.Troops in Afghanistan face defeat at home
OUR troops are up for the fight in Helmand. They know their mission is vital. And they are beating the Taliban in engagement after engagement, which brings to a soldier’s morale a quality all of its own. We can be proud and grateful that there is no shortage of courageous young volunteers to take up this fight.
But General Sir David Richards’s warning bell to the defence board could not be clearer: The Ministry of Defence’s spending priorities risk damaging the morale of our soldiers in a way that could undermine the long-term sustainability of the campaign. And his concerns could not be more serious: Morale is by far the most important factor in war.
This is no hypothetical argument: The chief of the defence staff has declared that our forces will be in Afghanistan at least for the next five years. Battalions are sustaining casualties at a rate of one in five on a six-month tour of duty. Teenage soldiers are fighting and dying in the most horrendous conditions and witnessing violence and depredations that most of us will be forever spared.
These brave men and women need to know that they are properly supported in battle, of course; but also that the government values them and their families enough to provide funds for a decent quality of life between tours.
General Richards is right to be worried. In July last year, while its troops were engaged in fighting more ferocious than at any time since Korea, the army was forced to make savings measures totalling £43m to help the MoD keep within budget. In October, a further £54m cut was announced, so that remaining resources could be focused on the war in Afghanistan. That may sound reasonable, but it is not. It demonstrates within the MoD and Treasury a breath-taking lack of understanding of the challenges inherent in running a long-term military campaign.
Most telling of October’s planned cuts was a £14m saving that will delay upgrades to living quarters for 4,400 soldiers. Throughout my military service accommodation was consistently raided for funds by generals reluctant to cut tank numbers and civil servants unwilling to forego their plush new central London office blocks. Consequently, many of the barracks our soldiers live and work in now and the houses their families occupy are nothing short of a national disgrace. Shockingly, soldiers in Helmand often complain that accommodation in Camp Bastion and at Kajaki is better than their barracks back home.
As a taxpayer, I am deeply ashamed whenever I see our fighting men and women jammed into squalid, crumbling barrack blocks with paint peeling off the walls, buckled steel lockers and clapped-out heating systems and where the showers run cold more often than hot.
The entire furniture pack, including bed, for a single soldier is worth just 15% of the £1,000 cost of the Herman Miller Aeron chair provided for every MoD bureaucrat. The barracks of the cash-starved former Soviet forces I saw in eastern Europe and the Balkans were better equipped and maintained.
It’s not just the accommodation. For most soldiers, the 24-month period between combat tours is virtually as hectic as the tours themselves with a pace of work that takes them away from home for half the time. Much of this is training for the next deployment or helping other units prepare. It is vital for young soldiers living this pressure-cooker existence to have the release valve of team sports and adventure training. It is crushing for their morale when such rare opportunities are cancelled, as General Richards reports, for lack of funds.
Other spending cuts will also hammer at morale. The Military Provost Guard Service, formed to relieve soldiers of some of the mind-blowing burden of barrack guard duty, is under threat, a cut that would deprive soldiers of scarce free time, putting extra stress on marriages.
The army is now well-manned and retention is good. But for most the strains of repeated operational tours hurts. As the economy picks up, many will find work that places less demand on them and their families. Unless soldiers are properly looked after and valued, the numbers leaving will become a torrent and we will have to fight another manning crisis as well as the Taliban.
Our troops are the bravest and the best. They will not be beaten on the battlefields of Afghanistan. But they could be defeated at home by a government that fails to value them as they deserve. Such failure would betray their courage and dedication and endanger our objectives in Afghanistan.
It is not too late for defence and Treasury ministers to reverse the swingeing cuts they are about to force on the army. They must do so now, adopting the unwavering principles of the post-World War I campaign that strove to provide our soldiers with “Homes Fit for Heroes”.
Timesonline
But General Sir David Richards’s warning bell to the defence board could not be clearer: The Ministry of Defence’s spending priorities risk damaging the morale of our soldiers in a way that could undermine the long-term sustainability of the campaign. And his concerns could not be more serious: Morale is by far the most important factor in war.
This is no hypothetical argument: The chief of the defence staff has declared that our forces will be in Afghanistan at least for the next five years. Battalions are sustaining casualties at a rate of one in five on a six-month tour of duty. Teenage soldiers are fighting and dying in the most horrendous conditions and witnessing violence and depredations that most of us will be forever spared.
These brave men and women need to know that they are properly supported in battle, of course; but also that the government values them and their families enough to provide funds for a decent quality of life between tours.
General Richards is right to be worried. In July last year, while its troops were engaged in fighting more ferocious than at any time since Korea, the army was forced to make savings measures totalling £43m to help the MoD keep within budget. In October, a further £54m cut was announced, so that remaining resources could be focused on the war in Afghanistan. That may sound reasonable, but it is not. It demonstrates within the MoD and Treasury a breath-taking lack of understanding of the challenges inherent in running a long-term military campaign.
Most telling of October’s planned cuts was a £14m saving that will delay upgrades to living quarters for 4,400 soldiers. Throughout my military service accommodation was consistently raided for funds by generals reluctant to cut tank numbers and civil servants unwilling to forego their plush new central London office blocks. Consequently, many of the barracks our soldiers live and work in now and the houses their families occupy are nothing short of a national disgrace. Shockingly, soldiers in Helmand often complain that accommodation in Camp Bastion and at Kajaki is better than their barracks back home.
As a taxpayer, I am deeply ashamed whenever I see our fighting men and women jammed into squalid, crumbling barrack blocks with paint peeling off the walls, buckled steel lockers and clapped-out heating systems and where the showers run cold more often than hot.
The entire furniture pack, including bed, for a single soldier is worth just 15% of the £1,000 cost of the Herman Miller Aeron chair provided for every MoD bureaucrat. The barracks of the cash-starved former Soviet forces I saw in eastern Europe and the Balkans were better equipped and maintained.
It’s not just the accommodation. For most soldiers, the 24-month period between combat tours is virtually as hectic as the tours themselves with a pace of work that takes them away from home for half the time. Much of this is training for the next deployment or helping other units prepare. It is vital for young soldiers living this pressure-cooker existence to have the release valve of team sports and adventure training. It is crushing for their morale when such rare opportunities are cancelled, as General Richards reports, for lack of funds.
Other spending cuts will also hammer at morale. The Military Provost Guard Service, formed to relieve soldiers of some of the mind-blowing burden of barrack guard duty, is under threat, a cut that would deprive soldiers of scarce free time, putting extra stress on marriages.
The army is now well-manned and retention is good. But for most the strains of repeated operational tours hurts. As the economy picks up, many will find work that places less demand on them and their families. Unless soldiers are properly looked after and valued, the numbers leaving will become a torrent and we will have to fight another manning crisis as well as the Taliban.
Our troops are the bravest and the best. They will not be beaten on the battlefields of Afghanistan. But they could be defeated at home by a government that fails to value them as they deserve. Such failure would betray their courage and dedication and endanger our objectives in Afghanistan.
It is not too late for defence and Treasury ministers to reverse the swingeing cuts they are about to force on the army. They must do so now, adopting the unwavering principles of the post-World War I campaign that strove to provide our soldiers with “Homes Fit for Heroes”.
Timesonline
posted by madtom at 7:30 PM
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