perimeter. Your covered arc runs from AA through CC. You’ll be linking up with Unit Name on your left and Other Unit Name on your right. Hold the position until you’re relieved by Unit Name. At that time go to YYZZ and await further orders” would have actually been helpful.) Nor, for that matter, do we have armored fighting vehicles, heavy machineguns, shoulder-launched missiles, or other stuff (a spray can of Raid?) that might have come in handy.
[. . .]
We go bug hunting again. And after an engagement that proves that a British Square from Waterloo would have done better than the MI at fighting bugs, we win anyway. We have a party! Dizzy and Johnny finally get it on. (I have to comment that I really liked the Special Effects in this film. Especially Dizzy’s left special effect and her right special effect. Carmen has even bigger special effects, but she never whips her shirt off so it’s hard to be sure.)
March 24, 2012
The less-than-glamorous reality of Cold War spy work
A review of Steve Gibson’s Live and Let Spy: BRIXMIS – The Last Cold War Mission by Bill Durodié at spiked!:
Called the British Commander-in-Chief’s Mission to the Group Soviet Forces of Occupation in Germany, or BRIXMIS for short, it was part of an officially sanctioned exchange of observers between the Red Army and the British Army established by the victorious Allied powers and the USSR through the Robertson-Malinin agreement in 1946. Its ostensible purpose was to improve communication and relations between them.
In addition to BRIXMIS — and their French and American counterparts in the East — the Red Army also conducted similar operations through a unit in West Germany. But, diplomatic liaison and translation duties aside, the real purpose of these units soon became clear: to find out what each other was up to by heading out into those areas where they had been specifically told not to go.
[. . .]
For anyone who imagines that spying is glamorous, or somehow akin to being in a Bond movie, they will be disabused by Gibson’s chapter on document-gathering from dumps (literally). It had been recognised for some time that, when they went on manoeuvres in East Germany, the Soviet forces were not supplied with any toilet paper. They would use whatever came to hand — a copy of Pravda, a letter from a loved one, or even their mission papers. And after they were done, it was then that Her Majesty’s specially trained and equipped Cold War warriors really came into their own…
The book is republished with an expanded final chapter reflecting on what happened in the time following the fall of the Iron Curtain:
As a professor of political science at the University of Warwick, Robert Aldrich, notes in the new foreword, Gibson is now clearly of the mind that ‘much of what [he] was led to believe [during the Cold War], and some of what he was told, was simply wrong!’
[. . .]
Gibson’s resolute clearsightedness is to be admired. So despite having been caught up in the exhilaration of it all as a young man, despite devoting the prime of his life to the East-West conflict, he refuses to lie to himself. ‘The Cold War’, he notes, ‘was a giant historical cul-de-sac where all enlightened efforts at producing a good society were suspended’.
Aldrich astutely summarises a key argument of Live and Let Spy: ‘while Cold War warriors fought a tyrannical and ruthless version of Communism abroad, they remained ignorant of — and lost — an ideological battle at home’. He then adds accusingly: ‘Western politicians now offer a watered-down version of the interfering, intolerant, controlling and authoritarian government that they were initially set against rather than anything freer.’
March 23, 2012
Facebook seen as harmful … to deployed troops
Strategy Page explains how increasing sophistication on the part of the al Qaeda/Taliban forces has been allowing them to select targets of opportunity through things like Facebook posts and cell phone traffic:
The U.S. Army is warning its troops to be careful what they post to on social networking sites (like Facebook). When they post photos of themselves they often reveal militarily useful information. This was discovered in Iraq, where a lot of tech savvy people working with terrorists were able to compile information from what troops posted. This sometimes led to attacks, and this was discovered from interrogating captured terrorists and captured documents and computer data. The background of pictures often indicated targets for the terrorists, or details of base defenses and American tactics. Islamic terrorists have been quick to use the Internet and other modern technology to plan and carry out their attacks.
