Army ready?

"The famous run is a 2.4km (1.5 mile) track in which you must complete the full distance within the given time. The time you have to complete the run will vary depending on the position within The Army that you have applied for.

"Before starting your timed run, you will warm up as a squad with the other people in the selection process. This consists of a slow jog and walk over a distance of 800 metres.  You will then immediately begin your test.

"The required times for the various regiments within The Army are as follows:

"Parachute Regiment - Run Time 09.40"

OK, so we're not going there.

"Royal Signals, Army Air Corps, Royal Logistic Corps, Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers, Adjutant Generals Corps, Army Medical Services, Royal Army Veterinary Corps, Intelligence Corps, and Corps of Army Music – Run Time 14.00"

In my school CCF I was in the Signals, so let's take 14 minutes as my target. If you run a km in five minutes (12 km/hour) you will run 2.4 km in 12 minutes. Way to go.

I don't usually use the treadmill in the gym. Too many historical problems with my knees after years of pavement jogging. But this morning I did five hard minutes on the cross-trainer, then did five minutes at a fast-but-comfortable pace on the treadmill.

Distance run in five minutes? 0.88 km.

Time for 2.4 km at this pace = (2.4/0.88) * 5 = 13 minutes 38 seconds.

I'm army-ready.

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Is the British Army ready? This morning, Amazon delivered General Sir Richard Shirreff's new book, "2017 War With Russia: An urgent warning from senior military command", ordered on the back of my recent reading of Mark Urban's tale of military unpreparedness, "The Edge".

From the blurb:

"Written by the recently retired Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe and endorsed by senior military figures, this book shows how war with Russia could erupt with the bloodiest and most appalling consequences if the necessary steps are not taken urgently.

"President Putin said: 'We have all the reasons to believe that the policy of containment of Russia which was happening in the 18th, 19th and 20th century is still going on...' And 'If you press the spring, it will release at some point. Something you should remember.'

"Like any 'strongman', the Russian president's reputation for strength is everything. Lose momentum, fail to give the people what they want and he fails. The President has already demonstrated that he has no intention of failing. He has already started a lethal dynamic which, unless checked right now, could see him invade the Baltic states.

"Russia's invasion and seizure of Georgia in 2008 was our 'Rhineland moment'. We ignored the warning signs - as we did back in the 1930s - and we made it 'business as usual'.

"Crimea in 2014 was the President's 'Sudetenland moment' and again he got away with it. Since 2014 Russia has invaded Ukraine. The Baltics could be next.

"Our political leaders assume that nuclear deterrence will save us. General Sir Richard Shirreff shows us why this will not wash."

I see the Amazon comments are already being filled up with 'warmonger!' sentiments. And naturally one would like to discount books like this in advance, on grounds of special pleading and bureaucratic rent-seeking.

But the job of the armed forces is to defend the country against credible threats. If a senior guy believes it's incapable of doing that, he has a duty to speak out and give chapter and verse.

So I'm going to read this one carefully.

European pacifism won in practice, if not in theory

Mark Urban, diplomatic and defence editor on the BBC's Newsnight, wrote "The Edge: Is the Military Dominance of the West Coming to an End?" about six months ago.

Its arguments have been highlighted again by recent Brexit Referendum discussions about the impact of the EU on war between states in Europe.

Here is an excerpt from The Telegraph's review.

"How many American tanks are permanently stationed in Europe? At a time when Vladimir Putin has invaded Ukraine and grabbed 10,000 square miles of his neighbour’s territory, you might be surprised to learn that the answer is none.

"With impeccable timing, the last American main battle tank left Europe shortly before the onset of Ukraine’s crisis in 2014. During the Cold War, the United States Army kept 5,000 tanks in Europe to defend its Nato allies; today, not a single one remains.

"Surely the world’s only superpower could rustle up some heavy armour pretty quickly in the event of an emergency? Don’t be so sure. General Sir Richard Shirreff, formerly Nato’s deputy supreme allied commander, thinks that America would need between six and 12 months to deploy one armoured division in Europe.

"Russia, meanwhile, has no fewer than 2,300 tanks, most of them already positioned in the European theatre.

"In The Edge, Mark Urban sounds the alarm over the scale and pace of the West’s disarmament since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Back in 1979, Urban, now the diplomatic and defence editor of Newsnight, was “for a short heady time” the “commander of one of the British Army’s 900 Chieftain tanks”.

"The era when Britain could field hundreds of the heaviest machines of war now seems impossibly distant. By way of comparison, the Army was down to 36 operational tanks for much of last summer.

"The picture at sea or in the air is little better. Year after year, every country in Nato – including America – has been paying off warships and decommissioning fighter squadrons.

"Even the forces that remain have been hollowed out by a shortage of spare parts and trained personnel. On paper, the Spanish Air Force has 39 Typhoon fighters, but only six are actually ready for combat. Of Germany’s 109 Typhoons, only 42 are in any condition to defend the country’s airspace.

"In clear and concise prose, Urban lays out the way in which an entire continent has chosen the path of wholesale disarmament. It is impossible to read this authoritative book without feeling a deep sense of alarm, indeed of wonder, that our leaders have chosen to take such breathtaking risks.

"The assumption behind the shredding of Nato’s defences is that warfare between European countries is no longer conceivable. In military jargon, “state-on-state” conflict is now irrelevant; the sole purpose of the tattered remnants of our armed forces is to fight “non-state actors” like terrorists and insurgents.

"Russia, however, was never so foolish as to make such an assumption. After the Cold War, the Kremlin was at first compelled to disarm for the simple reason that Russia’s economy had collapsed. For the last decade, however, Russia has been rearming on a huge scale – and its generals take the ruthless business of “state-on-state” conflict very seriously indeed. In Georgia in 2008 and now in Ukraine, those are precisely the kind of wars that Putin has chosen to fight."

Mark Urban paints a disturbing portrait of a "hollowed out" Western military. After the end of the Cold War, investment in classic state-on-state military systems was throttled right back. We have ageing ships and aircraft, and if they were destroyed in combat, the factories which could replace them have long since ceased production.

Urban contains his irritation at his colleagues in the media 'commentariat' - pacifist, consumed by imperialist guilt, united in a belief that interstate conflicts will never again transition to violence, at least as far as EU nations are concerned.

It's not true that pacifism has won a bloodless victory amongst Western elites. Urban observes that there is substantial funding for spooks and drones. And some UK investments, notably the carriers and the aircraft to fly off them, should come good after 2020 (we trust).

Absent an existential threat, the military was always going to fare badly in the tight budget wars after the Cold War. It's still possible to argue that Russia is simply sorting out historic anomalies as to where its borders should lie, and that the level of middle-eastern inspired conflicts outside of the middle-east are far removed from conventional warfare. Urban discusses these points.

Fundamentally, however, Western Europe is prosperous and disarmed. Historically states which have placed themselves in such a posture ended up as easy pickings for anyone with a military who felt sufficiently acquisitive.

It seems hard to believe that such a fundamental truth is now entirely behind us. Or that America will always save us (at potentially huge cost to itself).

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It might be argued that we would have warning and could re-arm fairly quickly. But our weaponry is getting more and more complex and expensive with ever longer lead times.

It's been a cliche for a long time that an adversary with cheap and cheerful weapons (guns, fighter aircraft, bombers, ships, missiles) which can be produced quickly and in bulk, and who has a readiness to accept losses can beat a much higher-tech opponent who finds it difficult to develop, deploy and maintain its super-advanced systems .. and is loss-averse.