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The British Army has a class problem Why does it care more about race and gender?

Rah. (Kate Green/Getty Images)


October 10, 2022   8 mins

In 2008, at a birthday party in Fulham, a 26-year-old aspiring portrait painter met the adjutant of the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment. As the section of the British Army that performs ceremonial duties with horses, the regiment is often judged on appearances. Ed Olver, a captain, explained that he was looking for an artist to update a nineteenth-century canvas.

In the officers’ mess at Hyde Park Barracks, there hung a depiction of the regiment’s officers from 1857. It showed an all-male, blue-blooded ensemble, in elaborate dress. The new painting was to take the same format, but was meant to showcase how the Household Cavalry — traditionally the socially “smartest” section of the British Army — had changed. The unit now had black and Sikh officers. In common with other infantry and armoured units at the time, there were still no women formally within the regiment, but there were some working with it, including a vet.

The young painter, Louise Pragnell, agreed to take on the project. In time, the huge 3m-by-1m painting almost drove her insane. The resulting image also embodied the British Army’s confused attitude to diversity in the 21st century.

Olver explained the concept: “We’ve got these two women here, and we’ve got a Sikh and we’ve got two black guys.” The sitting took place in May 2008 at the barracks south of the Serpentine. The 25 subjects wore a variety of dress, from ceremonial “state kit” with its gleaming breastplate to the scarlet bum-freezer jacket of mess kit, service dress, or combats. Some eschewed uniform altogether, coming in polo kit, hunting gear and Ascot tails. There was a strong equine theme.

As a message, the scene was a mixed one: we have black people, it said. We have women. But we’re all still really posh. Notably, both the black officers — one Ghanaian, the other Zimbabwean — spoke with received pronunciation. Meanwhile, one sitter liked the idea of a soldier servant pouring him a glass of champagne while he stared imperiously in the other direction. That hardly seemed to concur with the diversity message, but Pragnell included it.

I’m always reminded of these mixed messages, whenever a row erupts about diversity in the British military. In August, the head of Royal Air Force recruitment resigned, reportedly due to a focus on hitting “impossible” diversity targets. (In response James Heappey, the armed forces minister, denied claims that job offers for white men had been put on “pause” to achieve such targets, clarifying that air force leadership had paused offering training slots to all candidates while they examined how they might take legal steps — so-called positive action — to assist improving diversity levels on courses.)

Earlier in the year, shortly before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the British Army put all non-essential work on hold for a “diversity training day”, to address concerns including drug and alcohol abuse, bullying and racism. In his first speech in post last December, Admiral Tony Radakin, professional head of the armed forces, said that diversity is “not about wokefulness”. “It is about woefulness,” he added. “The woefulness of too few women. The woefulness of not reflecting the ethnic, religious and cognitive diversity of our nation.”

Indeed, the British Armed Forces have long failed to reflect the society they are tasked to defend. The full-time military is still 90.4% white and 88.7% male. Female representation is roughly equal between the services, but ethnic minorities make up 14% of the army (in which 40% of ethnic minority personnel originate from abroad), compared to 4.9% of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, and only 3.5% of the air force.

Meanwhile, there is an elephant in the room when it comes to military diversity: social class. Just as Louise Pragnell’s painting displayed ethnic diversity but class homogeneity, all three services are still split into distinct commissioned and non-commissioned universes — between officers and soldiers, in army language. Each track features its own entry requirements and career trajectories. And this split is traditionally based on class: historically, officers were posh; the soldiers were not.

There is some movement between these worlds. For instance, the army sends some promising young soldiers to train at the officer academy at Sandhurst, alongside direct-entry, predominantly graduate cadets. At the other end of the spectrum, there is also now no section of the army where it is impossible to live on your pay as an officer — in the past high mess bills and the prohibitive costs of tailored uniforms could mean a private income was required. Nonetheless, the officer-soldier divide is still the defining fault line in the military’s organisation, and it is most acute in the army. In 2019, 49% of Sandhurst direct-entrant cadets had attended fee-paying schools — whereas the equivalent figure for the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth was 36%. (The RAF does not gather information on educational background.)

Britain’s military institutions are pushing a race and gender diversity agenda, while largely failing to acknowledge that their basic shape is still profoundly non-egalitarian. British Army recruiting adverts released in 2018 included short, animated advertisements with titles like “Can I be gay in the Army?” and “Can I practise my faith in the army?” They did not ask “Will I have to call someone younger and less experienced than me ‘sir’?” or “Can I get into a smart regiment if I don’t know that shirts with single cuffs are taboo?”

