Strategic Defence and Security Review: four future scenarios and how they might play out
Thomas Harding, The Daily Telegraph's Defence Correspondent, looks at four possible future scenarios for Britain's armed forces.
By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
Published: 12:26PM BST 14 Sep 2010
The future is grim, full of muscle-flexing former superpowers, emerging global powers, nuclear attacks, cyber warfare and the inevitability of climate-related conflict. At least, those are the images in the crystal ball consulted by defence planners, who have the near-impossible job of predicting future threats and the Armed Forces needed to meet them.
The assumption before we got bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan was that if you made forces for the high end of warfare, they could easily adjust to low-end fighting. The streets of Basra and the compounds of Helmand disproved that idea, as the death toll among forces ill-equipped and poorly trained for counter insurgency became apparent.
On September 11 2001, British forces were configured largely as an unwieldy armoured force, with fast jets and frigates to fight a Soviet threat. For nearly a decade that equipment has barely been used but the threats are too numerous to do away with the big guns. “We have the prospect of a major war in the 21st century,” says Professor Gwyn Prins, the future conflict specialist at the London School of Economics.
The MoD’s seminal document, the Future Character of Conflict, predicts that by 2029, control over resources will “increase the incidence of conflict”, as world population rises to 8.3 billion. Boundary disputes, such as in the Arctic, Gulf of Guinea and South Atlantic will “become inextricably linked to securing energy supplies”, with Britain “critically dependent upon energy imports”. This will demand “strong regional influence and, if necessary, the ability to project and maintain military power”. The paper warns of high-end warfare (without mentioning Iran). It adds (without mentioning China) that “it cannot be assumed that the West will retain sufficient military advantage over rising powers in all circumstances, which may embolden actors where previously they had been deterred.” The possession of nuclear weapons “perceived as essential for survival and status” will remain “a goal of many aspiring powers”.
And above all this lies the unknown impact of climate change, which might make flooding and drought prime movers of conflict. Planners can be forgiven for regarding the future as dark and uncertain.
four future scenarios
PAKISTAN 2018
• Crisis: A civilian government has been elected after five years’ military dictatorship but the generals have refused to hand over the codes and keys for the nuclear arsenal. The ousted military seize the missile silos. The Pakistan army splinters, with those loyal to the generals joining a pact with the Taliban who are sharing power with a new government in Afghanistan. Most of the country is overrun by the rebels. A main supply route is cut off to the remaining Nato troops in Afghanistan.
• Response: The UN authorises a multi-national stabilisation force led by a US division and fleet, with a Chinese task force with its new aircraft carrier in the coalition. After three years of recovery from bloody fighting in Helmand, Britain agrees to send one of its five new manoeuvre brigades, equipped with tanks, mine-protected vehicles, armed drones and a fleet of attack and transport helicopters. In the Indian Ocean, two Type 45 destroyers, re-equipped with new anti-ballistic missiles from the US Navy, act as a last-ditch defence against a nuclear missile launch.
• Outcome: F35 Joint Strike Fighters (pictured above) are launched from US and British aircraft carriers against the missile silos. But the rebels manage to launch two nuclear warheads at an installation near Karachi towards Mumbai, 300 miles away. Both are shot down, one by a US warship and one by a Type 45 destroyer. A joint US, British and Chinese amphibious assault storms ashore to the west of Karachi and captures key airfields. In all, 10,000 men are flown in by the RAF’s new transport fleet. An international force of more than 100,000 troops retakes rebel-held areas. The UN force agrees to maintain security for two years while it trains up a stable Pakistani military.
• Likelihood: Very likely
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Readiness: Almost ready
IRAN 2016
• Crisis: Iran has finally built an arsenal of nuclear weapons and quietly threatens to use them against other Gulf States unless they agree to increase its OPEC quota on oil exports. As platforms in the Gulf come under military threat, oil prices rise dramatically threatening world economies only just recovered from recession. Iran also reveals it has developed highly capable surface-to-air missiles.
• Response: A closed session of the UN Security Council’s Permanent Five agrees a surgical strike action against four installations where missiles have been built or are deployed. Iran’s highly successful “anti-access” policy of sea and land mines, air defence and sea swarm attack means that a conventional invasion is impossible.
