By Peter Polack

Peter Polack

The glimmer of hope for the bedeviled UK armed forces from an increased budget and expanded public attention from the Ukraine conflict has fallen on the hard and stony ground of hierarchical incompetence.

First came the sad news that a cutting edge British operated F-35B Lockheed Martin fighter jet had been marooned in Kerala for several weeks where it became a promotional stunt for their tourist board who declared: “Kerala the destination that you’ll never want to leave” with an image of the defective plane. The apparent political and military response to this debacle has been the ordering of more jets.

If the Ukraine conflict has taught the leaders of worldwide armed forces anything it would be the negligible use of attack aircraft since the ascension of drones writ large the simple destruction of expensive Russian aircraft sitting in the open at a remote airfield. It may well be that the promotion process has to be modified and expedited to empower a new wave of modern, competent commanders.

The Ukraine has distilled into a war of drones, simple solutions and ultimately, troops to hold the ground. This is where leaders must focus going forward, the men and women at the front.The days of lions led by donkeys are truly over and the time for lions leading lions is now. 

The Russian economic war of daily multi million dollar drone and missile barrages in exchange for a few civilian casualties beggars belief of a successful strategy as opposed to the autocratic manual on economic ruin of a country populated by silent mannequins.

Then there is the no small matter of the disgraced Ben Key or another member of the junior ranks relationship club. The sacking of the former head of the Royal Navy has to be accompanied by a new benchmark in punishment of wandering leaders with loose trousers.The enlisted ranks are watching every move as is there middle management.Examples will have to be made going forward.A bigger budget without a promotion change to ability over institutional meritocracy is required unless it is off to the garden path we go hoping to dodge the iron discipline of the Russian frontline corps.

The world teeters on the edge of a conflict firestorm which has started not too far from the borders of a country that fought their enemies into submission in two world wars.Being an island will not halt the gathering storm clouds. 

Stoking the fires of modern and modified warfare from all corners is required, not swiping right or left.

Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer in the Cayman Islands for several decades. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). His latest book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities with almost five hundred Soviet spies expelled from nearly 100 countries worldwide 1940-88.