Thoughts on a Grand Strategy for Britain

"I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."

-Viscount Palmerston, 1848

Of the 194 independent states currently in existence you would be hard pressed to find many that have more potential than the United Kingdom. As I explained here and here the British state has a raft of in-built advantages, from its globally engaged and powerful economy to the range of useful overseas territories, modern armed forces and an impressive diplomatic footprint. And yet, since the end of the Second World War, Britain has lurched from crisis to crisis with events and political short termism dictating national strategy. Since the 1956 Suez Crisis the relationship with the United States, never one of equals, has steadily come to replace British strategy abroad. At home the relationship with the European Union and it's predecessors has also curtailed national strategic decision making. For the best part of a century an uneasy hodgepodge of US and European grand strategy has effectively been British grand strategy. This has led to the steady atrophying of a unique political and military culture, that was decidedly un-American and un-European, with no real replacement. While much world-class strategic thought still goes on in the UK it is largely confined to Academic spheres, lacking integration with mainstream politics and public consciousness. What must be recognised to move forwards is that our current approach has been broadly unsuccessful and that what's needed is a distinct and British grand strategy, designed to use the UK's strengths to secure and advance its national interests in the long term.

To begin to formulate a grand strategy first a question must be asked and answered: "what will Britain's vital national interests in the coming century, and beyond, be?". I would argue some are obvious and eternal; the enduring territorial integrity of the British isles, the continued existence of the United Kingdom as a single political entity, economic prosperity, stability, the protection of British citizens wherever they may be and the sustainment of the Western liberal order. Simple, direct and broad in scope these are what I conceive Britain's long-term interests to be. To define UK interests too narrowly and specifically would ensure that the resulting analysis would eventually become dated and increasingly irrelevant. It also avoids falling into the trap of confusing values with interests. Although the sustainment of the Western liberal order is a vital national interest, it's expansion is not. Events in the last decade and a half have shown that trying to forcefully expand the borders of the Western order is usually futile and has unintended consequences. That said, states willingly wishing to join that club should be admitted with open arms; as Eastern Europe was after the collapse of Soviet Communism. For these reasons the interests that drive grand strategy must be broadly defined and enduring. If the ends sought are to be broadly defined and eternal, then the ways used to achieve them; the grand strategy, must take an equally broad approach to the UK's geo-strategic challenges.

In contrast with simple political or military strategy, which draw upon distinct resources to achieve specific goals in the short to medium term, grand strategy aims to combine all aspects of national power and influence in pursuit of its aims. When applying narrow forms of power, be they military, diplomatic, economic or otherwise, Britain often fails to live up to its potential. The United Kingdom does not have the most powerful global economy, the military might of a vast continental state, or the raw influence to be the essential diplomatic power broker. However, when taken together it's easy to see that Britain has nearly unrivaled national power across the whole spectrum. The British armed forces may not be the most powerful, but they have a range of impressive capabilities and can still "go to the crisis" with decisive force if needed. The UK wields impressive influence through it's global diplomatic presence, with seats in countless international organisations; not least of which is permanent membership of the UN Security Council. Although it's true that Britain can't compete with the vast resources of China and the United States for economic power, only a fool would call the UK economically weak. While the 2008 financial crisis hit key sectors of the economy hard Britain is currently amongst the fastest growing economies in Europe, a dynamic medium-sized economy with a strong tradition of the rule of law and the ability to efficiently mobilise its resources. If there is one aspect of national power in which Britain excels, yet continues to underutilise, it is cultural. While feelings on Britain's imperial period are decidedly mixed, the overriding legacies of Empire: the Anglosphere, the Commonwealth, English as the global language of commerce, the export of British common law and institutions as well as the "Westminster system" of government tend to be positive ones that (if used correctly) will continue to enhance UK power. If Britain wishes to protect and advance its national interests it must be done by wielding comprehensive, rather than narrow and specific, national power.

At it's most successful Britain applied economic, military, diplomatic
and cultural power effectively in pursuit of its interests.

Before beginning to look at an overarching national strategy it's necessary to examine what has prevented the UK from doing so over the last half century or so. The outcome of the 1956 Suez war, the "last gasp of the imperial lion", effectively shackled much of British foreign policy to that of the United States. Whether the Americans intended for that to be the outcome is up for debate, but the practical long-term consequence was an ever closer foreign policy union between the two great Anglosphere nations; a union that has increasingly become dominated by the senior partner. While the "Special Relationship" has not been one of true equals for a very long time, on it's own it doesn't explain the British dependence on America's foreign policy leadership.

For that we must look at to the period of decolonisation after the Second World War and the growth of an unhelpful Eurocentric view of the world. Although the decision for Britain to withdraw from its vast Empire after 1945 was certainly, in hindsight, the correct one; the imperial possessions that were being abandoned were too often confused with structures established to protect the UK's overseas interests. It is easy to forget that when Britain first acquired an Empire, its territories existed to provide a string of naval bases that supported maritime forces capable of defending and advancing British interests. The vast land empire, which emerged later as a product of the Industrial Revolution, overlaid the original structure and obscured its purpose. Bases, and the commitments they underpinned, in the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and South China Sea were abandoned in the decolonisation drive. During this process the expectation was often that the United States would become Britain's proxy in the abandoned regions, who would defend British national interests at little to no cost to the UK. While the Americans certainly did enter these regions as the guarantor of stability, they came with their own economic and diplomatic agendas that often didn't match Britain's. It is too easy to forget that while the US is a diplomatic, military and cultural ally of the first order; it remains an economic competitor and undeniably self-interested in that regard.

The second factor that has contributed to the atrophy of British grand strategic thought is the increasingly Eurocentric approach to foreign policy, instigated by the Cold War and exacerbated by the period of relative decline in the late 1960s and through the 1970s. At that time there was a belief, strongly held by some, that in the future the United Kingdom could redefine itself as a mid-sized European power; rather than as a great power situated in Europe but with interests and concerns that spread far beyond the continent. This view contributed to the UK's steady collapse down to a continental defence posture, designed for the Cold War confrontation in Europe, that was ill-suited to the defence and advancement of it's interests elsewhere. A concerted effort was also made  to abandon much of Britain's presence outside Europe throughout that period, although the retreat from 'East of Suez' was the most prominent, Mediterranean and South Atlantic commitments were also drawn down. All of this, combined with a degree of fatalism amongst decision makers, often meant that the draw down from what were perceived as imperial commitments was pushed further and faster than it should have been. To some extent Britain's improved economic condition (and the boost given to national confidence by victory in the Falklands and the Gulf) curbed the worst of the declinist tendency amongst policymakers for a time. 

Now, however, after a grueling decade of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan we are seeing a return to timid passivity in the face of some of the gravest crises since the end of the Cold War a quarter century ago. Such behavior is placing greater burdens on an already overburdened United States, still a vital and potent ally, as well as failing to support British national interests. There is also the uncomfortable fact that the United Kingdom is often led, handled and judged as if it were a smaller and less potent copy of the United States. An apparent ignorance of what must be done to maximise Britain's international power is particularly concerning. Too often have leaders missed the basic truth that a country with the will to be engaged and active on the international stage will always "punch above its weight", whereas those too timid to do so will usually remain on the sidelines. In the event of a crisis there is often much to lose and little to be gained by not being involved, or at least possessing the ability to become involved at short-notice. 