Some of this technology can be very dangerous, like the geo-locating capability of many smart phones (which include GPS receivers and location data that hackers can obtain.) Troops in combat zones are ordered to turn geo-locating off while in areas where the enemy could use it. Even without geo-locating turned on, cell phone use can provide militarily useful information. This goes back to a century old practice called traffic analysis. This has been used with great success against terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, but it can be used against the troops.
[. . .]
Al Qaeda was long suspected of knowing how to manipulate message traffic in order to deceive our traffic analysis methods. This was rarely the case, but this form of deception has been used in the past with success. For example, when the June 6, 1944 D-Day invasion of France was being planned, a fake army group headquarters was set up in England. Actually, this “army group” consisted largely of a lot of radio and telegraph operators sending a large number of messages that would be normal if the “army group” were preparing for an invasion of France, in an area other than where the actual invasion was going to take place. The deception worked. German traffic analysis experts were fooled and the Germans believed the actual invasion at Normandy was just a feint, a move to get the Germans to send their reinforcements to Normandy rather than were the fake “army group” was going to invade.
Intelligence agencies have to be constantly on the guard for al Qaeda, or any other terrorist group, using this kind of deception. It has happened in a few instances, so a larger-scale attempt is not out of the question.
March 22, 2012
GAO latest to attempt to shoot down the F-35
The situation is looking grimmer for all potential purchasers of the F-35, not just the RCAF:
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the supposed backbone of the Pentagon’s future air arsenal, could need additional years of work and billions of dollars in unplanned fixes, the Air Force and the Government Accountability Office revealed on Tuesday. Congressional testimony by Air Force and Navy leaders, plus a new report by the GAO, heaped bad news on a program that was already almost a decade late, hundreds of billions of dollars over its original budget and vexed by mismanagement, safety woes and rigged test results.
At an estimated $1 trillion to develop, purchase and support through 2050, the Lockheed Martin-built F-35 was already the most expensive conventional weapons program ever even before Tuesday’s bulletins. The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps are counting on buying as many as 2,500 F-35s to replace almost every tactical jet in their current inventories. More than a dozen foreign countries are lined up to acquire the stealthy, single-engine fighter, as well.
[. . .]
If cuts do occur, the U.S. will be in good company. Australia, Canada and Japan have already begun backing away from the troubled JSF as the new plane has gradually exceeded their budgets. For these countries, alternatives include the Super Hornet and an upgraded F-15 from Boeing, Lockheed’s new F-16V and the European Typhoon, Rafale and Gripen fighters. But so far the U.S. military prefers the F-35, even if the stealthy jet is more than a decade late, twice as expensive as originally projected and available in fewer numbers. “We will remain committed to the long-term success of the F-35 program,” Air Combat Command asserted.
Update, 23 March: The summary of the GAO report with a link to the PDF version for download.
US Marine Corps facing 9% cut in troop strength and aviation
Strategy Page has the details:
Because of budget cuts, the U.S. Marine Corps is losing four (of 27) infantry battalions and twelve (of 70) aircraft squadrons over the next five years. About half the marine aviation squadrons operate transport helicopters. Most of the fixed wing squadrons are bombers and fighters.
These cuts will result in jobs for 20,000 marines being eliminated, shrinking the marines to 182,000 personnel. Most of the units lost are from marine bases on the east coast. The Pacific, and China, is seen as the focus of Marine Corps attention in the future.
In effect the marines will lose nine percent of their personnel strength by the end of the decade. The marines want to do that without losing their most experienced and effective people. The idea is to keep officers and NCOs best able to expand the corps in the event of a national emergency, while at the same time maintaining, for as long as possible, a force that has lots of combat experience.
March 20, 2012
“You’d have to be blind and deaf not to know how much this project has gone off the rails”
In the National Post, John Ivison explains why he thinks the new Auditor-General will have a field day examining the F-35 project:
Alan Williams is a retired assistant deputy minister, responsible for procurement at DND in the early years of the F-35 project, and recently he shared his thoughts on the shortcomings of the tendering process with the Office of the Auditor-General. “The whole process was twisted to suit the needs of the military, with the acknowledgment and support of ministers. It was totally unacceptable,” he said.
