Quotulatiousness

October 4, 2010

Winning the media war

Filed under: Asia, Media, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:03

Strategypage reports on the ongoing struggle by both the Taliban and the NATO/US forces to influence media coverage, both inside Afghanistan and in the outside world:

In Afghanistan, the Taliban have been very successful with the media, mainly because they give the media what they want, or an offer they can’t refuse. The Taliban know that the media loves stories where the underdog prevails, or where the powers-that-be screw up. Put out the right kind of disinformation, and the media will take it and run it as the truth. Or at least something that could, might or ought to be true somewhere.

The Taliban media people know what the Western and regional media want, and this is provided. For example, the Taliban have invented the idea that Western troops are causing most of the civilian deaths in the Taliban effort to regain control of Afghanistan. But the truth, which is published but not emphasized much, is that most of the civilians are killed by the Taliban, and the Western troops have been killing fewer and fewer civilians, even at the risk of more Western casualties. The Taliban regularly use civilians as human shields. Again, the media mentions that, but it’s something for the back pages. The headlines stress what the Taliban wants, mainly that they are winning, even when they are losing.

For a backwards, almost medieval group, the Taliban (or their non-Afghani advisors) have developed a talent for manipulating the international media coverage:

But you don’t have to bribe or threaten Western media. Just package your lies in an acceptable manner, and your message will be delivered. The Taliban are smart enough to constantly recast their press releases to suit the perceived needs of Western and regional media. All they have to do is note what stories editors are running, and work up new stuff with a Taliban angle. Thus while corruption has been an Afghan cultural problem for centuries, the Western media will swallow whole a Taliban press release suggesting that the Taliban are less corrupt (they aren’t) and this more attractive to the average Afghan (not according to opinion polls, or reports from American troops who deal with local Afghans every day.) But in the Western media, you survive by pushing what will sell, not what is actually happening.

October 3, 2010

Pakistan’s self-harming border closure

Filed under: Asia, Economics, Military, Railways — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:22

Strategypage shows why Pakistan is doing itself more harm than good on the Afghan border:

After a recent incident where U.S. helicopter gunships crossed into Pakistan, in hot pursuit of Islamic terrorists, and killed three Pakistani soldiers (and a lot more terrorists), Pakistan cut one of the two NATO supply routes that pass through Pakistan. Aside from the fact that the Pakistani soldiers fired on the NATO helicopters (which they often do, even when the choppers are on the Afghan side of the border), the U.S. didn’t have to remind the Pakistanis that such a gesture was self-defeating. The Pakistani government is heavily dependent on American economic and military aid, and more and more of the supplies for foreign troops in Pakistan is coming from non-Pakistani sources. This hurts Pakistani businesses that move, and often provide, the supplies.

At the moment, about half those supplies come through Pakistan. The Pakistanis only closed, for about a day, one of the two main routes. About 30 percent of the supplies come in via Central Asia railroads, and another comes from the Black Sea, via rail to the Afghan border. The remaining 20 percent comes in by air. But some of that may be shifted to the Central Asian route, which is much safer (from bandits, bad roads and the Taliban) than the Pakistan routes.

Pakistan may have helped create conditions that will actually improve the economies of several other countries:

Shipping supplies to Afghanistan via Russian and Central Asian railroads has advantages for the nations it passes through. Russia has an economic interest in this, as more traffic makes it financially attractive for Central Asian nations to invest in upgrading their rail connections to Afghanistan. Tajikistan, for example, is extending its railroad to the Afghan border by building another 145 kilometers of track. Afghanistan itself has no railroads, mainly because there is not enough economic activity in the country to make this worthwhile. Foreign donors have contributed billions of dollars since 2002 to build more paved roads in Afghanistan. Currently, there are 42,000 kilometers of roads there, but only a third are paved. There are few rivers, much less navigable ones, and no access to the sea. The place has long been a logistical nightmare. Most Afghans recognize that roads will make the country more prosperous, by making it economically feasible to export many commodities, and cheaper to bring in, and distribute, foreign goods. Naturally, the Taliban are opposed to all this road building, as it threatens the poverty and ancient customs that Islamic conservatives are so fond of.

