Latest / UK Column Radio / Military Matters: Episode 6

Transcript

Military Matters: Episode 6 · UK Column Radio

0:24
Speaker 1: Charles.
0:25
Speaker 2: We're here on the fifth of May twenty twenty six.
0:29
Speaker 2: It seems only a moment ago that we were in
0:32
Speaker 2: the studio talking about military matters.
0:35
Speaker 3: It does, it's come around very quickly. But equally, I am,
0:39
Speaker 3: as I probably said before, very glad that we are
0:41
Speaker 3: doing this, and we are doing it on this a
0:42
Speaker 3: regular basis, because the situation is changing very very quickly,
0:47
Speaker 3: and it's not so much the speed as the spectrum
0:53
Speaker 3: of either changes or things that really need to be
0:56
Speaker 3: observed and commented on. So I think this series is
1:02
Speaker 3: really really well worth doing. And there's always I mean,
1:05
Speaker 3: you know, today, I'm sure we won't have nearly enough
1:07
Speaker 3: time to cover all the things that we might plan to,
1:09
Speaker 3: but I agree it's it does amazing that it's come.
1:14
Speaker 1: Again, come around.
1:16
Speaker 2: Well, okay. I chose a number of subjects just because
1:22
Speaker 2: they were ones that I've been following through and doing
1:24
Speaker 2: a bit of reading and watching videos on and and
1:30
Speaker 2: I found them fascinating. So i'd taking a look at
1:34
Speaker 2: reports that youngsters, young people in the UK didn't want
1:38
Speaker 2: to fight for their country. So a few days ago
1:43
Speaker 2: there were quite a lot of reports talking about that.
1:46
Speaker 2: I felt that we should return again to the concept,
1:51
Speaker 2: and I think it's an absolutely true, factual concept that
1:55
Speaker 2: the UK's military has been hollowed out to an extent
2:00
Speaker 2: which is really breathtaking. The other subject was really the
2:05
Speaker 2: rise of the drone, which is largely well. It was
2:09
Speaker 2: evident through the Ukraine.
2:11
Speaker 1: War, but as the war with Iran.
2:15
Speaker 2: In Lebanon and sorry with Israel in Lebanon and the
2:20
Speaker 2: war Israel with Iran, the rise of the drone is
2:24
Speaker 2: clear in that conflict as well. And tied in with
2:29
Speaker 2: that is an increasing number of reports which are pointing
2:35
Speaker 2: out that Israeli forces, particularly their armored forces in Lebanon,
2:39
Speaker 2: are not doing very well. And I'm always cautious at
2:44
Speaker 2: commenting on army stuff because that's not my basic training.
2:48
Speaker 2: But I've watched some videos and I've been astonished, having
2:54
Speaker 2: watched several years worth of what's been happening in Ukraine,
2:58
Speaker 2: to see Israeli troops clustering in a way that the
3:02
Speaker 2: Russians or indeed the Ukrainians don't do in the Ukraine
3:06
Speaker 2: conflict because the moment they're in groups, they're at grave
3:10
Speaker 2: risk of being targeted by drones. This doesn't seem to
3:13
Speaker 2: have the need for dispersion and dispersion in tactics doesn't
3:19
Speaker 2: seem to have caught on to these ready defense force
3:22
Speaker 2: and I found that really surprising, So that was my selection.
3:26
Speaker 2: I don't know what direction you went in.
3:30
Speaker 3: Well, as I said, I don't know how much it
3:32
Speaker 3: will really get through, but the what I think will
3:35
Speaker 3: tie in with this. I wanted your opinion on what
3:39
Speaker 3: Gwin Jenkins, first seed Lord, was saying at his Brusy
3:43
Speaker 3: or rather in his RUSI speech last week, particularly with
3:48
Speaker 3: regard to what he describes as being a hybrid navy,
3:51
Speaker 3: which I think when one scrapes away the very thinnest
3:55
Speaker 3: veneer is an absolutely frank admission. With reference to your
4:01
Speaker 3: comment about hollowed out armed forces that well, we can't
4:05
Speaker 3: crew the systems, so this is why we have to
4:09
Speaker 3: look to uncrude, unmanned answers to basically everything, and then
4:15
Speaker 3: make it sound good by calling it hybrid because hybrid's
4:18
Speaker 3: a catchy word. But I think the bigger picture coming
4:23
Speaker 3: out from what he's saying one story on the drone
4:29
Speaker 3: point and which seems to in a way not exactly
4:34
Speaker 3: flying the face of the hollowing out story, but it
4:37
Speaker 3: just indicates where support is and isn't given is the
4:41
Speaker 3: recent thing which I'll be covering on the news this week,
4:43
Speaker 3: which is the amazing advance of Cambridge Aerospace and their
4:50
Speaker 3: release of the Skyhammer and star Hammer missile defense systems.
4:57
Speaker 3: And this exactly say that the changing nature of warfare,
5:01
Speaker 3: but also where they've come from is quite extraordinary. And
5:04
Speaker 3: another thing which is in a way philosophical is the
5:09
Speaker 3: arrest of the Special Forces veteran ben Robert Smith in
5:14
Speaker 3: Australia and the charges that have been presented concerning war
5:20
Speaker 3: crimes in Afghanistan going back about fifteen years or so,
5:24
Speaker 3: and how that relates to in fact, fun enough to
5:27
Speaker 3: Gwynn Jenkins, who of course was previously direct to Special
5:30
Speaker 3: Forces and reckon to have been cognizant of an awful
5:34
Speaker 3: lot of things that are reported to have gone on
5:37
Speaker 3: in Afghanistan concerning British Special Forces, but at exactly the
5:41
Speaker 3: same time that Robert Smith was alleged to have been
5:45
Speaker 3: conducting those activities. The talking point there, I think is
5:50
Speaker 3: not so much whether or not he did what he
5:53
Speaker 3: is said to have done. It's rather more the response
5:56
Speaker 3: and this confused picture around the specter of terrorism, what
6:03
Speaker 3: should be done about it, whether it really does exist,
6:07
Speaker 3: and the justification of actions taken because the threat level
6:13
Speaker 3: was so high, and I would like to dig further
6:17
Speaker 3: into that because I think there's a great sort of
6:20
Speaker 3: ideological inconsistency.
6:22
Speaker 1: And then the other thing. I mean, well, actually, first
6:24
Speaker 1: of all, I.
6:25
Speaker 3: Can talk a little bit more about the day that
6:28
Speaker 3: I spent at RAF Fairford recently covering the protest, which okay,
6:33
Speaker 3: was only a small turnout, but significant I think because well,
6:38
Speaker 3: actually partly because the fact that it was small, you know,
6:41
Speaker 3: whatever it was at that point. I think it was
6:43
Speaker 3: eight or maybe nine weeks into the conflict in Iran,
6:46
Speaker 3: and Yetford being pretty much the main UK base that's
6:55
Speaker 3: being used to prosecute that conflict, and yet only three
6:58
Speaker 3: hundred people or thereabouts descended upon it. And then but
7:02
Speaker 3: just to start with, I mean, I know this was
7:04
Speaker 3: reported on the news, but for those unaware the threat level,
7:09
Speaker 3: the Joint Terrorism Analysis Center has changed the threat level
7:12
Speaker 3: to severe and that's the first time it's changed in
7:20
Speaker 3: I can't remember whether it changed in twenty twenty two
7:21
Speaker 3: or twenty nineteen, but either way, you'd think given what
7:25
Speaker 3: we're always told about threat, particularly the sort of state
7:28
Speaker 3: threat from Iran that it surely it must have been
7:29
Speaker 3: a severe for ages, but no, it isn't, and it's
7:33
Speaker 3: changed in response to the stabbings in Golder's Green, which
7:40
Speaker 3: again have been covered in detail on the news, and
7:43
Speaker 3: of course the government, the press, the police, everybody is
7:47
Speaker 3: very quick to say, oh, well, this is obviously an
7:49
Speaker 3: antisemitic attack and therefore this is concerning actions in the
7:54
Speaker 3: Middle East taken by Israel.
7:55
Speaker 1: However, they then qualify.
7:56
Speaker 3: It this is on the Security Service at MI five websites,
8:00
Speaker 3: not solely as a result of that attack, so a
8:03
Speaker 3: little bit of leeway there, but they say there is
8:06
Speaker 3: an uplift in the is Limits and extreme right wing
8:09
Speaker 3: terrorist threat. Of course there is, and in particular I
8:12
Speaker 3: think this is very interesting and elevated threats Jewish and
8:15
Speaker 3: Israeli individuals and institutions. Now, I don't mean this to
8:21
Speaker 3: be interpreted the wrong way, but Security Service is there
8:25
Speaker 3: to protect the United Kingdom, and I'm not suggesting that
8:30
Speaker 3: there aren't Jewish people in the United Kingdom who fall
8:33
Speaker 3: under that umbrella. Of course there absolutely are. But this
8:35
Speaker 3: is part of the inextricable link that is claimed by
8:40
Speaker 3: the State of Israel between that state and Jewish people
8:44
Speaker 3: all over the world, and that is I think, first
8:48
Speaker 3: of all wrong but unseemly. And why would somebody Jewish
8:53
Speaker 3: in the United Kingdom consider themselves to be anything to
8:55
Speaker 3: do with as well? They're British, So I do find
8:58
Speaker 3: that very interesting. But I think it is also directly
9:01
Speaker 3: relevant to all of what we see concerning the idea
9:06
Speaker 3: that the armed forces are there as a mechanism by
9:10
Speaker 3: which a conflict is pursued. And that's quite clearly a
9:13
Speaker 3: situation that we're in now with what's going on in Iran,
9:17
Speaker 3: and if not Iran, then Ukraine and this and the other.