He thinks the government should write a new statement of requirement and put the whole project out to an open competition.
“You could run a competition today and have it done within two years,” he said. “You’d have to be blind and deaf not to know how much this project has gone off the rails.”
He said that in his experience, maintenance costs on sophisticated military equipment run at two to three times acquisition costs. He believes the eventual cost to taxpayers for the F-35s is likely to be $25- to $30-billion — double the current government estimate.
It’s quite possible that the F-35 purchase was a bad idea, and that the military rigged the competition from the start. Not inevitable, but possible. The criticism of the military procurement process in the article is a bit over-done, especially here in Canada where almost any military spending has to be assessed primarily for political advantage and regional distribution before the actual military benefit or value to the taxpayers is taken into account. Every major project’s specifications are “tweaked” to meet certain overriding criteria.
To oversimplify, if the item in question is available from two different suppliers that provide effectively the same function, tacking on a secondary requirement that only one of the suppliers can readily meet distorts the process to favour that supplier. It’s not usually that blatant, but if it happens when the item in question is as simple as network cable or packaging material or socks, you can be certain that it happens for multi-billion dollar purchases whose specifications are the size of paperback novels.
UK naval strategy needed
Writing in the Telegraph, Chris Parry says that it’s not going to be possible to resolve the debate over the proper size and shape of the Royal Navy without deciding on the strategy first:
Vigorous debate about the role, size and shape of the Royal Navy is all the rage at the moment. Numerous broadsides are being exchanged over whether the Navy is equipped to defend the Falklands; the affordability and configuration of future aircraft carriers; the appropriate numbers of destroyers and frigates; and the introduction of new uniforms that wouldn’t look out of place in a fast food outlet.
Lord West, the former First Sea Lord and a Falklands veteran, suggests it is “bonkers” that the Royal Navy has only 19 frigates and destroyers. But such is the culture of intellectual and strategic relativism in which these arguments take place that neither politicians nor the public have any idea whether 19 or 25 or 30 frigates and destroyers is the right number. All of these issues tinker around the edges of the real problem — the fact that no one is prepared to define what Britain wants the Royal Navy to do as part of a coherent maritime strategy.
The essence of military strategy lies in reconciling ends (what the public and politicians want), means (what they can afford) and ways (the ability of the military to deliver, in practical and technological terms). When these elements are out of balance — or one or more of them is inadequate — then defence programmes and spending tend to be incoherent and wasteful. On operations, an imbalance leads to mission failure and in some cases can be fatal, as was seen in Afghanistan, where it is doubtful whether at the start there were adequate levels of political direction, resources or military delivery.
It’s especially important that Britain and other NATO countries get their naval houses in order, as the US Navy is facing its own “east of Suez” crisis right now. The bedrock of NATO naval planning has always been the strength of the US Navy: every other NATO country could skimp a bit, here and there (or, as Canada did in the 1970s and 1980s, everywhere), and the Americans could always scrape up a spare carrier task force or submarine patrol to fill the gap. That won’t be true soon, and may already not be true now — the US Navy is at or approaching maximum strategic stretch … and will be retiring more ships soon.
March 18, 2012
The ever-expanding role for women in the military
An interesting article at Strategy Page:
The growing number of women in the military is largely driven by the need for people with scarce skills. Since most (over 80 percent) of military jobs have little, or nothing, to do with combat, if you can’t find enough qualified men, you can recruit women. This is especially true in the West, where females tend to be better educated than males. Thus women comprise about ten percent of the troops in Western armed forces. In the United States this is 15 percent for active duty troops, and 18 percent for the reserves. Civilian contractors, who are taking back some of the military jobs they performed for thousands of years, have an even higher percentage of females.
All this reflects growing female participation in the post-agricultural economy. We tend to forget that as recently as the 19th century, 90 percent of humanity were engaged in agriculture. It had been that way for thousands of years. With industrialization, women began to stay at home with the kids, and no longer work the same jobs (as they did in agriculture) with their husbands. But in the last sixty years, women have returned to their traditional place in the economy.
[. . .]
