Global Military Operations

Robert Courts Excerpts

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure and honour to speak in this timely debate. We probably all agree that we face perhaps the most dangerous and concerning time for global security since the end of the cold war. There is a period of extreme danger coming up, with the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the possibility of Chinese action in Taiwan, and the west’s attention is split between those two theatres.

This means that we in Europe have to take a very close look at our capabilities. The fundamental point, looking at what has changed over the last year or so, is that the big assumption under which we operated for 20 or 30 years has now gone. Peer-on-peer conflict and great power rivalry are back, and the assumption that our forces will be able to operate under an umbrella of air supremacy, without fear of substantial attack from the air, is now over.

This means we have to take a close look at how our Air Force and the air forces of our NATO allies are set up. For years we have engaged in operations in low-intensity conflicts, doing air policing or close air support operations without an air-to-air or significant surface-to-air threat. That will now change, of course, which means the Air Force will have to do a number of things, such as building up the number of spares.

Secondly, training will have to change. The training necessary for high intensity peer-on-peer conflict is much different from that required for air policing operations, and personnel can get only a limited amount from sims. Sims are useful because they can engage in scenarios they cannot do for real, but nothing can recreate the psychological and physical stresses of operating multiple aircraft in complex air scenarios.

Much as the Air Force will be thinking about these things and adjusting its training accordingly, it is relevant for us in terms of policy because, if we are looking at the need to build up spares and to fulfil a much more intense training requirement, space is needed to do that. We need to have enough aircraft and enough pilots to make sure the Air Force is not constantly stretched. If the Air Force is stretched all the time, we will not be able to build up either of those things.

That is before I even start talking about the simple factor of mass. As can be seen with the conflict in Ukraine, we can expect that any peer-on-peer conflict will need mass because of the inevitable attrition. For years we have operated in a world in which we could do more with less. Each fast jet we have now is incomparably more capable than what existed during the cold war, and they are light years ahead of anything that existed during the second world war, but we still need the number of platforms to be able to cope with attrition and the training requirement.

Fundamentally, this means either we will have to start doing less discretionary conflict and more high-end training to face the threat, or we will have to scale up the number of people and aircraft to be able to do both. I suspect that the House, the Government and the country will want to do the latter, because we will probably want to take part in the discretionary operations that are so important to the rules-based order and how we see ourselves as a country, but that has a cost.

I have mainly spoken about fast jets, and much of it also applies to air mobility, which is based at RAF Brize Norton in my constituency, so I have a particular interest, but some of the points are common. For example, the concept of main operating bases, in which all our assets are concentrated in two or three large bases, has cost savings. In peacetime, that is of course helpful, but it is a danger when we face a peer adversary. Perhaps the Minister will elaborate in due course as to what consideration is being given to the dispersal of forces, to ensure there is resilience in the event of a peer-on-peer conflict.

We have touched on the C-130 today, so I will not go into that in great detail. I know the Minister will say that the A400M Atlas can fly twice as much, twice as far and twice as fast, which is true, as it is generationally significant; it is a step change as an aircraft. However, concerns remain, first, about its reliability and whether it is where we need to be. Secondly, not all of the capabilities from the Hercules have yet been transferred and they need to be. Thirdly, and above all else, however capable an aircraft, it cannot be in two places at once. We cannot expect the limited number of crews and platforms to be able to do everything if the number of airframes available is decreasing. The important thing that the House must consider is the availability of task lines. Perhaps the Minister will address that in due course, but there is a capability gap there and we are going to have to address it. On air mobility, the other lesson from Ukraine is that no matter how important our capability, we have to get it there. So the logistics are essential and important as never before.

In the last few seconds I have, I shall talk about housing. Our armed forces do crucial work, but it is no good telling them that their work is crucial and that we will rely on them if their showers are cold and there is mould on their walls. We have to make sure that we have the homes we need if we want to be able to undertake global military operations. The sun is outside but the skies are darkening, and we need to remember that.