UKNDA - United Kingdom National Defence Association

Join us NOW Donations UKNDA Energy

News Centre

30/03/2013
Royal Navy Losing its Critical Mass says Defence Association

UKNDA News Release - Release time immediate.

The Royal Navy is losing its critical mass, both in ships and personnel, after 10 years of defence cuts, according to the UK National Defence Association (UKNDA). In the past decade it has shrunk to a third of its Cold War size despite the broadening of its mission portfolio.

Cdr John Muxworthy RN, Chief Executive of the UKNDA, says that the Navy has been worst hit of all three Services by cuts to the defence budget during the Blair/Brown and Cameron governments. “We have too few surface ships in today’s Navy, too few submarines, too few aircraft, and too few people,” he says. “Having watched the Service shrink through ill-thought-out funding cuts, morale in the Navy has taken a nosedive. The Government claims it cannot afford to maintain force levels – but the reality is that we cannot afford not to.”

An article by Francis Beaufort, entitled “Has the Royal Navy’s critical mass gone?”, in the April issue of Warships International Fleet Review traces the reductions in the Navy between 1982 (the Falklands conflict) and the present day, and looks in particular at the impact on Britain’s maritime defence capabilities of the cuts made by the Coalition Government’s Strategic Defence & Security Review (SDSR-2010).

“Ships and people are being worn out”, writes Francis Beaufort, “and the discarding of whole elements of maritime capability – including strike carriers, Maritime Patrol Aircraft and Type 22 frigates – has knocked morale severely, particularly with thousands of highly skilled and experienced sailors being made redundant since 2010…. The skill pool has already shrunk due to the SDSR redundancies and there will be only 29,000 sailors and marines in the Royal Navy by 2020, compared with over 36,000 in 2004 and 73,000 in 1982.”

In an Open Letter to the Prime Minister and the Defence Secretary, enclosing a copy of this article, Admiral The Rt Hon The Lord West of Spithead, Patron of the UKNDA and former First Sea Lord, says:. “We live on an island and more than 90% of everything that goes to and from this country goes by sea. In this highly dangerous and chaotic world with the inevitability of strategic shock, I believe our nation is standing into danger.”

Copies of Francis Beaufort’s article and of the recent UKNDA report “The State of the Nation’s Armed Forces”, co-authored by Admiral The Lord West, General Sir Michael Rose and Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon, may be downloaded from this UKNDA website in the previous article,

22/10/2012
UKNDA Autumnal Newsletter

The lastest Newsletter is both an autumnal report to reflect on this year's performance and a newsletter to bring you up to date.

To see the full report click here

For past reports go to the Media/Press selection at the bottom of the webwsite.

18/09/2012
UKNDA Calls for National Debate on Defence

NEWS RELEASE

Embargoed to 00:01 hrs, Tuesday 18 September 2012

UKNDA CALLS FOR NATIONAL DEBATE ON DEFENCE

David Cameron and his senior Cabinet colleagues risk going down in history as “Guilty Men” akin to Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain unless they call a halt to current Defence cuts and accept that we cannot risk reducing our Armed Services at a time when countries such as Russia and China are expanding their military forces, the Middle East is more volatile than ever, piracy is on the increase, the Falkland Islands are once more in Argentina’s sights, and America is reducing its commitment to Europe's defence. .

This is the message from the UK National Defence Association (UKNDA) which is calling for a national debate on Defence and which this week launches two major reports highlighting growing deficiencies in Britain’s military capabilities, and warning of the serious consequences of allowing our Armed Forces to continue to shrink.

Both reports carry a hard-hitting foreword by the distinguished historian Andrew Roberts who warns that the present Government is ignoring the lessons of history and seems set on a course that is “illogical, dangerous and ultimately self-defeating”. He counsels the Prime Minister that it is in his own and the Government's interests to take action sooner rather than later to put things right: “Nothing can ruin a British statesman’s reputation quicker or more completely than being suspected of having neglected the nation’s defences.”

Co-authors of the two new UKNDA reports include Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon (former Chief of the Air Staff), General Sir Michael Rose (former UN commander in Bosnia), Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham (former Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff) and Air Commodore Andrew Lambert (Bosnia / Iraq / Falklands).

“Disarmament and Consequences: Can Britain Remain Aloof?” presents a series of hypothetical (but realistic) scenarios in which the United Kingdom would be seriously endangered by events around the world spiralling out of control, and in which our drastically reduced Armed Forces would be unable to guarantee the security of the UK homeland, our borders, our trade routes and our vital energy supplies.

“A National Debate on Defence – A Dire Necessity” examines the UK’s role in the world and poses a series of inescapable questions for the Government to answer about Britain’s strategic goals and our relationships with America, Europe and the wider world. At a time when public opinion in Britain is increasingly supportive of the Armed Forces and concerned about Defence cuts, the UKNDA report calls for “a serious national debate on the priority which Britain should accord Defence within a total budget the nation can afford”.

For copies of the reports or for further information on the UKNDA please write or eamils to: The Secretary, UK National Defence Association, PO Box 819, Portsmouth PO1 9FF. email address: Secretary@uknda.org

-ENDS

Press contact: Andy Smith, Director, UK National Defence Association, tel 07737 271676, email andy.smith@uknda.org

05/07/2012
UKNDA News Release on Army Cuts

NEWS RELEASE

UKNDA

ARMY CUTS 'PUT BRITAIN ON COURSE FOR DISARMAMENT AND NEUTRALITY'

Shrinking the British Army by 'salami-slicing' regiments and making thousands of British soldiers redundant will inevitably be seen by our enemies as a sign that the UK is 'opting out' as a major military power. "These cuts put us on a course towards disarmament and neutrality", said the UK National Defence Association (UKNDA).

Reacting to Defence Secretary Philip Hammond's latest announcement, UKNDA director Andy Smith said: "These are dangerous cuts as they can only be interpreted as an admission by the Government that we are can no longer play an influential role on the world stage. As British interests are world-wide, and we still aspire to be 'a force for good in the world', making 20,000 soldiers redundant and leaving us with little more than a 'home defence force' is the height of folly. This is a decision that Ministers will live to regret."

The UKNDA spokesman said that the Government's intention to plug some gaps in our military capability by expanding the Territorial Army was 'hopelessly unrealistic'. "The TA relies on the goodwill of employers to release key staff for TA training and duties. This will stretch that goodwill to breaking point. I don't doubt the commitment of Reservist soldiers - they have already proved themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan - but defending the UK's strategic interests cannot really be a part-time job. We need more full-time regular soldiers, as well as more reservists."

He added: "It appears that the Territorial Army is just being used as a fig-leaf to cover the Government's embarrassment at the inherent weaknesses of its Defence policy."

The UKNDA, which was formed in 2007 to oppose the then Labour Government's 'chronic under-funding' of the Armed Forces, believes that the present Coalition Government's Strategic Defence & Security Review 2010 (SDSR) was a Treasury-driven review which failed to take sufficient account of the requirements of Britain's already over-stretched Armed Forces.

-ENDS

For further information please contact Andy Smith on 07737 271676, email andy.smith@uknda.org, or UKNDA Chief Executive Officer, Cdr John Muxworthy RN, on 07721 624980, email ceo@uknda.org.

Or visit the UKNDA website, www.uknda.org

11/06/2012
Defence cuts will "Castrate" British Forces

Thousands of redundancies in the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force - to be announced tomorrow (June 12) by Defence Secretary Philip Hammond - will leave Britain's Armed Forces 'castrated' and unable to protect either the nation's global interests or to guarantee the security of the homeland, according to the UK National Defence Association (UKNDA).

The UKNDA, which was formed in 2007 to oppose the then Labour Government's 'chronic under-funding' of the Armed Forces, believes that the present Coalition Government's Strategic Defence and Security Review 2010 (SDSR) was a Treasury-driven review which failed to take sufficient account of the requirements of Britain's already over-stretched Armed Forces. The latest cuts means thousands of redundancies across all three Services.

UKNDA director Andy Smith said: "The Coalition is castrating our Armed Forces. The Defence Secretary claims that the cuts will not harm Britain's military capabilities but nothing could be further from the truth. Our ability to project power internationally has been massively reduced by the SDSR and the extent of the latest cuts means we can no longer even guarantee the security of our own people in the British Isles or our overseas territories.

"Thirty years ago this week, on 14th June 1982, British forces liberated the Falklands. If Argentina invades again we could not hold or retake the Falklands this time. The British campaign in 1982 was a combined sea, land and air operation, and even this was 'a close run thing'. Now, post-SDSR, we are simply no longer able to mount such an operation. The Secretary of State should acknowledge this fact. Britain is no longer a credible global military power."

-ENDS

For further information please contact Andy Smith on 07737 271676, email andy.smith@uknda.org, or UKNDA Chief Executive Officer, Cdr John Muxworthy RN, on 07721 624980, email ceo@uknda.org.

Or visit the UKNDA website, www.uknda.org

01/04/2012
History Repeating - The Falklands at Risk Again

Why does Argentina covet the Falklands? Read the latest UKNDA discussion paper - click here

For the Press Release click here

27/09/2011
UKNDA Strategy Paper - Inconvenient Truths

A new UKNDA strategy paper named “Inconvenient Truths” has been issued today Tuesday 27 September 2011, advising the Government at this crucial time, to review and revise SDSR 10, before this country is, in truth, disarmed. For the full paper ........

Click here

18/07/2011
Coalition doesn't understand defence

News Release.

The UK National Defence Association (UKNDA) has described the Government's plan to cut the regular army by a fifth as "mind-bogglingly idiotic".

A spokesman said the decision to reduce British army manpower to barely 80,000 shows that the Coalition "completely fails to understand defence". UKNDA director Andy Smith said: "Boosting the reserves will not compensate for slashing the regular army, the navy and the air force. The Government talks about providing 'extra' money for defence, but this is not really extra money at all, as the overall defence budget has already been cut to the bone and our military capabilities are shrinking by the day. Investing in training and new equipment is vitally important but what is being offered now is too little too late.

He added: "Liam Fox is putting a brave face on the complete emasculation of his department. For the past year George Osborne and the Treasury have been raiding the MOD budget simply to patch up the funding gaps elsewhere in government. This is Coalition policy - sacrifice the defence of the realm for political expediency, while crossing your fingers that nothing untoward will happen.

"Incredibly, despite the dangerous world situation, we now have the smallest army in more than a hundred years and the smallest navy in four hundred years. And yet the Prime Minister continues to claim that the nation's security is his top priority, while at the same time allowing the Treasury to systematically rape our armed forces. The Coalition is trying to get defence on the cheap. After a year in office the PM and his Cabinet still fail to understand the threats we face, the capabilities we require to meet them, and the funding needed to deliver these capabilities.

"The Government's defence policy is mind-bogglingly idiotic. It not just irresponsible - it is gross negligence."

-Ends
Press contact: Andy Smith, Director (Chief Exec pro tem), UK National Defence Association,

P.O. Box 819, Portsmouth, PO1 9FF. Tel 07737 271676.
UKNDA HQ: 023 9283 1728. Website www.uknda.org

22/06/2011
Further cuts to defence will put our Armed Forces on the nation's critical list

UKNDA News Release.

The UK National Defence Association (UKNDA) is sounding a “Red Alert” on the danger of further cuts to Britain’s already chronically-overstretched Armed Forces and says that the Coalition’s Defence policy amounts to “disarmament in all but name”.

The Association, which campaigns for a fairer deal for the UK’s military, is spearheading efforts to persuade the Government to recognise the need for a fundamental rethink of its whole approach to Defence.

The UKNDA’s “Red Alert” warning comes in the wake of an article in the authoritative and highly respected Jane’s Defence Weekly which claims that the Government is considering further sweeping cuts to the Armed Forces, in addition to the recent reductions and redundancies.

The options that according to Jane’s are currently being considered by the Government include:

Shrinking the Royal Navy’s surface fleet to just 12 frigates and destroyers (six of the new Daring Class and just six of the Type-23 destroyers).
Terminating the Army’s future AFV programmes and replacing these programmes with smaller efforts to buy mine-protected vehicles with limited combat capabilities.
Halving the order for 12 Chinooks to just six.
Reducing the number of RAF fast jets to “well under 100” from the force of 210 Eurofighter Typhoons and Panavia Tornado GR4s.
Disbandment of either the Royal Marines 3 Commando Brigade or the Army’s 16 Air Assault Brigade, or possibly disbanding both.

Commenting on these proposals, UKNDA Founder/Director Cdr John Muxworthy said:

“The Government has U-turned on its National Health Service policy but by sticking to its ill-conceived SDSR and ongoing Defence cuts, against the advice of the military experts, it looks like the next patient on the NHS critical list will be our nation’s Armed Forces!

“We already have the smallest Army since the nineteenth century and the smallest Navy since the sixteenth! Any further cuts to our Armed Forces, on top of those the Government have already imposed, will put the security of this country at very severe risk.

“The UKNDA, senior officers and many in the media have for months now warned that the reductions in Britain’s defence capabilities have gone dangerously too far. HMS ARK ROYAL and the Harriers have been cast aside. The strength of the Army has dropped below the 100,000 mark for the first time in more than 100 years. The RAF have already lost many of their Tornadoes and Maritime Surveillance aircraft, nine of the latter being crushed for no value at all – and at an utterly wasted cost of more than £4bn, which must be the most staggeringly short-sighted defence decision ever taken!

“And now we read of possible further swingeing cuts. This is more than a step too far – it would be a gigantic and irresponsible leap into insecurity and future insignificance. These latest proposals should be abandoned and earlier SDSR decisions reviewed, rejected and reversed. Once lost it will be well nigh impossible to restore these capabilities.

“Listen to the Service chiefs. Listen to the experienced voices of those, present and past, who have served their country and helped make it what it is today. Please don’t repeat the mantra that ‘we face difficult decisions’ – we all know that, but the choice, to save or to emasculate our Armed Forces, with all the inevitable consequences that will bring, is now yours to make, not dodge.

“You say repeatedly that ‘Defence is the first priority of government’ but when compared to the reality this statement looks increasingly hollow and almost laughable. Please have the courage to admit that the SDSR was rushed and wrong – just as you did with the proposed NHS reforms. Now, please, stop the rot and SAVE our Armed Forces!”

-Ends

Media contacts: Cdr John Muxworthy RN, tel: 01264 860693, mobile 07721 624980, email director.jlm@uknda.org; Andy Smith, tel: 07737 271676, email pro@uknda.org

17/03/2011
UKNDA NATIONWIDE APPEAL

In Defence of the Realm. Help us Support Our Armed Forces.

UKNDA has today (17 March 2011) re-launched our Support Our Armed Forces campaign. This is a most urgent WARNING to our politicians, the media and all our people that WE ARE STANDING INTO DANGER ...

Leading defence experts call for Trident's replacement to be agreed without the diversion of any resources from the existing core defence budget.

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH LETTERS 15 Aug 2010

SIR – We call upon the Prime Minister to authorise the Trident replacement programme in its entirety, without diverting any resources from the existing core defence budget. Our conventional Armed Forces are chronically over-stretched and seriously under-resourced; they cannot withstand further reductions in their budget in order to fund the Trident replacement.