This current trend in using women and contractors are actually a return to the past, when many of the “non-combat” troops were civilians. Another problem is the shrinking proportion of troops who actually fight. A century ago, most armies comprised over 80 percent fighters and the rest “camp followers (support troops) in uniform.” Today the ratio is reversed, and therein resides a major problem. Way back in the day, the support troops were called “camp followers,” and they took care of supply, support, medical care, maintenance and “entertainment” (that’s where the term “camp follower” got a bad name). The majority of these people were men, and some of them were armed, mainly for defending the camp if the combat troops got beat real bad and needed somewhere to retreat to.
[. . .]
One of the great revolutions in military operations in this century has been in the enormous increase in support troops. This came after a sharp drop in the proportion of camp followers in the 18th and 19th centuries. Before that it was common for an army on the march to consist of 10-20 percent soldiers and the rest camp followers. There was a reason for this. Armies “in the field” were camping out and living rough could be unhealthy and arduous if you didn’t have a lot of servants along to take care of the camping equipment and help out with the chores. Generals usually had to allow a lot of camp followers in order to get the soldiers to go along with the idea of campaigning.
Only the most disciplined armies could do away with all those camp followers and get the troops to do their own housekeeping. The Romans had such an army, with less than half the “troops” being camp followers. But the Romans system was not re-invented until the 18th century, when many European armies trained their troops to do their own chores in the field, just as the Romans had. In the 19th century, steamships and railroads came along and made supplying the troops even less labor intensive, and more dependent on civilian support “troops.” The widespread introduction of conscription in the 19th century also made it possible to get your “camp followers” cheap by drafting them and putting them in uniform.
March 16, 2012
HMCS Victoria successfully test fired a torpedo
After all these years, we apparently will soon have torpedo-armed subs in the Royal Canadian Navy:
These torpedo firings are part of the technical and operational tests of Victoria‘s weapons systems and additional weapons system trials are scheduled for the spring of 2012. In the exercise version of the torpedo, the warhead module is replaced with electronics for gathering test data.
Victoria also participated in training with a naval task group while off the west coast of Vancouver Island, focussing on coordinated anti-submarine warfare tactics. Equipment and crew trials will continue throughout March as part of Victoria‘s program to being declared fully operational later this summer.
The submarine fleet will achieve steady state in 2013; at which point Canada will have three of four submarines continuously available for operations. As part of the ongoing submarine operational cycle, the fourth submarine will be with industry, undergoing necessary deep maintenance. Submarines are an essential component of a modern, first-class Navy with a balanced set of capabilities that can act in defence of Canada and Canadian interests above and below the sea.
Recent stories about the Victoria class submarines here and here.
March 14, 2012
A possible solution to Canada’s long, long search for new search-and-rescue aircraft
David Akin in the Toronto Sun:
Here’s the back story: For nearly a decade, the Department of National Defence has had cabinet approval to go out and spend $3.1 billion on new search-and-rescue planes. That’s a big contract and several aircraft vendors wanted to win that deal.
Aircraft makers and their lobbyists knew which buttons to push within DND but also at other key government departments such as Public Works and Government Services and at Industry Canada.
The goal of the lobbyists was to rig the bid so only their plane could win.
Pulled eight ways to Sunday by the heavy lobbying, the bureaucrats at three departments kept pushing pieces of paper at each other but never got close to making some purchase decisions.
Now, with the possibility that the search-and-rescue purchase process could be tied up in the bureaucracy for yet another year (followed by delivery of planes years after that!) the government may be ready to slice through this Gordian Knot and simply turn to our American allies to pick up most of their fleet of C-27 Spartans.
Apparently one of the remaining hurdles to be cleared is that the manufacturer of the Spartan aircraft, Alenia Aermacchi, is trying to prevent the sale and is even threatening not to provide spare parts or service to any country that buys the aircraft from the US. I have no idea why, but I’m sure there’s a reason for it.
March 13, 2012
Yet another straw in the wind on Canada’s F-35 plans
An article by Murray Brewster, published in the Winnipeg Free Press looks at more signs that Canada may not be as tightly bound to their F-35 purchase plans:
The point man on the F-35 stealth fighter purchase says the Conservative government has not ruled out abandoning the troubled project.