• Outcome: Royal Navy Astute submarines (pictured above) launch Tomahawk Block V “bunker buster” cruise missiles. For the first time RAF Eurofighter Typhoons fly combat sorties — out of Al Udeid airbase in Qatar. They strike surface-to-air missile vehicles and radar installations pin-pointed by SAS and US Delta Force covertly inserted close to the installations using high-altitude parachutes, flying in from 20 miles away to dodge radar. American carrier-borne F18 Super Hornets carry out similar strikes. A helicopter assault force shuttled by a dozen Chinooks from assault ship Ocean lands paratroopers and Royal Marines from the new Operational Assault Brigade on to one of the nuclear sites through an air corridor cleared of SAMs. Similar air assaults are undertaken by US forces at the other three sites, which are also destroyed — knocking out Iran’s nuclear strike capability. The Tehran government is toppled by an uprising assisted by Shias in Iraq’s government.
• Likelihood: Likely
• Readiness: Ready
UGANDA 2023
• Crisis: Britain has developed increasingly close links with Uganda for its copper and cobalt, also huge land deals for guaranteed supplies of wheat as climate-related food shortages hit European markets. Chinese land deals in Africa have also reduced cultivated land for hire. The insurgency from neighbouring Congo spills over into Uganda and foments an uprising among impoverished people who believe the insurgents’ propaganda that the British are stealing their food and riches. Two large mines are overrun, along with a large number of farms. Scores of British citizens are taken hostage. The British embassy in Kampala is set alight and the government declares a state of emergency with a promise that it will renege on the British land deal.
• Response: The UN condemns Kampala, as does the US, which offers Britain only intelligence and surveillance. The Government secures the cooperation of Kenya to use its airspace and an airfield to use as a forward staging base. A company of paratroopers training near Entebbe is ordered to deploy to the nearby airport and take it using armed force.
• Outcome: Government forces are sent against Entebbe; a battalion of infantry and a squadron of light armoured vehicles from the new Immediate Action Force arrive in relays of RAF C17 and A400M transporters. For the first time the new A400M (pictured above) does a daylight drop of a company of paratroopers as a “show of force”. Helicopters and armed drones flown from Britain in C17s launch an SAS-led raid to recover hostages. The government is toppled by military officers who invite the British force to support their regime as a stabilisation force. It routs the insurgents and retakes the mines.
• Likelihood: Highly likely
• Readiness: Very ready
BALTIC STATES 2022
• Crisis:Russia’s armed forces have been modernised and a tough president, keen on creating a “Russia Plus”, makes bellicose noises towards integrating the three Baltic states into a federation, forcing them to opt out of the Nato alliance. Suspicious cyber attacks occur on Baltic government institutions and energy resources are withheld as Russia tries to probe where Nato’s red lines lie. A major Russian “military exercise” is about to start on the borders of the Baltic states, involving fast, light-weight tanks, marines and helicopter-borne infantry. Flashpoints also flare in other satellite states from Georgia to Ukraine and Belarus, fomented by a resurgent FSB.
• Response: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia invoke Article Five of the Nato constitution in which an armed attack on one member is deemed an attack on all. Nato decides to send a division made up of three brigades from Britain, France and Germany to deploy on the borders of the states. The US, with fewer forces now deployed in Europe, remains neutral in the conflict.
• Outcome: Britain’s multi-role brigade is heavy with armour and the RAF deploys Typhoons (pictured above) in Baltic airbases. Navy Astute submarines sneak undetected into the Baltic Sea, listening into Russian military communications while tracking Russian hunter-killer submarines. The carrier Queen Elizabeth, refurbished and equipped with two of the three Royal Combined Air Fleet F35 squadrons, sails in to the North Sea, joined by a French carrier. The fast and overwhelming response demonstrates that Nato is serious about defending its members. A valedictory cyber-attack on Latvia results in Britain’s Joint Cyber Warfare Force penetrating and disabling the Kremlin’s command centre.
• Likelihood: Highly possible
• Readiness: Not ready
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