Forty years of a nuclear deterrent provided first by Polaris, and subsequently by Trident, have proved successful. To be fully effective, the deterrent force must be reliable, secure and available at all times for deployment and use. Only a submarine force can be sure of operating unobserved and undetected by potential enemies.

To decide against replacing Trident, or even to compromise by opting for a less certain, less reliable alternative, would be a major change to policies which have served this country well over decades. It presents real risks to our nation in an increasingly dangerous world

Furthermore, Britain’s place as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council would be threatened and probably lost, leading to a significant diminution of Britain’s influence in world affairs.

All this and more will need to be spelled out to the nation; we hope that the Prime Minister will take the responsible position and retain the nuclear capability without undermining the capabilities of our Armed Forces any further.

Dr the Lord Gilbert
Minister of State for Defence, 1976-1979
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Julian Oswald
Chief of the Naval Staff and First Sea Lord, 1989-1993
Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon
Chief of the Air Staff, 1992-1997
Admiral Sir John Treacher
Commander-in-Chief Fleet, 1975-1977
Randolph Churchill
Air Cdre Andrew Lambert (retd)
Andrew Roberts
Allen Sykes
Cdr John Muxworthy RN
Chief Executive, UK National Defence Association
Portsmouth, Hampshire

Click here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/7944874/Trident-shouldnt-lead-to-more-defence-cuts.html

13/08/2010
MoD reform must not become smokescreen for more defence cuts,

.. say Armed Forces campaigners.

UKNDA News Release

The United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) has welcomed Defence Secretary Liam Fox's speech setting out his vision for a more efficient Ministry of Defence and more flexible Armed Forces. But the UKNDA has warned that "defence reform" must not become a smokescreen for further cuts to the defence budget or the lowering of Britain's military capabilities.

UKNDA spokesman Andy Smith said: "The Defence Secretary is right to say that to meet the threats to UK security in the years and decades ahead we need to improve the efficiency of the Ministry of Defence and the flexibility and versatility of our Armed Forces. But it is vital that the proposed programme of 'reform' does not become an excuse to squeeze the UK's defence budget even further.

"For the past two decades, under successive governments, funding for our military has been reduced, year on year, leaving our Armed Forces chronically under-resourced and over-stretched. We have reached the point where we urgently need to increase the resources available to the military, not cut them back further and thus risk serious threats to the security of the nation.

"Any savings that can be made through the Defence Secretary's proposed effeciency drive at the MoD must be reinvested into the expansion of our Armed Forces and the provision of adequate manpower, training and equipment. Only this way can we repair the vast gaping holes that have been left in our defence capabilities by more than 20 years of neglect, under-funding and political short-termism."

-Ends

Media contacts: Cdr John Muxworthy, Chief Executive, e-mail ceo@uknda.org, tel 01264 860693, or Andy Smith, Public Relations Officer and Deputy Chief Executive, e-mail pro@uknda.org, tel 07737 271676

02/08/2010
UKNDA Vice-President Azeem Ibrahim advises US Assistant Deputy

Vice-President Azeem Ibrahim advises US Assistant Deputy Secretary of Defence Doug Wilson.

Azeem Ibrahim, a Vice-President of the UK National Defence Association (UKNDA), held a meeting today (Aug 2) with the US Assistant Deputy Secretary of Defense, Doug Wilson, forming part of a small group of experts from the UK and US to discuss the issue of Islamic radicalization within the Muslim American community. Also in attendance were the Deputy Director of the National Security Council and the Deputy Director of Communications for the State Department.

The meeting was hosted in Secretary Wilson's office at the Pentagon. It follows on the heels of Azeem Ibrahim being invited to deliver a briefing at the US Congress highlighting how to tackle Islamic extremism over the long term, in which he detailed a number of lessons learned from his pioneering research and Islamic programmes.

Azeem is no stranger to tackling extremist ideologies and has an extensive track record for breaking new ground in this area. In the past he has advised the UK government on counter-terrorism and radicalisation strategy after delivering a keynote speech at the Security and Cohesion Leaders' Summit in Parliament. He subsequently wrote a policy memorandum on "Reducing Terrorism over the Long Term", which was distributed to every MP and Peer, and to every Member of the Scottish Parliament. The memo aroused intense interest amongst senior politicians in both the UK and US.

30/07/2010
MoD may sell carrier to fill huge hole in defence budget

Talks are taking place at the Ministry of Defence about finding a buyer for one of the ships being built at a cost of £5.2 billion for the Royal Navy.

MoD may sell carrier to fill huge hole in defence budget

By Nicholas Cecil, Chief Political Correspondent

Evening Standard 30^th July 2010

Britain may be forced to sell one of its flagship new aircraft carriers to plug a huge hole in its defence budget. Talks are taking place at the Ministry of Defence about finding a buyer for one of the ships being built at a cost of £5.2 billion for the Royal Navy. The financial crisis at the MoD has deepened after Chancellor George Osborne rejected a bid by Defence Secretary Liam Fox to get the Treasury to pay for the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent, which will cost tens of billions.

Senior military insiders are not optimistic about forcing the Treasury to change its stance on funding the upgrade of the submarine-borne nuclear weapons system. But they believe that Prime Minister David Cameron and other Cabinet ministers may be able to persuade the Chancellor to agree a more generous settlement for the MoD once they realise how devastating and politically unpalatable cuts to the military budget would be.

Having to sell one of the two new 65,000-tonne aircraft carriers — HMS Queen Elizabeth, which is due to come into service in 2016, or HMS Prince of Wales, due for launch in 2018 — would be humiliating for the Navy, leaving the UK with only one carrier.

Britain has been building defence co-operation with France and has discussed timing maintenance so that at least one of the countries has an aircraft carrier operational at all times.

A sale to France is thought unlikely but selling to another ally is being discussed. India is understood to have expressed an interest. Simply scrapping one of the carriers is believed to be too expensive due to contractual arrangements.

This morning Lord West, the former head of the Navy who was made security minister under Labour, insisted that the Treasury should fund renewing Trident.

“Last time this was done it came from the Ministry of Defence budget and effectively it cost the Navy about 25 destroyers and frigates,” he told the BBC. “If that happened today, we would not have any destroyers and frigates left.”

He claimed that under the Labour government, the Treasury was due to pick up the bill to replace Trident, though this is disputed by other sources. If deep cuts have to be made, Lord West believes the RAF's Tornado fleet should be axed — which could save about £7 billion.

He accepted there was an argument to end the “continuous at sea” deployment of the Trident nuclear deterrent.

Senior Liberal Democrats believe that the MoD may have to downgrade the nuclear deterrent due to budget cuts which could also see the size of the Army reduced. They have argued that the number of Trident nuclear submarines could be cut from four to three.

Former Lib-Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell said: “It's self-evident that a decision to renew Trident on a like-for-like basis will have a serious impact on Britain's conventional capability.”

Click here to read more: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23861763-mod-may-sell-carrier-to-fill-huge-hole-in-defence-budget.do

28/07/2010
UKNDA News Release

Reducing Trident Deterrent Force Would Undermine Britain's Defence, say Campaigners.

Scaling back Britain's Trident nuclear deterrent force could pose a serious threat to the nation's defence capability, according to the UK National Defence Association (UKNDA).

Responding to the proposal in a report by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) that Britain should cut back from four Trident submarines (SSBNs) to three, the UKNDA's Chief Executive, Cdr John Muxworthy RN, said:

"To be effective any deterrent must be certain and constant, not intermittent and therefore unreliable. Repeated studies and long experience have led the Royal Navy and successive governments to conclude that, in order to ensure absolute certainty of availability, at least four SSBNs are required.

"Last year one of our four Trident submarines was put out of action by a 'freak' accident when a French SSBN accidentally bumped into it, while both were operating underwater on their separate patrols. For the next year this accident reduced our available force to three, barely able (and not for long) to maintain the essential constant presence.

"To rely on just three submarines would be to court uncertainty because, as last year's incident illustrates, accidents can and do happen - and a constant presence of the deterrent could not be maintained with any degree of certainty. If nuclear deterrence remains a vital cornerstone of Britain's defences, as we in UKNDA believe it should, then it is vital for us to have an effective deterrent force, and this means a minimum of four SSBNs.

"Either we continue with a nuclear deterrent - in which case we should 'do it properly' - or give it up entirely. There are some politicians who believe in the latter option. But what those who advocate abandoning Trident are in effect saying is that they can foresee every strategic threat to this country for decades ahead and that they do not believe Trident would be of any use in any of these circumstances. This is a huge gamble that no responsible government should take.

"Be certain, be sure. Keep the deterrent and ensure that we have sufficient submarines. Compromising on defence will, sooner or later, cost money - and lives."

-Ends

Media contacts: Cdr John Muxworthy, e-mail ceo@uknda.org, tel 01264 860693, or Andy Smith, e-mail pro@uknda.org, tel 07737 271676.

Notes to Editors:

The United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) was formed in 2007 to campaign in support of Britain's Armed Forces.

Tri-Service and politically independent, the UKNDA aims to ensure that Britain's fighting men and women are properly trained, equipped, sustained and cared for. The Association's founder-President, Winston S. Churchill, the former MP and war correspondent (and grandson of Britain's WWII Prime Minister), died on March 2, 2010.

For more information on the UKNDA, go to www.uknda.org

15/07/2010
General Sir David Richards to lead the military

By Tim Shipman Daily Mail
15 July 2010

The Army was celebrating last night after General Sir David Richards, one of Britain's most experienced fighting soldiers, was formally unveiled as the next head of the Armed Forces.
He will take over from Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup as Chief of the Defence Staff in October, after the completion of the strategic defence review.

Sir David, the current head of the Army, was personally picked by the Prime Minister after Defence Secretary Liam Fox let it slip that Sir Jock was to be forced out early.

Army insiders expressed delight that frontline troops will have "one of their own" taking charge at such a critical time for the war in Afghanistan after years of being told what to do by Sir Jock, who was dismissed by one source as "one of those Johnnies used to dispensing wisdom from 30,000ft".

General Richards is seen as a "soldier's soldier", having led operations in a series of conflicts from Northern Ireland and East Timor to Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.
The general, who has recently voiced support for opening talks with the Taliban, will be charged with driving through the surge strategy in Afghanistan to pave the way for a drawdown of British troops.

Senior government sources say David Cameron was impressed with General Richards' ideas for making it possible to withdraw British troops sooner rather than later. "If you look at any counterinsurgency campaign throughout history, there's always a point at which you start to negotiate with each other, probably through proxies in the first instance," he said last month.

"From my own, and this is a purely private view, I think there's no reason why we shouldn't be looking at that sort of thing pretty soon."

Ministry of Defence insiders also said General Richards would quickly be seen as the driving force in the Armed Forces and would now have extra authority to help shape the defence review to help his own service.

Mr Cameron said: "Sir Jock has served with real distinction in his time as CDS. I have been grateful for his advice since becoming Prime Minister and know that he will continue to make an extremely valuable contribution. I have no doubt that Sir David will build on this in the years to come, ensuring that all three services-play their part in protecting Britain's national security in Afghanistan and elsewhere."

Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded British troops in Afghanistan in 2003, said General Richards' role for Mr Cameron will be as important as Winston Churchill's wartime chief, General Sir Alan Brooke. "To have a soldier who has the operational experience, particularly in Afghanistan, will make all the difference."

15/04/2010
Parties get their priorities wrong ... again

In a total of 308 pages of manifesto promises by the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, barely nine pages are devoted to the state of Britain's Armed Forces. (UKNDA press release)~

NEWS RELEASE

Thursday 15 April 2010

PARTIES GET THEIR PRIORITIES WRONG... AGAIN

Only 9 pages out of 308 are devoted to defence and national security in the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat manifestos

The three main political parties have all failed to give sufficient attention to the defence of the realm – supposedly “the first priority of government” – in their General Election manifestos, according to the UK National Defence Association (UKNDA).

In a total of 308 pages of General Election promises by the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, barely nine pages are devoted to the state of Britain's Armed Forces. The Conservatives cover defence in four pages of their 118-page manifesto, the Liberal Democrats give the subject the equivalent of three pages out of 112, and in Labour's 78-page manifesto defence warrants only two pages.

“This is an appalling reflection on our politicians and their muddled sense of priorities,” says UKNDA spokesman Andy Smith. “Many of these same politicians still claim that 'defence is the first priority of government' – but the reality is exposed by the scant attention given to the subject in their parties' manifestos.”

The UKNDA believes that the policies set out in the three manifestos are inherently dishonest. “Both Labour and the Tories see Britain continuing to have a strong global role and a proactive foreign policy,” says Andy Smith, “yet neither party indicates how the resources will be made available for our Armed Forces to do this. The fact is that defence has been chronically under-funded since the 1990s, both by Tory and Labour governments, leaving our Forces severely over-stretched and under-equipped. Britain now spends barely 2.2% of GDP on defence, which is woefully inadequate.

“The Liberal Democrats pledge to restore the 'Military Covenant' and improve the welfare of Service personnel and their families, but also call for 'savings' in the defence budget – despite the fact that military funding has already fallen in real terms over the past decade while other areas of Government spending have grown. Rather than accepting the urgent need to increase defence funding, the LibDems see Britain's future defence needs being met through increased European cooperation, which in our view is wholly unrealistic.

“If the Labour, Tory and LibDem parties were honest they would spell out the risks to Britain from a continued failure to invest adequately in defence. Instead, each one of these parties has dodged the fundamental question of defence funding. Only by increasing the budget for our Armed Forces can we repair Britain's fractured military capability and ensure the future security of our country, our worldwide interests, our borders, our trade routes and energy supplies.”

-Ends

Media contacts: Cdr John Muxworthy, e-mail ceo@uknda.org, tel 01264 860693, or Andy Smith, e-mail pro@uknda.org, tel 07737 271676.

Notes to Editors:

The United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) was formed in 2007 to campaign in support of Britain's Armed Forces. The Patrons of the UKNDA include three former Chiefs of the Defence Staff – Admiral The Lord Boyce, Marshal of the RAF The Lord Craig, and General The Lord Guthrie. Tri-Service and politically independent, the UKNDA aims to ensure that Britain's fighting men and women are properly trained, equipped, sustained and cared for. The Association's founder-President, Winston S. Churchill, former MP and war correspondent (and grandson of Britain's WWII Prime Minister), died on March 2, 2010.

For more information on the UKNDA, go to www.uknda.org

MANIFESTO of the UNITED KINGDOM NATIONAL DEFENCE ASSOCIATION

April 2010

The purpose of the UKNDA is to campaign for sufficient, appropriate and fully funded Armed Forces that the nation needs to defend effectively the United Kingdom, its people, their security and vital interests wherever they may be.

Britain’s Armed Forces – Under-funded and over-stretched

Over the past 25 years the percentage of the UK’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) invested in defence has been remorselessly reduced (from over 5% to barely 2.2%). This under-funding results in inadequate numbers of personnel and equipment.

Politicians of all parties chant the mantra that “Defence is the first priority of Government” – but the evidence shows otherwise. Defence is low and getting steadily lower in the nation’s list of priorities. All three Armed Services have been repeatedly reduced in size and capability so that they are now chronically over-stretched for the tasks they are given.

Despite the Government’s in-depth Strategic Defence Review twelve years ago (SDR ’98) our Armed Forces’ commitments have not been properly funded, leading to successive further reviews in which recommendations have been excessively ‘adjusted’ or abandoned altogether. The recommendations of SDR ’98 have all but vanished from sight.