“We have not, as yet, discounted the possibility, of course, of backing out of any of the program,” Julian Fantino associate defence minister, told the Commons defence committee on Tuesday.
He made the comment after a series of pointed questions from both opposition parties.
Fantino said the government is still committed to buying the radar-evading jet, but no contract has been signed.
The Conservatives still believe the high-tech jet is the best choice to replace the aging CF-18s, but the minister suggested they are taking a cautious approach.
None of the other nine allied nations involved in the program has yet withdrawn and the minister said: “We are not.”
[. . .]
In months of questioning in the House of Commons, Fantino has insisted there is no need for a backup plan in case of further delays in the project as the manufacturer works out software and design glitches.
But on Tuesday, he told the committee he was waiting for defence officials to prepare alternate scenarios to the F-35 deal, the so-called Plan B that opposition parties have demanded.
March 12, 2012
The role of narcissism in calls for military intervention in Syria
Brendan O’Neill says that one of the driving factors for those demanding military action in Syria is narcissism:
Failed Canadian politician Michael Ignatieff recently made waves with an op-ed in the Financial Times calling for Western intervention in Syria. Revisiting some of the themes of his 1990s writings (Ignatieff made a living championing ‘humanitarian interventionism’ before he led Canada’s Liberal Party to its worst electoral defeat ever), Igantieff said the West should impose a ‘comprehensive quarantine of Syria’ in order to ‘force [Assad] from power’.
Yet the most startling thing about his piece was not its extreme short-term historical amnesia, its ignorance of the disasters unleashed in Iraq and Afghanistan following Western meddling, but rather its exhibition of self-regard and self-concern, even of that most malignant form of self-love: narcissism. Ignatieff mentioned his own feelings about what is happening in Homs six times and the possible feelings of the people of Homs themselves only three times. His short op-ed mainly focused on the ‘guilt’ and ‘shame’ felt by people like Igantieff — that is, Western observers possessed of a good, caring, Sarajevo-informed ‘international conscience’ — while the ‘fear’ and ‘desperation’ of the people of Homs were given far briefer treatment.
This ratio of 2:1 between Ignatieff’s feelings of guilt and Syrians’ feelings of desperation not only suggests that modern Western interventionists are two times more obsessed with themselves than they are with the victims of foreign conflicts they claim to care so much about — it also reveals that what is really motoring the demands for Western intervention in Syria are the emotional needs of Western observers rather than the practical needs of Syrians. This kind of narcissism is now widespread among those who desperately want the ‘international community’ to intervene in Syria. These people are so amazingly vain that they see the bombing of Syria as a kind of balm for their guilt-ridden consciences, a physical act that might help to make their own emotional turmoil that bit more bearable. Their rallying cry should be: ‘Bomb Syria so that I can sleep at night.’
March 11, 2012
“[S]ince Vietnam, improved body armor has reduced casualties by more than half”
Strategy Page on the benefits and drawbacks of current body armour options for US troops in Afghanistan and other combat deployments:
The U.S. Army has been trying to reduce the load infantrymen carry into combat. This has proved difficult, no, make that extremely difficult. The problem began with the appearance of, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, of new body armor that offered better protection. The new “protective vest” was heavier and bulkier, thus inducing fatigue and hindering mobility. This often led to battlefield situations where a less tired, and more agile, infantryman could have avoided injury. Military and political leaders usually do not appreciate this angle. But the troops do, as it is a matter of life and death for them.
[. . .]
Until the 1980s, you could strip down (for actual fighting) to your helmet, weapon (assault rifle and knife), ammo (hanging from webbing on your chest, along with grenades), canteen and first aid kit (on your belt) and your combat uniform. Total load was 13-14 kg (about 30 pounds). You could move freely, and quickly, like this, and you quickly found that speed and agility was a lifesaver in combat. But now the minimum load carried is twice as much (27 kg), and, worse yet, more restrictive.