An official Ministry of Defence action plan, leaked in August, aimed to “build defence into an institutionally inclusive organisation” and “to drive significant change by ensuring that race equality is a driving principle in defence”. Every time something like this happens, anonymous Whitehall sources brief “dereliction of duty” and Tory MPs spit fire about quotas, but no one tends to remark that the diversity initiatives speak less loudly about class than race and gender. People simply accuse the military of putting diversity ahead of defence.

It is worth considering, then, whether diversity initiatives actually make the military a more effective fighting organisation. On class and race, I would suggest the arguments are clear-cut. If the army, in particular, can break away from its traditional upper-middle class leadership cadre by recruiting more working-class and non-white officers, it is likely to be less hidebound by tradition. That is important. For all the pomp of the queen’s funeral, wars are not won by polishing things.

In my book, I focus on a cavalry regiment in the run-up to and during the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003. This organisation — pickled in alcohol, obsessed with standards of tailoring and mess etiquette (junior officers weren’t allowed to go to bed until everyone senior to them had departed), even as the drums of war began to beat, now seems picaresque and bizarre. But that ossification came in part from decades of recruiting the same kind of people, putting them through a brutal process of hazing, and then ensuring they replicated that treatment on those that succeeded them. Recruitment across wider social background shakes up things like that.

The full integration of women is more complex. The ban on women in combat roles — infantry or armoured units — was not lifted until 2016, two years after Britain withdrew from Helmand. But the reality of the Iraq and Afghan conflicts, in which there were no front lines, meant that female soldiers, for instance medics attached to infantry patrols, took the same risks as men. “Some of the best soldiers and most promising officers I know are women,” said General Patrick Sanders, at a ceremony in 2018 to mark all roles in the army becoming open to women. “Simply put the infantry will be more effective in war if we include the best talent our country can breed — male and female.”

But whether opening armoured and infantry roles to women has improved the army is a complicated question. During the several hundred interviews I conducted for my book, I found that opinion is split. There was clear respect, even from relatively old-fashioned men, for the achievements of women. Many I spoke to suggested that naysayers had been proved wrong. Yet at the same time most men from the combat arms, soldiers and officers alike, remained — in private at least — opposed to the formal integration of women into their units. My sense is that the 2016-18 reform reflected the army leadership’s feeling that keeping some units male-only was now politically impossible, rather than a belief that it would create the most militarily effective army. (“This decision wasn’t forced upon us,” Sanders insisted).

Whenever the subject of women in “ground combat’ is raised there tends to be a lot of sexist and poorly-informed chatter about supposedly innate personality differences or the impact on male behaviour of having women nearby. Much of that is bunkum, as the bravery and effectiveness of female soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan attests. But there does remain an unassailable difficulty: physical requirements.

Many crucial jobs in the contemporary military do not require physical strength. But some do, and within infantry soldiering the ability to move long distances on foot carrying weight remains essential. Some exceptional women can meet and beat fitness requirements designed for men, but they are a minority. The US Army envisioned a gender-neutral new fitness test in 2017, but trials found that only 41-52% of enlisted women were passing, compared to 83-92% of men, depending on the component of the test. Among officers the pass rates were higher, but there was still a significant difference. When the test was actually implemented this year, gender neutral scoring had to be abolished. For example, in the deadlift component, women between the ages 17-21 have to lift 54kg to pass. Men in the same age group have to lift 64kg.

In general, integrating women into ground combat units requires one of two approaches. Either the existing fitness standards are maintained, which effectively means only small numbers of women will qualify. That dooms those exceptional female performers to a kind of tokenistic existence — and isolated women, in units where the hierarchy remains male-dominated, can face the worst of military sexism and harassment.

The British Army moved to a gender-neutral fitness tests in 2018, with then-field army sergeant major Gavin Paton remarking: “I don’t care if you are a man or a woman, I don’t care what you do, and the enemy doesn’t either.” Notably though, while the test is formally gender-neutral, there are various distinctions depending on one’s role. For instance, Infantry and Royal Armoured Corps troops are expected to complete a 2km run within 9 minutes and 45 seconds, with paratroopers expected to achieve that in 8:15. This means that women in elite units will be few, which can create hazards. Imagine being one of a handful of newly-arrived women in a Parachute battalion when a video emerges, as it did in June, of your colleagues engaged in an orgy (albeit consensual) with a civilian woman.

The alternative is to alter physical standards so that women will pass in greater numbers. That expands female presence beyond the tokenistic, and creates a pipeline for female leadership. But lowering fitness bars also alters the fundamental nature of a unit, and, to an extent, its capabilities.