In judging the necessary requirements of all three Armed Services it must be remembered that for the past twelve years – uniquely among the major government departments – the MoD received virtually no increase in its budget in real terms, i.e. what that budget could buy. This is because the cost of equipment has increased 6% to 8% a year, far in excess of general inflation.

Hence the Services were starved of necessary resources while having five unforeseen wars to fight (Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq). So the starting point for considering general cuts across the public sector needs to allow for the fact that the scope for defence cuts is small to non-existent.

Britain could of course abandon its historic roles of protecting its global interests and its major commitment to global peace and security but this would be at a terrible price to defence of the realm. No other nation or alliance would be obliged to protect our interests, and the many and growing threats would remain.

Defence policy is inextricably linked to national and international security and to the nation’s foreign policy. Funding for defence must therefore be seen in the context of these requirements, and not in isolation. Britain and British interests worldwide are constantly at risk from international terrorism as well as from rogue states. This means we need a strong commitment to collective security with other democracies.

If we are to maintain our leading international role (UN Security Council), uphold our Treaty obligations (NATO) and play our full part in the world community, alongside the US, we need to enhance our military capability, not reduce it. After years of chronic under-funding, during which time the UK has been forced to ‘punch above its budget’, defence funding must be increased to meet the challenges that lie ahead.

Failure to do so will inevitably lead to a significant reduction in Britain’s international influence, as well as irreparable damage to our ability to defend ourselves and secure our borders, our trade routes, our energy supplies and our vital economic interests around the world.

The Royal Navy

The Royal Navy, in both numbers of ships and personnel, is now smaller than at any time in the past century – and it is getting ever smaller.

The 1998 Strategic Defence Review, conducted before the current Iraq and Afghanistan operations began, set out a requirement for two large aircraft carriers (the order was finally placed in 2008), 32 escorts (including 12 Type 45 DARING class Destroyers) and 10 SSNs (Submarines, nuclear powered, hunter killers). Today the carriers are still at least seven and nine years away from completion, the number of escorts has dropped to twenty-three and is declining further, while the number of SSNs is dropping to six, possibly seven.

Only six Type 45 destroyers are being built – a 50% cut in the stated minimum number required. The whole escort flotilla (it can now hardly be called a fleet) will inevitably decline to about 15-17 ships and their average age will rise. The official ‘planned life’ of the existing and already old destroyers and frigates has already been extended in an endeavour to fill in the gap that will otherwise inevitably occur before any replacement escort vessels can be designed, ordered and built. On present plans no new escorts can now even theoretically be expected until 2021 at the earliest.

In 2006, due to insufficient funds to upgrade the aircraft, the Navy withdrew from service its Sea Harrier FA2 air defence aircraft. These aircraft were designed specifically to provide air cover for the Fleet. There is now, and will be for at least another nine years, an ‘air gap’ over the Fleet, unless the RN has a large US Navy carrier battle-group present to provide overhead protection.

Destroyers and Frigates with much operational life left in them have been sold to ‘save money’ for the Carrier project. The modern Type 23 Frigate HMS GRAFTON and two of her sister ships were sold off (to Chile) for a fraction of their build cost while they all had half (and more) of their planned operational life still left in them. Patrol vessels, no longer required in Hong Kong, but highly suitable to patrol the waters in the Persian Gulf and other maritime security duties, have been sold. Mine warfare vessels (already in short supply) have been withdrawn from service, refurbished and sold of f to other navies. All this is happening at a time when the maritime security problem is rapidly increasing. Maritime trade (90% of all international trade goes by sea) is expanding constantly as Far Eastern economies grow. Fossil Fuel transportation is growing exponentially and 80% of it travels by sea. For the West this includes the trade in LPG (liquid petroleum gas), which is increasing at a rate of 8% p.a. All this traffic passes through a handful of choke points, several of them in very unstable areas.

Trafficking of immigrants, narcotics and arms is growing. Piracy and terrorism at sea are on the increase as are disputes over seabed resources, including now in the Arctic and most recently off the Falkland Islands and the Antarctic where the UK has traditional interests. In response to this situation many nations are increasing their defence budgets and, especially east of Suez, building up their navies. The Australians are rapidly expanding their Navy – only the Royal Navy is shrinking – and fast. We cannot be sure that our vital interests are secure in a world that is becoming daily more dangerous. Business is increasingly being conducted on a “just in time” basis; the holding of lots of stocks and reserves in this country and elsewhere is a thing of the past. If the Suez Canal were to be blocked; if the Straits of Hormuz were to be closed by a regional war (which is far from being unlikely) then this country would feel the pinch within weeks – and our economy stretched even further than it is now within a month.

On the personnel front, numbers in the Navy – about 70,000 in 1982 – are now down to 32,000 – and still shrinking. Opportunities for promotion and thus for improved pay and living standards for Officers and Ratings alike are being reduced with damaging effects on morale. As in other Services the frequency of being sent on operational deployment for the steadily declining numbers of serving men and women available has put a strain on them unsurpassed since WWII. The disparity between the quality of life of naval personnel, particularly married personnel, and the rest of the UK community is now so great as to adversely affect family morale and the retention of skilled personnel.

There are fewer submarines, minesweepers and patrol vessels than ever before. There are insufficient small ship sea going training opportunities for younger officers and ratings, with the result that operational and command experience is lacking and consequently standards are falling.

To save money, and again for no other reason – other than shortage of trained personnel – ships are being secured alongside in a state of ‘extended readiness’ which, experience has shown, all too often results in such ships never again going to sea. Ship replacements are not being planned or ordered in sufficient numbers to sustain the Fleet at even its existing low numbers. Tankers and Fleet Support Ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, absolutely essential to ensure an effective operational Fleet, are in urgent need of replacement (the MARS project). However, after repeated delays invitations to tender have only recently been sent out. At worst, by 2020, on present trends the Fleet could be half of its current size. The Future Surface Combatants (FSC), the planned reliefs for our ageing escort vessels, are still but hopeful twinkles in the First Sea Lord’s eye, with the first one (neither fully designed nor even ordered yet) being theoretically scheduled to be operational in 2021. As shown by the long awaited, long-promised and repeatedly postponed two new large aircraft carriers, ships can take fifteen years, or more, to plan, obtain resources for, build and become operational. In any present day conflict we are operating ships built ten or even 20+ years ago. We must look, plan and allocate adequate resources that far ahead.

Ours is a maritime country yet our Navy is being continually weakened. Over 90% of all our international trade comes and goes by sea. Our very existence depends upon our being able to defend our shores and our sea lines of communication around our island and throughout the world. We are under threat now and for the foreseeable future and we do not have the forces effectively to defend our shores and other vital interests from the growing terrorist threat or other hostile action. The First Sea Lord has said that our previously maritime nation has become ‘sea blind’. If true, and if that is not rectified, then the Nation’s future is bleak indeed and – a naval expression – is increasingly ‘standing into danger’.

The Army

British soldiers have died in combat in every year since the Second World War, with the exception of 1968. We have the most respected, experienced and battle-proven army in the World. Yet we come 28th in the World in terms of numbers of soldiers. This is well below states such as Pakistan (7th), Iran (8th), Ukraine (12th), Indonesia (13th) Thailand (14th), Syria (15th), Taiwan (16th), and Brazil (17th). Even Mexico, Morocco, Eritrea and Poland have more soldiers than us. Germany, France and Japan also have many more soldiers – few of them are on active operations.

The Army, with trained manpower strength now below 100,000, is grievously short of ‘boots on the ground’ – at least 3,000 short according to the former Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt – and infantry regiments have been merged or disbanded entirely. Since 2001 combined British fatalities from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan have reached over 400. That figure for deaths in combat is equivalent to half of that sustained by the Army during its entire four decades of operations in Northern Ireland.

Tour intervals, the time between returning on operations and then deploying again, is supposed to be two years. This Army Board target, to allow for leave, recovery and training, is miles out of sight for most soldiers – particularly engineers, signallers, medics and, of course, infantrymen. At one stage during a recent operation more than 50% of the Army’s signallers were deployed. They could not even be replaced one for one. Individual tour intervals are thus often measured in months not years. The problem is exacerbated by under-strength units who require to ‘borrow’ bayonet strength from other units, who in their turn are further depleted in numbers and individual tour interval times. Some soldiers are turned around on operations within a month or two. This massive pressure must in turn increase the chances of long-term psychological damage to our soldiers.

In 2004, 20% of the soldiers in Iraq were Territorial Army or Reservist soldiers. Inevitably under the current pressures the Ministry of Defence is now mobilising 1,200 reservists a year and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Effectively this means that 5% of all soldiers on operations will always be ‘civilians in uniform’ as mobilisation inevitably implies for deployed duty.

The medical care given from point of wounding to discharge from the Army is now much better, but the provision for visiting families still needs some adjustment, and gaps in funding for care are still being plugged by Service charities. A major ongoing concern is the long-term care for Army personnel once discharged, especially those on a disability pension. Soldiers really appreciate being looked after by their own kind, and those that have been wounded in the service of their country most surely deserve this.

With the exceptions of a lack of helicopter support and mine-proof vehicles the long-running problem of top quality weapons and equipment for our soldiers on operations has substantially been fixed. The MoD is doing all that it can, within severely restrained budgets, to provide the best it can procure for our troops in the field. But the Defence Budget is under incredible pressure to do all that is needed and the Ministry inevitably has to make hard choices. The 2007 Command Paper issued by the MoD to improve conditions for our troops and their families should help but it remains largely aspirational as it is not supported by apparent additional funding.

In sum, the Army has never had so little to do so much. There is a huge mismatch between what the Army is asked to do and what it can do properly. Inevitably operational effectiveness and morale suffers. The 2008 internal MoD report that 47% of those in the Army were thinking of quitting is hugely worrying. What’s more, the cumulative effect of over-stretch and under-funding has prompted a string of resignations by senior Army officers, including that of Major-General Andrew Mackay, citing continued lack of resources for the Afghanistan mission.

The Army’s means must match its needs far better. Operational commitments seem unlikely to be lessened, in the short term at least, so an increased budget is essential to ensure that the British Army gets the level of support that it really needs when it fights abroad for us.

The Royal Air Force

Britain has been, and is very likely to continue to be, involved in conflicts just about anywhere in the world, and as signatories of the NATO Alliance we guarantee under Article V to defend all member states. In the fast-changing world of the future, the RAF has to be able to respond swiftly and efficiently to new challenges wherever Britain’s interests are threatened. In any potential theatre the RAF would be a vital element in the full spectrum of operations. Yet many of the recent cuts to fund the much-needed improvements in Afghanistan have been found from the daily running budget of the RAF. Several ground-attack squadrons have been or are about to be withdrawn.

The RAF still fields an ageing and expensive fleet, many of which are legacy aircraft from the Cold War and several are 20 years old or more. From a Cold War complement of 93,000 men and women are now fewer than 40,000. Combat aircraft numbers are down by more than half. The severe and continued government underfunding since 1991 makes many of the RAF’s capabilities either just token or unachievable. It takes 15 years or more to design, build and introduce a modern combat aircraft with a service life of approximately 30 years. All the wars since 1945 arrived with little warning, and we must assume that in future conflicts there will to be no time to build more aircraft and no time to train a new generation of crews. This means that whatever the RAF is called upon to do, it will go with the forces in being. Currently, these forces conceal a number of weaknesses.

The Royal Air Force was born from the air attacks on London in 1917. Defending our skies is a sine qua non, not only over the UK, but in any theatres that British Forces operate. Though we now have the Typhoon in the fighter role, technologically we are slipping behind: the US already has the F-22, a 5th-generation stealthy fighter and, on 29 January 2010, the Russians flew the T-50, their first 5thgeneration aircraft. China is known to be following suit and other nations in turn are seeking to acquire 5th-generation aircraft. These aircraft will change the face of the air battle. Without air superiority all other operations become difficult, if not impossible. Witness the plight of the Wehrmacht in 1944/45, and even the Royal Navy in the Falklands in 1982. Just imagine, for example, how different ISAF operations in Helmand might be if Iran took control of the skies.

In Afghanistan, the RAF is as much a part of the conflict as the Army – not just in the obvious roles of air transport (both heavy and rotary), but also in intelligence gathering, radar surveillance of the ground, in UAV operations against Taliban/Al Qaida forces and finally, in the impact of air warnings and the delivery of weapons. Air power substitutes for many thousands of ground forces, and without the RAF’s vital contribution costs would rise and troop levels would have to at least treble.

Operations in the Middle East, and in remote locations such as the Falklands, stretch the remaining RAF establishment. With only eight ageing operational Tornado fighters to defend our northern skies the new Typhoon is essential for our air defences both in Europe and beyond. With the multi-role (Tranche 2 and 3) aircraft now ordered, this aircraft will also be able to switch from air defence one day to ground attack the next, providing the flexibility that is so cost-effective. Though Typhoon is at last being deployed in numbers, the future of the Harrier and the Tornado bomber forces are now in question, but their replacement, the JSF F-35, carrier-capable aircraft, remains unfunded and (in the variant we have decided upon) very short-range. However, until the JSF’s arrival (in 2018?), the RAF will lack any 5th-generation Stealth capability so essential to suppress and destroy enemy air defences; without that capability even the Typhoon would prove highly vulnerable. If we are to retain an effective air capability on a modern battlefield it is essential for this JSF procurement to go ahead.

On the helicopter front there has, at last, been a ray of hope. Twenty-two new Chinooks were ordered in December 2009 to bolster the fleet and make up for battle losses. Despite the recent deployment of the moribund eight Chinooks (see above), until 2012 – when the first of the 22 new Chinooks might arrive – we will continue to have far too few helicopters to defend and transport our troops in Afghanistan. While the recent announcement also stated an intention to procure additional Reaper UAVs, we wait to see if sufficient have been procured to meet the threats.

Our maritime patrol forces face a perilous future. The decision was taken in previous years to reduce the Nimrod MRA4 order from 21 to just nine aircraft, leaving the UK with barely a token capability for controlling the sea lanes. Moreover, a decision on replacing the R1 Intelligence version of this aircraft has been “delayed indefinitely”, leaving a permanent gap in our capability, a capability equally vital right across the board – in all future operations, both high-tech and low.

For the past two years, the UKNDA has argued that we desperately need far more and newer transport aircraft. Much of the existing fleet is 30 years old, expensive to maintain and ecologically unsound. Although the A-400M has at last flown, with A400M30 deliveries postponed for probably another 3-5 years or more, there remains a strong case to cancel that troubled contract and switch to the much cheaper, more capable and available C-17s and C130-Js. Fortunately some of our words have been heeded – at least in part – and an additional C-17 is to be procured.

Though the Royal Air Force can just manage to meet its current operational commitments, it is so run-down in numbers and capability that if there were there to be a conventional war in Europe the RAF would be unable to meet any war-fighting commitments by a wide margin. It will be for the SDR to establish the minimum force levels necessary for current operations and then to show how that force might be quickly ‘ramped-up’ should more strategic threats begin to materialise. In sum, the RAF remains under-resourced both for the responsibilities it is already undertaking and, more importantly for the many tasks it may be called to undertake in future; the SDR must address this deficit.