9:20
Speaker 3: So's all of this is connected. So those were the
9:24
Speaker 3: Those were some of the talking points I had. That's
9:27
Speaker 3: quite a lot. Yeah, I don't know where we.
9:31
Speaker 2: Well, why don't we Why don't we just talk for
9:35
Speaker 2: a few minutes about the increase in the terrorist threat level,
9:42
Speaker 2: which was very interesting when it occurred. I also read
9:46
Speaker 2: in one of the papers this morning, and I'm not
9:48
Speaker 2: sure which one it was now, I think it could
9:50
Speaker 2: have been the Telegraph that Keir Starmer has now produced
9:55
Speaker 2: twenty five pounds which is going to be donated towards
10:00
Speaker 2: protecting the safety of the Jewish community in I think
10:05
Speaker 2: predominantly London, but we could say within within the UK.
10:10
Speaker 2: And I just find this astonishing and fascinating to watch
10:16
Speaker 2: that we've gone from being a nation where, to use
10:22
Speaker 2: their terminology, everybody is to celebrate diversity. There's to be
10:26
Speaker 2: equality between people, and in some cases, okay, there's been
10:34
Speaker 2: what is the word, giving one group of people sort
10:37
Speaker 2: of increased status over another, But the aim has been
10:41
Speaker 2: to produce a balanced society where everybody is at the
10:46
Speaker 2: same level and entitled to the same protection and support
10:49
Speaker 2: from the state. And now we've got into a position
10:53
Speaker 2: where we have one group we could say the Jewish community,
11:00
Speaker 2: but then we've got the other label of Israeli, and
11:04
Speaker 2: I think there is a difference, but we are now
11:08
Speaker 2: going to provide them with enhanced benefits over and above
11:14
Speaker 2: what other people get in this country, and this is
11:18
Speaker 2: sort of increased. The first time that UK column were
11:23
Speaker 2: we were pointing out that it seemed that there was
11:26
Speaker 2: a preference to all matters to do with Israel. For me,
11:30
Speaker 2: that came with David Cameron and he said that his
11:34
Speaker 2: belief in Israel was unshakable. This was back in twenty
11:39
Speaker 2: ten twenty twelve, I think, and the moment you say
11:42
Speaker 2: that your belief in one system is unshakable, it means
11:47
Speaker 2: everything else around it comes second. So to me, he
11:51
Speaker 2: was saying that Israel came first, his belief in supporting
11:54
Speaker 2: Israel was unshakable, and therefore the United Kingdom and the
11:58
Speaker 2: rest of the people in the UK came second. And
12:04
Speaker 2: it was during his tenure that Francis mood who I
12:07
Speaker 2: think at that time I'll say bizarrely was Minister for Transparency.
12:12
Speaker 2: I think this was part of his title at one point,
12:15
Speaker 2: but he was the one that announced that we were
12:18
Speaker 2: going to have a massive cooperation with Israel and that
12:23
Speaker 2: was going to include It was going to include the
12:26
Speaker 2: intelligence services, it was going to include g HQ, it
12:30
Speaker 2: was going to run through the universities, it was going
12:33
Speaker 2: to involve the Israeli Intelligence Unit eight two zero zero.
12:40
Speaker 2: And it was a fate, a complete It was just
12:43
Speaker 2: presented to the public that suddenly there was this huge
12:47
Speaker 2: and very interwoven level of of partnership cooperation with Israel.
12:57
Speaker 2: No explanation for why it came into being, just a
13:00
Speaker 2: declaration that it was going to happen. And then from
13:03
Speaker 2: that time on We've just seen successive political names or
13:10
Speaker 2: prime ministers who declare their undying loyalty to Israel, and
13:16
Speaker 2: I have a very uncomfortable feeling. I would have an
13:18
Speaker 2: uncomfortable feeling if they were declaring their allegiance to Italy
13:24
Speaker 2: or Iceland or Denmark. In this case it happens to
13:29
Speaker 2: be Israel. But apparently we are now becoming in some
13:34
Speaker 2: cases second class citizens in their own country to a
13:39
Speaker 2: foreign power, and there's no explanation for why this is.
13:43
Speaker 2: And then that, of course was followed by the Memorandum
13:48
Speaker 2: of Understanding with Israel and also a defense Pact where
13:53
Speaker 2: the British government has absolutely said it's not going to
13:56
Speaker 2: discuss the details of that defense back with Israel, even
14:01
Speaker 2: where members of Parliament have asked questions in the House.
14:06
Speaker 2: So what's actually going on around us? We don't know
14:10
Speaker 2: at the moment, No.
14:11
Speaker 1: We don't.
14:13
Speaker 3: I think the other thing I would say about that,
14:16
Speaker 3: especially given the time period, is that it marches exactly
14:19
Speaker 3: alongside the way in which anti Semitism, or at least
14:25
Speaker 3: the specter of anti Semitism, has been wielded as a
14:29
Speaker 3: bigger and bigger stick with which to beat anybody that
14:33
Speaker 3: suggests that any of this could be inappropriate in the
14:36
Speaker 3: irony is considerable. Going back to twenty eleven, I think
14:40
Speaker 3: it's worth making clear again that that was the start
14:44
Speaker 3: point for the Community Security Trust, which provides physical security
14:49
Speaker 3: to the what's described as the Jewish community. Now, I
14:54
Speaker 3: think that is an interesting phrase in itself, in that
15:00
Speaker 3: other groupings don't necessarily get described in such way as
15:06
Speaker 3: suggests there is a sort of homogeneity, don't I don't
15:09
Speaker 3: see why they would necessarily be a homogeneity.
15:11
Speaker 1: I mean, if we're therefore to take it that.
15:13
Speaker 3: The rest of the rest of the country is split
15:17
Speaker 3: into communities, I think that gives a totally different impression anyway,
15:22
Speaker 3: that's sort of by the Bible. The reason I make
15:23
Speaker 3: the point is that the Community Security Trust, of course,
15:27
Speaker 3: is effectively given can't blanche in some senses to do
15:35
Speaker 3: what it says is necessary to combat the scourge of
15:38
Speaker 3: anti Semitism and indeed the threat of physical violence to
15:41
Speaker 3: as I say, the so called Jewish community, by which
15:45
Speaker 3: they really should just mean well Jewish people. But what
15:50
Speaker 3: I find interesting about that is that the point of
15:54
Speaker 3: calling out, let's say, calling out anti Semitism is to
15:57
Speaker 3: stop people from making divisions and from segregating. And yet
16:03
Speaker 3: the very existence of the Community Security Trust is doing
16:07
Speaker 3: exactly that. It is creating a segregation. It is creating
16:11
Speaker 3: a tier of society that may be treated differently, exactly
16:14
Speaker 3: the same thing with the Hatzola Ambulance Charity, which of
16:18
Speaker 3: course was again a high profile case recently with Burnt
16:21
Speaker 3: House ambulances and learn behold an enormous wedge of funding
16:27
Speaker 3: from government so they can upgrade. Now, the point I
16:30
Speaker 3: think that falls out of this is why is that
16:33
Speaker 3: the most appropriate way to do it. With any other
16:37
Speaker 3: matter concerning security, police would be resourced accordingly. And if
16:44
Speaker 3: we're therefore to believe that areas such as Golders Green,
16:48
Speaker 3: which have a higher proportion of Jewish people in them,
16:52
Speaker 3: if they cannot be protected by police in a way
16:55
Speaker 3: that would be appropriate for doing the job that police
16:58
Speaker 3: are supposed to do, you know, without fear or favor.
17:00
Speaker 3: So therefore it doesn't matter whether their Josh or not.
17:02
Speaker 3: Why would they simply not have more resources allocated? I
17:06
Speaker 3: do find that, on the face of it extraordinary, but
17:09
Speaker 3: of course we know it's not. And as I say,
17:10
Speaker 3: going back to twenty eleven, when an agreement was entered
17:13
Speaker 3: into with the Home Office because the Community Security Trust
17:16
Speaker 3: had essentially built a platform of what has become known
17:23
Speaker 3: as hate crime or events pertaining to hate crime. They
17:28
Speaker 3: have entered into a data sharing agreement with the Home Office.
17:32
Speaker 3: Since then, they have basically put themselves an incredibly powerful.
