The contrast between Sunday’s low-key military ceremony at Camp Bastion to mark the end of British combat operations in Afghanistan and the way the nation celebrated victory in the Falklands could not be more stark.
Back in 1982 the heroics of the victorious soldiers, sailors and airmen who participated in the daring operation to liberate the islands from their Argentine invaders were marked by representatives of the Task Force marching through the centre of London to Guildhall for lunch with Margaret Thatcher and the Lord Mayor, while overhead helicopters and aircraft staged a triumphant fly-past.
By comparison, the event at Camp Bastion, Britain’s main military base in Helmand province for the past eight years, was a more perfunctory affair, with pipers playing as the Union flag was lowered, to be replaced with that of the host nation. And there will be many who will see the manner in which we have marked the end of these two very different conflicts as representing the radical change that has taken place during the past 32 years in the UK’s national attitude towards conflict.
Back in 1982 — bar the odd gripe from Left-wingers and leading members of the clergy, who felt that we should relinquish our colonial hold over the Falklands in favour of Argentina — there was nationwide rejoicing at the Task Force’s remarkable achievement, and fitting tributes to the 255 British Service personnel who made the ultimate sacrifice during the endeavour.
This extraordinary feat of arms, moreover, is now regarded as marking the moment that ended Britain’s post-war decline and placed the nation firmly back on the road to recovery. But there will be no proud marches through the streets of London or fly-pasts to commemorate the heroic efforts of the tens of thousands of British military personnel who have served in Afghanistan for the past decade or more, in a conflict that has claimed 453 lives — nearly double the number of British war dead in the Falklands.
The simple ceremony last Sunday may well be the last time the British public is invited to commemorate the sacrifices — including the thousands who have suffered serious physical and mental injury — of all those who served in that benighted country. Indeed, such was the Ministry of Defence’s determination to keep the official end to operations as understated as possible that initially ministers wanted to carry it out without having any media present, keeping the public entirely in the dark about the conclusion of Britain’s vexed involvement in the Afghan mission.
For the reality is that, for all the fanfares that supported Britain’s initial military intervention in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001, support for Britain’s continued participation waned many years ago among the political classes and the public at large — not least because the vast majority of people long ago lost sight of the reasons the UK had deployed there in the first place.
This confusion was even evident in the MoD’s own press release that it issued to announce the end of combat operations, where it stated that the reason British forces deployed to Helmand in the summer of 2006 as part of the Nato mission was to “tackle a growing insurgency in the region”.
Well, that was not what John Reid, then defence secretary, said at the time, when he hoped that Britain’s peacekeeping effort to help stabilise the Afghan government after decades of conflict could be achieved without a shot being fired in anger. The failure of our political classes to justify the deployment of British combat forces in order to prevent Afghanistan acting as a safe haven for Islamist terrorists has led to widespread unease about the mission and a general reluctance to accept that they will leave the country a far better place than they found it.
It was the same with Iraq, where the furore over the search for weapons of mass destruction completely overshadowed the UK’s initial military success and meant that, rather than paying proper tribute to the 179 British fatalities, we stole away from Basra at the end of the campaign like a thief in the night. Britain’s senior military commanders are not entirely blameless for the numerous shortcomings of these respective missions: the failure to provide adequate force levels and the proper equipment — particularly during the initial phase of the deployment to Helmand — were military, rather than political misjudgements. That said, it is the politicians who are principally responsible for the public’s waning appetite for British involvement in any future overseas military interventions.
And it is those same politicians, certainly so far as the Army is concerned, who are now in the process of reducing our military strength to a level where the UK will soon no longer be able to undertake a military operation on the scale of Iraq and Afghanistan, even if we wanted to.
Cuts to the British Army’s standing strength as a result of the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review have been well-documented, with a reduction from 102,000 to 82,000 — its lowest size since the Napoleonic wars. What is less well understood is the disastrous impact these cuts are having on the Army’s ability to replicate the kind of missions it has undertaken in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In those two theatres, the Army was able to deploy at a division strength of around 10,000 and maintain those force levels for as long as was required. These days the Army would be pushed to deploy at half that amount — one combat brigade and not much more — and its ability to maintain those force numbers for any prolonged period of time would depend on the ability of the new reserve force to plug the gaps which, given the current slow pace of recruitment, is a very big ask indeed.
Nor is it just the cuts to the Army’s numbers that should concern us. Work is already well under way on the withdrawal of British forces from Germany, where the presence of British heavy armour at a network of military bases liberated from the Nazis at the end of the Second World War has made a vital contribution to the maintenance of peace and stability in post-war Europe.
The need for military deterrence in Europe remains as great as ever, as Russia’s recent incursions in Crimea and Ukraine have graphically demonstrated. And yet, so great is the government’s determination to scale down Britain’s global status that the withdrawal from the bases on the Rhine is taking place despite the resurgent Russian threat, because cutting the defence budget is considered a far greater national priority than having adequate measures in place to guarantee our security.
Indeed, not content with the drastic savings they have already made to the Army’s strength, there were reports yesterday that the Treasury is planning even further cuts. General Lord Richards, the recently retired chief of the defence staff, said this would “make a mockery” of David Cameron’s recent pledge to maintain defence spending at its current 2 per cent of GDP if the Conservatives are re-elected next year.
Yet, arguably, the biggest existential threat to the Army’s future lies not with Whitehall bean-counters but with all the political leaders’ desire to avoid using ground forces at all costs. For example, ever since the emergence of Daesh (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), politicians have been quick to fall back on the mantra that whatever action is authorised to tackle Islamist extremism, it will not require “boots on the ground”.
Indeed, the fact that there are now far more British soldiers deployed in West Africa helping to tackle the Ebola virus than there are conducting more conventional combat operations reflects the politicians’ changing priorities on how Britain’s military is best employed.
There are many reasons, therefore, to conclude that the lowering of the Union flag at Camp Bastion will come to symbolise the British Army’s last hurrah. And that will undoubtedly be the case if our politicians have anything to do with it.
But a few words of caution can be offered to all those who believe their obligations to the defence of the realm can be accomplished without resorting to force of arms. Wars have a nasty habit of choosing us, rather than us choosing them.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2014