For eight years after the Afghan withdrawal in 2014, the British Army suffered an identity crisis — it could make no cogent case for what it was for as an institution. The Russian invasion of Ukraine changed that. “This is our 1937 moment,” Patrick Sanders remarked in June. But if the British military’s purpose is now to deter Russian aggression, then fighting efficiently should be the key metric for policy. On those terms, the actual size of the army matters. But so does determining which diversity initiatives help, what gets hidden, and what is worthwhile but fundamentally complex.

It’s also worth recognising that surface-level reform can hide lingering prejudice, as the conclusion of Louise Pragnell’s project to paint the Household Cavalry showed. The huge image was finally unveiled over lunch in 2010, at the mess at Knightsbridge. The regiment invited Lucian Freud, who had painted a former Household Cavalry officer, Andrew Parker-Bowles, in 2003. In The Brigadier, the ex-husband of our new Queen is decked out in swanky garb, with scarlet stripes down his trousers, but his pose is aloof: he is thrown back in an armchair, jacket unbuttoned and belly spilling out.

At the unveiling, Freud, an octogenarian by this point, with advancing Alzheimer’s, kept forgetting what was going on.

“Who are these people?” he asked Pragnell. Around the table, everyone was pretending to talk while in fact listening to what he was saying.

“They’re officers of the household cavalry,” Pragnell replied.

“So why is there a negro here?” Freud asked.

You could hear a pin drop. All at once, the whole awkwardness of the regiment’s diversity experiment was dragged into the open; the fundamental weirdness of “we’ve got two women and two black guys but we’re still posh” was exposed.


Simon Akam is a British journalist and author of The Changing of the Guard: The British Army Since 9/11. His coverage of the coronavirus pandemic was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize.

simonakam

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Malcolm Knott
Malcolm Knott
1 year ago

Now I’m going to ask a really naughty question.
Why does diversity matter? If, for example, women and ethnic minorities don’t find the military an attractive career could we not say, ‘OK, fair enough’ and talk about something else, (such as the quality of training and the importance of not lowering physical fitness standards)? Likewise, if posh blokes are attracted to a military career and others are not, why does that matter?
To put it more bluntly, why are we turning away white male recruits while we call in the lawyers to see if there is some way we can circumvent the laws that preclude recruitment by race?
After all, we don’t say, ‘Let’s not recruit any more Scots to the medical profession until we’ve bumped up the English contingent’ or ‘Let’s not recruit any more gays to the theatrical profession until we’ve bumped up the straight contingent.’ So why do we say, ‘Let’s make sure that the racial make up of the military meets with the approval of the people who write for The Guardian?’

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago
Reply to  Malcolm Knott

Quite right. We would really shoot ourselves in the foot if we were to halt the recruitment of Asian doctors and nurses because we needed to boost the number of white skinned doctors to reflect the ethnic mix of the population as a whole.

All we need are enthusiastic and competent professionals in any sphere of life irrespective of their skin colour, ethnic origin, sex or sexual orientation. A drive for artificial diversity is as mad as it would be to insist we needed more teenage doctors because they represent a significant proportion of the population or more low IQ doctors to reflect the natural balance of the population.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  Malcolm Knott

Here is an interesting exercise- Given that VCs are awarded to all ranks, have a look at the number of VC in WW1 awarded to Old Etonians and Old Harrovians?… 20 per cent!… yet they were a tiny infinitesimal percentage of the military? QED

Dominic A
Dominic A
1 year ago

Beware of statistics. They are interesting, but also halls of mirrors. Most likely this high VC rate was due to contacts and context, rather than being a simple story of E&H derring do. The top schools and universities are over-represented in success, particularly in professions where social contacts are important. However, this drops off precipitously when you look at more meritocratic fields- medical and scientific advances, raw business success, for example, rather than the old professions – military politics, and the law. Moreover, recent experiments have shown that even experts could not tell the difference between a Stradivarius, another violin of similar age, and a new high end Japanese model; and could not tell the difference between compositions by a contemporary Mozart-esque composer, Mozart, and a computer. All conceits and snobbery.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  Dominic A

a truly frightening and wilful blindness to fact

Dominic A
Dominic A
1 year ago

Don’t worry if it’s too difficult or challenging. Retreat to the safe space.