17:36
Speaker 2: Positions of private police force.
17:39
Speaker 3: It absolutely is and indeed has privileges that are afforded
17:42
Speaker 3: to no other group insofar as they can patrol with police.
17:46
Speaker 3: I mean that there are so many elements to this
17:49
Speaker 3: which are enormously problematic, but of course this goes as
17:53
Speaker 3: I say, this is absolutely directly correlative with the rise
17:59
Speaker 3: and rise of the notion that anti Semitism can cover
18:04
Speaker 3: virtually anything, and in particular this association which which I've
18:09
Speaker 3: literally just read out in from the Security Service website,
18:13
Speaker 3: this lumping in of Jewish and Israeli as though they
18:18
Speaker 3: are completely and utterly intertwined. But they're not, as far
18:22
Speaker 3: as we should be concerned. They are either British or
18:26
Speaker 3: their Israeli.
18:27
Speaker 2: They cannot be both, Charles, this is fascinating and very
18:33
Speaker 2: important conversation. I don't think I've mentioned this in anything
18:38
Speaker 2: we've done on military stuff before, and I'll come back
18:42
Speaker 2: to that. We're hearing military matters, but we're talking about
18:46
Speaker 2: matters pertaining into Israel and the Jewish community. But we'll
18:49
Speaker 2: cover that. But I a while ago stumbled on a
18:55
Speaker 2: YouTube interview where two rabbis were talking in America, and
19:00
Speaker 2: the discussion they were having was the fact that they
19:03
Speaker 2: were outraged. The man telling his story was that he
19:11
Speaker 2: was in an educational establishment. He was teaching in an
19:15
Speaker 2: educational establishment and into the school one day, well it
19:20
Speaker 2: was announced that they were going to have a visit
19:24
Speaker 2: by members of the IDF, and he said, so into
19:28
Speaker 2: my classroom to talk to my Jewish students were members
19:33
Speaker 2: of the IDF. And in their talk they said that
19:37
Speaker 2: the IDF was there to protect them, but we are Americans.
19:42
Speaker 2: We may be Jewish, but we are Americans. And I
19:45
Speaker 2: was outraged that Israel, the State of Israel, would think
19:50
Speaker 2: it could march into my classroom to indoctrinate my students. Now,
19:55
Speaker 2: what was so powerful about the discussion was that they
19:58
Speaker 2: were both rabbi. The American one was American born. The
20:03
Speaker 2: other rabbi speaking to him was British born. But I
20:08
Speaker 2: think he'd married an American lady and was looking to
20:13
Speaker 2: become full a US passport holder. But I paid attention
20:18
Speaker 2: to it because this was one of the first times
20:22
Speaker 2: when I heard Jewish people expressing grave reservations about what
20:28
Speaker 2: the State of Israel was doing and also pointing out that,
20:33
Speaker 2: in their opinion, they were quite happy being Jewish, a
20:37
Speaker 2: Jewish American and they didn't need the help or indeed,
20:44
Speaker 2: they didn't want the help of Israel. And before it
20:48
Speaker 2: goes out of my mind, because I looked at the
20:50
Speaker 2: audience effectively when I said it is we are here
20:54
Speaker 2: talking about military matters, and we've got on to matters
20:59
Speaker 2: to do with the Jewswish community and really the power
21:01
Speaker 2: of the Jewish lobby, Israeli lobby inside UK. But why
21:08
Speaker 2: is this a military matter? It's a military matter because
21:11
Speaker 2: if we do not understand who is pulling the lever
21:15
Speaker 2: of powers in this country. As a military person, you
21:19
Speaker 2: have no idea what your job is based on. Are
21:24
Speaker 2: we here as veterans of the of His Majesty's Armed
21:30
Speaker 2: forces in the UK and we are serving the King
21:35
Speaker 2: I'm using all the correct terminology. We're serving the King.
21:39
Speaker 2: We are protecting the people of this nation state. Is
21:42
Speaker 2: that what we're doing? Or are we now some sort
21:45
Speaker 2: of tool of Israel. If I was if I was
21:49
Speaker 2: serving still serving in the armed forces now and I
21:53
Speaker 2: have and I had the knowledge which I have, I'd
21:56
Speaker 2: be extremely concerned as to what was going on. And
22:02
Speaker 2: I think this is something that's come to the fore
22:05
Speaker 2: in America that people inside the American Armed Forces, particularly
22:11
Speaker 2: the ones who've been selected to deploy in the Middle
22:15
Speaker 2: East for the war with Iran, are now asking key
22:19
Speaker 2: questions whose war is It is an American war Israeli war?
22:24
Speaker 2: And until it gets pinned down, the armed forces in
22:28
Speaker 2: this country and the US are on very shaky ground
22:32
Speaker 2: because if people do not understand who they're fighting for,
22:37
Speaker 2: they're not going to fight, or they're not going to
22:39
Speaker 2: fight properly.
22:42
Speaker 1: Well, this is it.
22:43
Speaker 3: And I think to your point about who's pulling the
22:47
Speaker 3: levers apower, those sorts of topics are often the subject
22:53
Speaker 3: of huge conjecture, especially with people who might not have
22:56
Speaker 3: necessarily considered that there could be another hidden hand from
23:02
Speaker 3: that which they see. And I think to that, I
23:05
Speaker 3: would say that even if you can't and you're unwilling
23:09
Speaker 3: to necessarily concede that there are other hands on those
23:14
Speaker 3: leavers of power, you only need look at, for example,
23:18
Speaker 3: the threat level justification the increase, because what it is
23:25
Speaker 3: saying is that the pretext for emergency measures, for conscription,
23:32
Speaker 3: for warfare or whatever it is, is the supposed victimization
23:39
Speaker 3: of two or you know, a handful of Jewish people
23:45
Speaker 3: in London. Now that is a completely extraordinary pretext for war.
23:50
Speaker 3: So whether or not you believe that the State of
23:54
Speaker 3: Israel is in any way manipulating the United Kingdom could
23:57
Speaker 3: be said to be neither here nor there, or at
23:59
Speaker 3: least it doesn't necessarily follow that you have to subscribe
24:02
Speaker 3: to that view. The fact is that MI five have said,
24:04
Speaker 3: off the back of two people who turn out to
24:07
Speaker 3: be Jewish being stabbed, we are going to increase our
24:11
Speaker 3: state of well, in effect readiness for war, because they
24:15
Speaker 3: absolutely go on to cite what's happening in the Middle East.
24:18
Speaker 1: And also in terms of the.
24:19
Speaker 3: Way this is framed, we absolutely have to note that,
24:23
Speaker 3: of course, led by the BBC, despite the fact, by
24:27
Speaker 3: the admission of Marco Rubio sectuary of state, which of
24:31
Speaker 3: course we talked about in the last episode of Military Matters,
24:33
Speaker 3: despite his admission that Israel kicked off in effect, you know,
24:40
Speaker 3: they created the conditions that made the United States feel
24:45
Speaker 3: forced or obliged to join in the action. Israel has
24:48
Speaker 3: never mentioned, the BBC, never mentioned Israel. So what's going
24:52
Speaker 3: on in the because obviously, as far as the British
24:56
Speaker 3: audience is concerned, we only need to apparently be concerned
24:59
Speaker 3: with the ice of fuel oils, and so therefore all
25:02
Speaker 3: we care about is the straight and therefore we're not
25:05
Speaker 3: considering about lives being lost in Iran or elsewhere. We're
25:09
Speaker 3: just supposed to just stick on track, just think about
25:11
Speaker 3: the ships, and that's it. But of course in doing
25:14
Speaker 3: so we are only ever told about the American activity.
25:20
Speaker 3: Israel is never mentioned, really, and that in itself is
25:25
Speaker 3: a staggering omission. But exactly like you say, anybody considering
25:33
Speaker 3: putting themselves in harm's way, for as part of the
25:37
Speaker 3: British armed Forces, absolutely has to consider that this is
25:41
Speaker 3: being done, even if not directly controlled by or at
25:46
Speaker 3: the insistence of the State of Israel, it's certainly absolutely
25:50
Speaker 3: to the benefit of rather than to the benefit of
25:53
Speaker 3: the United Kingdom. And so this, you know, and I
25:55
Speaker 3: think this goes neatly into your point about potential recruits
26:01
Speaker 3: and how the how, the how the young are dealing
26:03
Speaker 3: with this because we're not. Wasn't that long ago that
26:04
Speaker 3: we had a an excellent sort of on the street
26:07
Speaker 3: report done for us by Monty Tom's where everybody he
26:12
Speaker 3: encountered said no way, absolutely, no way.