Joint Operations

Global operations rely on inter-Service cooperation, joint communications, logistics and mutual interdependence to be successful. This has been demonstrated in all of the most recent conflicts, where all three Services and the MoD Civil Servants have made, and are making, contributions to operational success alongside diplomats and NGOs. It is regrettable that the media and some politicians seek to exploit or inflame inter-Service rivalries because they fail to understand the cooperation that has to take place. The role of the Armed Forces in the defence of the realm relies on balanced contributions from each of the Services and each part of the MoD.

What the UKNDA proposes:

We urge politicians of all parties and persuasions to support and commit to an immediate and sustained real increase in the percentage of GDP allocated annually for defence from its current 2.2% to at least 3%; this would represent an increase of 35-40% over present levels of funding. For more than a quarter of a century governments of all persuasions have constantly cut defence funding and lowered defence in the nation’s list of priorities. Money ‘saved’ from the defence budgets has been poured into the big-spending departments – health, education and, above all, ‘welfare’ in all its many forms.

The UKNDA contends that the severe over-stretch and under-funding of our Armed Forces, and the adverse effect this has upon the nation’s defence, dictates that it is now ‘payback time’. We must stop the salami-slicing of the Armed Forces. Instead, year on year, we need to take just a penny in the pound – 1% – from the inflated budgets of the big-spending departments and reallocate the sums saved to the defence of the United Kingdom.

Put truth back into the oft-repeated claims of all politicians that: DEFENCE IS THE FIRST PRIORITY OF ANY GOVERNMENT.

APPENDIX

The Threats

By Winston S. Churchill, Founder-President, UKNDA*

We live in a dangerous and unstable world. Following the demise of the Soviet Union, the direction and nature of the threats to the security of the UK and her interests worldwide are more diverse and even less predictable. Looking back over the past 25 years, there were few who foresaw Argentina’s attack on the Falkland Islands in 1982, Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait, or the Al Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers that provoked the Allied retaliation against Afghanistan.

Since the time required to bring major new equipment programmes into service for any of the three Services is in the range of 10-15 years, any future conflict will essentially have to be fought with the equipment ordered today. There will be no time to build & equip new divisions for the Army, new squadrons for the RAF or new ships for the Royal Navy – hence the vital necessity of the UK maintaining a serious, strong and balanced Defence capability.

Immediate & Near-Term Threats (up to 5 years)

The UK Homeland – The threat remains high, not merely from self-detonating Jihadis in our cities, but from aerial or seaborne attack against our civilian population with chemical, biological, dirty-bomb or even nuclear devices. HM Coastguard does not begin to have the manpower or equipment to do the job its name implies, especially given our lengthy and exposed coastline. Nor indeed does the Royal Navy have more than a minimal capability deployed in coastal waters.

Continuing Conflicts in Iraq & Afghanistan – Operations continue at a high intensity against insurgents in Iraq and the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. Logistic and technological support by Iran to our enemies in both countries, especially with high-tech IEDs (improvised explosive devices) capable of penetrating anything other than the heaviest and most modern armour, is responsible for an increasing number of UK and US casualties.

Instability in Pakistan – Pakistan, Britain and America’s somewhat ambivalent ally in the war on terror, rests on a knife-edge of instability. Following the fall of military President Pervez Musharraf, there is a serious danger that Pakistan – proud, and for the time being, sole possessor of the “Muslim Bomb” – could fall to the friends of Bin Laden and the Taliban.

Iran – The unstable “mullocracy”, which already deploys missiles capable of striking US and UK bases in the Gulf, has the range to strike Tel Aviv, Istanbul or Athens, and is working flat out to acquire nuclear weapons to fit on them. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad not only denies that the Holocaust ever happened but has described Israel as a “disgraceful blot” that “should be wiped off the face of the earth”. Not since Adolf Hitler has a national leader so brazenly paraded his evil intentions. There is a serious likelihood that this may, in the near future, provoke the United States or Israel – or both – to attack Iran’s budding nuclear capability. In return Iran, which has armed forces far larger than Britain’s, would strike back at Allied forces and bases in the area, and block the Straits of Hormuz, through which pass some 40% of the West’s oil supplies.

Medium-term Threats (5-10 years)

Iran, in the absence of any decisive action to prevent its acquisition of a nuclear capability, will provide a grave and potent threat to its neighbours, including Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, no doubt provoking a nuclear arms-race in the Middle East. There are signs of this already.

If Iran were to carry out its President’s threats, 3-4 million Israelis and a couple of million Palestinians may well find themselves consumed in a modern-day Holocaust. Furthermore, the survival of London and cities throughout Europe will stand at the mercy of the Iranian mullahs, regardless of any retaliatory capability we may still possess.

North Korea, unless it sets itself firmly on the path of peace (as there is some indication it may be doing) will be a source not merely of regional instability but, if its nuclear ambitions are realised, a source of long-range missiles, radioactive materials, even nuclear weapons, perhaps even to terrorists.

Longer-term Threats (10 years+)

Here we are strictly in crystal ball territory, though it must not be forgotten that the equipment we order today will be all we will have to defend ourselves with in the 2020s, should an emergency arise.

Russia, on the back of its vast energy reserves has, over the past five years, been dramatically increasing its military spending. Its recent attacks on Georgia, its veiled threats to Ukraine and overt threats to Poland show that Russia is willing and able to flex its muscles in the old Cold War style. Meanwhile, China, which is set on present trends to overtake the United States as the most powerful economy in the world, is also becoming a force to be reckoned with militarily.

Unless these goliaths come to espouse the path of democracy in the interim, there is the obvious danger that territorial ambitions, shortages of natural resources, or a dose of good old-fashioned imperialism – which both have demonstrated in the past – could lead to confrontation either with the world’s largest democracy, India, which is also nuclear-armed, or with the United States and Europe.

Meanwhile, every city of the Western world will continue to be at risk from the nuclear-armed terrorist, armed with a bomb perhaps no larger than a briefcase or a backpack.

While hoping for the best, it is always prudent to prepare for the worst. Only thus can one be ready to face almost any eventuality. At least, following the locust years of disarmament in the 1930s – thanks to the English Channel – we had a year or two’s breathing space to rebuild our defences before the full onslaught of the Nazi war-machine was upon us. The next major war will be strictly a “come-as-you-are” party, with no time to repair the neglect of former years.

*Winston S. Churchill, our Founder-President, died on 2 March 2010.

06/04/2010
Are there votes in defence?

Will the nation's defence and security - "the first duty of government" - be properly addressed by the political parties in the General Election campaign? And will the welfare of our servicemen and servicewomen, including those risking their lives in Afghanistan, be in the minds of Britain's voters when they enter the polling booth next month?~

NEWS RELEASE

April 6, 2010

ARE THERE VOTES IN DEFENCE?

The UK National Defence Association (UKNDA) intends to ensure that defence and national security are high up the political agenda throughout the election. To launch its campaign, and to pressure the political parties to give a firm commitment on defence funding, the UKNDA is holding a meeting tomorrow (Wednesday April 7) at the Naval & Military Club, London SW1 on the subject "Conventional warfare in an unconventional world: Are there votes in defence?"

The speakers are: Admiral Sir Jonathon Band (First Sea Lord, 2006-09), Tony Edwards (former head of Defence Exports at the MoD), Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon (Chief of the Air Staff, 1992-97) and Colonel Bob Stewart DSO (former UN commander in Bosnia). Tickets for this event, which starts at 7pm, are £10 each. For more information or to reserve a place please email Martin Cakebread, ndm@uknda.org.

"Don’t cut defence": The UKNDA opposes any further cuts to the Armed Forces and calls upon the Government and Opposition parties to agree to ring-fence defence spending. UKNDA spokesman Andy Smith says: "Defence and national security should be above party politics. We should aim for a broad political consensus on the need for 'sufficient, appropriate and fully-funded Armed Forces'. Balancing the national budget must not be at the expense of our Armed Forces, which are already severely under-funded, over-stretched and over-tasked."

-ENDS

Press contact: Andy Smith, pro@uknda.org, 07737 271676.

03/04/2010 11:43:00
''Conventional Warfare in an Unconventional World'' - UKNDA Debate on 7 April

UKNDA EVENT: Former heads of the Navy and RAF - Admiral Sir Jonathon Band and Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon - will speak alongside UKNDA board member Tony Edwards and Colonel Bob Stewart at the Naval & Military Club, London SW1, on Wednesday 7th April.~

Conventional Warfare in an Unconventional World

Are there Votes in Defence?

UKNDA London Branch Debate, Naval & Military Club ("In and Out"), St James's Square, London SW1, Wednesday 7th April 2010, at 19:00hrs.

Speakers:

Admiral Sir Jonathon Band (First Sea Lord, 2006-09)

Tony Edwards (Former head of Defence Exports at the MoD)

Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon (Chief of the Air Staff, 1992-97)

Colonel Bob Stewart DSO (Former UN commander in Bosnia)

Chaired by Martin Cakebread of UKNDA, with summation by Lt. Bryan McCavour RN

Location:

http://www.navalandmilitaryclub.co.uk/location/index.php

Tickets £10, will be sold on a first come first served basis. To reserve a place please email Martin Cakebread, ndm@uknda.org

17/03/2010 01:00:00
''The War in Afghanistan - and implications for British strategy'' - Panel discussion on 31 March
The UKNDA begins its pre-Election programme of engaging with the political parties by co-hosting a joint event with Westminster Conservatives on Wednesday 31st March. Speakers include UKNDA Vice-Presidents Patrick Mercer MP and Col. Bob Stewart.~

The Cities of London and Westminster Conservative Association

The Chairmen and Committees of

Marylebone High Street Ward,

Cities of London and Westminster Conservative Future, and the

UK National Defence Association

cordially invite you to a Panel Talk and discussion, with Q&A on:

The War in Afghanistan

and implicati Format ons for British strategy

Panellists:

Mark Field MP

Air Cdre Andrew Lambert

Patrick Mercer OBE MP

Daniel McNicholas (First Secretary US Embassy)

Cdr John Muxworthy (CEO, UKNDA)

Chris Palmer (US Embassy)

Col Bob Stewart DSO (Conservative PPC for Beckenham)

Wednesday, 31^st March

Drinks 6:15 to 7:15 p.m.; Panel Talk and Q&A 7:15 to 9:00 p.m.

Council House, 97-113 Marylebone Road, London NW1 (Baker Street underground)

Wine and snacks

RSVP

Either online: http://www.westminsterconservatives.co.uk/node/185 (up to 28^th March)

Or with the form below to: Giovania Rowley, Flat 2 Dorset Court, 18-21 Dorset St, London W1U 6QX

Telephone: 0207 486 2753 | Mobile: 07887 568 340 | Email: mhsward@googlemail.com

"……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Please reserve _____ places @ £15 each, for which I enclose a cheque for £_____

Name: (BLOCK CAPITALS please) _________________________________________________________________

Address: ________________________________________________________________________________________

Telephone: _________________________ Email: ______________________________________________________

Note: No tickets will be issued; a guest list will be checked upstairs on the Council Chamber’s door

Please write the name, address, and telephone numbers of any guests on the back of this form

Lift available inside the building from street level. Please advise if you require access to this

17/03/2010
Prime Minister's admission ''vindicates UKNDA campaign''

UKNDA News Release on the Prime Minister's rectraction of his claims to Chilcot that the defence budget had risen "year on year" since 1997.~

NEWS RELEASE

Wednesday 17th March 2010

PRIME MINISTER'S ADMISSION ON DEFENCE SPENDING VINDICATES UKNDA CAMPAIGN

The UK National Defence Association (UKNDA), which campaigns for more resources for Britain's Armed Services, has welcomed the Prime Minister's admission that he was wrong to claim to the Chilcot Inquiry that defence spending had risen every year during his time as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Gordon Brown said in the House of Commons today (March 17), during Prime Minister's Questions, that he accepted that "in one or two years, defence expenditure did not rise in real terms", and said that he would be writing to Sir John Chilcot to "clarify" what he had told the Iraq Inquiry.

UKNDA spokesman Andy Smith said: "This is an important admission by the Prime Minister and entirely vindicates our campaign for more funding for defence. While other Government departments have had their budgets vastly increased over the past 13 years, the Ministry of Defence budget has been consistently squeezed. At the same time our military commitments have grown, leaving our Armed Forces chronically under-funded, over-stretched and over-tasked. This cannot go on."

He added: "MoD figures show clearly that, allowing for inflation, the defence budget actually fell in five years: 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2002 and 2007."

Formed in 2007, the UKNDA argues for significant increases in the defence budget to repair the damage done by consistent under-resourcing of the military. Its Patrons include three former Chiefs of the Defence Staff - Admiral Lord Boyce, Marshal of the RAF Lord Craig, and General Lord Guthrie.

The founder-President of the UKNDA was Winston S. Churchill, who died earlier this month.

-Ends

Press contacts:

Cdr John Muxworthy RN, CEO, UKNDA, Tel: 07721 624980 / 01264 860693, Email ceo@uknda.org

Andy Smith, PRO, UKNDA, Tel: 07737 271676, Email pro@uknda.org

02/03/2010
WINSTON S. CHURCHILL 1940-2010

The President of the United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA), Winston S. Churchill, has died after a two-year battle with cancer.~

PRESS STATEMENT

Tuesday 2^nd March 2010

WINSTON S. CHURCHILL (1940-2010) – “A true patriot … generous, hard-working, an inspirational leader”

The President of the United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA), Winston S. Churchill, has died after a two-year battle with cancer.

Winston Spencer Churchill was the grandson of Sir Winston Churchill and, like his grandfather, had pursued a career in journalism and politics. As a war correspondent he covered conflicts such as Israel’s Six Day War in 1967. He was a Conservative MP for Manchester (Stretford and later Davyhulme) from 1970 to 1997.

In an echo of his grandfather’s long and sometimes lonely fight against the follies of disarmament and appeasement in the 1930s, he became the founder-President of the UKNDA in 2007. This group was formed to highlight the state of Britain’s chronically under-funded and over-stretched Armed Forces, and to bring pressure to bear on Parliament to increase the resources available for Defence of the Realm.

The group was launched in November 2007 at the Churchill Museum in London’s Cabinet War Rooms. Alongside Mr Churchill at the launch were the founder-Patrons of the UKNDA: the former Foreign Secretary Lord Owen, and three former Chiefs of the Defence Staff – Admiral Lord Boyce, General Lord Guthrie and Marshal of the RAF Lord Craig.

Under Mr Churchill’s leadership, the UKNDA has campaigned vigorously in support of Britain’s hard-pressed Armed Forces and has played a key role in pushing defence and national security higher up the political agenda.

The UKNDA’s Chief Executive, Commander John Muxworthy, paid tribute to the Association’s President, with whom he had worked closely since the UKNDA was formed. Cdr Muxworthy said: “The death of Winston Spencer Churchill after a two-year protracted battle against cancer, bravely and doggedly fought, is a grievous loss to the UKNDA. ‘WSC’, as he used to sign himself, was our very first President. His untimely early death is a greater tragedy for the country which he served devotedly for many years.

“As President of the UKNDA, WSC was generous, hard working, proactive, and an inspirational leader. A true patriot, WSC followed in the steps of his grandfather, Sir Winston, who, in the 1930s campaigned ceaselessly for this country to rearm in the face of the ever-growing threat from Nazi Germany. Eighty years on, ‘our’ Winston has been fighting the same battle.

