Forces united... call to merge Army, Navy and RAF
THE Army, Royal Air Force and Royal Navy should merge to become a single, unified force like the United States Marine Corps, Canada’s top general said last night, writes Marco Giannangeli.
It follows plans to bring all three services closer in a cost-cutting exercise ahead of the impending Integrated Security,
Defence and Foreign Policy review.
Sources say a joint budget, centralised control and the culling of top brass in duplicate roles across headquarters of all three branches are being considered.
It takes inspiration from Canada, which fused its services into a single defence force in 1968 but all three branches would keep their separate identities.the amalgamation of regiments into super battalions, which is already underway, would continue with a unified defence medical service and joint helicopter command.
Defence Secretary Benwallace is working with his Permanent Under Secretary Sir Stephen Lovegrove on how much each service chief should have from the annual £41.3billion military budget.
A centralised needs-based kitty would spell the end of “budget envy” between the services and hasten inter-branch cooperation because, sources say, services would no longer have to weigh up the cost to their individual spending.
Savings would come from greater efficiencies and the culling of generals, admirals and air commodores based at Andover, Portsmouth and Highwycombe. Also hundreds of millions of pounds in gold-plated pension pots would be saved.
But last night Maj Gen David Fraser, who during the Afghanistan conflict became the first Canadian to lead US troops since the Second Worldwar, argued Britain must embrace a fully unified approach if it hoped to tackle daily security challenges as well as “once in every 30 year events”. He said: “We’ve spent the last 40 years unwinding our merger – it did not work. “The problem is that we didn’t embrace the cultural changes and take them to their logical conclusion, which would have a United States Marine Corps model.
“We tried to have a single, green uniform, but it did not last long. By adopting half measures, we did not save money and did not achieve the strategic objectives of providing a smaller, agile force.”
He said Britain should adopt the model used by the 190,000-strong US Marine Corps.