The willingness and ability to "go to the crisis" with decisive force has set the
UK apart from other countries over the centuries.

The lesson of the last sixty years is clear: while allies are often essential to the success of British engagement abroad they are a very poor substitute for sovereign capabilities and action. Therefore, before a grand strategy tailored to Britain's situation can be developed, there must be some degree of separation from the foreign policy goals of the United States and from the European continent. While policymakers will likely still find that UK and US interests often align closely, making co-operation highly desirable, a more independent and mercenary approach should be taken when interests conflict. As for the affairs of the European continent, they stand as more of an impediment to a global strategy for Britain than anything else. While stability in Europe is an important, likely essential, component for a successful global Britain, protracted continental commitments have almost always proved an expensive distraction. Only when it's vital national interests are at stake should the UK consider entering into binding continental commitments. "Business as usual" on the continent would be the exercise of influence through diplomatic and economic means, backed up by UK-based armed forces that could be deployed in the event of a serious crisis.

On the subject of Europe, the gravest threat is likely to remain an embittered, revanchist Russia. While Putin's conservative clique remain in power it seems likely that tensions will be high, as liberal Western values collide with Russia's deeply conservative world view on the fringes of Eastern Europe. The challenge for Britain is that Eastern Europe is fundamentally a theater where it's military influence will always be rather limited. "Blue water" maritime forces are not well suited to the enclosed waters of the Baltic, threatened as they are by Russian air power and missiles based in their enclave at Kaliningrad. It is fundamentally a continental theatre, where a maritime power such as Britain would find it impossible to contribute significant forces; certainly without compromising it's global limited-war power projection capabilities. As it stands, a power vacuum exists in Eastern Europe. Following the recent withdrawal of the last substantial American ground forces, the two heavy brigade combat teams, from Germany almost all of NATO's first class military capability is now situated to the West of Germany. Although the US has issued an abrupt volte face, returning some of the heavy equipment it withdrew in 2013, Europe is approaching a tipping point. The continuous presence of large American conventional forces can no longer be considered to be a certain prospect.Without enough high-readiness conventional forces positioned nearby, to balance Russia's ability to rapidly mobilise very large numbers of troops (demonstrated time and again by "snap" military drills and maneuvers), the situation will remain unstable and potentially quite dangerous.

The return of large-scale US forces to Germany in the long term is something that cannot be counted upon, as a growing confrontation with China in the Pacific continues to exert a powerful draw on overstretched American military resources. Instead, in order to secure the integrity of the NATO alliance (and by extension the Western liberal order in Eastern Europe) Germany must be rehabilitated as a continental great power, integrated into the defence of Eastern Europe. Although the burden of history weighs heavy the most effective means of balancing Russian power in the long-term is to have the other great power in the region, Germany, fully and actively committed to regional security through NATO. The logical question that follows this conclusion is "what does this have to do with the United Kingdom?", presuming Britain wouldn't be able to exert the influence to instigate such a significant policy change. While it's true that the decision would ultimately rest with the Germans, there is still much the UK could do to help move them in that direction. As one of the most influential members of NATO, with strong transatlantic links to the most influential member, much could be done within the alliance to set the direction and agenda of it's future commitments to Eastern Europe. In recent years Germany has also proved more willing to deploy its armed forces outside its borders, in an alliance context, than in the past. With the right incentives and multilateral direction, their participation in combat and reconstruction operations in Afghanistan could prove to be a watershed moment, the first step along a road leading to a more normal position in the international system. It's not impossible to conceive that this precedent could be used to begin the shift to a regionally deployable Bundeswehr, capable of balancing Russia along with predominantly Eastern European NATO allies.

Europe will not be able to count on the United States continuing to commit large,
expensive, military forces to it's defence, while its interests elsewhere are pressured.

Any attempt to use Germany to balance Russian power must also address the thorny issue of the former's energy dependence on the latter. While it is true that Germany imports some ~40% of its natural gas from the Russian Federation, there are several factors that make the use of the "energy weapon" against Germany a much more unattractive prospect than its use against other Eastern European states. First and foremost is the sheer quantity of Russian natural gas imported by Germany, about a quarter of what Gazprom exports to Europe. Shutting off supply to Germany for a long period of time would likely do serious damage to the Russian state owned energy sector, already struggling in the wake of the collapse in the price of oil. Nor could the energy weapon be used briefly to any great effect either, unlike the Eastern European countries subjected to a punitive gas shutoff in 2009 Germany has substantial storage capacity (equal to ~50% of their annual needs). As Germany is an especially unattractive target, hardened against the Russian "energy weapon", it should not stand as the overwhelming impediment to a more engaged German defence posture in Eastern Europe that it might be considered to be.

The reader might, rightly, ask why building a new structure to guarantee the security and stability of Central and Eastern Europe was the first issue addressed when discussing a British grand strategy. In order for the UK to focus it's efforts where it is best equipped to do so, outside the European continent, it needs a measure of freedom from continental commitments. While Britain will always have an important part to play in European defence, through NATO, it needs to be recognised that the UK is best able to contribute on the alliance's "maritime flanks" rather than a distant Eastern "central front". Failing to create new structures within NATO to guarantee the security of Eastern Europe, with Germany playing a key role, will continue to leave that region dangerously exposed to an illiberal Russia. In the long-term the United States will not continue to be the ultimate guarantor of European security forever. They will inevitably continue to be an invaluable ally, and a vital pillar of NATO, but we need to be prepared to take up much of the slack they will leave as their forces are drawn down to a size that allows them to balance their other global commitments.

While Britain will always be tied much more closely to the security of Europe by dint of its geographical proximity than the United States, it too must look to balance its commitment to the continent against a much broader demi-global role stretching from the Atlantic to the far reaches of the Indian Ocean. In order for the UK to secure its interests beyond Europe it first needs a measure of stability in Europe. As history shows us, this will require working alongside and supporting continental allies, rather than attempting to replace them. As it stands Britain is a powerful country, with a broad range of advantages and tools at its disposal, constrained by a lack of independent strategic thought, over-reliance on others in the sphere of foreign policy and a volatile European situation. Before a coherent grand strategy can emerge these problems need to be tackled, not by abandoning old alliances and roles but by reinventing and reinvigorating them so that they better suit our current needs and those of our allies. It also needs to recognise that Britain's strengths lie in the maritime sphere, and that this is where we must focus our efforts if we are to successfully defend and advance our interests.

A Nation in Retreat: Britain's Continental Century

"Whereas any European power has to support a vast army first of all, we in this fortunate, happy island, relieved by our insular position of a double burden, may turn our undivided efforts and attention to the fleet. Why should we sacrifice a game in which we are sure to win to play a game in which we are bound to lose?"

-Winston Churchill

Britain's twentieth century was defined, for the first time in over five hundred years, by a monumental shift in national strategy. The maritime approach, upon which the country had built its wealth and power, was founded on the principle of limited coercive action delivered by mobile naval forces. In the twentieth century this was abandoned in favour of a less than limited continental military strategy that, with hindsight, proved to be disastrous. The forces created to fight two World Wars, deal with the increasing burdens from imperial defence and later the Cold War, managed decolonisation and the 'Global War on Terror' have severely limited the country's ability to project power in defence of its interests.