“WSC never faltered in his devotion and commitment to this country and its national and international interests. Our sympathies go out especially to his family who have supported him in his valiant struggle throughout, and especially in the final months when they were at his bedside at all times.

“Farewell, Winston. If there is a Valhalla, you are surely there.”

UKNDA Vice-President Colonel Bob Stewart added: “Winston was a thoroughly decent man and a great friend to me. I first got to know him 17 years ago and twice during that time I have asked for his help on behalf of other people who really needed assistance – and twice he gave it without reservation. By so doing he changed those people’s lives forever. He did that quietly and without a fuss. I shall miss him terribly. God bless Winston.”

Shortly before his final illness, Winston Churchill wrote a powerful “Appeal to the Nation” highlighting the parallels between the UKNDA’s mission today and his grandfather’s crusade for rearmament in the 1930s.

-Ends

Press contacts:

Cdr John Muxworthy RN, CEO, UKNDA, Tel: 01264 860693, Email ceo@uknda.org

Andy Smith, PRO, UKNDA, Tel: 07737 271676, Email pro@uknda.org

Click here to read Winston Churchill's Appeal to the Nation.

23/02/2010 21:56:00
UKNDA Event: ''Future Conflict and the UK's Strategic Interests''

James Arbuthnot MP, Chairman of the Defence Select Committee, and Nick Harvey, Liberal Democrat spokesman on defence, are among the speakers at a UKNDA seminar at King's College on March 3.~

The UKNDA presents the first in a series of Academic Lectures:

"Future Conflict & the UK's Strategic Interests"

at 1900 (prompt) on Wed 3 March 2010, at King's College London - Waterloo Campus.

With Afghanistan the current priority for Britain's Armed Forces, our expert panel will examine possible future scenarios that the UK may face, the Force levels the UK may require, the equipment/ industrial strategy needed to provide such a capability, and the political input underlining all of the above.

Chaired by the UKNDA's Martin Cakebread, the confirmed guest speakers are:

James Arbuthnot MP (Chairman of the Defence Select Committee)
Nick Harvey MP (Liberal Democrat Defence Spokesman)
Prof. Richard Holmes (Military Historian)
Prof. Martin Edmonds (Director of the Centre for Defence and International Security Studies)
Richard D North (Director of the Social Affairs Unit/ Institute of Economic Affairs)
Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham KCB (Former Deputy Chief of Defence Staff)
Cdr. John Muxworthy RN (CEO of UKNDA).

Venue:
Lecture Theatre G73
King's College London
Franklin-Wilkins Building
Stamford Street
London SE1 9NH

Nearest tube/ train stations: Waterloo (est. 2 min walk)

This is a high level lecture and space is limited. Seats are sold on a first come basis. Please contact Martin Cakebread to reserve a place by emailing: ndm@uknda.org
Tickets cost £9, and can be reserved in advance or bought on the door (please ensure you reserve a space first). Students go free.

Cheques should be made payable to 'UKNDA Ltd' and sent to Martin Cakebread, UKNDA, PO Box 819, Portsmouth, Hants, PO1 9FF.

03/02/2010 20:00:00
UK Defence Needs

The UKNDA launches a major new report on defence funding in response to the Goverment's Green Paper, and to provide context and recommendations for the Strategic Defence Review 2010.~

Download the report here.

03/02/2010
UKNDA welcomes Government U-Turn on defence funding

The UK National Defence Association (UKNDA) has given a qualified welcome to the Green Paper on defence and the Government’s stated intention to ring-fence funding for the Armed Forces.~

NEWS RELEASE

Wednesday 3 February 2010

UKNDA WELCOMES GOVERNMENT U-TURN ON DEFENCE FUNDING

The UK National Defence Association (UKNDA) has given a qualified welcome to the Green Paper on defence and the Government’s stated intention to ring-fence funding for the Armed Forces.

The Green Paper, entitled ‘Adaptability and Partnership: Issues for the Strategic Defence Review’, aims to set out the challenges and open up debate on defence policy. It contains no concrete proposals but provides the framework for the SDR. Coinciding with today’s (Feb 3) presentation of the Green Paper to Parliament by the Defence Secretary, the UKNDA issues its own report on ‘UK Defence Needs’.

UKNDA Deputy Chief Executive, Andy Smith, said: “After recent drastic cuts in defence, the Government’s stated intention to safeguard the core defence budget and provide an extra £1.5bn for our forces in Afghanistan is a major U-turn, and a most welcome one. It is certainly more than the Conservative opposition are offering, since they dropped their proposed ring-fencing of defence last year. We look forward to seeing the development of a broad consensus on defence funding, with all the major parties standing firm against cuts to the Armed Forces.

“However, simply holding to current levels of expenditure is not sufficient. The present core defence budget of approximately £36bn – equivalent to 2.2% of GDP – is already woefully inadequate to meet Britain’s defence needs. It is the very minimum that is required to provide security for this country, our borders, our trade and our vital interests. With the many and growing threats to the defence of the realm, we believe that an increase is long overdue and that a defence budget of at least 3% of GDP is now needed.”

The UKNDA’s new report sets out hows how efficiency savings in MoD procurement could release some £3 - £4bn a year, but even this would not be enough to fund the net increases needed to give the UK adequate threat-based defence provision.

-Ends

Media contacts: Andy Smith, Public Relations Officer & Deputy Chief Executive, UKNDA, email pro@uknda.org, tel 07737 271676; or Air Commodore Andrew Lambert, co-author, ‘UK Defence Needs', email andrewlambert99@hotmail.com, tel 07811 262303.

FOR A COPY OF ‘UK DEFENCE NEEDS' PLEASE CONTACT ANDY SMITH ON 07737 271676.

28/01/2010
Closing RAF Cottesmore ''pre-empts Defence Review and weakens Britain's military capability''
Former Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Graydon, is among those speaking out against the Government's "premature" decision to close RAF Cottesmore in advance of the Strategic Defence Review. -UKNDA news release.~

NEWS RELEASE

Thursday 28 January 2010: Release time immediate

CLOSING RAF COTTESMORE “PRE-EMPTS DEFENCE REVIEW AND WEAKENS BRITAIN’S MILITARY CAPABILITY”

The UK National Defence Association (UKNDA) is urging the Government to rethink its decision to close RAF Cottesmore in Rutland.

The UKNDA, which is headed by Winston S Churchill (grandson of Britain’s World War II Prime Minister), is backing the “Save RAF Cottesmore” campaign, and is calling on the Secretary of State for Defence to keep the air base open pending a full review of Britain’s defence capabilities and requirements. Mr Churchill’s grandfather and namesake Sir Winston Churchill, before becoming Prime Minister, campaigned almost single-handedly throughout the 1930s to wake Britain up to the growing dangers to national security and in particular the vital need for effective air defence.

Since the recent announcement by the Ministry of Defence that Cottesmore would be closing, many senior figures from the UKNDA have given their endorsement to the “Save RAF Cottesmore” campaign, including the former Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Graydon GCB CBE, and the former UN commander in Bosnia, Colonel Bob Stewart DSO – both of whom are Vice-Presidents of the UKNDA.

Local campaigners in Rutland have launched a petition to the Prime Minister (http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/SAVECOTTESMORE) and have built up a network of over 10,000 supporters. They have held meetings with local MPs who share their concern about the impact that the closure of the base would have on the local economy and the damage that would be done to Britain’s air defence capability.

UKNDA Vice-President and former Chief of the Air Staff, ACM Sir Mike Graydon said: “The announcement of the closure of Cottesmore before a serious review of the nation’s defence requirements has been carried out is yet another example of the chronic under-funding of Britain’s Armed Forces.

“I wish the campaign well in attempting to raise this matter before an election. We should surely be hearing from our politicians now, not allow them to hide behind the Strategic Defence Review. Nor should we let them assume that defence cuts are inevitable. The UKNDA has been campaigning for this for quite some time and it is good to see the people of Rutland and surrounding areas making their voice heard too.”

Sir Mike’s expression of support for the campaigners was echoed by Col Bob Stewart, who said: “As the son and brother of RAF officers, and as someone who wanted to join the RAF myself from an early age – until it was discovered that I was colour-blind – I am deeply saddened to hear of plans to shut RAF Cottesmore. Strategically it does not make sense to concentrate all RAF resources in a dwindling number of bases. That increases our vulnerability to enemies that we may not even have a clue about right now.

“If we really have to thin out, then reluctantly we may have to accept that. But for goodness sake it makes sense to maintain as much flexibility as possible. Keep RAF Cottesmore please – we never know when we will need it again.”

The Government is expected to publish its Green Paper shortly, but its long-awaited Strategic Defence Review (SDR) – the first full review since 1998 – will take many months to complete. “In our view,” said UKNDA Deputy Chief Executive, Andy Smith, “it was inappropriate, short-sighted and just plain wrong for Ministers to take the decision to axe RAF Cottesmore in advance of this review. They have rushed into decisions that pre-empt the SDR and in so doing have shown that they are willing to allow the Treasury to dictate the nation’s defence policy.

“The allocation of funding for the Armed Forces should be based on a proper assessment of the threats that we currently face, or that we may face in the future, and of the capabilities needed to deter or counter these threats. We cannot let the SDR become merely a retrospective justification for decisions already taken by Ministers to cut the defence budget.”

-Ends

Media contact: Andy Smith, Public Relations Officer & Deputy Chief Executive, UKNDA, email pro@uknda.org, tel 07737 271676.

Notes to Editors:

The United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) was formed in 2007 to campaign in support of Britain 's Armed Forces. Its President is Winston S. Churchill, former MP and war correspondent (and grandson of Britain's WWII Prime Minister) and its Patrons are three former Chiefs of the Defence Staff –Admiral The Lord Boyce, Marshal of the RAF The Lord Craig, and General The Lord Guthrie – as well as The Rt Hon Sir Menzies Campbell MP and The Rt Hon The Lord Owen. Tri-Service and politically independent, the UKNDA aims to ensure that Britain's fighting men and women are properly trained, equipped, sustained and cared for. For details, go to www.uknda.org

Online coverage of this story:

http://www.airforcesmonthly.com/view_news.asp?ID=1490

http://www.key.aero/view_news.asp?ID=1490&thisSection=military

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/111753/uk-group-blasts-plan-to-close-raf-base.html
http://ukdf.blogspot.com

http://www.defpro.com/news/details/12790/

http://nosint.blogspot.com

15/12/2009
''A Defence Review by the back door''
The Government must be prepared to find the money for Britain's Afghan mission without raiding the core defence budget, and there should be no further cuts before a proper Defence Review has been carried out. (UKNDA press statement)~

NEWS RELEASE

Tuesday 15 December 2009: Release time immediate

CUTTING THE MILITARY BUDGET IS “A DEFENCE REVIEW BY THE BACK DOOR”

The UK National Defence Association (UKNDA) – which campaigns in support of Britain’s Armed Forces – is calling on the Government to re-think its approach to defence funding and to hold back from making any cuts to military spending unless and until a full Defence Review has been undertaken and funding priorities have been properly decided.

With the Defence Secretary expected to announce major cutbacks in Britain’s front-line military capabilities this afternoon, including the closure of air bases and reductions in Armed Forces manpower, in order to divert resources to British operations in Afghanistan, the UKNDA says that the Prime Minister must be prepared to find the money for Britain’s Afghan mission without raiding the core defence budget.

Cdr John Muxworthy RN, Chief Executive of the UKNDA, said: “These arbitrary cuts in our defence capabilities are hasty and ill-conceived. While Afghanistan is at last beginning to receive the force levels and support required to enable us to take the conflict to the enemy, this is being done at the expense of the wider and longer-term security of the country.

“Even if operations in Afghanistan were to be completed tomorrow, the threats in the rest of the world have not gone away, and the counter-insurgency posture specific to Afghanistan is of little use if we have to confront a peer competitor. At present, whole capabilities of conventional war-fighting have been lost or reduced to token strength and the expertise that played such a crucial role in both Gulf wars is now slipping away.”

He added: “All political parties acknowledge the need for a proper Defence Review where resources are honestly matched to security threats. But to cut a further £1.5bn, on top of the £2Bn last year, is a Defence Review via the back door. The aim, surely, is to be strong enough to deter war, not to appear weak and then have to fight an expensive war in 10 years time. Or are we to repeat the mistakes of the 1930s, when Britain neglected its defence, and risk similar appalling consequences?”

-Ends

12/12/2009
Ministers are ''selling the family silver'', says Defence Association
UKNDA accuses the Government of sacrificing vital air defence and undermining its own Defence Review by making arbitrary short-term cuts in the budget for the Armed Forces. (UKNDA press statement)~

NEWS RELEASE

Saturday 12 December 2009: Release time immediate

MINISTERS ARE “SELLING THE FAMILY SILVER”, SAYS DEFENCE ASSOCIATION

Govt condemned for sacrificing vital air defence and undermining its own Defence Review

The Government is sacrificing Britain’s military capabilities and undermining the credibility of its own Defence Review by making arbitrary short-term cuts in the Armed Forces, according to the UK National Defence Association (UKNDA).

Responding to reports that the Government is planning to close at least one air base and make substantial reductions to RAF manpower, UKNDA spokesman Andy Smith said: “Once again the Armed Forces are paying the price for Governmental mismanagement. Now, to balance the books at the Ministry of Defence, the Government proposes to sacrifice elements of our vital air defence.

“Giving up RAF bases and scaling back our military presence in strategic locations such as Cyprus is tantamount to selling off the family silver. Once sold, these facilities will never again be available to us, and this will inevitably impact on our long-term defence posture should the UK ever have to re-arm. These decisions clearly demonstrate the low priority given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the security of the United Kingdom and the importance of maintaining a properly balanced and well-resourced defence capability.”

He added: “By making these arbitrary short-term cuts, the Government is undermining the credibility of its own Defence Review. How can these decisions be taken now, in advance of the Review? Britain’s Armed Forces are already seriously over-stretched and any further reductions would put the UK is an extremely vulnerable position. We call upon the Government to hold back on making any cuts to the defence budget until our military commitments, needs and resources have been examined thoroughly through the Defence Review.”

The UKNDA, formed two years ago to campaign for properly-resourced Armed Forces, is backed by a number of former service chiefs including Marshal of the Royal Air Force The Lord Craig of Radley (a former Chief of the Defence Staff) and Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon (former Chief of the Air Staff). Its President is Winston S. Churchill, grandson of Sir Winston Churchill.

-Ends

06/12/2009
Col. Bob Stewart to fight Beckenham at the next election
Colonel Bob Stewart DSO, Vice-President of the UK National Defence Association and former UN commander in Bosnia, has been selected as the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Beckenham, Kent.~

NEWS RELEASE

6 December 2009

TORIES CHOOSE UKNDA VICE-PRESIDENT COLONEL BOB STEWART AS PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATE FOR BECKENHAM

Colonel Bob Stewart DSO, Vice-President of the UK National Defence Association (UKNDA) and former UN commander in Bosnia, has been selected as the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Beckenham, Kent.

He has pledged to champion the cause of Defence and to work to ensure that Britain's Armed Forces are adequately resourced for the commitments they are given.