September 30, 2010

Inter-service rivalry now compromising SAS training

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:50

Of all the various famous units the British have to boast of, surely the Special Air Service (SAS) is the top of the list. That status still doesn’t exempt the SAS from being a pawn in the ongoing battle between the Army and the RAF:

For five years now, the Royal Air Force (RAF), and the British Army have been feuding over the lack of aircraft for parachute training. The latest row involves Britain’s SAS (Special Air Service) commandos, who have been unable to train all their operators in complex parachuting techniques, because the RAF has been unable to provide transports to carry the SAS personnel into the air. This is considered a more serious matter than previous problems with not having enough transports to train members of the Parachute Regiment. The SAS threatens to send their operators to the United States for training, relying on long standing ties with their American counterparts (the U.S. Army Special Forces and SOCOM). This would be embarrassing for the RAF, and that would be the point.

This sort of feud has been going on for a long time. For example, four years ago it was revealed that the British Army had to decide between supplying its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and providing aircraft for its paratroopers to complete their training. As a result of this shortage, in 2005, only about 25 percent of paratroop trainees were able to make the required jumps, to become qualified parachutists. Back in 2003, 93 percent were able to successfully make their jumps. In addition to the morale boost, being a qualified paratrooper also gets you an extra $3,000 a year in bonus pay.

The RAF, rather like the US Air Force, has different priorities than the other services, and clearly doesn’t value their inter-operational harmony as highly as controlling the equipment and doctrine to support their own mission (as defined by air force commanders). This isn’t a new thing: it’s been going on since the first world war. It also shows a failure of leadership on the civilian side — the civilian bosses should be much more insistent on getting the overall mission done properly than in allowing these turf wars (cloud wars?) to interfere.

September 29, 2010

Transformer TX project initial funding awarded to AAI Corporation

Filed under: Military, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:14

Remember the “Flying Jeep” proposal? It’s still being pursued, as the initial funding for a flying gyrocopter/SUV has been awarded by DARPA:

Transformer TX, as we have previously reported, is intended to produce a vehicle able to drive on the ground with similar performance to a Humvee or other offroad vehicle. It must also be able to take off vertically with 1,000lb of passengers and payload aboard and fly about at altitudes up to 10,000 feet at speeds equivalent to normal light aircraft.

Perhaps best of all, the Transformer TX is also intended to be fully automated, capable of flying itself with only the most basic guidance from its human operator — who would not, therefore, need to be a highly trained pilot.

Admittedly, I know almost nothing about flying, but this sounds like getting something for nothing (that is, aren’t there laws of physics against this?):

The SR/C idea is basically a winged, propellor-driven light aeroplane with a set of free-spinning autogyro rotors on top. It’s not a helicopter: the engine can’t drive the rotors in flight, and a sustained hover isn’t possible. Nonetheless, though, the CarterCopter can take off vertically as required by Transformer TX rules.

It does this by having weighted rotor tips, meaning that a lot of energy can be stored in the spinning blades (rather as in a flywheel). Sitting on the ground, a small engine-driven “pre-rotator” assembly can gradually spin the rotors up to high speed. The pre-rotator, pleasingly, doesn’t have to transmit a lot of power — thus it is lightweight, cheap and simple compared to a helicopter’s transmission. Nor is the engine required to deliver the massive grunt required to keep chopper blades spinning hard enough to support the aircraft.

Once the rotors are at takeoff speed, the pre-rotator is declutched, the prop engaged and the pitch of the rotors pulled in so that they start to bite air. As they slow down, the energy stored in their whirling weighted tips blasts air down through the disc and the aircraft leaps vertically into the air in a “jump takeoff”.

Sounds amazingly like pulling yourself into the air by your own bootstraps . . .

Still, I’d like to eventually get that flying car I was promised all those years ago.

September 27, 2010

EMALS back on track in time to save British carrier fleet?

Filed under: Britain, Military, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:54

As discussed earlier, the Royal Navy has been watching the US Navy’s ongoing EMALS project carefully, as it might provide a major cost-saving for the new carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales. Recent testing shows the program appears to be back on track:

The US Navy’s plan to fit its next aircraft carrier with electromagnetic mass-driver catapults instead of steam launchers is reportedly on track, with shore trials using test weights a success. The progress of the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), the first of its kind, is of interest to the Royal Navy as it could offer a way to massively cut the money spent on the Service’s two new carriers — or, more accurately, to cut the money spent on their aeroplanes.