26:16
Speaker 2: And uh and and this is certainly true. Just just
26:20
Speaker 2: before I respond to that, i'd i'd like to add
26:23
Speaker 2: to the bit about what's happened around the Jewish community
26:28
Speaker 2: that something that I think is terribly sad is that
26:32
Speaker 2: as as we've seen the the newspapers ramp up the
26:37
Speaker 2: idea of a terror threat, particularly focused against the Jewish community,
26:44
Speaker 2: what is this doing. It is making many people in
26:48
Speaker 2: the Jewish community community fearful and and we know we
26:55
Speaker 2: know from the government's own work during the COVID and
26:59
Speaker 2: the low down period where they were using their behavioral
27:03
Speaker 2: Insights team to make the population more fearful of COVID
27:09
Speaker 2: in order that they adhered more deeply to the lockdown
27:13
Speaker 2: and the policies the government was pushing through, and that
27:16
Speaker 2: had damaging psychological effects. And although I haven't been able
27:22
Speaker 2: to speak to many members in the Jewish community, I
27:25
Speaker 2: have made the effort to speak to some. And one
27:28
Speaker 2: of the things that came across very strongly, very early
27:32
Speaker 2: on in those discussions, is the underlying, the normal, underlying
27:38
Speaker 2: sense of fear that the Jewish community have in that
27:42
Speaker 2: they are brought up in families where at some stage
27:46
Speaker 2: there's talk about the Holocaust and the number of relatives
27:49
Speaker 2: that died, So their baseline fear level seems to be high.
27:56
Speaker 2: That's a burden they have to live with as somebody
27:59
Speaker 2: in the Jewish community. And then on top of that,
28:02
Speaker 2: we've got what we could call propaganda in the West
28:05
Speaker 2: ramping that up and making them feel even more fearful.
28:10
Speaker 1: I think it's an extremely good point.
28:13
Speaker 3: And I would say, because you said that the fear
28:15
Speaker 3: that they have, I would say I would describe as
28:17
Speaker 3: the fear that they're made to have.
28:18
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean, you know, this is it.
28:20
Speaker 3: Look at the I means as an excellent example. Look
28:24
Speaker 3: at the well. Actually it wasn't the Starmer government, but
28:27
Speaker 3: they've got it over the line that the Holocaust Memorial
28:30
Speaker 3: Act for the Holocaust Memorial that is going to be
28:34
Speaker 3: built to the south of the Palace of Westminster and
28:36
Speaker 3: Victoria Tower Garden, absolutely riding roughshod over planning law that's
28:42
Speaker 3: been in place since nineteen hundred, which was specifically supposed
28:45
Speaker 3: to preserve that piece of ground in perpetuity. And it's
28:49
Speaker 3: the whole thing is going to be dug up to
28:52
Speaker 3: apparently remind people, but effectively, as you say, absolutely drive
28:57
Speaker 3: that fear. We must never forget this something I mean,
29:00
Speaker 3: And so it's always you know, of course, the narrative
29:04
Speaker 3: is that the reason we have to remember the Holocaust
29:06
Speaker 3: is to say that it never happens again. But actually
29:09
Speaker 3: that's not the effect that's delivered at all. It'stically different,
29:12
Speaker 3: exactly like you say, and I think it's the point
29:14
Speaker 3: really well made.
29:16
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, if we move on to the to will
29:21
Speaker 2: young people fight for their country? I mean, it was
29:24
Speaker 2: probably the Telegraph that had the lead article for that,
29:27
Speaker 2: and so a survey had been conducted and it said
29:32
Speaker 2: that fifty percent of sixteen to twenty nine year olds
29:37
Speaker 2: had said that, under no circumstances would they fight for
29:40
Speaker 2: their country. And I was fascinated by that.
29:47
Speaker 1: And whilst now.
29:51
Speaker 2: Being able to look back on a large chunk of
29:53
Speaker 2: life with hindsight, who say, do you want anybody to fight?
29:57
Speaker 2: The answer is no, you don't.
30:00
Speaker 1: But in an.
30:01
Speaker 2: Unpredictable world, there have been, and I'm sure will come
30:05
Speaker 2: times when people are asked to fight for a just cause.
30:11
Speaker 2: And the idea that we've now got young people that
30:15
Speaker 2: don't want to fight at all tells me something I
30:19
Speaker 2: think very important about them and how they think. And
30:25
Speaker 2: what I pick up is that they won't fight because
30:30
Speaker 2: they don't believe there's anything fighting for worth fighting for,
30:33
Speaker 2: and that is that they don't see anything in their
30:35
Speaker 2: own country worth fighting for.
30:39
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean I would. I don't want to put
30:42
Speaker 3: words in anyone's math. I mean I would hope, though,
30:45
Speaker 3: two very much related things, one which I absolutely would
30:52
Speaker 3: sympathize with is your reference to the idea of there
30:57
Speaker 3: being a just cause, or most specifically not being a
31:00
Speaker 3: just cause, and therefore, as a let's say, a first
31:05
Speaker 3: hurdle to have faith in this or any future government,
31:11
Speaker 3: putting people in the armed forces into a situation that
31:17
Speaker 3: is in any way appropriate, that is a big leap
31:21
Speaker 3: of faith, I would say. And I can't really think back,
31:24
Speaker 3: particularly to a time where one could really say, yes,
31:27
Speaker 3: that was absolutely the right course of action, that was
31:30
Speaker 3: absolutely justified if you look at all the factors considered.
31:34
Speaker 3: So the idea for you again, fighting for King and
31:40
Speaker 3: country or just country is. Yes, it is a separate
31:46
Speaker 3: but related issue. And it's interesting, isn't it? Because what
31:53
Speaker 3: are people really saying by that, that they think that
31:56
Speaker 3: the country is a shadow of its former self and
31:59
Speaker 3: therefore or not worth as it were not worth by him?
32:03
Speaker 3: Is that just sort of, you know, an incredibly pessimistic
32:06
Speaker 3: view that even if you know, in terms of sort
32:09
Speaker 3: of just cause, if the country were attacked, that they
32:14
Speaker 3: wouldn't want to even defend it because they don't think
32:17
Speaker 3: it's worth defending.
32:19
Speaker 1: I don't know if yours is there?
32:22
Speaker 2: Because if they were asked, would you would you would
32:25
Speaker 2: you fight to stop an invader coming ashore on the beaches?
32:29
Speaker 2: That that is one battle? Would you go overseas to
32:33
Speaker 2: fight a foreign war? Quite, that's another thing. And I
32:36
Speaker 2: don't know how that question was phrased. Yes, I'll get
32:41
Speaker 2: into that a bit deeper, because that's a really good point, Charles.
32:45
Speaker 2: But with the survey came some other points here, because
32:52
Speaker 2: they they made the statement of fifty percent of those
32:56
Speaker 2: sixteen to twenty nine year olds would underno circumstance is fight,
33:02
Speaker 2: But they then also asked them other questions, and I
33:04
Speaker 2: just found it interesting that the questions that rared. So
33:08
Speaker 2: they talked about immigration and fifty one percent believed that
33:12
Speaker 2: their communities had improved as a result of immigration. And
33:19
Speaker 2: then they went on to qualify some things they said.
33:22
Speaker 2: They thought that seventy six percent of them said that
33:27
Speaker 2: respecting UK laws was an important was important in their
33:36
Speaker 2: what's the word, in their view of the country they
33:40
Speaker 2: were living in. So seventy one sense isly saying you
33:45
Speaker 2: need to support the laws. And if people are not
33:48
Speaker 2: supporting the laws, are they with us? Sorry, I'm being
33:54
Speaker 2: a little bit simplistic there speaking English eighty five percent
33:59
Speaker 2: thought that was very important, and holding British citizenship seventy
34:06
Speaker 2: six percent, And so I think what they were trying
34:09
Speaker 2: to get at was some feeling of how these young
34:12
Speaker 2: people did view their country. So they were they fifty
34:17
Speaker 2: one percent, so a small majority was saying we believe
34:21
Speaker 2: that the fact we've got people from other countries now
34:25
Speaker 2: living in UK, that's a good thing. Just and then
34:29
Speaker 2: they're saying if people speak English, that's positive, and if
34:32
Speaker 2: they obey the laws, that's positive. But I just found
34:37
Speaker 2: it very interesting that we're still not meeting the military
34:41
Speaker 2: recruitment targets. There's still a net loss of people across
34:45
Speaker 2: all three services, and what are the reasons that young
34:50
Speaker 2: people don't want to join the military. And for me,
34:56
Speaker 2: one of the first places that I would go to
34:59
Speaker 2: and I find interest is the fact that we outsourced
35:03
Speaker 2: recruiting first of all to Capita, and now it's been
35:07
Speaker 2: taken over by Circo. But I was staggered, Charles, because
35:12
Speaker 2: it was only in the last couple of days that
35:14
Speaker 2: I saw the figure that the contract was initially half
35:19
Speaker 2: a billion pounds for recruiting and now it's one and
35:23
Speaker 2: a half billion for Circo one and a half billion pounds.