While troops complained about the new protective vests, they valued it in combat. The current generation of vests will stop rifle bullets, a first in the history of warfare. And this was after nearly a century of trying to develop protective vests that were worth the hassle of wearing. It wasn’t until the 1980s that it was possible to make truly bullet proof vests using metallic inserts. But the inserts were heavy and so were the vests (about 11.3 kg/25 pounds). Great for SWAT teams, but not much use for the infantry. But in the 1990s, additional research produced lighter, bullet proof, ceramic materials. By 1999 the U.S. Army began distributing a 7.3 kg (16 pound) “Interceptor” vest that provided fragment and bullet protection. This, plus the 1.5 kg (3.3 pound) Kevlar helmet (available since the 1980s), gives the infantry the best combination of protection and mobility. And just in time.
[. . .] The bullet proof vest eliminates most of the damage done by the 30 percent of wounds that occur in the trunk (of which about 40 percent tend to be fatal without a vest). The Kevlar helmet is also virtually bulletproof, but it doesn’t cover all of the head (the face and part of the neck is still exposed). Even so, the reduction in deaths is significant. Some 15-20 percent of all wounds are in the head, and about 45 percent of them are fatal without a helmet. The Kevlar helmet reduces the deaths by at least half, and reduces many wounds to the status of bumps, sprains and headaches. Half the wounds occur in the arms and legs, but only 5-10 percent of these are fatal and that won’t change any time soon. Thus since Vietnam, improved body armor has reduced casualties by more than half. The protective vests used in Vietnam and late in the Korean war reduced casualties by about 25 percent since World War II, so the risk of getting killed or wounded has been cut in half since World War II because of improved body armor.
March 9, 2012
The US Navy’s “east of Suez” moment
“Sir Humphrey” on the looming crisis of the United States Navy:
There has been a lot of attention paid in some quarters this week to the allegations that the UK may shift back to STOVL rather than CTOL F-35. Humphrey has no intention on commenting on these particular reports — to his mind they are part of the wider PR12 process, which has seen, and will doubtless continue to see, a plethora of leaks of selected texts designed to push one case, denigrate another and continue the endless routine of tribal warfare between the services and their capbadges. All will be revealed in late March, so there is little point in speculating much before this point.
What has been of more interest though has been the reporting on the F-35 and also the wider perception that the US Navy is about to take a very significant hit in surface fleet numbers over the next 2-3 years. According to documents released there will be the loss of roughly 20 escorts from cruisers to frigates, paid off into reserve. This represents almost 20% of the USN, and is likely to see the reduction in size to barely 80 escorts within the next 2-3 years.
This is a very significant reduction — it’s effectively the paying off of the equivalent of the entire RN surface flotilla without replacement. On current plans by 2015, then USN is going to have barely 60 Arleigh Burke class destroyers, and around 20 Ticonderoga class cruisers — both designs which date back to the late 1970s – early 1980s in concept, even if the interiors have been significantly updated in equipment since then.
[. . .]
The USN is now struggling to keep pace with the fact that its escort fleet is aging, that it has multiple carriers which require replacement at some point in the near future, and that its SSN fleet is also going to need updating soon as well. This must also be set against the reality that hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of cuts are inbound to the US defence budget, and that all three services have old and obsolescent equipment requiring replacement. It is hard to see how the US will be able to maintain its three services in their current levels of capability for much longer, and the worry is that a lot will have to give.
Humphrey is increasingly of the opinion that we are witnessing the USA’s ‘east of Suez moment’ at which the US is faced with the same strategic challenges that all empires are faced with. The legions will be recalled from Europe soon, and this is going to leave a major series of security and other challenges that need to be filled. A future blog article is planned to look at the impact of the USN cuts, and what the impact may be on the RN and other navies.
For those unfamiliar with the phrase in the title, it was in 1968 that the British government under Harold Wilson formally accepted that Britain could no longer maintain its military establishments in the furthest-flung corners of the former empire and announced the withdrawal of almost all forces from “east of Suez”. That was when the military (and economic) overstretch could no longer be maintained.