Gordon Arta
Gordon Arta
1 year ago

Now look at what those public school boys were doing to get them, and at the casualty rates involved. They were the majority of the officers who, armed with a pistol, led their men ‘over the top’. Officers were killed at a far higher rate than ORs. Many of those VCs were posthumous.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  Malcolm Knott

” Brigade of Guardians”? new drill movement.. ” Present arms” and insert syringe of heroin?!!

j morgan
j morgan
1 year ago

If the argument is standards have to be lowered to admit more women into parts of army so that there’s safety in numbers, then a better argument might be not having women there full stop. It’s lose lose.

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago

The author poses this relevant question: “It is worth considering, then, whether diversity initiatives actually make the military a more effective fighting organisation.”
Unfortunately he fails to properly answer it. Why should recruiting more people with different coloured skins at officer level make any difference particularly since on his own evidence they integrate into the prevailing ethos? The fact that different services have different levels of “diversity” merely reflects the fact that different groups have different interests and traditions,
The idea that an army should reflect the percentage composition of various arbitrary groupings along racial and gender lines is a bizarre concept. Of course, those who have an interest in joining the various branches of the military are inherently unlikely to be equally represented across the population. The idea that women in particular should be as enthusiastic as men to become soldiers is absurd as is the idea that gender neutral fitness tests would produce anything other than an overwhelming majority of men.qualifying compared to women.
There will, of course, be plenty of roles in the army that can be perfectly well be performed by women and those who wish to take them up should certainly not be discouraged. However, trying to integrate women into combat regiments is something of a fools errand. If there are sufficient women who wish to take up combat roles the answer should be to have women’s regiments where their deployment could take account of their differing qualities and potential conflict produced by the average differences between men and women would be minimised.

Aaron James
Aaron James
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

This writer IS The problem with Britain, he is everything that has led to the decay. – he answered the question you start with – he says diversity makes for a better fighting force

”On class and race, I would suggest the arguments are clear-cut. If the army, in particular, can break away from its traditional upper-middle”

He says by getting rid of the upper-class it is clear cut better – this is sheer bias from him, and as the British fighting man has been thought a supreme solider for centuries under this system wile very few millitaries have anything like the top reputation of the British – he is just pulling the old ”Diversity is Strength’ shibboleth out of his backside and calling it truth. Also, the fact is Combat solidering is a Man’s job. Women’s swimming teams are for women. This gender delusion needs to stop.

I wonder how he described the Mass murdering bio weapon which was the vax in his book on covid……. But then I stopped reading this article at the line I quote – so maybe he is not completely the woke apologist he seems and I am wrong.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  Aaron James

hear hear

J. Brelner
J. Brelner
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

“The idea that women in particular should be as enthusiastic as men to become soldiers is absurd…” Actually, sure they’re eager to join — a peacetime army.

Howard Gleave
Howard Gleave
1 year ago

“the British Armed Forces have long failed to reflect the society they are tasked to defend.”

Correction: they have always failed to reflect society. Because that isn’t their job, which is, or was, to defend society. The need to fight, especially for the teeth arms, puts a premium on young, fit, men. Women excel in many areas. But they aren’t cut out for infantry, the “edge of the sword”, whose brutal task of closing with and killing the enemy, requires more strength and aggression than the vast majority of women possess.

Reading this article, I am left with an overwhelming sense of institutional cowardice at the highest levels in the military, whereby the Radakins of this world vie with one another for promotion by doing their politicals masters’ bidding.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  Howard Gleave

Apparently in the interests of diversity and inclusiveness, regiments names are to be changed.. The Rhythm and Blues and Royals, The Black Mugged Watch, and commercially sponsored regiments such as the Axa Life Guards, Royal Bank of Scotland Hussars, Royal Marine insurance, Royal Signal Toothpasters….

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

Don’t forget the “Piccadilly Cowboys “ and the “Donkey Wallopers” in general.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

Druids, Sheepshaggers and of course ” The Norfolk Highlanders” otherwise known as The Scots Guards” and ” The galloping grocers” as Blues Officers refer to their Life Guards bretheren..!!!

Matt M
Matt M
1 year ago

The answer is blindingly obvious! You never drop standards to accommodate less able people. Why on earth would you want female paratroopers?

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

So in short, ‘too many toffs and not enough bimbos’.

General Sanders (minor Public School and ditto University) late of the “Black Mafia “, would be better advised to ignore all this gender and diversity tosh, and start concentrating on getting the Infantry to shoot straight. Its record in both Iraq and Afghanistan in this most vital skill, was simply appalling.

However “worse things happen at sea” and I wonder how HM Nuclear Submarines are copping with their ‘bimbo’ contingent?
I gather there have been serious disciplinary problems deep under the Arctic ice, resulting in Court-Martials, and even provoking one tabloid to exclaim that it was a case of “Up Periscope “.