35:28
Speaker 2: In order to get somebody to join the military in
35:32
Speaker 2: my time, who was doing the recruiting selected and usually
35:39
Speaker 2: very good, upstanding members of the armed forces, who would
35:42
Speaker 2: be going out to the colleges and the workplaces and
35:46
Speaker 2: the schools if it involved the cadet forces, in order
35:50
Speaker 2: to say with accuracy, because these were serving people what
35:56
Speaker 2: the armed forces had to offer, and we didn't have
35:59
Speaker 2: a recruit problem, and then it's outsourced under a huge contract,
36:04
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden we do have a recruiting problem.
36:08
Speaker 2: I think these might be linked.
36:11
Speaker 1: I think they are.
36:12
Speaker 3: I think they are linked beyond any shadow of a doubt,
36:16
Speaker 3: and not just the fact that that they've been you know,
36:23
Speaker 3: the Praises has been civilianized or sort of demilitarized, or
36:30
Speaker 3: I suppose really it's just been made bland. And I mean,
36:36
Speaker 3: it's just you know that this shouldn't be an exclusive
36:39
Speaker 3: two the armed forces. If you if you operate any
36:44
Speaker 3: big organization and you want to recruit the best people,
36:47
Speaker 3: you want to go out and project a good image
36:49
Speaker 3: of yourself, because it's it's absolutely a two way street.
36:53
Speaker 3: I think no organization can have the arrogance to think
36:57
Speaker 3: that they will automatically be a magnet for the most
37:02
Speaker 3: talented and most suitable people. So therefore the you know,
37:04
Speaker 3: the onus is on them to go and say, you know,
37:06
Speaker 3: this is what we do. We're interested in you, and
37:09
Speaker 3: we hope you're interested in us, and that's the way
37:11
Speaker 3: it should work. And certainly the Army used to do
37:17
Speaker 3: that the Cape Tours. They were called keeping the Army
37:20
Speaker 3: in the public eye, and it was absolutely part of
37:23
Speaker 3: the recruitment thing. I'm sure the Navy and the Air
37:25
Speaker 3: Force would have done saying but you would take you know,
37:29
Speaker 3: but basically, blokes go on tour and interact with the public,
37:33
Speaker 3: and that was a great way of recruiting. And by
37:39
Speaker 3: preventing activity like that, and by making all the recruitment
37:45
Speaker 3: absolutely separate from those people who are actually serving, there's
37:49
Speaker 3: no way in which you can build up the sort
37:52
Speaker 3: of rapport that would be developed, you know, in those
37:55
Speaker 3: kinds of engagements, that kind of thing. But then the
37:58
Speaker 3: only bit I was going to go on to say
37:59
Speaker 3: was that then you've got that's one part. The other
38:02
Speaker 3: the other part of it, which course has been well reported,
38:04
Speaker 3: is that the Capita project itself has just been one
38:09
Speaker 3: gigantic cockup the the actual delivery of the process. And
38:15
Speaker 3: I don't I can't remember exactly what the technological issues were,
38:19
Speaker 3: but they basically it never worked. That was the problem.
38:21
Speaker 3: So people, you know, countless young folk who did turn
38:27
Speaker 3: up wanting to join couldn't because the pro system simply
38:32
Speaker 3: did not process them. And even some people it was
38:36
Speaker 3: it was ridiculous because all these things at age limited.
38:40
Speaker 3: A lot of people were timed out by it. They
38:43
Speaker 3: were by by the time well rather you know, they
38:47
Speaker 3: hit the age limit before the before the recruitment process
38:50
Speaker 3: of completed. I mean, you know, we've talked about this before,
38:53
Speaker 3: you know it is that is that intentional? Maybe not
38:59
Speaker 3: by Capital, but was part of the intent in handing
39:02
Speaker 3: the contracts Capital based on their track record of not
39:05
Speaker 3: being able to manage projects like that, and therefore it was,
39:09
Speaker 3: you know, an expected outcome.
39:12
Speaker 2: Half a billion pound capital recruitment project fails consistently and
39:17
Speaker 2: well reported in the public domain that it was failing,
39:22
Speaker 2: and we the government raises a new contract with Circo
39:27
Speaker 2: at one and a half billion, So you've already got
39:30
Speaker 2: rid of a half a billion that failed, you know,
39:34
Speaker 2: pumping another one and a half billion pounds to Circo,
39:38
Speaker 2: and that is not supposed to come online fully till
39:42
Speaker 2: twenty twenty seven. But I was intrigued that Circo's got
39:47
Speaker 2: the contract. But if you look at the companies involved,
39:52
Speaker 2: it's actually a partnership of companies, So it isn't Circo,
39:55
Speaker 2: it's a partnership. A codis a deck TMP, Worldwide, Optimer
40:02
Speaker 2: Health PA Consulting an MPCT And if you look at
40:08
Speaker 2: these companies, I will say international consulting companies all brought
40:16
Speaker 2: in to work alongside Circo. International companies in order to
40:21
Speaker 2: get US able to recruit our own people inside UK.
40:25
Speaker 2: This is madness. It is I think it's madness. But
40:29
Speaker 2: what intrigues me is for rule the criticism I might
40:35
Speaker 2: level at some senior officers in the military of being
40:39
Speaker 2: a little bit too timid when they're in the political sphere.
40:43
Speaker 2: It is true that when CAPITA was failing, there were
40:46
Speaker 2: a lot of military officers who were speaking out pretty robustly.
40:52
Speaker 2: But as this has gone on, we seem to hear
40:55
Speaker 2: less and less from the military themselves about a failure,
41:01
Speaker 2: the knock on effect of which is destroying operational capability
41:06
Speaker 2: in all sorts of areas. Or stick to the Navy
41:09
Speaker 2: because that's easy for me. That we have ships at
41:12
Speaker 2: sea with up to ten percent shortfall in manpower on board,
41:18
Speaker 2: and that is a really serious position because you can't
41:22
Speaker 2: you can't manage the watch system properly. People are working
41:27
Speaker 2: harder than they should be. Key specialist areas are also missing,
41:33
Speaker 2: so you haven't got people with the sufficient technical qualifications.
41:37
Speaker 2: So it isn't just that you've got a shortfall in.
41:42
Speaker 1: Men.
41:43
Speaker 2: You've also damaged your operational capability at sea. And I
41:47
Speaker 2: can assume it will be exactly the same effect in
41:50
Speaker 2: the Army.
41:51
Speaker 3: Absolutely yeah, yeah, and I would say for most regiments
41:56
Speaker 3: and battalion ten percent. Shortly, you know, people would take that.
42:01
Speaker 3: I think I am out of date, of course, but
42:04
Speaker 3: but but I think when you if it only give
42:09
Speaker 3: a moment you got everybody to sort of tip out
42:12
Speaker 3: and form up on the square and actually do a headcount,
42:16
Speaker 3: ten percent would be would be good. You'd be far
42:21
Speaker 3: down on ten percent. And it's because so much of
42:25
Speaker 3: it is a paper exercise, so you you technically you
42:28
Speaker 3: could have people on your strength and they're not. They're
42:31
Speaker 3: not actually there at all. They're either you know, they
42:33
Speaker 3: might be on a course or their post looks like
42:37
Speaker 3: they're physically there, but actually they're away doing something. I
42:40
Speaker 3: know that's a great big smoke and mirrors exercise. And
42:46
Speaker 3: to the point about military speaking out about this and whatnot, certainly,
42:52
Speaker 3: the last conversation I had directly with somebody who is serving,
42:56
Speaker 3: who is involved to some degree in this, as quite
43:00
Speaker 3: rightly pointed out, it was a recipe for disaster from
43:04
Speaker 3: the start because you have still got military involvement in it.
43:07
Speaker 3: But of course these are people who've spent their entire
43:09
Speaker 3: career not operating in a commercial environment. Suddenly tasked with
43:16
Speaker 3: trying to collaboratively deliver a commercial project with no knowledge.
43:23
Speaker 3: And also they're only there for perhaps two years, perhaps less,
43:27
Speaker 3: and there's that constant churn of staff with yet more
43:31
Speaker 3: inexpert people coming from you, not saying they're not committed
43:34
Speaker 3: and diligent and all the rest of it. Of course
43:37
Speaker 3: they are and very very much experienced in the various
43:41
Speaker 3: military disciplines that are useful to them, but when it
43:44
Speaker 3: comes to this particular element, it was a complete mismatch.
43:49
Speaker 3: So there was only ever going to be a negative consequence.
43:54
Speaker 2: Really, yeah, But all of this disaster has gone on
43:59
Speaker 2: and the government has got away with it. This is
44:04
Speaker 2: what I find interesting. So at the moment, we're now
44:06
Speaker 2: talking about the fact we haven't got enough ships, we
44:09
Speaker 2: haven't got enough submarines, we haven't got enough equipment in
44:13
Speaker 2: the army to do the minimum necessary to conduct warfare
44:19
Speaker 2: on a prolonged scale. But all of this chaos has
44:24
Speaker 2: been building up over the years and the government simply
44:27
Speaker 2: refuses to acknowledge it, or it's very happy that we've
44:32
Speaker 2: got to the position where we've got breakdown. And that
44:36
Speaker 2: raises a load of other questions as to why.