Commander John Muxworthy RN, Chief Executive Officer of the UKNDA, said: "I wish Bob all the best in his new political role. I'm sure he will make a major impact on the House of Commons and will do much to advance the UKNDA cause.

"With his distinguished military background and proven leadership skills, Bob is just the sort of person we need in Parliament. Directors and members of the UKNDA join me in congratulating Bob on his selection as PPC for Beckenham."

-Ends

PRESS CONTACT: Andy Smith, UKNDA PRO, tel 07737 271676, email pro@uknda.org

21/11/2009
Cuts to the RAF would fly in the face of current overstretch
UKNDA press statement in response to suggestions that the Government is considering further cuts to the Royal Air Force including base closures and manpower reductions.~

NEWS RELEASE

Saturday 21 November 2009

DEFENCE CAMPAIGNERS VOICE CONCERNS OVER FURTHER CUTS TO THE ROYAL AIR FORCE

Cutbacks would “fly in the face of current overstretch”

The UK National Defence Association (UKNDA), which campaigns in support of Britain’s Armed Forces, has expressed its deep concern over suggestions that the Government may be considering further cuts to the Royal Air Force including the closure of air bases and reductions to RAF manpower.

The UKNDA, which is backed by a number of former service chiefs including Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Craig of Radley (a former Chief of the Defence Staff) and Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon (former Chief of the Air Staff), is calling on the Government to make clear its intentions regarding the future of the RAF, and warns that any reductions would seriously harm Britain’s already-stretched defence capabilities.

A UKNDA spokesman said: “We note with deep concern reports that the RAF might be cut still further. This, if true, flies in the face of current overstretch and the level of commitments. Defence has been chronically underfunded for a long period by successive governments. Raising the level of debate on defence and national security remains a key objective for the UKNDA, which is the only organisation actively campaigning for proper defence funding."

In the recent UKNDA report, “A Compelling Necessity”, co-authors Andrew Roberts, Allen Sykes and Dr Irwin Stelzer argue that increasing Britain’s defence budget represents the best value for national resources even in the midst of recession, and that any future Strategic Defence Review must, of necessity, recommend an increase in funding for defence and national security.

“A Compelling Necessity” accuses the Treasury of squeezing the defence budget to the point where the Navy, Army and Air Force are competing with one another for an adequate share of the limited resources available. This, say the co-authors of the UKNDA paper, is a clear indication of failure to recognise the potentially wide-ranging dangers to Britain’s security. “The only adequate defence provision”, says the report, “is one that maintains a large, flexible, general contingency in all three Services.”

-Ends

Media contacts:

Cdr John Muxworthy, RN (Rtd)

Chief Executive, UKNDA, email ceo@uknda.org, tel 01264 860693 / 07721 624980.

Air Cdre Andrew Lambert, RAF (Rtd)

Director, UKNDA, email andrewlambert99@hotmail.com, tel 07811 262303.

Andy Smith

Public Relations Officer, UKNDA, email pro@uknda.org, tel 07737 271676.

31/10/2009
UKNDA members elect new Board of Directors
Distinguished military historian Prof Richard Holmes, defence industrialist Tony Edwards and former RAF Defence Director Air Cdre Andrew Lambert are among the newly elected Directors of the UK National Defence Association.~

The Annual General Meeting of the UK National Defence Association was held yesterday (30 Oct) at the Naval Club, London.

An election was held for the UKNDA's Board of Directors. There were nine candidates for six places.

Cdr John Muxworthy (Founder/CEO of the UKNDA) and Andy Smith (UKNDA PRO and Deputy CEO) were re-elected as Directors. They will be joined on the new Board by Martin Cakebread (UKNDA National Development Manager), Tony Edwards, Prof Richard Holmes CBE and Air Cdre Andrew Lambert.

Full results of the election are as follows:

Mr Martin Cakebread	150 ELECTED	Capt John Marshall*	75
Surg RAdm Ralph Curr*	105	Cdr John Muxworthy*	163 ELECTED
Mr L A (Tony) Edwards	130 ELECTED	Lt Cdr Christopher Samuel*	62
Professor Richard Holmes	163 ELECTED	Mr Andy Smith*	130 ELECTED
Air Cdre Andrew Lambert	145 ELECTED

Asterisk denotes current Director seeking re-election.

23/10/2009
Commemorating Nelson and Trafalgar
Speech by Lt-Cdr Richard Little RN on behalf of the UKNDA to the Trafalgar Day Dinner at the Trafalgar Tavern, Greenwich.~

SPEECH BY LT-CDR RICHARD LITTLE RN TO THE NEW BRITAIN DINNER AT THE TRAFALGAR TAVERN, GREENWICH, ON TRAFALGAR DAY, 21^ST OCTOBER 2009:

Mr. Chairman, Sir Michael; Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for inviting to your table tonight the UK National Defence Association on whose behalf I speak and whom I represent on this most naval of occasions together with our indefatigable PRO – Andy Smith.

WE, that's You: New Britain - and our UKNDA have much in common: we are patriots; we love our country and are proud of it and its achievements, not least its history and those who made that history. You specialise in the Monarchy and the Commonwealth. We respect both these British Institutions, while our raison d'etre is the Defence of the Realm. We are the sole body campaigning for “sufficient, appropriate and fully funded Armed Forces to ensure the effective defence of the United Kingdom, its people, their security and vital interests at home and worldwide.”

To do this we are non-party political, and will lobby, persuade, and remind any Govt. of their own mantra: “Defence is the first priority of Government”, thus calling them to account at the sad state of Britain's defence, and we will do this today, tomorrow, the day after, before breakfast, before lunch, before tea and before dinner.

Launched at Remembrance Weekend 2007 under the Presidency of Winston Churchill, grandson of our War Leader, the Association has a large number of military, civilian and MP leaders from all defence fields. Within 2 weeks in November 07, 5 former CDS s in the Lords delivered a scathing attack on Chancellor Brown's handling of Defence and as the new PM.

But it is fair to say that even with these great names we are still struggling to attract larger numbers of subscribing members to this , the nation's cause. Where we have been most successful is the professional way in which our founder and CEO Cdr. John Muxworthy and PRO Andy Smith have sent out our message via all the country's media conduits generating awareness for defence.

So thank you for the opportunity to outline our Association, its aims and modus operandi, which I will cover briefly before the second broadside of the evening, that pays tribute to the enduring legacy of Admiral Lord Nelson and his Nelson Touch.

With the pleasantries delivered, let's get down to business.

I make no apology in describing the very British mess, over which our Association is crying as a voice in the wilderness.

Over the last months comments from highly respected institutions and reporters have been made about British defence. Here are a few:

RUSI: “There was a crisis in the Defence Budget BEFORE the economic crisis.”

“…the Govt. must support Afghanistan as the war of today, while also preparing to fight – but most importantly to DETER - the wars of tomorrow. We cannot afford to slip into strategic paralysis because of it. “

Chatham House: the Royal Inst. of International Affairs: March 2009 : Paper entitled “Blair's Wars and Brown's Budgets: From Strategic Review to Strategic Decay in Less than a Decade.” (that says it all!)

“British defence is in a crisis so deep that it is no longer simply a matter of having to make hard choices; rather, the machinery with which to analyse and understand defence and with which to make those difficult choices, is wearing out. Defence policy, planning and analysis in the UK has reached a state of organisational, bureaucratic and intellectual decay.”

Sir Max Hastings: July / August: “If a Govt. wishes to neglect national defence it is better to do so when not fighting a war.”

“I have written about the Army for 40 years but I have never known such bitterness.”

And not to be left out:

Marcus Tullus Cicero from 106 – 43 BC: “Nervos belli, pecuniam infinitam” - The sinews of war , unlimited money.

AND, Ladies and gentlemen, WE ARE AT WAR TONIGHT, albeit in an inhospitable country far away. Of course our Armed Forces are mainly concerned with Afghanistan, but, as we later drink relevant toasts, let us also consider units all over the world from North to South Pole, deterring by their ceaseless presence; in the Indian Ocean keeping trade routes free from piracy; in North and South Atlantic guarding our dependent territories; seizing illegal drugs, which now reach Britain from both S America and from West Africa; in Iraq, where the RN is still training that Navy to protect its own energy installations; further South in the Arabian Gulf, where most of the West's oil and gas passes thro' the Straits of Hormuz in tankers and LNG carriers.

For Britain still imports over 90 % of its trade by sea to this island, - where everyone has gone “Seablind”. Also we are now a net importer of oil and gas, much by pipeline but not all. The North Sea is depleting.... fast. How ephemeral are man's needs.

Thus, with weakened defences and fewer assets, we are wide open to aggression and to resource warfare, which worldwide threat may come sooner than we think.

Against a background of continued underfunding over more than 20 years by successive governments, especially the last 12 yrs, with Defence losing out to massive cash hikes for health, education and welfare measured in double and treble digits %, the UKNDA is pushing hard to influence Tory defence plans in a small window of opportunity from the conference season to the Election. Our main event in Manchester – a well advertised fringe meeting in the conference complex-- featured a series of powerful speeches by household names: Prof. Richard Holmes CBE; Patrick Mercer OBE MP; Andrew Roberts and Dr. Irwin Stelzer – all put over the clear message that David Cameron's team must promise to ring fence the defence budget and safeguard it from spend cuts.

Here are a few bullet points showing how defence funds and assets have been reduced:

· As % of GDP from 5% in 1982 / Falklands to today's 2.2 %

· This Govt's much vaunted defence increases amount to a mere 1–1.5% over 12 yrs.

· This hinders big capital projects over many years with greater % inflation.

· The RN is now down to 22 DD/FF, after the 1998 SDR promised an absolute min.of 32. The new Type 45 Destroyers designed to protect carriers are reduced from 12 to 6.

· Submarines are scarce with no leeway for mishaps. The new Astute class cut from 14 to 6.

· No RN air cover for the fleet after Chancellor Brown axed the Sea Harrier in 2001.

· The Army is short of trained manpower, helos and proper vehicles to replace the Snatch Land Rover in which 37 soldiers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

· Soldiers return from active service to horrendous housing unfit for a dog.

· Above all, the Afghan' war deserves more resources, commitment and political will

plus a heavy dose of joined up coordination between diplomacy, aid and soldiers. The core of General McChrystal's strategy is to regain the initiative, a trademark of Lord Nelson .

· The RAF are woefully short of better/ safer transport aircraft and fighters.

· Our armed forces lost the “Peace Dividend” worth some £ 25 billion had defence's budget grown @ the same rate as all public spending since the Cold War's end.

· The Tories imposed this at lightning speed as soon as Berlin's brickwall began to

break. Programmes with catchy words : “Options for Change” and “Front Line First” savaged all 3 forces spending.

The UKNDA needs people today who are both interested in and committed to Britain's fate and defences, and in our parallel push for Defence to the top of the political agenda.

You don't have to be a former member of / or connected to the Armed Forces; we need numbers with both head and heart rooting for Britain.

Please sign up @ just £ 12 p.a or be a Lifer @ £100 and then spread the word and get your friends to join too. Donations are welcome. We have to raise the profile and concern for what the Govt. calls its first priority but is simply not doing.

If the least you can do is to visit our website at www.uknda.org that would be positive.

Before I turn to he who Byron named “Britannia's God of War”, a few words on another vital element of this nation's GOVERNANCE, so much in disrepair after these 12 years. This is fundamental to Defence and to Britain's health.

Lord Douglas Hurd, that distinguished diplomat, only days ago, spoke in the upper house of our Foreign Office being “hollowed out and undermined by the Activism Abroad of the PM's office and the overpaid Dept. for International Development worth four times the FO's budget.” “No longer is it the storehouse of knowledge giving valued advice to ministers.”

British Foreign Policy needs to regain a clear understanding of the articulation between war and politics; between Force and Diplomacy. von Clausewitz , Prussian soldier and military theorist : “War is the continuation of politics by other means”.... and (he implies) it needs a clear political goal.

Before the much needed SDR, a paramount need exists for a Foreign Policy Review to define Britain's National Interest : what advances it / what damages it / what priorities / what can / what should we afford in this dangerous world to preserve it. Only from this can a coherent foreign policy flow, backed up by a suitably resourced diplomacy and armed forces : able, above all, to cope with the unexpected, the asymmetric and the sheer unpredicted, all of which has been the pattern since Cold War's end.

The UKNDA heard the Tory defence team state this need. We hope and we wait.

One last piece in this jigsaw is that of the COMMONWEALTH. It is weak due to underfunding. Britain's gift is 20 pence per head p.a. versus £ 54 per head p.a. to the EU. Embracing some of the fastest growing and most dynamic nations on earth, this is an engine of soft power for the Future we ignore at our peril. We made it. It has been omitted. It is a force for good.

After all that bad news, Lord Nelson, God bless him, may be turning in his tomb in trepidation for this, today's Britain.

Maybe you too draw little comfort from my picture of Defence…... BUT …... there is better news to come! It is the story of a remarkable man from the good old reliable English middle classes, son of the village rector at Burnham Thorpe in Norfolk and born 29 September 1758.

Let us examine how this paradox of both human strength and yet human flaws, even physical frailty, became the figurehead of the Senior Service. I aim to show you how his legacy still shines in today's Royal Navy.

For Nelson's spirit and example is enshrined in our ethos and our fighting spirit by these, his qualities:

Action, Adaptability, Audacity, Duty, Faith in God, Humanity after Victory, Initiative, Leadership, Opportunism, Quick Decisions, Risk Taking – not always successful despite his two total victories at the Nile and Trafalgar, but shown by his loss of an arm and one eye.

Today we commemorate a victory more complete than any other in our Naval history (although

Nelson's Battle of the Nile in 1798 was just as total without the lasting results of peace for Britain brought by Trafalgar.)

The Battle of Trafalgar spelled out the real lesson of SEA POWER, a lesson largely forgotten today, yet one we ignore at our peril.

Despite enormous technical progress in the air and on land, as already discussed, over 90 % of

Britain's needs is still imported by sea to this island.

Whatever the arguments over Defence and its budget, we must never lose sight of the importance of Sea Power and our vital interest in the Freedom of the Seas everywhere.

But tonight we are here not so much to recall the victory of Trafalgar as to remember Lord

Nelson and to propose the toast to his immortal memory. For I believe you must concede that he was one of the Immortals. As his Guildhall memorial says: “the period of Nelson's fame can only be the end of time.”

To a number of people the name of Nelson invokes a variety of images: his small stature, his frail health, his empty sleeve, his sea-sickness, putting his telescope to his blind eye; or.....if you are less generous, his vanity, or his infatuation with Emma Hamilton.

Yet these are but trivialities in the life of a man who was one of our greatest leaders. Also these are the flaws in a human being much loved and revered as I shall show you.

What has Nelson handed down to us today? First and foremost he has bequeathed to the Navy an individuality, an Ethos which has infused the whole service and given to it a character different from that of other Services.

He has taught us to value Initiative ; we alone of the Services use the word “ Intend “ when making a signal with a different sense from “ Propose “, which needs a reply : Yes or No, whereas Intend means just that : I am going to do it !

Nelson gave us a Fighting Spirit. His clear instruction that “No Captain can do very wrong if

he places his ship alongside that of an enemy “ may not be exactly appropriate today ,but the spirit behind it certainly is.

It is this Fighting Spirit which overcomes odds and makes the impossible, possible. The phrase “the Nelson Touch “is believed to sum this up, although it can also mean the magic of his name inspiring his officers and men to great deeds.