It's difficult to pinpoint exactly where the change began, but it was likely after the Second Boer War. Britain has just emerged from a bloody three year long conflict against the Dutch Boer settlers of the Orange Free State and South African Republic. For the first time in many years Britain faced a colonial opponent that they did not technologically over match. While their near-absolute naval dominance meant that no great power dared to seriously intervene in the conflict, although a number flirted with the idea, it could not provide a solution to the challenge posed by the Boers. Instead an enormous, by British standards, Imperial land army of 500,000 troops was raised and used to effectively bludgeon the ~80,000 Boer fighters into submission. The cost was enormous: £210 million at the time, which equates to over £200 billion in today's money. More important than the financial cost though were the lessons drawn from the war by the British establishment, and applied in the Haldane reforms of 1906-1912.

The changes to the British army that were effected could not have come at a worse time. They stipulated the need for a large six division strong regular intervention force, to be deployed to the continent in the event of a major war. This would be backed up by the even larger fourteen division strong Territorial force, who would provide follow on forces and replace losses amongst the regular formations. While the reforms also included welcome changes, such as the professionalisation of the Officer Corps and the development of an Imperial General Staff, they effectively committed Britain to the deployment of a large land army in the event of a major European war. Just two years later Britain was plunged into just such a war. The structure worked exactly as planned in 1914, the 100,000 strong British Expeditionary Force (BEF) mobilised swiftly and deployed to the continent without loss, protected by a Royal Navy that was still overwhelmingly superior to its opposition. Once ashore, however, events did not unfold as some had expected. The intense fire of a modern industrial war burned through the original BEF, the "old contemptibles", in the opening campaign of 1914. 1915 swallowed the fourteen Territorial divisions, and the regular BEF built by Haldane had effectively ceased to exist by the end of the Second Battle of Ypres.

What made the First World War different though wasn't that Britain's small army was chewed up by its larger continental foes, but what came next. The Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchiner, in 1914 implemented a plan to build an enormous volunteer "New Army" of sixty divisions: some two million men strong. When the volunteers dried up the government turned, for the first time, to mass conscription to fill the ranks of the army. The First World War was the moment when the UK went from flirting with the idea of continental land power, as a solution to certain tactical problems, to actually basing it's national strategy around it. Nobody will know if the First World War could have been won with a radically different British strategy, using it's peerless strength at sea to greater effect. The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars seem to suggest that an expansionist militaristic European power, trapped in Europe and blockaded by a naval power, would sooner or later overreach and collapse in the face of its enemies. Such a war would not have been quick or easy, but might have avoided much of the sacrifice of the Western Front, and the many hundreds of thousands of British and Empire lives lost there. It is also debatable that had Britain's political leaders been clearer in their diplomacy, and more willing to actively deter Imperial Germany with the Royal Navy, the war may have been avoided altogether.

It is needless to say that the war proved a profound shock to a country whose last real experience of continental power ended with the conclusion of the Hundred Years War in 1453, and the steady loss thereafter of the last major pieces of the continental empire built by the Plantagenet dynasty. The sheer trauma of the First World War embedded itself into Britain's society, comprehensively destroying the pervasive national confidence of the nineteenth century. The Britain of 1919 was a shadow of its former self, while still an impressive Imperial titan, the system was becoming increasingly hollow at the centre. The UK had borrowed enormous sums of money during the war to loan to it's allies: France and Russia. When Tzar Nicholas II, and later the pro-western provisional government of Alexander Kerensky, were overthrown in 1917 by Bolshevik Communists any hope that Britain would see its money back from the loans it had given the Russian government evaporated. Britain's war debts were enormous, standing at ~175% of GDP in 1920. However, it was the interest on that debt that did the real damage. In 1914 the interest on the UK's national debt stood at just over 2% of GDP; by 1920 it was 6%, between 1924 and 1934 it hovered around 9% before steadily declining until 1939. For a full decade a tenth of the UK's GDP was being used up just servicing it's debts from the First World War. Understandably, such ruinous levels of debt imposed severe burdens on the British government, leading them to pursue arms reduction as a means of controlling national expenditure.

What was worse than the war debt though, was the damage inflicted upon the British population. Three quarters of a million men from the British isles were killed in the conflict, around 2% of the 1914 population, with a further 1.7 million wounded. 17% of serving officers were killed during the war, inflicting severe damage to the upper and middle classes they were commonly drawn from. Unlike in the Napoleonic wars Britain sacrificed a generation of its future leaders in the First World War. Many of whom would have contributed to the post-war economic recovery

The Washington Naval Treaties of 1922 and 1936 surely stand as a testament to the decline in Britain's power, forced on them by the long term costs of the First World War. The "two power standard", which stipulated that the Royal Navy be equal in strength to the fleets of the next two great powers combined, was relinquished for simple parity with the second naval power: the United States. Britain likely avoided a costly naval race, and worsening relations with the Americans, but sacrificed a century of supremacy at sea with the stroke of a pen. What's worse, the dearth in naval shipbuilding caused a significant contraction in Britain's naval construction capacity. While civilian yards could still be contracted to mass produce simple designs in wartime, bottlenecks in the fabrication of armour plate, large naval guns and complex equipment severely limited Britain's ability to re-equip the navy in the late inter-war years.

British planners tried to grapple with the problems of imperial defence between the world wars, protecting an Empire knitted together by maritime communications. Underinvestment and the Washington treaties ensured that the navy would go to war on 1939 with an assortment of inadequate equipment, much of which dated back to the First World War. In the meantime the Axis powers systematically ignored and avoided the limits imposed upon them. The failure to modernise the Royal Navy had the clearest consequences for British possessions in the Far East. A vast new naval base was built at Singapore between the wars, but with no fleet to make use of it. It was planned that units would be moved from the Atlantic in the event of a war (with Japan), but when that war came in 1941 the navy was already totally tied down in the West fighting Germany's U-Boats and surface raiders and the Italian navy in the Mediterranean. The token force sent to Singapore, in a futile last minute attempt to deter the Japanese, was sunk in short order by aircraft off the coast of Malaya soon after the outbreak of hostilities. Without an overwhelmingly powerful naval deterrent Britain's overseas possessions were easy targets for its rivals.

The Battlecruiser Repulse and the Battleship Prince of Wales,

under attack by Japanese aircraft, 10th December 1941.

While the maritime component, upon which Britain's power rested, was allowed to deteriorate plans for the next war with Germany were developed. Shockingly, the strategy for the second war was an almost direct re-run of the first. A protracted period of static fighting in France and Belgium, by Anglo-French armies, while the allies mobilised the resources to carry the war into Germany. The disastrous French campaign of 1940, and the evacuation at Dunkirk, put paid to British participation on the "central front" against the Wehrmacht in Europe until 1944. The Second World War thus, in reality, played out far less like the first and far more like the long struggle against Napoleon over a century earlier. The Royal Navy systematically seized control of the North Sea and Mediterranean, slowly defeating the Kriegsmarine's commerce raiding strategy, and denying the European Axis powers the ability to reach outside of the continent. Mussolini's ill considered North African adventure played out like Napoleon's. With Britain in control of the sea, Axis forces cut off from their logistics networks and their armies starved of supplies it was only a matter of time before they were forced to surrender.