44:40
Speaker 1: Exactly it absolutely does.
44:41
Speaker 3: And then and I mentioned at the beginning, you then
44:44
Speaker 3: get an extraordinary story drops out like that of Cambridge Aerospace,
44:49
Speaker 3: which I will be dealing with on the News program
44:52
Speaker 3: this week. And I don't know if if you've necessarily
44:56
Speaker 3: come across it, but it is perfect extraordinary because they
45:00
Speaker 3: are now being touted as the you know, the sort
45:03
Speaker 3: of the great White Hope for supposedly well the defense
45:08
Speaker 3: industry and in a sort of micro context, but also
45:12
Speaker 3: for the British armed forces, for our allies and partners
45:19
Speaker 3: in the in the Gulf, in the Middle East, because
45:22
Speaker 3: what they appear to have done is to have actually
45:29
Speaker 3: converted what Iran seems to have been able to do
45:32
Speaker 3: very effectively, which is to have a disproportionate effect on
45:38
Speaker 3: any given enemy system. In that Iran has fired a
45:43
Speaker 3: lot of very low cost projectiles that have in order
45:48
Speaker 3: to combat them, the either the Americans or the Israelis,
45:53
Speaker 3: or indeed the Gulf states that have been housing the
45:56
Speaker 3: infrastructure of those two countries have had to spend an
46:01
Speaker 3: enormous amount of A money and B munitions in order
46:07
Speaker 3: to defeat that. So the Iran has had an amazingly
46:11
Speaker 3: asymmetric effect and The irony of this is, you know,
46:15
Speaker 3: for me, is that this is exactly this is at
46:17
Speaker 3: the heart of the maneuverist doctrine which certainly has apparently
46:22
Speaker 3: governed the actions of the British Army for the last
46:24
Speaker 3: few decades, and yet only now in twenty twenty six
46:27
Speaker 3: were actually delivering something that's supposed to do this. But
46:30
Speaker 3: in a nutshell, what this Skyhammer and star Hammer air
46:36
Speaker 3: defense capability, what it's supposed to be able to do
46:38
Speaker 3: is two different systems, one on a thirty kilometer one
46:42
Speaker 3: and a ten kilometer sort of range fire, lightweight, fast
46:49
Speaker 3: moving drone at an incoming missile and defeat it, having
46:53
Speaker 3: spent hardly any money on doing so, you know, quick
46:56
Speaker 3: reaction and all the rest of it. But what's so
46:59
Speaker 3: interesting is that this particular business only started in twenty
47:02
Speaker 3: twenty four and they have apparently got this project up
47:06
Speaker 3: and running and delivered it into the field within what's
47:10
Speaker 3: being described as a matter of weeks. Now, there's something
47:12
Speaker 3: that does not add up about this. First of all,
47:15
Speaker 3: it's Cambridge AIO space. It's being described as a sort
47:18
Speaker 3: of British business. Also very interestingly and I need to
47:21
Speaker 3: look further into this and hopefully by the time the
47:23
Speaker 3: news program comes I would have got to the bottom
47:25
Speaker 3: of it. It is being described by the government as
47:27
Speaker 3: a veteran founded company. There are no as far as
47:31
Speaker 3: I can tell, there are no veterans involved with this whatsoever.
47:34
Speaker 3: But and we haven't necessarily got time to go into everybody.
47:38
Speaker 3: One person who is involved in the financing of it
47:42
Speaker 3: is Eric Schmidt, one of the founders of Google. And
47:46
Speaker 3: it just these sorts of things. I mean, there are
47:49
Speaker 3: far too many elements to this story that just don't
47:52
Speaker 3: really quite make sense. And yet you know, it's all
47:57
Speaker 3: that details sort of being glossed over, and it's just
47:59
Speaker 3: being heralds the next big thing. And of course the
48:03
Speaker 3: comparisons are with Israel's Iron Dame, again somewhat ironic, because
48:08
Speaker 3: of course the suggestion is that in recent times, in
48:12
Speaker 3: actual fact, it is not quite what it was talked.
48:15
Speaker 1: Up to be.
48:16
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think that's been a very interesting thing.
48:19
Speaker 3: And again that ties in with what you were saying
48:23
Speaker 3: about the changing nature of war and drones, but also
48:26
Speaker 3: in particular the comments made by the First Sea Lord
48:30
Speaker 3: in his recent speech. You know all of this, I
48:32
Speaker 3: know that's sort of lumping quite a lot into one bit.
48:36
Speaker 2: I think the first Sea Lord is like, there have
48:40
Speaker 2: been a lot of senior officers doing this. They're grasping
48:43
Speaker 2: at straws because they know that they are presiding over
48:47
Speaker 2: a military. And I'll say this with no disrespect to
48:51
Speaker 2: people serving at the moment, but they're presiding over a
48:54
Speaker 2: military which has been hollowed out to such an extent
48:58
Speaker 2: that it is not cape yes, absolutely not capable. And therefore,
49:03
Speaker 2: the moment some initiative comes along with new technology, their
49:08
Speaker 2: whole attention goes on promoting that and talking about it
49:12
Speaker 2: as if it's the panacea, it's going to solve everything.
49:16
Speaker 2: But this is utter nonsense because remote technology, yes, that's
49:23
Speaker 2: been put in place pretty effectively in mine warfare. Irony
49:30
Speaker 2: is that there are no decent assets out in the
49:34
Speaker 2: golf to even use that if we wanted wanted to
49:37
Speaker 2: do it. But in other areas of warfare, we've just
49:41
Speaker 2: sat still while people have been developing things. And I just,
49:45
Speaker 2: I just I'd like to sit down with some of
49:48
Speaker 2: these senior people and ask them a few basic questions
49:51
Speaker 2: because I get the impression that they've been deliberately going
49:57
Speaker 2: to say this, Charles, they've been reframed to believe the
50:01
Speaker 2: paperwork which they read and that doesn't actually reflect the
50:06
Speaker 2: state of the military itself. So to be able to
50:09
Speaker 2: sit down with them and question some of these people,
50:12
Speaker 2: I think will be excellent. But if that system that
50:17
Speaker 2: you're describing is able to use a high speed drone
50:22
Speaker 2: to intercept other relatively low cost I'm going to suggest
50:27
Speaker 2: low speed drones. And I've seen video of some of
50:31
Speaker 2: these high speed drones taking off and accelerating away, and
50:37
Speaker 2: clearly they are exceptionally fast. But these drones are not
50:41
Speaker 2: going to deal with hypersonic missiles, which is the other
50:45
Speaker 2: part of the Iranian armory that has now completely outstripped
50:49
Speaker 2: the Americans and the West. I'm just wondering whether, because
50:55
Speaker 2: we were talking about sort of what makes you loyal
51:00
Speaker 2: to your country, what makes you want to fight, We
51:02
Speaker 2: talked about recruiting, and we got onto the drone side,
51:07
Speaker 2: but I wonder whether we should come back because I'm
51:09
Speaker 2: very curious about the story with the special forces, and
51:15
Speaker 2: most people that go into special forces deeply dedicated to
51:20
Speaker 2: the military. Maybe for some over and above their own country,
51:26
Speaker 2: their interest is in the military side of it. They
51:30
Speaker 2: want to be a soldier they want to be a
51:33
Speaker 2: super soldier and go and do the job, and they
51:36
Speaker 2: do very dangerous jobs. I've met some of them over
51:39
Speaker 2: the years, been able to talk to some, and I
51:42
Speaker 2: found that very interesting first batch where people operating in
51:48
Speaker 2: Northern Ireland undercover, but some pretty poor things went on
51:56
Speaker 2: in Afghanistan. And that's obviously also we impacted on Australian
52:03
Speaker 2: Special Forces. What do we want to say, did these
52:08
Speaker 2: people were they under such pressure with the combat that
52:13
Speaker 2: they made mistakes for which they might be forgiven or
52:16
Speaker 2: was something else?
52:18
Speaker 1: So I think el's going on?
52:19
Speaker 2: Do you think?
52:19
Speaker 1: Yeah?
