Defence cuts
Home front left bare
David W. Wragg
The White Paper on Defence added little to the statement befolre Christmas by Mr Roy Mason. Perhaps the most significant development, bearing in mind the original promise to consult with our NATO, allies, is that the Government is determined to withdraw from the Mediterranean, with the exception of a small force in Cyprus, thus leaving the southern flank of NATO without any reinforcing British pressure. The withdrawal from Singapore will also proceed, so before long the domino theory will be seen to work throughout South-East Asia. Reductions of a seventh in the Royal Navy's frigate, destroyer and mine counter-measures
forces, cut-backs in army manpower, and a slower rate of delivery of the MRCA, the Multi-Role Combat Aircraft, to the RAF; all contribute to a new image of a coastal and home defence force, albeit with the furthermost frontiers in Germany. Any pretence at policing the world's sea lanes is dropped. All of this on the grounds that our defence spending as a Proportion of the GNP must be brought down to the level of other Western European powers, regardless of the higher level prevailing in the Warsaw Pact countries, and without making any allowance for the higher cost of Britain's volunteer forces compared with the conscript forces elsewhere in Europe. Yet, it is highly questionable whether there are the forces available even to defend these islands. The IRA campaigns in Northern
Ireland can only be countered by raiding the British Army of the Rhine for manpower, even
though at the best of times this force is dependent on the mobilisation of reserve forces to reach its full strength. No doubt in an emergency the much depleted RAF transport force would be hard-pressed to fly the necessary men and equipment into Germany, while the Territorial Army at home would be sufficiently weak to be of little further use, and unable, for example, to guard vital installations. Worst of ail, for a government already greedily counting its future gains from North Sea oil, and a country mortgaging itself against future balance of payments benefits from the oil, little real action is being taken to defend this vital national asset.
It might be argued that there is no conceivable threat to the oil and gas production and exploration rigs. However, the present climate of anarchy and terrorism throughout the world must obviously raise the immediate threat of sabotage, occupation by terrorists, and perhaps of the rig crews and the oil being held to ransom. It must be remembered that stringent security checks at airports have failed to prevent the hijacking of aircraft, and so far oil rigs have depended largely on their isolation for protection.
An even more serious threat, if perhaps longer term, lies in the attitudes and actions of the Soviet Union. On several occasions, Russian vessels, including the notorious spy trawlers, have approached rigs, ignoring international regulations and the rules of good seamanship by passing extremely close to these structures. Short of all-out warfare, such rigs and their pipelines or oil storage tanks, could be the subject of harassment, and in even a conventional war, the rigs would be sitting ducks. Once damaged, wellheads could take some considerable time to replace or repair. Failure to provide adequate conventional defences presupposes an almost immediate resort to all-out nuclear warfare. Certainly the nuclear deterrent is the most effective guarantor of peace, but do we have to be faced with the stark choice between defeat and holocaust? Sanity alone indicates some attempt to provide a middle course, by providing adequate conventional forces to deter any attacker in the first instance, and in the second to provide time for reinforcements to be made available, as well as giving time for attempts at peace negotiations. _ The Government has managed to put up an effective smoke screen. A handful of RAF Buccaneer bombers are to be assigned to oil rig protection, while Nimrod maritime-reconnaissance aircraft are to include the rigs in their patrol patterns. The Nimrod force is already much reduced. The Royal Navy's efforts are to be even more puny — and would be laughable were it not only serious, but a disgraceful way of treating a service with a fine tradition of duty. A few elderly, underpowered and underarmed, minesweepers are to be provided, along with an auxiliary tug of such age that a few years ago it was considered not worth the cost of repainting. True, for the future a small force of patrol vessels, based on a standard design, is foreseen, but these, in common Vvith the existing minesweepers, will lack the strength and seaworthiness necessary to cope with the extreme conditions in the northern reaches of the North Sea. The tug is a write-off anyway. Even the alternative of placing armed men and missiles on the rigs would not be a completely satisfactory answer, even if it was to be possible. Objections from the rig crews have ruled such a course out, and no doubt no really strong objections were necessary for defence chiefs, who would be concerned at the risk of having servicemen attracted away from the services by unfavourable comparisons with the pay of oil rig crews.
Possibly the real need is to establish Coastguard Service on American and Canadian
lines, equipped with a full range of rescue and defence craft with which to protect our coasts, and more particularly the oil rigs, as well as handling fishery protection duties. Such a force would have its own aircraft. Yet, it is hard tu see the attractions of such a service to neve recruits, or indeed the need for a new service when vessels of frigate and destroyer size in the Royal Navy would be needed for such a task. In fact, for the survival of this country, the proposed cuts in the strength of the Royal NavY and in the frigate and destroyer force should be
reinstated, and additional through-deelt cruisers ordered, with development of the maritime version of the Harrier fighter put in hand. Vital cuts in government expenditure should come from other, less vital, areas, such as
nationalisation and other plans involving unlimited socialist largesse. Without adequate defences, after all, any other plans are pointless. and one would have hoped — unfashionable though it might be — that this would have been an attitude common to all political parties.
David Wragg'S books include, most recentlY, Speed in the Air and Flight Before, Flying vumnimmemooseille
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