As with Napoleon in 1812, in 1941 Hitler had nowhere else to go Except East into Russia. There his armies were systematically bled by bitter resistance and a hostile climate, before being smashed to pieces in a series of vast counter-offensives, that took Soviet armies to the gates of Berlin. Just as Russian armies had marched into Paris over a century earlier. Britain's contribution was not at all inconsequential, at a modest cost in lives the German state was denied use of the sea, the Soviets were bolstered in their fight against the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe was mauled over Britain, then defeated over Germany. Ironically the abject failure of Britain's continental strategy in 1940 allowed for a shift back to a more successful maritime strategy. Despite chronic under-investment before the war the Royal Navy proved it's fearsome reputation was not undeserved, and fought with all the skill and determination of its Napoleonic ancestor. As for the British army: from North Africa to Italy and France it was situated wherever the 'soft underbelly' of the Wehrmacht happened to be, fighting alongside continental allies it forced the Axis to divert vital resources away from the decisive theatre: the Eastern Front.

If the First World War was a Pyrrhic victory for Britain, the second was a catastrophe. While the country could be counted amongst the victors it was certainly not a winner. A third of its economic assets had been sacrificed  in the first war, and half of what remained in the second. The continental approach failed to bring victory in 1940, the Fall of France forced Britain to undertake an enormously expensive crash rearmament programme which required the large-scale conversion of civilian industry. This, along with other factors, would contribute to the steady decline of Britain as a competitive industrial power in the post-war world. By 1945 the country was enormously overstretched and financially exhausted. All the advantages that Britain had used to build her position in the world: maritime supremacy, strategic mobility and the precise application of force to achieve limited aims, had been sacrificed in pursuit of the continental armed forces presumed necessary to defend the homeland and the Empire. If the Second World War was, in significant part, fought to preserve Britain's position at the centre of an Imperial system, then the continental military strategy proved a spectacular failure.

In the post-war world the commitment to continental power continued unabated, despite its abject failure to advance British interests in two world wars. Britain retained its vast wartime conscript army long after the conclusion of the Second World War, in order to deal with new pressures from the European theatre of the emerging Cold War and decolonisation. By 1945 large land forces had become a permanent fixture in British defence planning, which imposed serious demands on an increasingly squeezed defence budget. Policing and relinquishing the vast land empire Britain had accrued over the course of the nineteenth century has also begun to take it's toll. Managed decolonisation proved to be a far more costly and manpower intensive business than the original conquests that had created the empire. At the height of the Malayan Emergency 40,000 commonwealth troops, the vast majority of whom were British, were tied down fighting the Communist insurgency there. A further 24,000 British soldiers and police tried unsuccessfully to suppress the Jewish insurgency in Palestine, until their withdrawal in 1947. Ten thousand regulars were required to combat the Mao Mao rebellion in Kenya, and thirty thousand were deployed to the colony of Aden at the peak of the conflict there. The list goes on but policing the empire, even when the process of decolonisation was well under way, became a major drain on Britain's military resources.

British troops deployed to Malaya, to combat the Communist insurgency
and move the country towards decolonisation and democratic rule.

Aside from colonial policing, the other continental commitment that stretched Britain's resources in the post-war world was the occupation of Germany and later the commitment to NATO. The British Army of the Rhine, and it's reinforcing forces, had nearly half the 316,000 soldiers in the army of 1960 assigned to it; with around 50,000 continuously forward deployed to Germany. Britain's commitment to the defence of Germany would steadily become an unhealthy fixation, a single narrow role was being conceived for the armed forces. As further economic pressures exerted themselves, the unchanging NATO commitment became a millstone around the country's neck. The needs of the Western alliance were always placed above the creation of mobile and flexible forces well suited to the defence of Britain's national interests outside of Europe. The weaknesses in Britain's maritime forces were already plain to see in the aftermath of the 1956 Suez war. Inadequacies in carrier air power, airbases ashore and sealift available at short notice would ensure that, by the time the preparatory bombing had been completed, the Anglo-French intervention force had lost the political initiative. The belated ground invasion that followed was cut short well before it achieved its objective: presenting the world with the fait accompli of an Anglo-French controlled canal zone. In the years that followed a declining defence budget, inter-service politics and the demands of a Eurocentric continental strategy would ensure that most of these deficiencies would never be properly addressed.

The withdrawal from East of Suez just over a decade later was as much about the prioritisation of the European theatre of operations as it was about the stated aim of cutting the cost of overseas bases. Proposals by the Royal Navy in the late 1950s suggested that the commitment could have been met by naval forces operating from a single large base (likely in Australia). Although this was ruled out on cost grounds, the navy's proposed "double stance" single-base concept would have required six large aircraft carriers, the more modest three carrier "single stance" Joint Services Seaborne Force (JSSF) proposal, operating from bases in Singapore and Bahrain, was both achievable and affordable. The JSSF concept envisaged a mobile and flexible medium-sized maritime intervention force to deliver the East of Suez commitment. Although parts of the idea, like the modernisation of Britain's amphibious shipping, were realised the overarching concept was steadily killed off by attacks by the other services in the second half of the 1960s. Notably the RAF's victory in the 1965-66 battle over the replacement of the conventional carriers, and the temporary success of their alternative "island strategy" before Britain's East of Suez role was officially abandoned altogether in 1968.

Operation Vantage, the UK response to the 1961 Kuwait crisis, proved just how effective flexible seaborne rapid reaction forces could be at nipping crises in the bud, before they could develop. It was a classic maritime response to a threat to British regional interests: a short, sharp, demonstration of force designed to achieve a limited objective, followed by withdrawal and the poising of forces offshore to cement the success of the initial action. However, the decision to withdraw from East of Suez bases, notably in Aden, Bahrain and Singapore, was as much about post-imperial retrenchment (and the idea that Britain's "new place in the world" was as a European power) as it was about the cost of maintaining those expensive facilities in the wake of the 1968 sterling crisis. Once again the choice to focus on a continental structure and role for the armed forces failed to support the UK's position as a global power, capable of projecting force in support of its interests. Instead of smaller but highly mobile maritime forces projected from a single large base East of Suez, the UK ended up with expensive and relatively immobile forces tied to a number of bases scattered across the region. In short: an increasingly unsustainable drain on resources with no European cold war role. Said maritime force could have been withdrawn to Europe in the event of a crisis, whereas comparatively immobile troops and land-based aircraft would have been considerably more difficult to redeploy at short notice.

HMS Victorious, as part of Operation Vantage, deterred a potential Iraqi invasion
of Kuwait in 1961.

With the end of National Service (conscription) in 1960 the stream of cheap manpower used to support Britain's array of overseas bases steadily began to dry up. As the process of decolonisation continued apace the army would shrink by half in less than twenty years, as the cost of manpower and equipment steadily rose throughout the 1960s and 70s. Even while spending a substantial proportion of it's national income on defence (between 1960 and 1980 it hovered around 5-6% of GDP) the country could not afford both a robust continental army and a globally deployable power projection navy. Throughout this period the government essentially "fudged" the issue by maintaining existing maritime forces left over from the rearmament programmes for the Second World War and Korea, but not replacing essential equipment like the conventional aircraft carriers (cut in 1966) when they reached the end of their lives. The government, and the new ministry of defence, initially attempted to cut a "middle way" between the continental and maritime spheres, that appeased the interests of all three services, which spectacularly unraveled in the late 1960s; as Britain abandoned its presence East of Suez, and left the defence of its interests there to the United States.