A statement issued last week by the US Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) says that the EMALS test installation at Lakehurst, New Jersey is going through its planned programme without difficulty.

[. . .]

CVN 78, aka USS Gerald R Ford, is the next US Navy supercarrier, now under construction. It’s very important to the USN that EMALS works, as it is acknowledged that it’s now too late to change the Ford’s design and fit her with steam catapults like all other US (and French) carriers. If for some reason EMALS isn’t a success, the US will have bought the biggest and most expensive helicopter carrier ever.

Though the steam catapult is actually a British invention, Blighty’s present pocket-size carriers don’t have any catapults at all. Thus they can only launch helicopters and short-takeoff Harrier jumpjets.

The problem for Britain’s decision makers is that the current carrier design limits them to the ultra-expensive F-35B, which will be roughly twice the price of the ships themselves to provide sufficient aircraft to make the carriers fully operational. Being able to swap out the deluxe F-35B for cheap-as-dirt F-18E’s may be enough to save both carriers from the ongoing cost-slashing by the ministry.

September 17, 2010

Duelling camo patterns

Filed under: Military, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:38

A brief outline of the US Army’s quest to find better camouflage patterns for troops in the field:

While the MultiCam was an improvement on the older ACU pattern uniforms, the troops did not get new packs (which also use cano pattern cloth) at the same time they received the MultiCam uniforms. Thus when troops went off into the hills, the combination of MultiCam uniforms and ACU pattern packs do a lot to ruin the camouflage effect.

The U.S. military has been having a tough decade when it comes to camouflage uniforms. Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. Army has changed camouflage patterns for their combat uniforms twice. First it was the adoption of digital patterns, then the current move to MultiCam.

It was SOCOM (special operations command) troops who first had second thoughts about the older digital camo pattern. The digital camouflage pattern uses “pixels” (little square or round spots of color, like you will find on your computer monitor if you look very closely), instead of just splotches of different colors. Naturally, this was called “digital camouflage.” This pattern proved considerably more effective at hiding troops than older methods.

For example, in tests, it was found that soldiers wearing digital pattern uniforms were 50 percent more likely to escape detection by other troops, than if they were wearing standard green uniforms. What made the digital pattern work was the way the human brain processed information. The small “pixels” of color on the cloth makes the human brain see vegetation and terrain, not people. One could provide a more technical explanation, but the “brain processing” one pretty much says it all. Another advantage of the digital patterns is that they can also fool troops using night vision scopes. American troops are increasingly running up against opponents who have night optics, so wearing a camouflage pattern that looks like vegetation to someone with a night scope, is useful.

September 16, 2010

Army, RN, RAF, and Trident replacement: pick any three

Filed under: Britain, Military, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:03

The British coalition government has declared that they will retain the nuclear option (that is, buy replacements for their current Trident submarines), but still seem to think that you can take £20bn from the Defence budget (in addition to the 10-20% savings you’re already demanding be made) and still have three viable services. Perhaps it’s a strange form of new math:

The £20bn replacement of the UK’s Trident nuclear deterrent could be put off until after 2015, according to reports.

The BBC said ministers were considering delaying the planned 2014 date in an effort to reduce short-term costs and head off a pre-general election political row.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said no decisions had yet been taken on the future of the submarine-based missile system, which is currently the subject of a value-for-money review.

It has been formally excluded from the ongoing strategic defence and security review (SDSR) but the Treasury has made clear the under-pressure MoD budget will have to pay for it. An influential committee of MPs yesterday warned that that decision would have very significant consequences for future defence spending.

Just as the coalition took office, it was mentioned that the previous Labour government had committed to spend £37bn on various new weapon systems, but had not actually provided the funding to make those purchases. Add a Trident replacement bill on top of that and there is no way to successfully pay the bills out of the current military budget.

There are always economies that can be made in military spending: it’s not unreasonable to assume that savings of 10% can be found in any military force. 20% is pushing the envelope too much unless a scaling-back of commitment is also part of the reduction. 20% cuts, no reduction in tasks, and the Trident replacements (even if you reduce the fleet from four to three) can’t be done.