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago

There may be a number of problems which may (or may not) be overcome concerning women in the armed forces, but I really think it is somewhat insulting to refer to the young women, who are willing to serve this country, as “bimbos”.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

wrong gender! they are bimba

John Solomon
John Solomon
1 year ago

Nice try, but no cigar. No-one says ‘bimba’ and in any case bimbo was used for a long time to refer to males as well as females (e.g. by P G Wodehouse.) Check Wikipedia if you are not convinced!

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  John Solomon

to us Italians Bimbo is male…

John Solomon
John Solomon
1 year ago

Strange : if you say “they are bimba” then “bimba” ought to be a plural which it clearly is not. Also capitalising “Bimbo” implies that it is a proper noun – sounds like a good stage name for a clown!

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  John Solomon

how about bimbae? or maybe bimba could be plural for both genders?

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

O come off it Linda, stop being such an on old scold, this is UnHerd after all, not the dinning room of All Souls.

Last edited 1 year ago by CHARLES STANHOPE
John Solomon
John Solomon
1 year ago

The dinning(sic) room? Where they make a lot of noise, I suppose (those crusty bread rolls don’t land silently….)

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  John Solomon

My Springer Spaniel is new to typing but tries hard!

Doug Pingel
Doug Pingel
1 year ago

Surely – “Toffs” too. I joined the Royal Navy from a Sec Mod for Boys and was eventually (after 7 years) sent to Dartmouth. At that time fully one-third of all RN officers started their naval career on the ‘Lower Deck.’

John Solomon
John Solomon
1 year ago

If I point out, purely from a sense of mischief, that the plural of ‘court-martial’ is ‘courts-martial’ will you please not be too upset……….

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
Reply to  John Solomon

The pedant in me applauds you.

John Solomon
John Solomon
1 year ago

Thank you.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  John Solomon

“Guilty as charged” and very slovenly, thank you.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

6 extra picquets…

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

reminds me of a day on ranges when a certain SASC ( Skill at Arms School Corps.. don’t know if they still exist) asked a future Grenadier as to why not one 7.62mm round had landed on his fig 11 target, to which the response was ” I understand that in my regiment we have Guardsmen to do out shooting for us”…..

Michael Kellett
Michael Kellett
1 year ago

‘But lowering fitness bars also alters the fundamental nature of a unit, and, to an extent, its capabilities.’
No. Delete, ‘to an extent’. Women are, generally, less physically capable than men. That’s why, for the most part, sport is divided (other than where trans activists and their supporters have forced a blurring of the divide). Lowering fitness requirements makes the armed forces less capable and thus less able to defend us. Some roles can be carried out perfectly well by women but some can’t. Maintaining otherwise for the sake of appearing ‘inclusive’ or ‘with it’, or because that is simply the political orthodoxy, is dangerous – literally so. For us all.

Keith Morden
Keith Morden
1 year ago

The British Army has already acknowledged that allowing women into ground close combat roles would lower combat effectiveness (CE) (See: women in ground close combat review 2014).
Of the 21 elements that contribute to CE; 11 were deemed as negatively impacted by female inclusion and only 1 improved. The rest were neutral or bi-directional. Therefore, you’d hope that the impact of diversity within a team would be significant as it would surely be required to counter this reduction in CE. There is no research to suggest this is so.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago
Reply to  Keith Morden

Combat effectiveness? That same effectiveness that got us chased out of Basra and Helmand begging the Americans to rescue us?
Or the effectiveness that has it’s £10b aircraft carriers spend more time in dry dock getting repaired than in the straits of Taiwan? Or even the ineffectiveness in stopping a few rubber dinghies cross the Channel?
Maybe a bit unfair but let’s not kid ourselves our Armed Forces have an unblemished effectiveness record. Plenty of foul ups, bureaucratic nonsense and occasional hubris. But we are undoubtedly the best at polishing brass and dressing up.