The incoherence of this policy was soon laid bare, after less than a decade away from the region the Royal Navy returned to the Arabian Gulf, to protect Britain's interests there and safeguard civilian shipping. In the long term the main consequences of "withdrawal" were the significant weakening Britain's regional influence, a major loss of military credibility and the abandonment of a handful of mostly useless bases (and two extremely useful ones in Bahrain and Singapore). Commitments to Southeast Asian stability (expressed after 1971 in the UK's membership of the Five Powers Defence Arrangements) could not be easily abandoned, nor could the UK extract itself from the commitments that derived from its dependence on Gulf oil.

Less than ten years after "withdrawal" the Royal Navy was back
East of Suez.

Slightly more than a decade after the last British troops were withdrawn from East of Suez, in which time defence policy had become focused on the continental confrontation with the Soviet Union in the European theater and the worsening situation in Northern Ireland, the unexpected happened. During the 1982 Falklands crisis, and the war that ensued, the fundamental assumptions upon which UK defence planning had rested for a decade came apart at the seams. The infamous 1981 defence white paper, overseen by then defence secretary John Nott, envisioned a severely limited role for the UK's maritime expeditionary forces. While the Royal Marines were to be retained, the two Fearless class amphibious ships were to be retired without replacement in 1982 and 1984. One of the three Invincible class light anti-submarine carriers would also be sold, as would the much older Centaur class carrier HMS Hermes. The review clearly prioritised Britain's continental commitment to NATO, with the Army and RAF both accepting a cut in manpower in exchange for new Challenger tanks, the retention of the F-4 Phantom, the introduction of the Tornado ADV fighter and the purchase of a fleet of new AV8B Harrier IIs. Fortunately for the United Kingdom, the Falklands crisis broke before the white paper's programme of changes could be fully implemented. The resulting conflict saw a British tri-service task force, similar in concept (if not in scale) to the JSSF envisaged in the early 1960s, sail half way around the world and recapture the islands from heavily entrenched Argentine forces. In 1982 maritime forces proved flexible, responsive and mobile enough to "go to the crisis" with sufficient force to decisively impact events on the ground.

It is also necessary to point out that the Falklands crisis, and the subsequent war, did not appear as a bolt from the blue. Argentina's intentions, and the need for a robust maritime force to deter attacks on Britain's scattered overseas territories, had been relatively obvious since their 1976 occupation of Southern Thule. It has been suggested by some that Operation Journeyman, the dispatch of a small naval task force the next year; in response to the occupation, may have deterred an earlier Argentine move to invade the Falklands proper. The position of the ministry of defence, their myopic focus on the European theatre and the Cold War, ensured the maritime power projection would be severely neglected. This happened to such an extent that it almost caused a military defeat, that would have had catastrophic effects on Britain's international standing. Even with the few legacy pieces of equipment like the amphibious ships and HMS Hermes the operation to retake the islands was, in the words of the ground force commander Major General Jeremy Moore, "a damn close run thing". It is a sobering thought that if the war had happened just two years later none of the legacy equipment, that proved critical to Britain's success, would have been available. The likelihood is that the operation probably wouldn't have even been attempted.

The two amphibious landing ships Fearless and Intrepid were vital to
Britain's military expedition to the Falklands. Both were slated for
disposal in 1982 and 1984 respectively.

While it is fair to say that the war in the South Atlantic saved elements of the UK's maritime force projection capability, it didn't initiate a significant change in national strategy. The overriding focus remained on the European continent, NATO and the Cold War. Unfortunately for defence planners all of this came crashing down, along with the Berlin Wall, in 1989. The collapse of the Soviet Union did not bring about "the end of history" as some optimistic commentators suggested at the time. Instead it ushered in a decade of instability in the former Communist bloc and further afield. The 1990s were not the "easy" decade for the West that they are now painted as. While the Cold War had furnished Europe and the United States with large and capable armed forces, they were often used to manage threats they had not been designed for. The decade was defined by ongoing and brutal conflicts in the Gulf and Balkans, both tied to the collapse of the Cold War world order. While the 1990-91 Gulf War would appear, on its face, to be a successful continental-style war that the British played a significant part in, in fact it was anything but. It is not difficult to see that the UK contribution of just under 54,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen pales in comparison to the ~700,000 deployed by the United States. The war was overwhelmingly an American show, with coalition forces mainly there to add legitimacy to UN-backed US action. In light of this Britain's contribution can be seen as militarily useful, but by no means essential, and, more than anything else, politically advantageous for the United States. Worse for the United Kingdom though were the glaring deficiencies in the Cold War continental army that the war exposed. In order to achieve "maximum deterrent value" the BAOR's combat service, support and logistics elements had been neglected in order to generate larger combat arms. What this meant in practice was that much of the British army's heavy combat equipment in Germany was unserviceable and very difficult to deploy. Government investigations into the conduct of the Gulf war revealed that BAOR's Challenger I availability in 1990 was only 23%, with the rest being under repair or out of service. While the British Army could rely on an established logistics system in the NATO area, to support its forward-deployed forces in Germany, no such system existed for long-range expeditionary operations. British forces famously had to ransack almost their entire BAOR stockpile in order to scrounge together the equipment and ammunition to put a single Division in the field in 1990. Even then, without the backing of the US logistics network it is doubtful that they could have been sustained in high intensity combat for very long.

In the years after the Falklands war the army examined and dismissed the Brigade level logistics structure, used by the Royal Marines to great success in 1982. Their contention was that it would impose the burden of providing additional supporting forces upon the BAOR. As the Gulf War showed, even if a direct copy of the Marines' approach was inappropriate, the Army's logistics were inadequate for the large expeditionary operations they found themselves conducting. By the end of the Cold War Britain had the worst of both worlds, a hollow and immobile continental army and a severely neglected power projection navy. The 1990 "options for change" review, instead of charting a new path for Britain's armed forces that would better suit the new geo-strategic environment, simply cut evenly across all three services to produce a "peace dividend". The army and RAF were not withdrawn from Germany, their mission complete, but instead lingered there as the reduced "British Forces Germany".

The logistics system designed to support the BAOR fighting in Germany
proved inadequate when those forces needed to be projected far from
their continental European bases.

The 1994 "front line first" review brought more mixed results. The ongoing conflict in the Balkans highlighted the need for robust intervention forces, and the amphibious sealift to move them. This helped persuade the government at the time to place orders for a dedicated helicopter carrier (which would eventually become HMS Ocean) and two new ships to replace the ageing Fearless class amphibious landing ships. However, at the same time deep cuts fell on the network of logistics and support structures. 17 depots were closed, and all three services suffered further manpower reductions.