Today's Royal Navy is a service ready to fight and win in war at sea and from the sea. It is in being to DEFEND UK Interests worldwide; to DETER threats to UK peace and prosperity; to DEFEAT the Queen's enemies. Much of this is built upon the solid tradition of our history, in which the Nelson Touch is our heritage.

Nelson exemplified many VIRTUES: 1. DUTY; he stressed Duty as the great business of a sea officer. “All private considerations must give way to it however painful.” Did not his famous signal tell the Fleet before Trafalgar that “England expects that every man will do his duty?”

2. A simple FAITH in GOD. Nelson's trust in the Almighty is shown again and again in his letters and prayers. The prayer he wrote as battle was being joined includes his plea “for victory for my country and for the benefit of Europe in general.... and may humanity after Victory be the predominant feature in the British Fleet.” These words speak for themselves.

Nelson's BAND of BROTHERS: “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” His Captains would follow him anywhere and had built up a formidable fighting force based upon their superior seamanship, faster gunnery drills and higher morale of their ships’ companies, during years at sea blockading France and then Spain, interspersed with catching them and bringing them to action at Cape St. Vincent, Aboukir Bay on the Nile (a near total annihilation fought at night) and then at Trafalgar.

There was another side to his Band of Brothers: in the pleasure of entertainment and dining together just as we are tonight and as New Britain does at your varied events / celebrations.

Just as important were two dinners for his Captains before Trafalgar in his flagship Victory, when he instructed them how he meant to fight the battle. “When I explained to them the Nelson Touch, it was like an electric shock.”

The core of his plan was to approach in two columns and cut the enemy's one line in two, breaking their formation in half, surrounding each half and force them to fight to the end. Nelson wanted total victory, while his Captains had plenty of flexibility over and above the basic plan to achieve it.

Last but certainly not least, what about LEADERSHIP? Nelson was a leader of quite exceptional power and a man, who, perhaps because he was so human, was deeply loved by those who served under him.

What other word can explain how, for months on end, in conditions of great hardship, great boredom and great danger, men of the roughest and toughest types, forced into sea service by the infamous Press Gangs and literally imprisoned in their ships, were welded into the most effective camaraderie of fighting men in our history and were ready almost to a man to die for Nelson?

As one seaman said of his death: “Men who fought like the devil sat down and cried like wenches.”

As I hope I have shown, the SPIRIT of Nelson has nothing to do with hidebound tradition. It means much to The Royal Navy; it has to do with Action, with Audacity, with grasping Opportunity and, above all with Adapting technique to modern methods. What else was Nelson's plan for Victory but carefully planned and practised adaptation of a new technique to naval battle? Decision was what he was after; decision was what he got.

Nelson led from the front by example too. Time and again he put himself in mortal danger and often ignored orders which he believed would not lead on to victory. Take his fight with the Spanish off Cape St. Vincent in Feb 1797 under Admiral Jervis. At the height of the battle Nelson drove at a group of Spanish ships and closed to board the first; captured it / took the surrender, then used that ship to manoeuvre alongside a bigger one before leading his boarding party for the 2^nd time up the side of the large three deck San Jose, which at once surrendered. This heroic action became known in the RN as “Nelson's Patent Bridge for Boarding First Rates”. A first rate was the most heavily armed of any ships of the line, with up to 100 guns, sometimes more.

Nelson was rewarded with promotion to Rear Admiral of the Blue and knighted in the Order of the Bath.

Finally it is important to put Nelson's achievements at sea into national context. In 1805 the threat to Britain was the First French Empire under Napoleon, the dominant military land power in Europe, while the British Navy controlled the seas. Napoleon was determined to invade Britain but to do so he would need to control the English Channel.

Trafalgar's significant victory put paid to that and the RN continued to dominate the seas, thus rescuing Moore's troops from Corunna and returning to support Wellington in the second and successful Peninsular War.

Naval supremacy post 1805 paved the way for Pax Britannica during most of the C19 when Britain controlled the key sea trade routes and enjoyed unchallenged sea power.

Whatever happens to our Armed Services, and however the future size and shape of the Royal Navy is to be, we should continue to hold on to and be upheld by the Nelson spirit. One thing is certain: the inspiration of Nelson is still a potent living force and many ships, units and shore establishments, wherever they are tonight in this troubled world will be toasting the Immortal Memory of Admiral Lord Nelson.

15/10/2009
UKNDA LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN FOR LONDON MEMORIAL TO OUR FORCES IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN
UKNDA calls for the spare plinth in Trafalgar Square to be made available for a permanent memorial to the services and sacrifices of our brave forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.~

NEWS RELEASE

Thursday 15 October 2009: Release time immediate

DEFENCE GROUP LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN FOR PERMANENT LONDON MEMORIAL TO OUR FORCES IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

The United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) has launched a campaign for a permanent national monument in London to commemorate the service and sacrifice of Britain's Armed Forces on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A UKNDA petition calling for the now-vacant fourth plinth in London's Trafalgar Square to be made available for such a memorial has gathered over 1,300 signatures in just five days and is continuing to attract significant interest and support from across the country.

The petition, which appears on the Prime Minister's website, http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/TributeToForces/ calls for "the vacant plinth in Trafalgar Square [to] be allocated permanently and dedicated to a statue or other appropriate work of art to honour and commemorate the services given and sacrifices made by our brave Armed Forces in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan."

UKNDA Chief Executive, Cdr John Muxworthy, said: "We are concerned that there is currently no memorial in our Capital City to the brave British servicemen and servicewomen who have taken part in recent and current operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The spare plinth in Trafalgar Square would be ideal for such a memorial."

-ENDS

For further information or interview opportunities please contact: Andy Smith, PRO, UKNDA, tel: 07737 271676, email pro@uknda.org

Editor’s Notes: The United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) exists to campaign in support of Britain's Armed Forces. Patrons of the UKNDA include three former Chiefs of the Defence Staff – Lords Guthrie, Craig and Boyce. Please see www.uknda.org and www.supportourarmedforces.org.uk

03/10/2009
CAMERON URGED TO HOLD FIRM AGAINST PRESSURE TO CUT DEFENCE

On the eve of the Conservative Party Conference, the UKNDA calls for David Cameron to give a firm guarantee that funding for the Armed Forces would be safeguarded from any public spending cuts under a Conservative government.~

NEWS RELEASE

Saturday 3 October 2008: Release time immediate

CAMERON URGED TO HOLD FIRM AGAINST PRESSURE TO CUT DEFENCE

The United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) is calling on David Cameron to give a firm guarantee that funding for the Armed Forces would be safeguarded from any public spending cuts under a Conservative government.

With Conservatives gathering in Manchester for their annual conference, the UKNDA is urging Mr Cameron and Shadow Chancellor George Osborne to resist pressure to cut the defence budget, and to consider increasing the share of government funding allocated to defence. This is vital, says the UKNDA, to enable the Armed Forces to “catch up” after two decades of “chronic underfunding”.

Leading members of the UKNDA, including the military historian Prof. Richard Holmes, Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, author and journalist Andrew Roberts, economist Dr. Irwin Stelzer, former head of UK defence exports Tony Edwards, and the former UN commander in Bosnia, Col. Bob Stewart, are among those who will be speaking at the UKNDA’s conference fringe-meeting and calling for David Cameron and his team to give a categorical assurance that a Tory government would not cut defence. The UKNDA event – to be held at the Exchange Auditorium, Manchester Central, at 12.30pm on Monday October 5 – is part of an intensive campaign to persuade the Conservatives to recognise the many and growing threats to national security, and the urgent need to restore “defence of the realm” to its rightful place as “the first priority of government”. Defence funding, says the UKNDA, should be “threat-driven not Treasury-driven”.

In a UKNDA policy paper to be published on Monday, Azeem Ibrahim – Research Fellow at the International Security Program, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University – writes: “Any politician who believes that the Government’s first duty is defence of the realm must reverse the present dangerous downward drift in defence funding. If they do not, then whoever is elected will be remembered as the Prime Minister who let Britain ’s military prowess fatally wither, and recklessly risked national security.”

UKNDA President Winston S. Churchill is spearheading the campaign to convince the Conservatives of the importance of investing in defence. In an echo of the campaign that his grandfather Sir Winston Churchill waged in the 1930s, the UKNDA’s President is warning of the many and growing threats that Britain now faces, and is appealing to the present-day Conservative Party leadership for a clear and unequivocal commitment to national defence.

He says: “Now, almost eight decades after Sir Winston sought to alert the Nation to the folly of disarmament, his appeal for strong national defence resonates once again. Today’s world is an extremely dangerous place. Just think what could happen if America, Britain and our NATO allies fail to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, if nuclear-armed Pakistan were to fall to the Taliban, if the Islamist regime in Iran were to be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, or if a resurgent nationalist Russia decided to repeat its foray into Georgia, or perhaps even into Ukraine… We need to give our Army, Navy and Air Force the resources they need to provide Britain with strong, effective, efficient defence, capable of meeting the many foreseen and unforeseen challenges that lie ahead.”

-ENDS

For further information or interview opportunities please contact:

Andy Smith, PRO, UKNDA, tel: 07737 271676, email pro@uknda.org

29/09/2009
Defence: The first priority for a Conservative government?

Prof Richard Holmes, Patrick Mercer MP, Andrew Roberts, Dr Irwin Stelzer and Col Bob Stewart are among the speakers lined up for a major UKNDA event at next week’s Conservative Party Conference in Manchester.~

News Release

Defence: The First Priority for a Conservative Government?

Prof. Richard Holmes CBE, Lt-Col. Patrick Mercer OBE MP, Andrew Roberts, Dr. Irwin Stelzer and Col. Bob Stewart DSO are among the speakers lined up for a major UKNDA event at next week’s Conservative Party Conference in Manchester.

With the Conservatives looking set to form the next government, the UKNDA team will be targeting the Manchester conference with the message that defence funding should be threat-driven not budget-driven.

The UKNDA’s main conference event takes place at the Exchange Auditorium, Manchester Central, on Monday October 5, at 12.30pm, with historians Richard Holmes and Andrew Roberts, economist Irwin Stelzer, defence industrialist Tony Edwards (author of A Decision the Next Prime Minister Must Make), former UN commander in Bosnia, Col. Bob Stewart, and former RAF Defence Director, Air Cmdre. Andrew Lambert.

Tony Edwards and Col. Bob Stewart will also speak on behalf of the UKNDA at a fringe-meeting organised by Conservative Way Forward on the same day.

From October 5-6, UKNDA’s “Support our Armed Forces” stall will be in the “Freedom Zone” at the Bridgewater Hall opposite the main conference centre. Any UKNDA supporters wishing to volunteer their services to the Association during the Conservative Party Conference should visit the Freedom Zone on 5/6 October and make contact with Cdr. John Muxworthy RN, UKNDA CEO, or Andy Smith, UKNDA PRO.

-Ends

Press contact: Andy Smith, 07737 271676, Email pro@uknda.org

United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA), PO Box 819, Portsmouth PO1 9FF.

Tel 02392 831728. Email secretary@uknda.org Website www.uknda.org

15/09/2009
FURTHER DEFENCE CUTS WOULD BE CATASTROPHIC
Press statement by the UKNDA in response to suggestions of further reductions in the defence budget.~

PRESS STATEMENT

15 September 2009

FURTHER DEFENCE CUTS WOULD BE CATASTROPHIC

From recent statements it appears that both the Labour Government and the Conservative Opposition seem to believe that even after years of chronic under-investment in defence, our over-stretched and under-funded Armed Forces can be cut even further. Such disregard for defence and national security is unbelievably short-sighted. Our politicians have apparently forgotten that defence is the nation's insurance policy and therefore the Government's No.1 priority. Without sufficient investment in defence of the realm, spending billions on health or welfare is meaningless.

For the security of our people, our trade, our energy supplies, our borders and our worldwide economic interests, it is essential that the next government, whether it is Labour or Conservative, resists the temptation to use its review of Britain's defence as another excuse for cutting our Armed Forces. In this increasingly dangerous world, further defence cuts would be potentially catastrophic. Is Britain's next Prime Minister willing to take that risk?

- Andy Smith, UK National Defence Association

For further information, contact: Andy Smith, UKNDA PRO, on 07737 271676, email pro@uknda.org

05/09/2009 00:02:00
Eric Joyce tells UKNDA debate that Britain 'could have been better prepared' for war in Afghanistan

The Labour and Conservative parties both want to "take defence off the political agenda", Labour MP (and former PPS to the Defence Secretary) Eric Joyce has told a UKNDA meeting.~

NEWS RELEASE

Sept 4, 2009

Joyce tells UKNDA debate that Britain “could have been better prepared” for war in Afghanistan

September 3^rd – the 70^th anniversary of the start of WW2 – saw the launch of the UK National Defence Association’s (UKNDA) inaugural Defence & Foreign Policy debate, hosted by the UKNDA London Branch at the Naval Club, Mayfair.

Principal guest speaker was Labour MP Eric Joyce, who announce his resignation that evening as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Defence Secretary, Bob Ainsworth, owing to disagreements with the Government over Afghanistan. Mr Joyce said that British forces “could have been better prepared” for war these past seven years, and that the main reason why both the Labour and Conservatives parties had announced a Defence Review was to “take defence off the political agenda”.

Other speakers included Cdr. John Muxworthy (UKNDA CEO), Col. Bob Stewart (UKNDA Vice-President and former UN Commander in Bosnia), James Cleverly (Conservative member of the London Assembly), Admiral Sir John Treacher (former Commander-in-Chief Fleet) and Dr. Ian Kearns of the Institute for Public Policy Research. The debate was chaired by UKNDA London Branch Vice-Chairman Martin Cakebread.

Col. Stewart said that British tactics in Helmand must change to deal with the ever-growing threat of IEDs. In particular he highlighted the need for better surveillance equipment such as UAVs. A key challenge, he said, was to provide “better long-term treatment and care of soldiers” when they return from active service. It was of paramount importance for any future Government, regardless of party, to address the “serious shortfalls in defence funding as an urgent priority”.

Within 48 hours of the debate, the Prime Minister had outlined a new approach to Afghanistan in his speech to the International Institute of Strategic Affairs and Conservative Shadow Defence Secretary Dr. Liam Fox had stated that defence was “likely to be a major issue for voters” in the next General Election.

The UKNDA is the only campaigning organisation dedicated specifically to the welfare and support of Britain’s Armed Forces. Thursday’s highly successful debate was the first of a series of UKNDA events in London and nationwide in the run-up to the Election.

-ENDS

Press contact: Andy Smith, UKNDA PRO, tel. 07737 271676, email pro@uknda.org

01/09/2009
UKNDA welcomes major new report on the defence industries
Statement by Cdr John Muxworthy, CEO of the UKNDA, in response to the release of the Defence Industries Council report, "Securing Britain's future and prosperity".~

PRESS STATEMENT

1 September 2009

UKNDA WELCOMES MAJOR NEW REPORT ON THE DEFENCE INDUSTRIES

Commenting on the report “Securing Britain’s future and prosperity” released today by the Defence Industries Council, Cdr John Muxworthy, CEO of the United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA), said:

“The UKNDA endorses entirely the very strong message recently put out by the Defence Industries Council. Defence of the Nation, its people, their security and vital interests, is the first priority of any Government.

