investment following the 2010 SDSR and said
that: “There was clearly a hollowing out of
some of those essentially strategic resilience
capabilities.” He pointed to a lack of missile
defence capabilities and said there were: “a
range of other things that we need to have
in a balanced force posture and national
security capability posture for the future”.
But although the new review was ostensibly
intended to be a response to changing
security and military threats, it is also planned
to serve as a means of finding further cuts
to help fill the MOD’s £20.8bn funding gap.
And with a growing need for enhanced
intelligence and cyber security capabilities,
many fear that conventional military force
structure will be sacrificed to pay for them.RAF at risk?
Last November, Stephen Lovegrove, the most
senior MOD civil servant, revealed that the cost
of an initial tranche of 48 F-35Bs could rise from
£9.1bn in 2025 to £13bn in 2048, prompting Lt
Gen Mark Poffley, deputy chief of the defence
staff, to tell MPs that he was “sympathetic” to
the idea that the overall number of F-35Bs onorder could be reduced from the notional UK
commitment to buy 138 Joint Strike Fighters.
Reductions in aircraft and squadron numbers
have been a long-standing reaction to
budgetary pressure, and some senior officers
and politicians have prioritised the acquisition
of ‘gold standard’ equipment – sometimes
at the expense of force structure and size.
Sometimes whole capability areas have been
abandoned, for example when the Nimrod MR2
was retired without replacement, leaving the UK
without a viable maritime patrol platform from
2010-19 and accepting the resulting ‘capability
holiday’ (see also Maritime patrol, p86-88).
It’s extremely difficult to increase force size
quickly or cheaply. Even if the decision was
taken to keep the RAF’s Tornado GR4s in
service to augment the Typhoon and the
new Lightning, it would be almost impossible
to reinstate the required support contracts
and arrangements, while RAF manning
constraints mean that there would be an
unacceptable impact on the establishment
of the F-35B and Poseidon fleets.
The situation is unlikely to improve significantly
in the near term. Britain’s recent procurement
has been tailored towards relatively light,
relatively inexpensive expeditionary warfare
capabilities, ideal for the wars that have been
fought in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Those advocating spending on the kind of
capabilities required for peer or near-peer-
level state-on-state war have frequently
been derided for exhibiting a Cold War
mindset, but this narrow-minded, cost-driven
policy has left the UK poorly prepared to
meet the growing Russian threat, or even
to conduct a Granby-sized operation.
There are signs of a shift in attitudes,
and there have been some procurement
programmes of equipment that is better
suited for peer or near-peer conflict, including
the F-35B and the P-8A, for example, albeit
not in anything like the numbers that such
operations would inevitably demand. AFMhttp://www.airforcesmonthly.com #365 AUGUST 2018 // 73
Left: Two of the fi rst No 617 Squadron F-35B Lightning aircraft make their way across the Atlantic to their
new home at RAF Marham. There is increasing speculation that the UK might choose F-35As for orders
beyond the initial 48 F-35Bs. Below: RAF Chinook helicopters land on HMS ‘Queen Elizabeth’ for the fi rst
time earlier this year. The new carriers will fi eld a joint force of RAF and Royal Navy Lightnings and their
pilots, as well as navy Merlins and Wildcats, and army Apaches.Two Typhoon FGR4s, fl own by No
29 Squadron from RAF Coningsby.
The Typhoon in the foreground
wears ‘RAF100’ colours on its
tail to commemorate the RAF
centenary celebrations. The RAF
fast jet element currently includes
fi ve frontline Typhoon squadrons,
while No 29 serves as the
Operational Conversion Unit.