Army chief: Boots on the ground win wars
Britain will not be able to win wars unless it is prepared to put boots on the ground, the head of the Army has warned. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made politicians reluctant to commit troops, but General Sir Nick Carter, the Chief of the General Staff, says this is a “fallacy”.
In a military career spanning 40 years, General Sir Nick Carter, the head of the British Army, knows all about fighting wars. From his earliest experience as a young rifleman in Londonderry in the 1970s to the more recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, Sir Nick has spent his entire career at the sharp end of Britain’s military machine.
Which is why, when it comes to dealing with the threats Britain is likely to face in the future, he believes it is vital that our political leaders understand the importance of deploying ground forces.
The political controversies over the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have made politicians of all persuasions wary of committing ground troops. The government took great pride in the fact that the operation to overthrow the Libyan dictator, Colonel Gaddafi, in 2011 was conducted without deploying “boots on the ground”.
Similarly, Britain’s contribution to the Us-led coalition effort to defeat Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) consisted primarily of air support provided by RAF fighters and drones. A recent BBC television documentary about the 500 or so British military advisers working with the Iraqi forces saw them express their frustration that they were not allowed to tackle Isil directly because of Whitehall’s constraints on the mission.
But Sir Nick, 58, a plain-speaking general who has been given the daunting task of undertaking major Army reforms against a background of intense budgetary pressure, believes it is a fallacy for politicians to believe they can win wars without resorting to troops on the ground.
“If you are seeking a particular outcome in a conflict, then ultimately you need soldiers to go on to the ground to achieve the aim,” said Sir Nick. “That is why I speak about fallacies. One of the risks of being involved in unpopular campaigns is that they breed scepticism about the use of ground forces.
“I do profoundly believe some people are fallacious when they suggest that war can be won remotely, or prosecuted by using proxies, or that you can use Special Forces as some kind of global robocops, or that you can even avoid war.”
Sir Nick first learnt the value of ground troops as a young platoon commander with the Royal Green Jackets in Londonderry when, on his first night on patrol, he found himself commanding a “killer group” tasked with tackling a cell of IRA terrorists who were planning to blow up a bridge. In those days he was more interested in the excitement of soldiering than looking at the bigger picture. “I regarded it as a mission that was very glamorous and exciting, and a test of mettle,” he recalled.
After Northern Ireland, Sir Nick served in Cyprus, then spent many years as a Cold War warrior with the 1st British Corps in Germany, where he undertook rigorous training to defend Europe from attack by what was then the Soviet Union.
During his long and distinguished career Sir Nick has commanded at every level, from platoon commander to his final command post as deputy head of the Nato mission to Afghanistan, where he oversaw a 100,000-strong coalition force. “Operational command is always the highlight of an officer’s career,” he said.
Now, as one of Britain’s most experienced military commanders, Sir Nick is keen to reflect on the changing character of war, and how the British Army can best prepare itself for the challenges that lie ahead.
“We have lived over the past
15 years through a period of counter-insurgency and stabilisation operations,” he explained, in his spacious office at Army headquarters in Andover, where the walls are lined with tributes he has received from around the globe.
“We now find ourselves in a new world where new threats have emerged and we have to think hard about how we deal with the changed character of conflict.”
Sir Nick has been given the challenging task of restructuring the Army at a time when it has been reduced to its smallest size since the Cromwell era. But he believes the key to making the Army relevant to the modern age is to understand the future challenges we are likely to face.
“The Cold War posture is not relevant today because we do not have the same scale,” he says. At the height of that conflict the US had around 300,000 troops stationed in Europe: today the figure is around 30,000.
But while the Soviet Union no longer exists, the threat posed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia does, and Britain is among a number of Nato countries which have deployed troops to eastern Europe.
“We are deployed in Europe today to provide deterrence against the threat that Russia potentially poses, and to provide reassurance to those Nato allies that feel threatened by Russia,” he says.
“The defining characteristic seems to be one of instability. Understanding each other in this multi-polar world is very challenging. The great threat is escalation, and associated with that is miscalculation.”
And Sir Nick believes that, despite the unpopularity of the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the public would support the use of British ground forces if politicians presented a convincing argument for their use.
“All governments have to make the case to use the Armed Forces, and I think when the case is made the British public does not have a hang-up about using them. It is a question of there being a just cause and the case being made for the cause.”
And he also warned that, despite the Us-led coalition’s success in destroying Isil’s bases in Iraq and Syria, the war against Isil is not over.
“The geographical phenomenon that is the Caliphate has been defeated, but the ideology remains. We have won the first battle in the campaign, but now we have to deal with the ideology that goes with it.”
‘One of the risks of being involved in unpopular campaigns is that they breed scepticism about the use of ground forces’
‘I believe some people are fallacious when they suggest that you can use special forces as some kind of global robocops’