Britain's contribution to peacekeeping and peacemaking in the former Yugoslavia throughout the 1990s stands as a good example of how small but mobile forces, capable of achieving limited goals, can effectively secure broad national interests. The Royal Navy spent the five years from 1991-1996 playing a leading role in first monitoring and later maritime interception operations in the Adriatic, enforcing the UN arms embargo on the conflict area. Despite there being around 400,000 people under arms in Bosnia alone between 1992 and 1995 the British contingent of the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR), numbering only 8,000 troops at it's height in August 1995, was able to achieve significant results using limited coercive force and acting in close concert with diplomatic efforts. By attaining a succession of limited aims the international peacekeeping force was able to improve the situation on the ground with local peace deals, which steadily built momentum for an internationally enforced general ceasefire. At its absolute height, as part of the 80,000 strong international Implementation Force (IFOR) deployed in 1995 to enforce the peace, the UK contingent increased to just under 12,000 troops until IFOR was disbanded and replaced with the smaller Stabilisation Force (SFOR) at the end of 1996. Britain's contribution to the latter was just over 5,000 troops. While the war in Bosnia bore little similarity to Britain's past maritime operations on the TV screens of the public, in reality it carried all the hallmarks of an effective maritime intervention. The use of limited coercive force to achieve limited aims, the use of a naval blockade to starve the warring parties of military equipment, the use of military force as part of a carefully considered political strategy and larger-scale action conducted alongside continental allies.

A British Challenger tank deployed to Bosnia as part of the international
Implementation Force.

Many of the lessons of fighting in Bosnia, and expeditionary warfare in general, formed the basis of significant structural changes to the armed forces laid out in the 1998 Strategic Defence Review. The creation of "Joint Rapid Reaction Forces". It specified the need for increased deployability and a focus on expeditionary duties for the army, with the planned addition of the logistic elements necessary to support two medium sized deployments simultaneously. The foundations were also laid for the eventual replacement of the Invincible class carriers with two new larger ships, what later became the CVF programme, and has now resulted in the two 70,000 ton ships of the Queen Elizabeth class. The SDR also laid the groundwork for the excellent Bay class auxiliary amphibious ships. The trade-off for the Royal Navy were small decreases in the number of escorts, submarines and a reduction in the planned fleet of minehunters; from 35, 12 and 25 to 32, 10 and 22 respectively. The number of Merlin anti-submarine helicopters was also curtailed at 44, with upgraded Lynx helicopters making up some of the shortfall.

Amidst all the technical detail of the 1998 review one thing was clear, it was the first sign of an major realignment of British defence strategy. Although a substantial portion of the army still resided in Germany the SDR laid out a shift towards forces tailored for mobility and limited maritime intervention. The army's airborne forces were merged to create a new formation, 16 Air Assault Brigade, that would be held at high readiness along with the Royal Marines of 3 Commando Brigade. The interventions in Kosovo and Sierra Leone in 1999 and 2000 proved that the new structure did indeed offer greater mobility and flexibility for intervention operations conducted at short notice. Maritime force projection, limited aims and operating alongside allies where necessary once again proved to be a winning combination for the UK.

And then 9/11 happened.

While it is easy to write at length on the less than stellar outcomes of the "Global War on Terror", launched by President George W. Bush in the wake of Al Qaeda's attacks on New York and Washington, I shall focus instead on the effects that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had on the British armed forces. While the initial interventions in both countries swiftly achieved their aims, the removal of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein from power, the British armed forces were steadily drawn into a pair of open ended "enduring stabilisation operations"/counter-insurgency wars with expansive aims; for which they were poorly prepared and inadequately equipped. Without an increase in the defence budget to fund these wars assets, programmes and capabilities not directly linked to supporting ongoing operations were neglected, cut or reduced. The Royal Navy suffered particularly harsh reductions, with the number of escorts reduced from thirty-two hulls in 2001 to nineteen in 2014 and the number of nuclear attack submarines falling from twelve to six. Important amphibious and utility shipping was also lost in 2010 with the sale of RFA Largs Bay to Australia and the mothballing of one of the Albion class LPDs. There was also the much publicised retirement of the carrier Ark Royal and the Harrier jump jet, effectively "gapping" UK carrier strike capability for a decade. For those that would argue the reductions were a result of the 2007/8 financial crisis, rather than a result of fighting two extremely expensive wars, seven of the thirteen escorts lost from 2001-2014 were retired without replacement before 2007, as were three of the five nuclear attack submarines. The retirement of Ark Royal in 2010 was a logical step, as the Harrier aircraft that made up her air group were heavily committed to the war Afghanistan and had been unavailable for serious carrier deployment for several years.

Sadly, for all the progress towards the more limited, mobile and maritime defence structure outlined in the 1998 review much of Britain's naval capacity was beggared on the altar of attempting to sustain an unsustainable tempo of operations. The army's withdrawal from Iraq in 2008, and subsequent "doubling down" on the Afghan mission, came because they were completely unprepared to conduct two large stabilisation operations simultaneously. Even solely focusing on Afghanistan the army weren't able to deploy enough troops to Helmand province to achieve the objectives they were set. It would eventually require the introduction of thousands of US Marines alongside the British contingent to begin to wrest areas away from the Taliban insurgents. While a culture of optimism, the famous "can-do" attitude of the British armed forces, prevailed at the top; a more sober analysis of the situation showed that these operations were unsustainable, unlikely to achieve the lofty aims set with the resources available and were doing serious damage to the UK's ability to conduct limited power projection operations.

The British Army never had the manpower or resources to sustain two large
enduring stabilisation operations.

Almost without exception the overriding lesson of the last hundred years, from the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 to the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014, is that Britain's adoption of a continental strategy failed to support the country's position in the world. Two bloody and ruinously expensive World Wars were followed by decades of colonial policing, retreat from parts of the world vital to UK national interests, an increasingly burdensome Cold War commitment to the defence of West Germany and finally two expensive and damaging counterinsurgency wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to learn the lessons of our history, and of the last century, to see that this is; as Churchill put it "a game in which we are bound to lose". It is not difficult to recognise that the UK has the potential to generate extremely effective armed forces tailored to conduct limited maritime expeditionary warfare. It is plain to see that generating continental forces that are expensive enough to undermine the UK's power projection capabilities, but not large enough to effectively fight continental wars or defend Britain's national interests, is a foolish waste of resources.

The campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have been bruising experiences for the United Kingdom, seriously denting the prestige of the army and the confidence politicians have in the military's ability to provide solutions to complex problems. It would appear that now is the perfect time to once again espouse the benefits of a more limited and cautious maritime strategy for Britain. Thankfully the core strength of the Royal navy, while depleted, is far from broken. With new power projection equipment, not least the Queen Elizaebth class aircraft carriers, due to enter service soon; those at the top may begin to see what they've been missing for the last three and a half decades.

Those that advocate the strength of maritime strategy for the UK shouldn't get too carried away, the argument is far from won and there will be those that vehemently disagree. Although the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review appears to shift the focus back to a more maritime, limited and expeditionary focus it remains to be seen if it really has heralded a real shift in Britain's national strategy or if, like the 1998 review, it will promise much change but in practice deliver more continental military entanglements. Until we know for sure where this new direction will take us we should always look to our recent history, and ask the question: "Why should we sacrifice a game in which we are sure to win to play a game in which we are bound to lose?"

Roadmap to Victory: Defeating the Islamic State

The factors which make Islamic State relatively straightforward to contain geographically are the same ones which make it nearly impossible to drive them from the lands they currently occupy. The group relies upon the often irreconcilable divisions between their enemies in order to survive, these divisions allow them to face each of their enemies  on the ground in turn. I would suggest that the nightmare scenario for ISIS commanders, many of whom are experienced military men, is a war on multiple fronts. IS puts little stock in static defence, probably based on the assumption that to spread it's forces thinly along its borders would invite disaster. They realise that, in the words of Frederick the Great, "he who defends everything, defends nothing". It also tells us that the likelihood is that their army isn't nearly as large as some commentators suggest, they do not have experienced troops to spare for defensive action. Instead their strategy is to lightly defend their external borders. Using very small numbers of troops, suicide bombers and booby traps to harass and slow down their enemies. Importantly they do not attempt to blunt their attacks by fighting significant defensive actions. Again, they are probably right to do so. They likely judge that defending territory, even urban areas, in the face of Coalition air power is ill advised at best and suicidal at worst. Any fight where ISIS forces become pinned in place by enemy ground troops for more than a few days will likely result in disproportionate losses for the Islamic State, as the full weight of Coalition air power is brought to bear. We saw this happen when IS conducted protracted offensive action around Kobane. The experience of heavy losses in that battle: ~2000 fighters killed, an unknown number injured and 18 tanks destroyed, likely shaped their current mode of conducting operations. Their commanders understand that pushing against enemy strength, along a single axis, in order to seize an objective won't work. Instead they attack where their enemies are weakest. Short sharp offensives that take (or retake) ground at a low cost in the lives to their base of experienced fighters. By always holding the initiative, and an element of surprise, they continue to dictate the terms of the ground war; even when their enemies are on the offensive.

While the group is committed to a strategy of continued offensive action, which keeps their enemies off balance and prevents them from gathering the forces for a decisive thrust into the Islamic State itself, it has not been able to repeat it's initial rapid advances. This is almost certainly because they are constrained, like all the other warring factions, by their inability to operate effectively outside areas populated by their own ethno-religious group. It's probable that one reason for their initial gains in Iraq was Islamic State's ability to exploit the human landscape in Sunni majority areas far more effectively than their opponents in the Shia dominated Iraqi army. This factor makes them far easier to contain territorially, because the same factor which enabled them to expand so quickly into the Sunni parts of Iraq now works against them when they try to advance into Shia or Kurdish majority areas. Containing the group in Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria has drawbacks though. In order to maintain the appearance of continuous offensive success they have begun parallel strategies of terror attacks on the West and the establishment of franchises outside their main territory.

There are several important things we can infer from their behaviour, which will be essential in formulating a strategy to defeat them militarily.

1. Contrary to their own narrative they are acutely aware that they cannot sustain heavy casualties. This has led them to avoid protracted offensive action and to all but abandon the defensive as a viable option.

2. Their veteran field army is vital to their strategy, as it enables them to conduct effective offensive action. This prevents their enemies from concentrating enough force along a few axies of attack to seriously threaten their territory.

3. Their inability to make headway in non Sunni areas, south towards majority Shia Baghdad and North into Kurdish territory, is a product of the same forces which prevent Kurdish or Shia dominated Iraqi forces from making headway in the opposite direction. All the forces present in Iraq lack the ability to project their military power into areas controlled by different religious and ethnic groups, ISIS included.

4. ISIS rely on the divisions throughout the region and beyond it for their survival against conventional military intervention with ground forces. ISIS leaders likely know that the US will continue to veto Turkish intervention on the basis that it will likely be directed as much against their Kurdish allies as against IS. Many of the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia seem content to watch as Assad's Iranian ally is drawn ever deeper into the Syrian quagmire. Of course it goes without saying that Assad and the Free Syrian Army will continue to battle one another far more intensely than ISIS.

5. Containing IS is likely pushing the group to adopt a new strategy, which includes acts of international terrorism and spreading franchise groups, in order to maintain the appearance of effective offensive action.

The ISIS field army is at the core of their strategy of continuous offensive action.

With these deductions in mind, what would an effective strategy for defeating ISIS look like? Any such action would have to start with the premise of destroying, or so badly damaging, their field army that they cease to be capable of conducting meaningful offensive or counter offensive action. This is far easier said than done, Western troops would not be able to achieve this. The leadership of IS will undoubtedly have prepared contingencies for the introduction of conventional forces by a major military power. Their reaction would probably be to immediately disperse their forces and adopt a purely guerilla strategy of protracted resistance. This is unappealing because it makes the wholesale destruction of their trained manpower base a near impossibility over any acceptable time span. In order to be drawn into a conventional battle IS commanders must believe that they stand a reasonable chance of success. This means the main ground component will have to be drawn from at least one, but likely more, of the factions currently fighting on the ground.

The fight to destroy IS' army cannot be a defensive action on the part of their enemies, so long as IS hold the initiative they remain free to break off costly offensive action and refocus their efforts elsewhere. Their army needs to be drawn into a battle they patently do not wish to fight, a protracted static defensive action, where coalition air power can be fully brought to bear against them. IS will not be forced to commit to such an action easily. It would probably require a land force threatening one of their major centers of power, Raqqa or Mosul, in order to force them to commit to a static defensive action in a single location. Their leaders will almost certainly understand the difficulty of assaulting a city filled with determined defenders and calculate that they stand a reasonable chance of success. In an action against dug in ISIS forces holding a major city, coalition members must set aside many of their reservations about conducting strikes in urban areas. Civilians will die and IS may seek to keep as many of them in place as possible, to limit the effectiveness of air power by exploiting the squeamishness of Western populations when it comes to unintended collateral damage. Embedding forward air controllers with trustworthy local forces such as the Peshmerga would be one way to reduce civilian casualties and increase the effectiveness of coalition air strikes.

We must seek to turn one of these cities and it's surrounding areas into a "Stalingrad" for ISIS, pushing them to the point where they commit totally to a symbolic battle  in which their army can be irreparably damaged; by inflicting severe losses on their base of experienced fighters. If IS refuse to deviate from their existing strategy, instead opting to avoid defensive action altogether, then they will lose control of one of their major power centers effectively without a fight. That would be a major propaganda coup for their enemies and deprive them of a substantial portion of their economic base and manpower pool. Putting ISIS between a rock and a hard place in this manner can be no bad thing, but I would expect there to be a good chance of them standing and fighting in place. To avoid such a battle would utterly shatter their aura of invincibility.

Of the two options Raqqa is by far the less attractive target. Situated deep within ISIS held territory in Syria, it would probably require a united Syrian force to successfully threaten it and then force IS into a defensive battle. Seeing as there is no real prospect of such a force existing in the near future, Raqqa must be discounted as currently unfeasible. That leaves us with only one real option: Mosul.

Mosul, surrounded on three sides in the Northeast by Kurdish forces.

Recent Kurdish operations have been focused on the corridor linking ISIS held territory in Eastern Syria to it's Iraqi stronghold in Mosul, with the town of Sinjar falling to a joint YPG/PKK and Peshmerga offensive aided by Yezidi militias earlier this month. In accordance with IS' current strategy, the area was not seriously contested, with estimates of around 700 fighters facing off against over 7,500 Kurdish troops. Even the Kurdish threat to and eventual capture of the logistically important Highway 47 did not force IS to commit it's main strength to the battle. As I've previously outlined I believe that IS will only commit itself to a defensive battle if one of their two major population centers are threatened.