Update: Lewis Page thinks the Trident replacement is essential:

Proper new Trident, with submarine-launched ballistic nukes, is the right call for the UK. Its cost is tiny compared to UK government spending — just half of a single year’s Department for Work and Pensions budget would buy new Trident boats, arm them, crew them and cover their running costs for decades.

Compared to the MoD’s much smaller budget the costs look bigger, but they are still small — and ICBM submarines represent far and away the best value for money in the MoD. For perhaps £20bn to £30bn in acquisition costs you get an unstoppable, unfindable nuclear hammer capable of shattering a nation in an afternoon. When one reflects that we have spent the same money to get the Eurofighter — a wildly expensive and now rather oldfashioned pure air-to-air platform — new Trident looks like a steal.

One major reason that the Eurofighter is such poor value for money, of course, has been repeated delay so as to achieve short-term savings in the past. This is also true of nearly every other procurement project in the MoD: cumulatively, past politicians failing to grasp nettles are now costing us billions every year. It has to stop, and stop now — as a taxpayer, quite frankly I don’t see why I should pay still more billions down the road just to keep Mr Cameron in Downing Street and Mr Clegg in the Cabinet today.

September 14, 2010

When the bureaucracy strangles its young

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:42

Noah Schactman uncovers the reason it takes a decade for the Pentagon to buy new weapons:

And you thought winning the Afghanistan war was tough. Try building the Army’s new armored vehicle. Or piecing together the Navy’s new network.

All of the complexity of the Afghan conflict — and all of the bureaucracy NATO used to manage the counterinsurgency effort — was summed up by a single spaghetti monster of a PowerPoint slide. “When we understand [it],” war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal joked when he saw the slide, “we’ll have won the war.”

But that slide was child’s play compared to the three-foot wall chart the military uses to explain its gajillion-step process for developing, buying, and maintaining gear. The “Integrated Acquisitions Technology and Logistics Life Cycle Management” diagram is kind of a precis to the whole interminable progression, from “decompose concept functional definition into component concepts & assessment objective” to “execute support program that meets materiel readiness and operational support performance requirements and sustains system in most cost-effective manner.” Stare long enough, and you’ll start to see why it takes a decade for the Defense Department to buy a tanker plane, or why marines are still reading web pages with Internet Explorer 6.

The chart is put out by the Pentagon’s Defense Acquisitions University, where the Pentagon educates 180,000 people a year on its, um, unique process for purchasing equipment.

Full-sized horror of the slide at the link. If you think you can survive the insanity of it.

September 10, 2010

The bitter choices facing Britain’s new National Security Council

Filed under: Britain, Military — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:40

The new National Security Council will have its first meeting next week. It’s expected to report on Britain’s defence priorities next month. For any kind of government body, that’s a breathtaking pace to set — and the decisions to be taken will have a huge impact on Britain’s armed forces for decades to come.

Thanks to poor decision-making on new defence purchases, the current government has to cut spending by an estimated 10 to 20%. Each service has major new equipment already in the pipeline, which means cancellation won’t automatically mean monetary relief for the government. The RAF has their priority purchase of 40 more Typhoon aircraft (costing £2.8 billion). The RN is desperate to keep their two new aircraft carriers on schedule for 2016 and 2018 (costing £5.2 billion for the ships and a mind-bending £10 billion for the F-35B aircraft to load on to them). In addition, the nuclear option needs to be renewed or (saving £20 billion) scrapped.

The Economist anticipates the bulk of the cuts going to the RAF and the army:

The RAF looks certain to be hit hard. Douglas Barrie, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, reckons that the air force will shrink dramatically, losing perhaps 200 jets through the early retirement of Tornadoes and Harriers and a scaling back of the plan for a 160-strong Typhoon fleet. Attack helicopters and unmanned drones will increasingly be used to support ground operations instead. The order for F-35 jets, which are to be shared between the navy and the air force, looks certain to be more than halved to around 60, saving more than £5 billion in purchase costs and at least as much in maintenance.

