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Defence Procurement

Indeed it is. There is no doubt that procurement drives military strategy and tactics and that it, in turn, is driven by the warfare in which we might be engaged in future, and the current counter-insurgency warfare in which the UK is heavily involved in Afghanistan. The Easter recess has been useful in giving us an opportunity to read the recommendations of the United States Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, for next year’s defence budget. They were followed by his subsequent presentation and question-and-answer session at the Maxwell air force base in Alabama. I find it gratifying that the US Defence Secretary proposes significantly to restructure the US army’s future combat systems—FCS—programme, with the recommendation that the vehicle component of the current programme be cancelled. The FCS programme is equivalent to our future rapid effect system. I find it extraordinary that our future Army structure was completely changed on the back of FRES. Yet as we all know, FRES is now a non-starter, not least because of its exponentially rising costs. In my view—and, I think, in the view of many others—it will never happen. The current US vehicle programme, which was developed nine years ago, was estimated to cost more than $87 billion, but did not include the recent $25 billion investment in MRAP, or mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles—I have to say that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because earlier you asked us not to use jargon. Those vehicles are being used to good effect in today’s conflicts, because the Americans have learned from their experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and have changed procurement and tactics rapidly to succeed in the engagements in which their troops are fighting. I wonder whether the UK will follow suit and cancel the FRES utility programme. We were informed earlier in this debate that the programme will be at the "initial gate"—is that right?—in approximately 10 months, but I shall be very interested to hear what the Minister says about that in his winding-up speech. I disagree with the kind of thinking so often expressed on this side of the pond by many and, in particular, by Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon, who recently stated in an article that""you can always fight from a high intensity capability at lower intensity"." I believe that to be one of the greatest fallacies and one that led directly to our defeat in Iraq and caused unnecessary deaths. High-intensity warfare creates a strategy of thinking big, with top-down decisions taken. That is what we are seeing played out in Afghanistan. Big sweeps at battalion and company level take place, but the ground taken cannot subsequently be held. Lowering the intensity, however, does not lower the strategy or the way of thinking and often creates the overstretch that we hear about so often. As far as procurement is concerned, high intensity means being provided with the very latest technology and all the wizardry that goes with it, which always proves to be exceptionally expensive. For counter-insurgency, that type of procurement is, with few exceptions, unsuitable and is definitely far too expensive for purpose, leading to the cry of underfunding. For example, the House has been told that up to £860 million has been spent on honing the Harrier’s performance for service in Afghanistan, with running costs of £37,000 an hour, plus the cost of large expensive ordnance. Add to that the cost of the Harriers, which were not previously able to cope with the dust in Afghanistan, and the cost of Merlin helicopters and their upgrade, not forgetting what has been wasted on the likely-to-be-aborted A400M, and the grand total runs into megabucks. Such expenditure makes the Army look like poor cousins. The Army is doing the fighting, but it appears to be missing out on comparable levels of expenditure. I have consistently argued that we should use aircraft such as the Super Tucano two-seater light attack aircraft, which can carry 15 tonnes of ordnance. It could assist in the creation of an Afghan air force. If such a force is not founded and developed, the international military force will be required to continue to give air cover virtually for ever. It is interesting to note that the United States has recently leased two such aircraft and they will be used in Afghanistan. It will also be interesting to see whether those aircraft will be procured directly when they have proved to be successful. The cost of expensive helicopter usage could also be reduced by using aircraft such as an adapted Pilatus Porter, which would be better suited for many roles in Afghanistan and has a 15-tonne payload. The Pilatus Porter is a Swiss aircraft that is produced only in a civilian version, but it can be upgraded and would be ideal for ferrying in supplies and for medevac. I hasten to add that the blueprint for successful counter-insurgency warfare—I have always said this and will probably be laughed at for repeating it—was set in Rhodesia from 1965 to 1980, where, with the international community ranged against the Rhodesians and with very little money and precious few new supplies of equipment, success was driven from the bottom up. Let us never forget that the Rhodesians conducted the best counter-insurgency campaign ever on a one-to-one ratio. That is an achievement that neither we, nor anyone else for that matter, have been capable of matching since. What the Rhodesians did, short of both money and equipment as they were, was to produce a successful strategy based on practical, functional vehicles and airpower, excellent intelligence and rapid changes in tactics to reflect changing circumstances, and they did that from bottom up. We have failed to learn those simple lessons. Insurgents cannot be beaten by technology alone. It greatly helps, but high-intensity warfare by itself cannot deliver the goods. I have time to quote only two passages from the 1991 RAND Corporation report on the Rhodesian experience, which spells out some lessons that we need to learn. It said:""The Rhodesians, for example, made innovative and inexpensive modifications to ordinary military and commercial vehicles that dramatically reduced the deaths and injuries suffered by passengers travelling in vehicles that struck land mines. Such modifications had the additional benefit of instilling confidence in the troops and enabled the security forces to retain control over the countryside by defeating the guerrillas’ attempts to force the army into a ‘garrison mentality’ by making road travel dangerous if not impossible."" That is exactly what happened to us in Iraq. The report continued:""The Rhodesian security forces functioned under severe financial constraints that limited their access to late model, sophisticated high tech weapons and to large quantities of material. The Rhodesians’ ability to overcome these constraints by embracing innovative strategies and tactics, including novel techniques in road security, tracking and reconnaissance, small unit tactics, special operations, and intelligence gathering, suggests that the successful prosecution of counter insurgency need not entail huge expenditure."" That is why we as a country must first decide what we want our military to do. If that includes counter-insurgency, we must specialise in it and provide the right equipment and training to win. If we are not prepared to do that, we should stop sending our service personnel to defeat and, in certain tragic cases, unnecessarily to death. I was dismayed to learn of the recent procurement of the Husky vehicle, which involved 200 vehicles at a cost of £120 million—close to £600,000 each for what is essentially a commercial truck. The MOD has picked a conversion based on a civilian sport utility vehicle pick-up truck known as the International MXT 4x4 and then bolted bits on, just as it did with the E-Jackal. That shows that none of the lessons has been learned following the debacle of the Pinzgauer Vector. Although I understand the concept behind the Springer, I suggest that the jury is still out on whether it will prove to be another death-trap, and it is expensive, at £93,000 each and with no protection. The MOD is obviously paved with gold, but at least the Wolfhound, with a V-shaped hull, is a sensible choice and should prove a success with its built-in ability to deflect blasts. I have absolutely no doubt that appropriate procurement is vital to succeed in any counter-insurgency situation, but sadly the lessons of the past have not yet been learned and, on our present record, the ability of our forces—they are the finest forces in the world—to succeed and to win in the future has not recently been enhanced.