AMERICAN OFFICER QUESTIONS
BRITISH DEFENSE COMMITMENT
L
IKE THE REST of the United
Kingdom’s military
establishment, the Royal Air
Force is growing smaller. Here
on the American side of the
Atlantic, where budget-driven
reductions-in-force are familiar and
painful, an American general is raising
questions about the UK’s ability to function
as a full partner in future confl icts.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph
on March 2, Gen Raymond Odierno said
that the United States is reviewing the role
of British troops in future confl icts. He said
some UK leaders are considering reducing
military spending to less than the two per
cent of gross domestic product expected of
NATO members. ‘I would be lying to you if
I did not say that I am very concerned
about the gross domestic product
investment in the UK’, he said.
In some sense, Odierno was posturing. A
Pentagon insider told me that Odierno is
an especially clever cog in a larger
machine that is running a ‘strategic
information campaign’ for the Obama
administration. By this reasoning,
Odierno’s real interest is much closer to
home — the US budget-squeezing process
known as sequestration that may require
the US Air Force to dispose of the A-10C
Thunderbolt II, and that has already
brought about a drastic reduction in the
size of US forces. He has an overall
concern about all military matters but is
especially interested in the future of close
air support and of US Army aviation.
But the UK’s cuts are a real concern in
Washington, too, and not merely an excuse
to talk around US budgeting issues. British
defense spending of $50.9 billion (£
billion) a year hovers just above the target
set by NATO of two per cent of gross
domestic product. Since walloping cuts
were announced in 2010, the British Army
has lost a fi fth of its forces (some 17 units
and 20,000 troops), the RAF has only
seven combat squadrons, and the Royal
Navy, with just 19 surface combatants, is
barely capable of maintaining its ongoing
international duties, according to the
Telegraph. Forty per cent of the British
Army’s tanks have been placed in storage.
One Washington wag, exaggerating only a
little, accused the Royal Navy of having
more admirals than warships. The
active-duty British Army is expected to
stabilize at around 82,000. At the height of
the Cold War in 1978, it had 163,
soldiers.Worldwide operations
Troops from the UK and the United States
are collaborating in confl icts around the
world, including those in Iraq, Syria and
Afghanistan. Because of public distaste in
America for ‘boots on the ground’ — combat
forces waging land war — US leaders have
had to scale back hoped-for interventions in
recent years and turn to allies for help. In
the current campaign against Islamic State
in the Middle East, several countries with
crucial interests at stake, among them Saudi
Arabia and Turkey, are keeping their
powder dry. This makes the ‘special
relationship’ between the UK and the US
more important than ever, and prompts
Odierno and his colleagues to want more
British military spending and more British
involvement in these confl icts.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron is
under fi re from members of his
Conservative Party who want to protect
defense spending from further cuts as the
government struggles to balance its budget.
Many Conservatives want the party to
commit to maintaining the two per cent
level ahead of this year’s election, but
Treasury chief George Osborne has said he
will not do so.
Odierno suggested that Britain would no
longer be able to contribute division-
strength levels of 10,000 troops or more.
That would suggest that British forces
would have to operate within US structures
rather than beside them.
‘In the past we would have a British Army
division working alongside an American
division’, he is quoted as saying. ‘Now it
might be a British brigade inside an
American division, or even a British
battalion inside an American brigade.’
Odierno is US Army chief of staff, which
makes him the head of his service branch
and one of the seven members of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the top US military
offi cers. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs,
Martin Dempsey, is also an Army general.
Odierno is seen as exuding gruffness and
talking directly, while Dempsey is better
known for a diplomatic parsing of words.
‘Odierno is the attack dog’, my source told
me. ‘Dempsey is the chess master.’Air Force viewpoint
From my point of view, having published
commentaries about the US Air Force for 60
years, I wonder why the Army’s Odierno is
so vocal (and visible) while Air Force chief
of staff Gen Mark Welsh hunkers low
beneath the radar.The Royal Air Force is establishing
a very useful capability with its
Euro ghter Typhoons, the closest
thing Britain has to a US-made
F-series ghter. The RAF’s ve
front-line squadrons of Typhoons
o er a useful allied force mix with
US Air Force F-22 Raptor units.
Jamie Hunter14 May 2015 http://www.combataircraft.netFRONT LINE COMBAT AIRCRAFT’S REGULAR COLUMN BY ROBERT F. DORR
Taking a look behind the headlines
Contact the author at [email protected]14-15 Front Line C.indd 14 20/03/2015 11: