Nice to see that the British seem to think we are a good example of how regular and reserve forces can work together:
Army restructuring faces big challenges
By James Blitz, Defence and Diplomatic Editor
There has never been a comfortable relationship between the full-time regulars in the British army and the part time reserves.
“Weekend Warriors” is the most polite term used by regular troops to describe their Territorial Army counterparts. “Dad’s Army” is another.
Yet, the condescending air that regulars occasionally display towards the reserves will soon have to change. For in the next few weeks, the army will unveil the biggest overhaul of the relationship between the regulars and the reserve since the TA was founded in 1908 – one which will see reservists playing a far more significant role in front-line operations.
The army is being forced to restructure itself because of the immense budgetary squeeze it faces. The size of the regular force is coming down from 102,000 to 82,000 in 2020. The size of the reserve is moving up from 15,000 to 30,000, making it a far larger proportion of UK land forces.
But the transformation is qualitative, too. At present TA reservists tend to be deployed as individuals on the front line and can negotiate with employers and families over when they are deployed. About 20,000 have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003, often with distinction.
But under new plans, the army wants to mobilise whole units of TA – often specialising in areas such as medical, communications and logistics support – at a moment’s notice.
“It is going to be a hell of a challenge to achieve this,” says General Sir John Kiszely, a former senior commander, now national president of the Royal British Legion. “You need to find enough people to double the reserve and train them to a high standard and get employers to be far more flexible about suddenly losing staff for long periods. You have to ask whether this can seriously be achieved.”
Leading figures in the reserve see this transformation as a huge opportunity. “Someone who is part-time infantryman who does a bit of shooting with the TA every other weekend will never be as good as a full-time combat professional,” says a TA colonel. “But if you give a unit of surgeons some additional training in personal protection, you end up with far more capability than the army could generate within its own ranks.”
Evolution of ‘force of last resort’
Britain’s land forces have had a large component of volunteers in their midst for centuries, often made up of infantry, artillery and yeomanry, writes James Blitz. But it was only in 1908, that Richard Haldane, then secretary for war, brought together a body called the Territorial Force, the precursor to today’s Territorial Army, with an overall strength of 269,000 men.
The word “territorial” signified the volunteers who served were under no obligation to serve overseas. Yet within weeks of the outbreak of the first world war in 1914, about 70 territorial battalions had volunteered for service in France, their soldiers fighting alongside, and indistinguishable from, regulars.
As the former soldier and historian Allan Mallinson writes in his book The Making of the British Army, the territorials were soon “blooded” by the experience of battle. “The London Scottish were the first territorials to go into action at the battles of Messines Ridge losing half their strength in the process.”
As war clouds loomed over Europe in the early months of 1939, the government authorised the “duplication” of all Territorial Army units, thereby doubling its size. On the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939, the TA was mobilised and its units absorbed into the British army.
The TA provides much of the anti-aircraft cover for the UK until 1956. During the 1950s and 1960s, however, the government allowed the reserve to become seriously undermanned and poorly equipped. By the 1990s, the TA was regarded as a “force of last resort”.
It is only in the last decade that its fortunes have again flourished. About 6,900 TA personnel were mobilised for the invasion of Iraq, and the TA continues to provide about 1,200 troops each year to support the regular army in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans.
That said, many senior military figures are concerned about the scale of the challenge ahead. One fear is that British companies will be unwilling to shift from the current loose arrangement – where a reservist gets occasional leave and training – to one which might involve up to nine months deployment every five years.
Some defence experts may view the British army’s growing reliance on reserve forces as a dilution of professionalism. But the reforms would bring the UK more closely into line with the way land forces operate in countries such as Canada and Australia, both of which have had proud combat records in recent conflicts.
“In both Canada and Australia the reserves are fully integrated with regular units, with common training standards, the use of the same equipment and similar benefit structures” says Mark Phillips of the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank, who has just completed a study of the UK reserves.
“In both countries, you even have a single chain of command. At any level of command, you tend to find that where the person in charge is a regular soldier, his deputy is often a reservist.”
Mr Phillips says one of the biggest lessons from both states is that “the capability provided by reserve forces improves when they are trained, mobilised and integrated properly with the regular professionals.”
The US has also leaned heavily on reservists during the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“In the US, reserves are often of the highest quality because so much time and investment has been put into their training,” says General Kiszely. “But in the US, you have a tremendous culture of employer support, what I call the triumph of patriotism over avarice. We don’t have that kind of culture here.”
Business figures are wary. “The army likes to rehearse lots of arguments about improving the life experience of employees,” says one senior executive. “But this is a big ‘ask’. Small and medium sized businesses will suffer badly if they suddenly lose small numbers of staff.”
What many in the military believe is that if the new model for the British army is to work, everyone – government, business and the military – will have to get behind the change. “The army is currently enjoying a ‘help for heroes’ tide of goodwill,” says a brigadier in the regular forces. “But while the army is getting lots of sympathy there needs to be a lot more empathy about where we go as an institution.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a1d9e826-b6ef-11e1-8a95-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2IIkX8hRy