Keith Morden
Keith Morden
1 year ago
Reply to  j watson

No, Combat Effectiveness as defined in the study: “The ability of a GCC team to carry out its assigned mission, role or function … those roles that are primarily intended and designed with the purpose of requiring individuals on the ground, to close with and kill the enemy’. I am not sure we were found wanting in Basra or Helmand in that respect, and I am not sure how this links to aircraft carriers.
From an academic standpoint I just find it fascinating that the British Army’s own report readily accepts a reduction of CE in pursuit of diversity. The paper fails to explain how a more diverse force will compensate for this accepted CE loss.
Equally, wrt your other post: the empirical evidence of improvements brought to the decision making process in teams through gender diversity is very weak. (There is however, some evidence of gender diversity adding significant value at the c-suite echelon of business.)
I don’t believe that we have an unblemished record, far from it, and largely agree with your final paragraph.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  j watson

“Anericans rescued Brits chased out of Basra and Hellmand”? Please do elaborate with evidence?

j watson
j watson
1 year ago

Basra famously we started out patrolling in berets but soon embarrassingly ended up back in helmets and tanks. Muqtada el Sadr militia controlled the territory pretty quickly and we stopped patrolling. When the Americans ‘surged’ we didn’t, and soon after pulled out. We didn’t have the stomach for it.
In Helmand British army brass decided to establish outposts in Sangin and Musa Qala. They wanted to show they could play key deputy to the Americans and take on more than the Canadians. The Taliban quickly besieged and nearly overran our outposts. Our soldiers almost ran out of ammunition. The US army resupplied us as we had crap logistics and our Chinooks were too vulnerable. Our army brass had also assumed they could take and hold the area with battalion strength. That’s like trying to hold Wales with the same size force. Jhn Reid was pressed by Army command to allow it and regrets acquiescing to this day. Total hubris. In due course we accepted an offer from Tribal leaders – if we’d leave so would the insurgents. We left. Subsequently Taliban re-took the area. We helped the Americans 82nd re-take it but then just defended a series of outposts with little or no patrolling so we were the ones bottled up. Eventually we left.
Undoubtedly there were many examples of individual soldier heroism, but the strategy and ability to follow through in both theatres was poor and we were in essence defeated. We never grasped the realities. Albeit our own self narrative avoids that conclusion.

Patrick 8888
Patrick 8888
1 year ago
Reply to  j watson

Or even the ineffectiveness in stopping a few rubber dinghies cross the Channel?”
to be fair, THAT is not a combat-effectiveness issue, is not really or should not be an armed-forces matter at all. You would not really be allowed to stop them, whether you could or not.
The issue there, is that inhabitants of the imploding Third World sees their personal solution in opportunistically colonising generous stupid Western nations, of which the UK is to the very fore in that neo-Marxist generosity and stupidity.

Patrick 8888
Patrick 8888
1 year ago
Reply to  Keith Morden

In other words…it mostly weakens the army/unit in terms of what it actually exists to do, and offers only a case of the left-wing warm and fuzzies to offset being a weaker fighting force.
What surprises me a little these days, is that that report/survey was even allowed to come to, report/release such a conclusion. Anyone connected with such a report…might now be for it, career-wise?

Last edited 1 year ago by Patrick 8888
Nell Clover
Nell Clover
1 year ago

“I don’t care if you are a man or a woman, I don’t care what you do and the enemy doesn’t either”.

If what you do is yomp 20 miles with a full bergan, a 20kg Javelin and several 6kg missiles, then the enemy really does care.

The Ukraine army is once again showing that an army team (3-4 strong) operating on initiative using their own resources is impossible to defend against. Such teams need every member to be capable of carrying 60kg of equipment and provisions and changing position often.

Sergeant Major Gavin Paton’s battlefield analysis was outdated even when he said it. His ideas are rooted in the idea of battalions going into battle. The irony of him thinking he’s being “modern” by saying and acting as has is lost on him and the British Army staff.

Last edited 1 year ago by Nell Clover
Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

I shall never forget the comment of a certain Colour S’arnt whilst on Brigade Squad at Pirbright, on the battle honours enscribed on The various Household Division colours… ” Just remember that most were politicians f…. ups, but not His or Her Majesty’s, and it will always remain so, but remember who you lot signed up to and for”…and if my memory serves me correctly ( and please put me right if this is not the case) in exchange for our Bible and swearing attestation at Central London Recruiting District CLRD, those joining The Household Division swore a different attestation to all others joining… ie to serve “Queen” and not ” Queen and Country”?

Martin Terrell
Martin Terrell
1 year ago

I thought UnHerd would offer a more nuanced analysis. An effective military needs a mix of diversity and tradition and efficiency. Many people still enjoy the ethos, of being an elite fighting force or part of our history. There are parts of the country and done schools where these ideals still exist and may be valuable. The bigger problem is whether Etonian officers and paras from the rougher parts of our provincial towns will want to fight and die for their compatriots from Woke Academy (and its alumni who run the armed forces etc) who look down on them all.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Terrell

have a look at which sector of society dreamed up and formed The SAS, The Commandos, The Airborne Forces… David Stirling, Bob Laycock, Lord Lovat? Which is the senior SAS squadron? ” G” Squadron, as in Guards Squadron? Which was the elite part of The Parachute Regiment? Guards Independent Parachute Company?…. in the last 15 years the SAS has been commanded by 2 Officers from the same smartest of line Cavalry regiments… Perhaps the author of this appalling leftist piffle wants the Army to turn into Pooter’s Own commanded by line managers from some intra M25 ” slisters” firm or IT consultancy? …. I was about to suggest ” insurance business” but remembered that one of the Lloyd’s underwriting firms is run by one of the founding families of the SAS!

