Ready for a Fight? 5 Provocations for Change

Wavell Room Audio Reads

Warfare is changing faster than our military and our military-industrial approach. The warnings of world leaders, including the Prime Minister and Chief of the General Staff, that war is imminent have had little effect on our rate of preparation or adaptation . Almost no one, including those working within it, thinks the speed and scale of change in the UK Defence equipment programme in the last two years are adequate.
If it were, the war in Ukraine and Chinese exercises around Taiwan should have offered little cause for alarm. 'Everything is fine' is a proposition few would defend. Our Parliament states that we are not ready to fight a major war with our current equipment and industry approach. Deterrence exists in the minds of our enemy and ill preparedness undermines credibility; not only does it make us less likely to win, it makes war itself more likely.
If few individuals are satisfied with the status quo, why as a collective have we achieved so little change? Machiavelli would have a suggestion.
"There is nothing more difficult to arrange, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes. The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new. Their support is lukewarm … partly because men are generally incredulous, never really trusting new things unless they have tested them by experience."
Niccolo Machiavelli
Changing the system that retards Defence's ability to adapt incurs the frictions he described centuries ago. To disrupt the dominance of those too comfortable, before the disaster of war falls, this article aims to pick a fight. Cunningham's law states "The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer." This article introduces five provocations.
We hope to provide arguments for the innovators, both inside and outside Government, to use to help drive change. But even here we want disagreement, seeing your own argument played back to you can help you see its flaws. For those that disagree, we hope you'll see that, as John Stuart Mill wrote "the nonconforming opinion is needed to supply the remainder of the truth, of which the received doctrine embodies only a part". Help us improve our arguments with your challenge.
You came here for an argument (channelling Monty Python). We hope you enjoy it.
5 Provocations - what we are doing now is not good enough; we must:
1. Plan for dissimilar re-armament: What we deploy in month three of the war will not be more of what we deployed in month one.
2. Change the equation: move to $ cost to $ damage model:The economics of war have changed; we must too, or we lose.
3. Link frontline to factory: War is a learning competition, and we cannot afford to be in the slow class.
4. Rethink the roles of air power: Particularly control of the air and attack, in an uncrewed age.
5. Accept that the future is uncrewed: The role of humans in warfare, at all levels, will change much more than is generally assumed. We need a plan for uncrewed technology at scale.
Taken together, these measures increase our chances of winning a coming war, thereby making it less likely we have to fight in the first place.
Dissimilar Rearmament.
By month three of the next major war, the aircraft, ships, and tanks that we start the fight with will be reduced by attrition. But we know now that we will not be able to replace or grow the numbers of the key platforms in the current equipment programme fast enough to keep fighting. They will need replacing, and we will need them in weeks and months, not years. We will need dissimilar rearmament.
Neither side will be replacing their aircraft fast enough, but liberal democracies are far more dependent on airpower.
In contrast, one UK drone manufacturer, Callen-Lenz, developed their uncrewed system from concept to deployed capability, with production rapidly and highly s...