52:20
Speaker 3: I think this is the this is the interesting thing. Sorry,
52:22
Speaker 3: just before I do go into that, I was just
52:24
Speaker 3: going to go back to the Cambridge Aerospace thing, which
52:26
Speaker 3: I think because just one other point I wanted to
52:29
Speaker 3: make on that, which concerns well. It's related to the
52:33
Speaker 3: idea of dual use technologies, which obviously we talk about
52:36
Speaker 3: a lot with regard to space, because of course, every
52:38
Speaker 3: time a satellite goes up, we're told it's for scientific
52:41
Speaker 3: advancement and education and all those sorts of nice things,
52:44
Speaker 3: when an actual fact, it can also provide targeting surveillance
52:47
Speaker 3: services for military actions. Now with these new technologies they
52:52
Speaker 3: are developing at such a rate it seems to be
52:55
Speaker 3: extremely unlikely that you can just tip up and say
52:58
Speaker 3: to a soldier right here going mate, go on, get
53:01
Speaker 3: you not that out of the sky now so, And
53:04
Speaker 3: in the way that the army used to do with,
53:06
Speaker 3: say with armored regiments, when it typically in Germany you'd
53:11
Speaker 3: go and you'd say you were doing heavy tanks or
53:13
Speaker 3: armored inutry or whatever it was, there would always be
53:15
Speaker 3: an element left behind who were the subject matter experts
53:18
Speaker 3: on those particular vehicles. So they would then train the
53:22
Speaker 3: incoming regiment to use that particular platform. And I'm sure
53:26
Speaker 3: all three services operate on the same basis where specialist
53:29
Speaker 3: knowledge is required. My contention is that what we're seeing
53:33
Speaker 3: with the development like Cambridge Aerospace is actually the idea
53:37
Speaker 3: of the privatization of war playing out in effect in
53:40
Speaker 3: real time, in that I can't see that with these
53:43
Speaker 3: sorts of things developing, that they're all going to be
53:45
Speaker 3: controlled by the military. I just don't see that they're
53:48
Speaker 3: going to have the skills. And with this, we talked
53:50
Speaker 3: a lot about the strategy defense to read the whole
53:52
Speaker 3: society response, and I think the way in which the
53:56
Speaker 3: sort of emotional piece has been done on the Ukraine situation,
54:00
Speaker 3: that we're being nudged into considering that actually defense is
54:05
Speaker 3: part of everything, and we have all got to play
54:09
Speaker 3: our part. And so actually, somehow I can see a
54:13
Speaker 3: time where it will be justified that cities controlling autonomous
54:21
Speaker 3: weapons or some such is going to happen. I can't
54:25
Speaker 3: see how it can't happen, because the technological leaps are
54:29
Speaker 3: surely absolutely outstripping the capabilities of soldiers. I don't say
54:34
Speaker 3: that to dismiss the capability of soldiers, but if they
54:37
Speaker 3: haven't spent the years learning, training and whatever, they cannot
54:40
Speaker 3: possibly manage.
54:42
Speaker 1: Well.
54:42
Speaker 2: I think what you're describing is true. I don't have
54:45
Speaker 2: any problem agreeing with that. The lines between what is
54:51
Speaker 2: military and what is a corporation that we've got the
54:54
Speaker 2: military industrial complex. That's always been true of corporations building
55:00
Speaker 2: military equipment, but the actual use of that equipment on
55:04
Speaker 2: the battle field overwhelmingly with military people. So I think, yeah,
55:12
Speaker 2: we're seeing the corporate corporatization of warfare. But the other
55:16
Speaker 2: thing I think with the rapid rise of that drone
55:19
Speaker 2: company is I would guess that actually several years of
55:26
Speaker 2: development has been occurring by the injection of UK Nationals
55:33
Speaker 2: into the Ukrainian war, and they have been there not
55:37
Speaker 2: only to.
55:39
Speaker 1: Help.
55:40
Speaker 2: They would have been there as advisors, but actually they
55:42
Speaker 2: would have been hoovering up everything that they could learn
55:47
Speaker 2: about the operation of drones by both the Ukrainians and
55:50
Speaker 2: the Russians. And I have no doubt that some of
55:54
Speaker 2: these people would would have also been unleashed to operate
55:59
Speaker 2: drones on the battlefield, so we would have had civilian
56:04
Speaker 2: contractors operating drones to kill people on the battlefield in
56:10
Speaker 2: Ukraine in order to bring that expertise back to develop
56:15
Speaker 2: these new assets. That's where I think that the foundation
56:20
Speaker 2: work has come. So the public is told, oh, we
56:23
Speaker 2: just created this in two weeks. No, we were doing
56:27
Speaker 2: this by lying to the public about the involvement of
56:31
Speaker 2: UK National's corporate advisors and the military on the battlefield
56:36
Speaker 2: in Ukraine. I think I'd put money down on that.
56:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I wouldn't bet against you. Yeah, But so
56:44
Speaker 3: to go to the special forces, I mean I would
56:46
Speaker 3: entirely agree. Obviously a profession of immense discipline, dedication, and
56:53
Speaker 3: anything I say now is absolutely not to sort of
56:57
Speaker 3: cast dispersions on those that do will have served in
57:01
Speaker 3: special forces. But what I do find interesting is the
57:04
Speaker 3: sort of the moral inconsistency because the way in which
57:09
Speaker 3: the specifics in terms of the sort of I don't
57:13
Speaker 3: know whether you say counterargument or the counter narrative to
57:15
Speaker 3: the Ben Robert Smith story is that well, they were
57:18
Speaker 3: operating in such terrible conditions, the threat from in this
57:22
Speaker 3: case specifically the Tanabam is so tremendous that dot dot doss.
57:26
Speaker 3: And this is I'm absolutely sort of twisting the words,
57:29
Speaker 3: but you know, sort of well anything goes. You can see,
57:31
Speaker 3: you know, you can see why they did what they did.
57:33
Speaker 3: They you know, they had to do it otherwise they
57:35
Speaker 3: would have died.
57:36
Speaker 2: Well, can we qualify this a bit yea for people
57:39
Speaker 2: who may not.
57:40
Speaker 3: Know the situation is highly decorated Lance corporal in the
57:44
Speaker 3: Australian Special Air Service, Ben Robert Smith, who was awarded
57:48
Speaker 3: the Victoria Cross sometime go left the Armed Forces and
57:52
Speaker 3: then there were allegations of well, sorry when I say
57:57
Speaker 3: allegation is not made by police or by any law
58:00
Speaker 3: enforcement body, in fact, by journalists in Australia who were
58:03
Speaker 3: pursuing him because they believed that he had there was
58:06
Speaker 3: sufficient evidence to suggest that he had committed war crimes
58:09
Speaker 3: whilst in.
58:09
Speaker 1: Afghanistan with the SAS.
58:12
Speaker 3: Now that was very interesting because that ended up in
58:15
Speaker 3: a civil case in the courts in Australia Robert Smith
58:23
Speaker 3: alleging defamation against him because he said that this was
58:28
Speaker 3: not true. Now the civil court dismissed the case because
58:34
Speaker 3: they said on the balance of probability, therefore what they
58:37
Speaker 3: had reviewed as part of that case suggested that he
58:39
Speaker 3: probably had committed war crimes, which created a very strange
58:44
Speaker 3: situation because that meant that first of all, there was
58:48
Speaker 3: no defamation issue, but that here was somebody who, admittedly
58:52
Speaker 3: by a much lower threshold, had been judged quite probably
58:55
Speaker 3: guilty of war crimes. And then there seemed to be
58:58
Speaker 3: a void in terms of any criminal investigation until very recently,
59:01
Speaker 3: within the last month, he was arrested taking off an aircraft,
59:06
Speaker 3: all sort of overly high profile. He shouldn't None of
59:10
Speaker 3: this should have been visible for the public. There was
59:11
Speaker 3: no need for him to be arrested. He could have
59:13
Speaker 3: just been asked to come in for questions. He's absolutely
59:15
Speaker 3: been compliant through this whole process. So again I'm not
59:18
Speaker 3: sort of casting expersions or trying to make him out
59:20
Speaker 3: to be anything other than what we know about him.
59:23
Speaker 3: But what is interesting about it is that there has
59:26
Speaker 3: been a say backlash or a response against it, saying,
59:30
Speaker 3: you know, how dare they This is just, yes, another
59:32
Speaker 3: instance of the state not supporting the armed forces, not
59:36
Speaker 3: doing this, that and the other, putting them in harm's
59:39
Speaker 3: way and then just just throwing them under the bus. Well,
59:41
Speaker 3: I think there's a bit more nuanced to that, because
59:43
Speaker 3: the premise is that the Afghan operation, for certainly as
59:47
Speaker 3: far as special Forces was concerned, was sort of was
59:50
Speaker 3: keeping our streets safer, whether that be in the UK
59:52
Speaker 3: or in Australia, stopping these terrorists from committing these awful atrocities,
59:56
Speaker 3: from doing things that are well beyond you know, well
59:58
Speaker 3: over the line, that aren't in any way to be
1:00:01
Speaker 3: justified by any sort of moral decision making process or whatever.
1:00:07
Speaker 3: So if that's your argument, I don't see that it
1:00:09
Speaker 3: necessarily follows that you can then say, well, they were
1:00:11
Speaker 3: operating under such terrific stress and threatn whatever that to
1:00:17
Speaker 3: conduct acts of extra judicial killing were acceptable. I don't
1:00:23
Speaker 3: see that that fits, because if you're saying, on the
1:00:26
Speaker 3: one hand that the terrorists doing this is awful because
1:00:31
Speaker 3: it's unlawful, and yet to kill them in a non
1:00:36
Speaker 3: conflict situation, basically in cold blood, seems totally unjustifiable. I
1:00:42
Speaker 3: would say, of course, I'm sort of to a agree preempting,
1:00:45
Speaker 3: but if what we are led to believe, which is
1:00:48
Speaker 3: that there are several documented instances of these actions being
1:00:53
Speaker 3: carried out, then it's I think that's a very difficult
1:00:56
Speaker 3: point to argue. Again, the other thing to say is,
1:00:59
Speaker 3: of course this is unlike to go anywhere because there's
1:01:01
Speaker 3: no footage of this as I mean, is it can
1:01:04
Speaker 3: only be a sort of he said, well, it's not
1:01:07
Speaker 3: going to be she but he said, he said case.