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

There’s a new book out on Sterling, which is none too complimentary. His elder brother and Paddy Mahon (?) seem to deserve most of the credit.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

Correction PADDY MAYNE.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

The book is an astounding example of the application of modern ” value judgements” and views to individuals who have very little in common ( sic.!) with the likes of David Stirling, Bill Stirling and/or those attracted to unconventional warfare: it appears to me to be written for the consumer who, whilst at his desk in some tedious IT company, plays video war games whilst thinking ” I could have been one of them”…

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

Thanks for that!
I have to yet to read it, but suspected as much.

Martin Terrell
Martin Terrell
1 year ago

I don’t disagree. Posh twits make very good heroes when push comes to shove. So do their opposite numbers at the other end of society.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

After careful consideration, and having read reviews of this man’s book, and his military experience, which makes even mine look stellar, I honestly do not wish to lower myself to even comment, let alone debate , his arguments here, or indeed anywhere else, and thereby honour his case as in any way worthy of discussion.

I ask readers of this piece to consider, as is so often the case in Britain, as to whether the ” views” of the author might have some reflection on his lack of acceptance in a fairly ordinary line cavalry regiment?

Ray Van
Ray Van
1 year ago

While I suspect you are exactly right as to the authors motivations I think that’s a bit unfair and criticism should focus on his arguments rather than his woeful career. Fortunately his arguments are not very good so he discredits himself well enough that no one need bother trying to find out what his motivates are.

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago

So why is there a negro here?” Freud asked.”
From a person with Alzheimers? How unusual.

Patrick Heren
Patrick Heren
1 year ago

Of course the Household Cavalry’s officers are posh – why expect anything else from the monarch’s mounted bodyguard? The Royal Tank Regiment, the Paras, most line infantry regiments, the Royal Artillery, REME and the Royal Engineers are all much more socially diverse and in any case recruit and train for competence rather than elegance. We want an effective army which wins battles and wars, not yet another social engineering experiment.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  Patrick Heren

and your evidence, knowledge, experience, and understanding that leads you to draw such a conclusion is what, precisely?… Which men started the SAS, LRDG, Commandos, airborne forces? .. Do you know which is the senior squadron of SAS and why? Where do the last 7 commanding Officers at Hereford come from?

Gordon Arta
Gordon Arta
1 year ago

Why is this clown still being given column inches to peddle his ignorant little schtick? He spent a few months as an ‘intern’ at Sandhurst, failed to learn anything from it, and now claims to know all about the Army when in fact he understands sweet FA.

Arden Babbingbrook
Arden Babbingbrook
1 year ago

This article could be written about many constellations of British public life, whether it be politics, the law, or medicine. What has constantly struck me as bizarre about diversity debates in the UK since the woke wave broke up on us, is that skin colour is an easy diversion and a quick fix away from the real problems — which, as ever, pertain to class.

Last edited 1 year ago by Arden Babbingbrook
Derek Smith
Derek Smith
1 year ago

This article is yet more proof that the current fad of DIE is primarily an elite phenomenon, cooked up in elite academic institutions and spread through the professional-managerial class.

Vivek Rajkhowa
Vivek Rajkhowa
1 year ago

The military’s duty is to protect the crown and the country, I don’t give a f**k about what their make up is. Their job is more important than the bollocks spouted by the commentariat

Ray Van
Ray Van
1 year ago

“The woefulness of not reflecting the ethnic, religious and cognitive diversity of our nation.” Is this a suggestion that people’s cognitive ability is determined by thier protected characteristics? If so that is a vile example of bigotry.

Also, even if we accept the premise that ones life experience is primarily determined by ethnicity, sex , religion or class ( and I don’t accept that) what relevance does this have to military decision making? Are there additional courses of action available to the minds of under represented groups in society when it comes to military tasks like , for example, a company attack? I don’t think so and I’d like to see some evidence for that.

If joining up is a free choice , then of course there will under and over representation of certain groups. The only way to “fix” that into anything even vaguely representative of British society would be with discrimination on the basis of group identities. Is that what we really want for our armed forces ?