“It is also true that a strong defence industrial base is essential to sustain a strong defence posture as well as being a mainstay of the economy. The Government and indeed politicians of all persuasions should recognise the glimpse of the blindingly obvious - i.e. that this is a ‘win-win situation’. Investing in defence increases our security and the economy at one and the same time. To neglect one is to neglect both. It would be an act of criminal negligence not to fully support our Armed Forces and the defence industries.

“The forthcoming promised Strategic Defence Review must, no matter which political party eventually has to implement it, conclude and affirm that ‘defence on the cheap’ is a clear and present danger to our over-stretched Armed Forces, the people of this country and to their pockets. Defence must be fully funded and the defence budget threat-driven and not Treasury-driven.

“If once lost our defence industrial base would never be restored and this country would be relegated to the third division of the world’s nations. Is this what the country needs or wants? We do not believe so. It is up to us all to make our politicians realise that there are votes, money and security in defence and the defence industries. The UKNDA joins with the Defence Industries Council in urging the Government and politicians of all persuasions that it is their duty to support fully our Armed Forces who are our sure shield.”

26/07/2009
MINISTERS SHOULD HANG THEIR HEADS IN SHAME, SAYS CHURCHILL

Press statement from UKNDA President Winston S. Churchill in response to the Government's attempt to reduce compensation awards to wounded British soldiers.~

NEWS RELEASE

26 July 2009: Release time immediate

MINISTERS SHOULD HANG THEIR HEADS IN SHAME, SAYS CHURCHILL

Winston S Churchill, President of the United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) has described as "shameful" the Government's decision to challenge recent compensation awards to wounded soldiers.

"This is scandalous," said Mr Churchill, whose Association campaigns in support of Britain's Armed Forces. "Members of Gordon Brown's Government should be hanging their heads in shame. For every British soldier killed in Afghanistan, eight are seriously wounded.

"It is outrageous that the Government should be going to court to reduce the already paltry compensation awards for injured soldiers. Nothing illustrates better the Government's appalling lack of concern for our nation's brave servicemen and servicewomen."

-Ends

Media contacts: Cdr. John Muxworthy, Chief Executive Officer, UKNDA, email ceo@uknda.org, tel 01264 860693 / 07721 624980, or Andy Smith, Public Relations Officer, email pro@uknda.org, tel 07737 271676.

Notes to Editors:

The United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) was formed in 2007 to campaign in support of Britain's Armed Forces. Its President is Winston S. Churchill, former MP and war correspondent (and grandson of Britain's wartime Prime Minister). Tri-Service and politically independent, the UKNDA aims to ensure that Britain's fighting men and women are properly trained, equipped, sustained and cared for. For details, go to www.uknda.org

17/07/2009
THE CASE FOR INCREASING THE DEFENCE BUDGET IN THE MIDST OF RECESSION
A major new report by Andrew Roberts, Irwin Stelzer and Allen Sykes for the UKNDA argues that defence funding represents the best value for national resources, even at a time of severe economic crisis.~

NEWS RELEASE

July 17, 2009

ARMED FORCES CAMPAIGNERS SET OUT THE CASE FOR HIGHER DEFENCE SPENDING IN THE MIDST OF RECESSION

Defence is “the best value for national resources”, says new report

Under-funding leads to rivalry between Navy, Army and Air Force

Funding for Britain’s Armed Forces must be protected from public expenditure cuts, in spite of the heavy financial pressures faced by the Government, and the defence budget should be increased over the next three years to at least three per cent of GDP, according to a paper published today (July 17) by the United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA).

In the UKNDA paper, “A Compelling Necessity”, co-authors Andrew Roberts and Allen Sykes argue that increasing Britain ’s defence budget represents the best value for national resources even in the midst of recession, and that any future Strategic Defence Review must, of necessity, recommend an increase in funding for defence and national security.

The paper also accuses the Treasury of squeezing the defence budget to the point where the Navy, Army and Air Force are competing with one another for an adequate share of the limited resources available. This is a clear indication of failure to recognise the potentially wide-ranging dangers to Britain ’s security. The only adequate defence provision, say Roberts and Sykes, is one that maintains a large, flexible, general contingency in all three Services.

Defence funding, the paper argues, should be “threat-driven, not budget-driven”. Britain is at the greatest risk when it is financially weakest, and recessionary pressures world-wide are increasing political instability in already unstable regions. Current and possible future threats to national security are large and growing. The sums required to strengthen Britain ’s military capability are both affordable in the national context and represent excellent value-for-money, even in the present severe economic crisis.

In his Foreword to the paper, the economist Irwin Stelzer highlights the risk to the Anglo-US Special Relationship if Britain fails to invest adequately in defence: “If Britain does not shore up its military,” Stelzer writes, “so that it is capable of holding up its end of the bargain implicit in the Special Relationship, that relationship will be under severe threat. Fortunately, it is deep – culturally, socially, politically and militarily – and can endure temporary strains. But not a permanent decision by Britain to become still another free-rider on US military outlays. Both of our nations will be the poorer if the Special Relationship is no more, and the world will be a more dangerous place.”

The UKNDA paper challenges politicians on both sides of the House of Commons to “convert the existing strong public support for our Armed Forces into an adequate defence provision.”

-Ends

Notes to Editors:

1. “A Compelling Necessity: The case for increasing the defence budget despite the present severe economic crisis” is published on Friday July 17. Download a copy here.

Andrew Roberts is a highly accomplished journalist and historian, whose books include Napoleon and Wellington, Eminent Churchillians, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900 and Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill and Alanbrooke won the War in the West. He is the editor of The Art of War, a major two-volume chronological survey of the greatest military commanders in history.

Allen Sykes is a retired international businessman. He was lead author of the UKNDA’s first discussion paper, "Overcoming the Defence Crisis", in September 2008, and has had a longstanding interest in political and military history, the Armed Forces, defence strategy and international affairs.

Irwin Stelzer is an American economist and journalist of distinction. He is Director of Economic Policy Studies at the Hudson Institute, and is a regular columnist for newspapers in the United States, Britain and Australia , including The Sunday Times, The Spectator, Weekly Standard, Washington Examiner, Courier Mail (Brisbane) and New York Post.

2. The United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) was formed in 2007 to campaign in support of Britain's Armed Forces. Its President is Winston S. Churchill, former MP and war correspondent (and grandson of Britain's wartime Prime Minister). Tri-Service and politically independent, the UKNDA aims to ensure that Britain's fighting men and women are properly trained, equipped, sustained and cared for. For details, go to www.uknda.org

09/07/2009
UKNDA welcomes Nick Clegg's call for 'new commitment' in Afghanistan

UKNDA President Winston S. Churchill welcomes the LibDem leader's comments on Afghanistan, and urges all the party leaders at Westminster to agree to exempt the Armed Forces from any budget cuts.~

NEWS RELEASE

9 July 2009: For immediate release

ARMED FORCES CAMPAIGNERS WELCOME LIBERAL DEMOCRAT LEADER'S CALL FOR NEW COMMITMENT TO AFGHANISTAN

"Support our Armed Forces" campaigners from the United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) have welcomed the Liberal Democrat Leader's call for "a new strategy and a new commitment" to Britain's mission in Afghanistan.

Winston S. Churchill, President of the UKNDA, said: "Nick Clegg is the first party leader to draw a direct connection between the scale of losses in Afghanistan and the lack of resources given to our Armed Forces. To be successful the campaign in Helmand requires a much greater commitment by Britain and, as the Liberal Democrat leader says, a new and more robust approach.

"I very much hope that other party leaders, on both sides of the House of Commons, will join Nick Clegg in acknowledging the indisputable fact that our Armed Forces are chronically under-funded and over-stretched due to the longstanding squeeze on the defence budget. They must give a firm pledge not only to exempt the Armed Forces, while at war, from any general budgetary cuts, but also, at the earliest opportunity, increase the resources available to all three Services."

The UKNDA, the Support our Armed Forces campaign, has the backing of many current and former members of the Armed Forces, including former Chiefs of the Defence Staff and many veterans of the Navy, Army and RAF, and their families. The UKNDA is non-party political and, on this crucial issue of the Nation's defence, believes that cross-party consensus can and must be achieved.

For details of the Support our Armed Forces campaign, go to www.supportourarmedforces.org.uk or www.uknda.org

-Ends

Media contact: Andy Smith, 07737 271676, email pro@uknda.org

07/07/2009
UKNDA welcomes Defence Secretary's SDR announcement
Statement by UKNDA CEO, Cdr John Muxworthy, on the Defence Secretary's announcement that the MoD is to start preliminary work on a new Strategic Defence Review.~

NEWS RELEASE

7 July 2009

UKNDA WELCOMES MoD ANNOUNCEMENT ON DEFENCE REVIEW

The United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) has welcomed today's announcement by the Secretary of State for Defence, Bob Ainsworth, that the Ministry of Defence will start work on a Green Paper leading to a new Strategic Defence Review.

Cdr John Muxworthy, Chief Executive Officer of the UKNDA said: "Defence is, or should be, the first priority of any government. It follows, as night follows day, that proper provision for Defence must be threat-driven as opposed to budget-driven, no matter what the current state of the Nation's finances.

"Commentators are already (and prematurely) 'taking sides'. New aircraft carriers, or no carriers. Trident or no Trident. Afghanistan 'the only game in town'. In fact we need to meet any and all likely future threats, and that means we must have a full spectrum military capability, with a properly resourced Navy, Army and Air Force.

"The UKNDA stands ready to assist the Government, and the Nation, make up its mind on these absolutely fundamental, critical and vital issues. Our purpose is to assist in the process of making rational decisions as to how best the Nation can provide the sufficient, appropriate and fully-funded Armed Forces that are required to ensure the security of the United Kingdom, its people, their security and vital interests wherever they may be.

"Inter-service fighting, as currently provoked by Treasury parsimony, must be set aside. There are greater goals to be met - and the effective Defence of our Country is the greatest goal of all. Political point scoring must, in the Nation's interest, be cast aside. United, the Services will be able to provide the security we all seek. Divided? - well, that way is unthinkable."

The UKNDA was formed in 2007 to campaign in support of Britain's Armed Forces. Its President is Winston S. Churchill, former MP and war correspondent (and grandson of Britain 's wartime Prime Minister). Tri-Service and politically independent, the UKNDA aims to ensure that Britain's fighting men and women are properly trained, equipped, sustained and cared for. For details, go to www.uknda.org

-Ends

Media contacts: Cdr. John Muxworthy, ceo@uknda.org, tel 01264 860693, or Andy Smith, pro@uknda.org, 07737 271676.

Editor's note: The UKNDA will publish a new report on Defence policy next week, arguing why Britain needs to invest more in Defence at a time of recession.

30/06/2009
IPPR 'barking up the wrong tree' on Defence
UKNDA statement in response to the IPPR report. UKNDA CEO Cdr John Muxworthy rejects suggestions that major defence programmes should be cut back, and says the think-tank's report is "fundamentally flawed".~

NEWS RELEASE

30 June 2009

IPPR "BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE" ON DEFENCE

The new report on National Security by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) is "fundamentally flawed", according to the United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA).

Shared Responsibilities: A National Security Strategy for the UK, published today by the IPPR, advocates substantial further cuts to Britain's already pared-to-the-bone Defence capabilities, including the axing of the aircraft carrier programme, and calls for the replacement Trident nuclear deterrent to be "re-thought". The report also recommends a move away from Britain's traditional focus on the alliance with the USA, towards a Europe-centred Defence policy.

UKNDA Chief Executive, Cdr John Muxworthy, said: "The IPPR report is fundamentally flawed. It starts from the basic assumption that Britain can no longer afford a full-spectrum Armed Forces cabability and that we should therefore scale back our military, give up on Afghanistan, and cancel a whole tranche of Defence programmes.

"The UKNDA's position is quite different. In our view, what Britain cannot afford to do is risk making the swingeing cuts that the IPPR proposes. If we do, our military will be more thinly stretched and our country more vulnerable to external threats than at any time since WW2. Unlike other areas of Government expenditure, funding for Defence has been continually squeezed for the past two decades, with the result that our Forces are already chronically overstretched. To cut them back further would be the height of folly.

"The IPPR report rightly recognises that there is a gaping 'black hole' in the Defence budget and calls for the Government to undertake a Defence & Security Review, already long overdue (the last review was 11 years ago). But instead of recommending that we increase Defence funding in order to repair the damage done since the 1990s the report's authors seem content to advocate a further shrinking of Britain's military capability, to the point where we would be wholly dependent on Europe for our Defence.

"I am glad that the IPPR has helped to stir up debate on Defence and National Security - but with this report they are barking up the wrong tree. What the IPPR do not seem to have acknowledged is that the UK is, and must remain, a significant global player. We are a major trading nation and, despite the current recession, we are still a leading global economy with worldwide interests to protect, not least our seaborne trade. We must continue to stand alongside America - that is absolutely fundamental. It would be sheer folly to retreat to the role of European bit-player, heavily reliant on France and Germany."

The UKNDA was formed in 2007 to campaign in support of Britain's Armed Forces. Its President is Winston S. Churchill, former MP and war correspondent (and grandson of Britain's wartime Prime Minister). Tri-Service and politically independent, the UKNDA aims to ensure that Britain's fighting men and women are properly trained, equipped, sustained and cared for. The UKNDA calls for an urgent Defence Review, with funding in place to ensure that the nation can match resources to requirements. For details, go to www.uknda.org

-Ends

Media contacts: Cdr. John Muxworthy, ceo@uknda.org, tel 01264 860693, or Andy Smith, pro@uknda.org, 07737 271676.

Editor's note: The UKNDA will publish a new report on Defence policy next month, arguing why Britain needs to invest more in Defence at a time of recession.

22/06/2009
UKNDA London Branch gets underway

Tom Calvert has been appointed Chairman of the newly formed London Branch.~

NEWS RELEASE

UKNDA London Branch gets underway

Following an inaugural meeting at the Special Forces Club, the new London Branch of the United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) has held its first committee meeting and appointed solicitor Tom Calvert as its Branch Chairman. Tom will be assisted by committee members Paul Gerskowitch and Martin Cakebread. Plans for an official launch event in the Autumn and a full programme of London Branch activities will be unveiled shortly. In the meantime the Branch has announced that as a result of an initiative by UKNDA London member Mark Hayball to promote links between London football clubs and the UKNDA, members of the Leyton Orient Supporters Club will be able to join the UKNDA for a special first-year discounted membership rate of just £5. Leyton Orient has a long tradition of involvement with, and support for, the Armed Forces. Details are available from pro@uknda.org

-ENDS

Press contact: Andy Smith, UKNDA PRO, 07737 271676, email pro@uknda.org

Stop Press

READ OUR LATEST REPORTS

RN Losing its Critical Mass - the WARSHIPS article click here

UKNDA's latest report on the current state of our Armed Forces click here

UKNDA Articles of Association for Charitable Company. Click here

The UKNDA call for a National debate on Defence, supporting papers: Disarmament & Consequences Repor click here and A National Debate on Defence Report, click here.

UKNDA latest newsletter - October 2012 - click here

Support Our Armed Forces:

Welcome to the website of the United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA). The UKNDA has been formed to ....

Read more