The next question which requires addressing is do the Kurdish forces have the will and the capability to conduct such an operation? Clearly convincing the Kurds to engage their forces in a bloody urban battle of attrition, outside their own territory, will be a significant task. In this respect the West at least has it's track record of long standing friendship and co-operation to build upon. ISIS control of Mosul also presents a clear threat to Kurdish territory, acting as their primary base of operations in Northern Iraq. Kurdish leaders and commanders likely understand that sooner or later Mosul will have to be retaken, although their current hopes are probably that such a significant task could be left to the better equipped Iraqi Army to deal with at a later date. However, the now Shia dominated Iraqi Army has repeatedly displayed a profound unwillingness to advance into Sunni majority areas. It's front line is also ~180km further from Mosul than the Kurds, any advance towards Mosul on the part of the Iraqi Army would have to take a lot of time clearing the surrounding areas of resistance. This sort of action would also likely provoke a major attack from ISIS elsewhere, potentially in Anbar province, as they did earlier this year in order to preemptively blunt a similar northward offensive. An advance by the Iraqi Army would therefore be most likely to succeed if it were to fall after ISIS had committed their main strength to Mosul, removing the potential for a major offensive elsewhere. Convincing the Kurds to undertake a major offensive against Mosul would be difficult, but not impossible as part of a multi front offensive involving the Iraqi security forces.

More important than the Kurds willingness to conduct an offensive against Mosul is their military capacity to do so. If they lack the necessary military resources to undertake an operation of this scale and complexity then the plan is a non-starter.

Estimates on the military resources ISIS commands range from the CIA's conservative 2014 estimate of 31,000 fighters to the Kurds own claims of a force 200,000 strong. More recent reports from 2015 suggest that IS can call upon a force in the region of 40,000 fighters, although it is unclear what proportion of these are tied to garrison and rear echelon duties. Western troops usually require a ratio of 3-1 support to combat troops, but let us err on the side of caution and suggest that the ratio for ISIS is far lower. For the purpose of this exercise I will assume that a third of their troops would be unavailable or unsuitable for combat duties, meaning they can muster 2 combat troops for every fighter engaged in supporting activities. This gives them an estimated total strength of around 25,000 fighters. Their heavy equipment varies wildly in quality and age but IS is thought to have around 170 tanks, 150 armoured personnel carriers and a few hundred armoured cars. These numbers must come with the caveat that they are old, likely out of date, and certainly far higher than the strength they could actually deploy.

The estimated number of troops available to the Peshmerga varies wildly, ranging from 80,000 and 200,000. Accurate figures are difficult to come by but a conservative estimate would be that they command around 120,000 troops with a much greater proportion dedicated to rear echelon and garrison duties than IS. For the sake of argument let's say the Peshmerga can field one fighter for every two supporting troops.  This would produce a theoretical force of ~40,000 front line combat troops. The YPG and other allied militias could provide a few thousand more, but their equipment and is generally insufficient for much beyond the guerrilla or light infantry duties at which they admittedly excel.

While the raw numbers, although sketchy, suggest that the "Kurdish forces" do have a numerical advantage over IS; the numbers alone hide a range of issues that prevent the Kurds from putting such a force in the field. Firstly the political divisions within the Peshmerga are a major stumbling block, the 36 brigades are all independently controlled and many are aligned with the PUK, KDP and KRG factions. Although there have been efforts to unite these forces under a single unified command to fight IS, progress has so far been slow. Similarly, these politically divided brigades often struggle to cooperate with one another. Heavy equipment is another area where the Peshmerga has weaknesses. They actually do possess a sizable number of armoured vehicles and heavy artillery pieces, mostly ex - soviet, seized from the Ba'athist army's stockpile during the 2003 Iraq war. In total the Peshmerga have over 500 tanks and around 200 armoured personnel carriers. The lack of spare parts and ammunition, however, prevents most of it from being made available for front line use. Another problem is that, for the size of their forces, their logistical support structures are woefully inadequate. Conducting protracted offensive action will absolutely require a far more robust and effective logistics network backing it up.

Kurdish T-55 tanks: available in numbers but lacking vital spare parts 

Several of the highlighted areas of weakness can be remedied with outside help. Russia's recent commitment to directly combating IS makes the task of sourcing spares and ammunition for much of the Peshmerga's heavy equipment a more straightforward exercise. If the Russians refuse to cooperate then all of the required parts and ammunition are still readily available on the international market, but accessible only to state buyers. The US Army has over 30,000 M939 utility trucks currently set for disposal, transferring a portion of these to the Kurdish forces would go a long way towards solving some of their logistical problems. Importantly both these solutions avoid arming the Kurds with modern equipment that would allow them to challenge Iraqi government forces at a later date, supplies of ammunition and spare parts could easily be cut off after the conflict, to limit their potential for armed secession.

The politicised nature of many of the Peshmerga brigades, and lack of a unified command structure, are far more intractable but not insurmountable problems. Significant but slow progress has been made towards a unified Peshmerga command structure, a series of defeats and blunders fighting IS has made it clear that a more unified effort will be necessary to successfully combat ISIS. I would advise that if the Kurdish regional government manages to implement a functional unified command structure then the West should equip them with the spare parts and ammunition they need to deploy their existing heavy equipment and take the fight to IS around Mosul. If it is made clear that supplies will only come once the Kurds implement a workable unified command it could give the initiative the impetus it needs to be put into place.

The Peshmerga would very likely have an overall and local numerical advantage over IS, especially considering that the Islamist group would be taking an enormous risk if it concentrated a very large portion of it's strength on the defence of Mosul. As Operation Free Sinjar has demonstrated, the Kurds do seem able to concentrate the large forces necessary to execute complex urban assault operations. A battle for control of Mosul would be on an entirely different scale however, without their heavy equipment and a unified command it would be an enormously risky and costly undertaking; even with the Iraqi Army moving up from the south. It does, however, remain the best possible chance for anti-IS forces to inflict irreparable attrition to their trained fighters and prestige.

In summary, IS is militarily easy to contain. The difficulty lies in dislodging them from the territory they hold because of their strategy of harassment rather than static defence and continuous offensive action directed against their enemies weakest points. Despite this, I believe their commanders are acutely aware that their strategy would collapse if they were to lose enough of the trained field army to prevent their offensive action from being successful. This cannot simply be achieved by blunting their offensives, leaving them free to withdraw at will and attack elsewhere. In order to inflict the necessary damage they must be forced into conducting a static defensive battle that they do not wish to fight. The only way of doing this, in the author's opinion, is by seriously threatening one of their two major centers of power: Mosul or Raqqa. As there are currently no forces on the ground capable of conducting an offensive towards Raqqa, Mosul is left as the only realistic option open to us. While the Iraqi army is the better equipped force, they will remain unable to concentrate the force to advance northwards with IS threatening their flank in Anbar province. It will therefore have to be the geographically closer Kurdish forces which initiate the battle and begin the process of drawing IS reserves into the city before the Iraqis can advance, certain that those reserves couldn't be employed for offensive action against their Western flank. In the meantime the West needs to help the Kurdish forces build the logistical support structures necessary for them to conduct protracted offensive. The West must also seriously encourage the establishment of a functional unified command, possibly using the delivery of spare parts and ammunition for their existing heavy weapons as an incentive to do so.

Defeating IS is a matter of making their current military strategy for Iraq and Syria unworkable. This can only be achieved by forcing them to fight a battle that will result in the fatal degradation of their fighting power. I believe an attack on Mosul, coordinated in the manner I have laid out, could achieve this without the need for large Western conventional forces.