The values and attitudes required to win wars are not the same as those required to simply live in the UK. Does it really matter that the armed force don’t look exactly like the society they serve if they do it well?

Surely it’s enought that the armed forces are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of class,race, sex etc and are making efforts to recruit from a diverse range of people and are certainly not hesitant to punish individuals that behave unacceptably? Just ask the 3 Para lads that sinned against feminism by having a consensual gang bang that was ruled by the RMP not to constitute an offence.

Patrick 8888
Patrick 8888
1 year ago

The female member of the boarding party from HMS Devonshire?? few years back, fell over herself collaborating/prostrating to her Iranian captors and her justification being ‘well, I have a baby, you know”.
That’s alright…but would I be alone in asking, that prioritisation being the case..what was her idea in applying to join a fighting force..and what was the point of them hiring her?
Of course, if she’d been denied employment based on it would be placing a mother at risk, she’d have sued/complained. If she’d been denied a slot in front line as the ship effectively was when protecting neutral ships from irrational psychotic Iranians in Persian gulf, she’d have complained/sued.
If they had told her that maybe she should not be in an armed boarding party, she’d have complained/sued.
But she’d asserted her right to be there, then, when it turned from recruiting poster-fun to sour.., said , “oy, no fair, I’ve got a baby I’m a mother” .
I think it is what is known as, wanting it both ways, wanting it all ways.
The other issue that I did not hear anyone game to bring up was that she undoubtedly took an oath. And dropping her bundle because “I’m a mother, I’ve got a baby, you know” was probably not in line with her oath.
But the most important thing was…HMS Devonshire and its boarding party was gender-diverse.

Last edited 1 year ago by Patrick 8888
Patrick 8888
Patrick 8888
1 year ago

The female member of the boarding party from HMS Devonshire?? few years back, fell over herself collaborating/prostrating to her Iranian captors and her justification being ‘well, I have a baby, you know”.
That’s alright…but would I be alone in asking, that prioritisation being the case..what was her idea in applying to join a fighting force..and what was the point of them hiring her?
Of course, if she’d been denied employment based on it would be placing a mother at risk, she’d have sued/complained. If she’d been denied a slot in front line as the ship effectively was when protecting neutral ships from irrational psychotic Iranians in Persian gulf, she’d have complained/sued.
If they had told her that maybe she should not be in an armed boarding party, she’d have complained/sued.
But she’d asserted her right to be there, then, when it turned from recruiting poster-fun to sour.., said , “oy, no fair, I’ve got a baby I’m a mother” .
I think it is what is known as, wanting it both ways, wanting it all ways.
The other issue that I did not hear anyone game to bring up was that she undoubtedly took an oath. And dropping her bundle because “I’m a mother, I’ve got a baby, you know” was probably not in line with her oath.
But the most important thing was…HMS Devonshire and its boarding party was gender-diverse.

Last edited 1 year ago by Patrick 8888
Vici C
Vici C
1 year ago

Wrong, wars are won by “polishing things”.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago

The fitness issue clouds too much of the discussion. I think 99% of people recognise a certain physical bar cannot be lowered in the most elite shock troops.
However diversity does matter for two reasons.
Firstly, there is a recruitment crisis and that is not aided by a homogeneous image. Modern Britain is changing and younger people are not drawn to class ridden organisations. So simple practicality means a change was required. Little value in having a few elite units if the overall is weak and under strength.
Secondly Diversity shows you make better overall decisions because you are pulling on a much broader understanding of the world. Most now recognise the CIA and US intelligence failed in part to spot 9/11 because of a lack of diversity. Clear signals of the growing threat were missed – a well appreciated example now is the view that Al Qaeda was a backward, unsophisticated entity appearing to dwell in mountain caves without any appreciation of the religious significance of that deliberate image. It’s just but one well known example.
Our Armed Forces remain unlikely to fight clear cut wars, despite the current Ukraine conflict. Complex peace keeping, or intervention in humanitarian crisis is much more likely. Diversity of background and experience aids decision making at micro and macro levels. One suspects the Force leaders recognise this, even if some of the commentariat does not.

ian 0
ian 0
1 year ago
Reply to  j watson

The recruitment problem could be solved immediately by conscripting all male illegal immigrants between 16 and 25 yrs old. This would increase diversity and also help with the Channel crossings problem.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  ian 0

… and a rifting at the double on the golden acre, plus running up and down heartbreak hill would help…

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  j watson

And your evidence and experience to back this up?