Theoretically, one or both of the navy’s aircraft carriers could be cancelled. That would drastically reduce Britain’s expeditionary capability; but the advanced state of construction, the amount of money already spent and the 10,000 or so jobs at stake make it unlikely. Ditching just one of them is impractical, since two are needed if one is to be continuously available for operations. Despite some excitable recent talk of sharing a carrier with France, the difficulty of agreeing what to do with such a shared vessel make that idea unworkable. Dr Fox has ruled it out, though he is exploring other areas of co-operation.

[. . .]

And despite Afghanistan, the army will not escape entirely. A growing emphasis on special forces in ground warfare, combined with rising scepticism about the future utility of heavy armour should allow two or three battalions of infantry to be eliminated, the mothballing of most of the army’s main battle tanks and thus big savings in manpower and logistical support. A smaller army — comprising perhaps 95,000 soldiers rather than the current 107,000 — would also make it possible to repatriate most of the roughly 19,000 British troops still stationed in Germany without building new bases or housing.

Can anyone adequately explain why Britain still has nearly 20,000 troops in Germany at this late date? What possible strategic value are they, sitting in the middle of Europe?

September 7, 2010

A different kind of “outreach”

Filed under: Asia, Military, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:42

Looks like Terry Jones and his Dove World Outreach Center got exactly the level of attention he was looking for:

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said the planned burning of Qurans on Sept. 11 by a small Florida church could put the lives of American troops in danger and damage the war effort.

Gen. David Petraeus said the Taliban would exploit the demonstration for propaganda purposes, drumming up anger toward the U.S. and making it harder for allied troops to carry out their mission of protecting Afghan civilians.

“It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort,” Gen. Petraeus said in an interview. “It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community.”

Over at Fark.com, they have a highly appropriate term for people like Mr. Jones: they call them “attention whores”. Seems to fit.

On the other hand, wouldn’t an appropriate counter-protest involve a small mosque in Kabul burning some Christian bibles? I wonder why nobody’s doing that instead of the mass protests being threatened? It should probably be noted that this church has fifty members: hardly the mainstream of American religious belief.

September 6, 2010

The start of the Blitz, 1940

Filed under: Britain, Germany, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:44

September, 1940: the start of the Blitz:

The London Blitz started quietly. Less than 100 incidents reported by the London Fire Brigade up to 5pm on September 7, 1940. Only a few weeks after the British victory in the Battle of Britain, what came then must have been a terrible shock for Londoners. You can read the original Guardian archive report of the night here.

At 5.30pm, some 348 German bombers escorted by 617 fighters pounded London until 6.00pm. Guided by the flames, a second group attacked with more incendiary bombs two hours later, lasting into the next day.

Note, that link to the Guardian archive is a bit badly behaved: it resized my browser window.

Update: Rare colour footage of the Blitz.

September 5, 2010

No longer “underhand, underwater and damned un-English”

Filed under: Britain, Military, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:38

BBC News looks at the newest nuclear-powered attack submarine in the Royal Navy, HMS Astute:

It is the stealthiest sub ever built in the UK, able to sit in waters off the coast undetected, listening to mobile phone conversations or delivering the UK’s special forces where needed.

The 39,000 or so acoustic panels which cover its surface mask its sonar signature, meaning it can sneak up on enemy warships and submarines alike, or simply lurk unseen and unheard at depth.

The submarine can carry a mix of up to 38 Spearfish heavyweight torpedoes and Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise missiles, able to target enemy submarines, surface ships and land targets, while its sonar system has a range of 3,000 nautical miles.

[. . .]

HMS Astute itself should never need refuelling over the next 25 years, thanks to the latest nuclear-powered technology which means it can circumnavigate the world submerged.

It even creates the crew’s oxygen from seawater as it sails, meaning that the air on board is no longer heavy with diesel fumes, as submariners used to complain of older vessels. The only limit to how long it can stay underwater is the amount of food on board, enough for 90 days at sea.

Rather a big step up from the diesel-electric clunkers we bought from them, wouldn’t you say? H/T to Adrian MacNair for the link.

September 4, 2010

Swedish army gets serious about recruiting women

Filed under: Europe, Humour, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:24

H/T to Chris Blattman. This is from a collection of recruiting videos put together by Gawker.

