NAO MOD Equipment Plan Report 2018 to 2028

Link to summary : http://www.defencesynergia.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/The-Equipment-Plan-2018-2028-Summary-.pdf

DS notes that the NAO must have been briefed on the potential direction of MDP because they mention it in the Summary thus:
“6 The Department aims for the MDP to resolve its affordability challenges. As part of the MDP, announced in January 2018, the Department will consider its future equipment and support projects, including whether to delay, defer or de-scope some of its future defence requirements. Starting the MDP half-way through the budgetary process meant the Department had to revisit its aims for the 2018 Plan. Instead of tackling the increased financial risks and establishing a basis for long-term affordability, the Department focused on making just the first year of its 10-year Plan affordable. In March 2018, the Department committed to sharing emerging MDP findings with Parliament in July, but instead provided an overview of the broad strategic context, indicating the Department’s direction of travel. At the time of our report, the Department had not yet concluded the MDP. Decisions are now unlikely to be reflected in the 2019 Plan (paragraphs 1.7, 3.7 to 3.9, 3.13 and Figure 13).”

DS would like to know when the MDP findings will be published and Parliament and public informed of the implications to UK defence.

Link to the full report via thus: https://www.nao.org.uk/report/the-equipment-plan-2018-to-2028/

 

Nelson and the Pursuit of Victory

DefenceSynergia is most grateful to Professor Dr Julian Lindley-French for permission to reproduce his speech on board HMS Nelson in Portsmouth at the Trafalgar Night dinner given by the ancient Royal Navy Club of 1756 and 1785 in commemoration of Admiral Lord Nelson’s famous victory and untimely death off Cape Trafalgar on October 21st, 1805. Entitled Nelson and the Pursuit of Victory the speech also briefly considers the challenge of the Royal Navy in the face of the revolution in military technology underway and how Nelson would have fought what is euphemistically called future war. (more…)

Final Decision to Acquire Boeing E-7 Wedgetail AEWC Capability Edges Ever Closer.

DefenceSynergia (DS) is grateful to Howard Wheeldon for permission to publish his latest defence commentary which considers the Ministry of Defence (MOD) options in respect of an Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AWACS) replacement. From a DS perspective the MOD UK (Air) failure to properly invest in upgrading its E-3D fleet has led to terminal decline in the ‘D’ variant, not least in its steadily declining interoperability because of the MOD withdrawing from the ‘Project Eagle’ – Block 40/45 open systems architecture – upgrade programme on the grounds of cost. Naturally no one will be held to account even though it may well cost more to replace the capability than it would have done to maintain the ‘D’ incrementally over its operating lifetime. Here is what Howard says: (more…)

UKNDA Defence Procurement Funding Article by Col Peter Walton

DefenceSynergia is most grateful to Colonel Peter Walton RAOC (Retd) for permission to reproduce his article on the United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) website – Defence Procurement Funding. Peter Walton has a unique professional insight into the historical background behind why today’s Armed Forces’ often find themselves having to sacrifice numbers (capability) to the ‘bean counter’s’ God, cost! Here is what Peter says: (more…)

Crash! How Future War Would Start

DS is pleased to reproduce Julian Lindley-French’s latest article:

“When do you decide you want to bomb an adversary’s electrical company? It’s the same answer for when you would launch a cyber-attack on their electricity sector – it is just a question of how you do it”.

Buky Carmeli, former Director, Israeli National Cyber Security Authority, August 2018

 

Crash!

 

Alphen, Netherlands. 29 August. Buky Carmeli, former Director of the Israeli National Cyber Security Authority, has called for “…a strategic paradigm shift in thinking about cyber operations” in order to place them squarely at the centre of deterrence and defence. He also warned about the growing danger from a “cyber doomsday weapon”.  His message mirrors what Generals Allen and Breedlove, Admiral Zambellas and I called for in our recent paper Future War NATO in which we suggested threat must be seen as a continuum across a new spectrum of violent escalation from hybrid war to hyper war (including space war) via cyber war. (more…)

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