September 2, 2010

“How can you fall in love if you can’t see her face?”

Filed under: Asia, Military, Religion — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:24

Along with the manifold military problems facing the troops in Afghanistan, there are some social issues that tend to boggle the minds of the western soldiers:

Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy’s father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to “touch and fondle them,” military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. “The soldiers didn’t understand.”

[. . .]

Sociologists and anthropologists say the problem results from perverse interpretation of Islamic law. Women are simply unapproachable. Afghan men cannot talk to an unrelated woman until after proposing marriage. Before then, they can’t even look at a woman, except perhaps her feet. Otherwise she is covered, head to ankle.

“How can you fall in love if you can’t see her face,” 29-year-old Mohammed Daud told reporters. “We can see the boys, so we can tell which are beautiful.”

Even after marriage, many men keep their boys, suggesting a loveless life at home. A favored Afghan expression goes: “Women are for children, boys are for pleasure.” Fundamentalist imams, exaggerating a biblical passage on menstruation, teach that women are “unclean” and therefore distasteful. One married man even asked Cardinalli’s team “how his wife could become pregnant,” her report said. When that was explained, he “reacted with disgust” and asked, “How could one feel desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean?”

It’s a telling point that western troops were committed to Afghanistan without being fully briefed on the social customs of the people for whom and among whom they’d be doing their jobs. Ignorance isn’t a solid basis for any kind of trust, and without gaining the trust of locals, the troops will always be at a severe informational disadvantage.

September 1, 2010

British and French navies consider going “sharesies” on aircraft carriers

Filed under: Britain, Economics, France, Military — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 13:06

Matt Gurney reports on a bizarre scheme for Britain and France to share their carriers:

The rumoured plan to share the vessels would have certain advantages, to be sure. But it would also have certain ironies. Until the very recent past, the French and the British hated one another for approximately a thousand years, give or take a century. They battled each other endlessly, usually on the high seas. Progress is great and peace is nifty, but could anyone ever again look upon Lord Nelson’s monument in Trafalgar Square without chuckling if they knew the British Isles were protected by a glitchy French carrier named after a colossal thorn in the revered Churchill’s side?

The British have been quick to stamp out these rumours, calling them unwarranted speculation. But it’s interesting to even consider. Set aside the issue of the French and Royal navies co-operating, because stranger things have happened. Not many, but some. Every major Western military power, including Canada, is facing the same crunch. Sure, Prime Minister Harper made a big splash when his government announced plans to spend $16-billion on F-35 fighters, but lots of other things aren’t getting done. New destroyers? New search and rescue aircraft? An armoured vehicle refit? Frigate modernization? Show me the money! Or don’t. There is no money. If they are indeed discussing sharing their carriers, the French and the Brits at least deserve some credit for original thinking.

Original yes, but flawed. The rumoured plan doesn’t involve jointly constructing or manning vessels, but coordinating the patrol schedules of their respective carriers so that at least one would be at sea at all times. This would give both countries the capability to respond swiftly to threats in their shared North Atlantic area, or to react immediately to crises and disasters around the world (Whether for battle or rescue, few military assets can equal the utility of an aircraft carrier). Whichever carrier was deployed at any given time would remain under the command of its own national government, but there would apparently be contingencies to deal with a purely national military situation.

I doubt that the plan, even as scaled-down as indicated, would be workable, but it does show that the Royal Navy is seriously concerned that the new government will deprive them of the funds needed to complete the two new aircraft carriers already underway. Any extra leverage to persuade the government to avoid killing the program (like getting the French involved) may be seen as a good tactical tool.

Update, 3 September: The Guardian reports on the prospect of French/British military co-operation:

Fox stressed the coalition government’s “willingness to engage in stronger bilateral co-operation with France”.

He added: “And why France? Because there are two things that matter most when it comes to defence co-operation: the willingness to deploy and the willingness to spend on the research and development required to maintain modern military capabilities. That makes France the natural European partner for the United Kingdom.”

Fox said it was not simply a response to budgetary pressures. “It has to be driven by wider security interests.”

Morin said the two countries would come up with precise proposals by the end of October, after Britain’s strategic defence and security review.

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