1:01:10
Speaker 3: So I mean it's incredibly problematic. But I say, I
1:01:12
Speaker 3: think just the philosophical or moral element to it, which
1:01:15
Speaker 3: is that, well, you know, these were really bad guys,
1:01:18
Speaker 3: so it was okay. I personally I don't go along
1:01:22
Speaker 3: with that.
1:01:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a difficult one and it requires a
1:01:28
Speaker 2: lot of thought on the macro scale. It's interesting that
1:01:36
Speaker 2: when I'm not saying they did in this case, but
1:01:41
Speaker 2: we know there are examples of people in the military
1:01:44
Speaker 2: who unleash an action which would be called unlawful, it
1:01:52
Speaker 2: would be called an atrocity. We saw it in Vietnam.
1:01:55
Speaker 2: These things happen. But when we have governments that unlead
1:02:00
Speaker 2: attacks on other countries and innocent civilians are killed with
1:02:06
Speaker 2: the callousness which is sometimes breathtaking, nothing happens to those politicians.
1:02:12
Speaker 2: So I think there is an interesting sort of moral
1:02:18
Speaker 2: playing field where it always tips against one side. So
1:02:22
Speaker 2: people who are there usually putting themselves at risk in
1:02:27
Speaker 2: difficult situations, they do something wrong and they get hammered
1:02:33
Speaker 2: for it, whereas we've got the people who actually put
1:02:36
Speaker 2: them in that position. So just thinking through some of
1:02:40
Speaker 2: the things to consider before any sort of judgment is
1:02:43
Speaker 2: made one way of another, that that's an important one
1:02:46
Speaker 2: to me. And then the other thing I wonder about
1:02:50
Speaker 2: is the circumstances in which they actually found themselves, Because
1:02:55
Speaker 2: I don't know a huge amount about the war in Afghanistan,
1:02:59
Speaker 2: but it does seem to me that British troops were
1:03:04
Speaker 2: put in positions where very quickly they were not too
1:03:08
Speaker 2: sure what they were supposed to be doing or achieving
1:03:11
Speaker 2: on the battlefield. Brought home to me by a film
1:03:16
Speaker 2: clip I saw of I think they were young raal
1:03:18
Speaker 2: Marines who were in a basically a mud baked mud
1:03:27
Speaker 2: garrison building that was their home. That's what they had
1:03:31
Speaker 2: to defend. And then now and again they will be
1:03:34
Speaker 2: told to go out on patrol. And if they encountered
1:03:39
Speaker 2: a firefight or got involved in a firefight on that
1:03:42
Speaker 2: patrol and they got back in one piece, that was good,
1:03:46
Speaker 2: But actually they'd achieved nothing. And I can imagine that
1:03:50
Speaker 2: if you are put in that environment where somebody's shooting
1:03:53
Speaker 2: at your day after day and your only response is
1:03:58
Speaker 2: an action which is not actually going to win on
1:04:01
Speaker 2: the battlefield, that's that's going to make you start thinking
1:04:06
Speaker 2: a distorted way that That's another consideration that comes into
1:04:11
Speaker 2: my head. So were these people in a scenario where
1:04:16
Speaker 2: what was going on around them was vicious and maybe
1:04:21
Speaker 2: there was a lack of clarity in the from the
1:04:24
Speaker 2: chain of command, So there could be a slackness in
1:04:30
Speaker 2: the more senior chain of command beyond them, which should
1:04:35
Speaker 2: have put a stop to it before it got out
1:04:38
Speaker 2: of hand. And the bit that makes me uncomfortable with
1:04:42
Speaker 2: the reports is where clearly it was the fact that
1:04:47
Speaker 2: something had happened was covered up at very high level
1:04:52
Speaker 2: and the moment you see that, you say, Okay, well
1:04:55
Speaker 2: why was that? But yeah, look there's there's a lot
1:04:59
Speaker 2: of question of morality and yeah to be discussed.
1:05:05
Speaker 3: And you're you're absolutely right to make that qualification. It
1:05:09
Speaker 3: is it is unfair to look at one case as
1:05:13
Speaker 3: being separate from a much bigger question of well, why
1:05:20
Speaker 3: did those people who put them there in the first
1:05:22
Speaker 3: place never face any consequences for their decisions and the
1:05:27
Speaker 3: effects of those decisions. That that is absolutely the correct
1:05:31
Speaker 3: point to make. And no, I mean, you're right, the
1:05:35
Speaker 3: I don't think there was ever any form of coherent
1:05:38
Speaker 3: strategy in you know, we're talking about Afghanistan. In Afghanistan
1:05:42
Speaker 3: from start to finish, that the entire operation was was
1:05:46
Speaker 3: a complete model, and that affected commanders up and down
1:05:53
Speaker 3: the chain and therefore any soldier saal or and who
1:05:57
Speaker 3: was involved. Yeah, it absolutely did. No whether you know,
1:06:04
Speaker 3: how far one can extend those circumstances into considering whether
1:06:11
Speaker 3: or not that means that the actions of an individual
1:06:15
Speaker 3: can be judged slightly differently. You know, I think I
1:06:18
Speaker 3: think it's still a still yeah yeah, yea, yeah, yeah
1:06:24
Speaker 3: yeah yeah, yeah, yeah absolutely, but no, so it'll be
1:06:27
Speaker 3: it will be very interesting to see what happens in
1:06:28
Speaker 3: that particular case. And of course the other the thing
1:06:31
Speaker 3: that runs alongside it, which just seems seems hard to
1:06:34
Speaker 3: consider that it's not directly connected, were the reports from
1:06:38
Speaker 3: the United Kingdom that the in particular the sas here
1:06:43
Speaker 3: were losing losing people handover fist I mean handover fists,
1:06:47
Speaker 3: that there aren't that many of them in the first place.
1:06:49
Speaker 3: But nonetheless, you know, you say, the story goes, they
1:06:52
Speaker 3: are having a serious retention problem at the minute. And
1:06:55
Speaker 3: when you set that alongside the recruitment problem and the
1:07:00
Speaker 3: sort of perceived problem that they've had in recruiting in
1:07:03
Speaker 3: the first place, because either people don't want to go
1:07:05
Speaker 3: forward for special forces duty or they're not capable because
1:07:09
Speaker 3: of the physical requirements, means that you know, even if
1:07:14
Speaker 3: one sort of assumes good faith and imagines that they're
1:07:16
Speaker 3: only going to be put in situations that they really
1:07:18
Speaker 3: should be in, that that capability is dwindling. Yeah, so
1:07:23
Speaker 3: as is our time. Actually it is.
1:07:27
Speaker 2: But it's actually a sad point to end on. Yes,
1:07:31
Speaker 2: we've got a situation in the country where people know
1:07:37
Speaker 2: that something's wrong inside this country. They sense a breakdown,
1:07:43
Speaker 2: and that breakdown they might pick up in other areas.
1:07:46
Speaker 2: It could be the NHS, or it might be policing,
1:07:50
Speaker 2: or it can be the military. But there's a sense
1:07:53
Speaker 2: of breakdown and I think they're absolutely right sense it
1:07:56
Speaker 2: because it's real. And then people are looking the general
1:08:00
Speaker 2: chaos and saying, well, why do I want to go
1:08:02
Speaker 2: and fight? And that's not an unreasonable not an unreasonable position.
1:08:09
Speaker 2: And what I think we might be just touching on
1:08:12
Speaker 2: is the fact that that cynicism about the country and
1:08:17
Speaker 2: whether it's worth fighting for is now sliding across into
1:08:21
Speaker 2: people who were previously really dedicated the special forces, and
1:08:26
Speaker 2: they're saying, do we want to be fighting these people's
1:08:29
Speaker 2: battles for them? It's interesting, isn't it. It would be
1:08:33
Speaker 2: really nice to get some more engagement actually from veterans.
1:08:40
Speaker 2: Several years ago were able to do that. We started
1:08:43
Speaker 2: to talk to certain veterans and I always enjoyed those discussions,
1:08:50
Speaker 2: not all conducted by me, but just to hear what
1:08:53
Speaker 2: people had to say. But my big target is absolutely
1:08:58
Speaker 2: the senior military officers, because I'm just stunned at how
1:09:03
Speaker 2: they they're out there. Okay, the serving ones have got
1:09:07
Speaker 2: to be They've always been a little bit gagged as
1:09:10
Speaker 2: to what they could say while they're in uniform.
1:09:12
Speaker 1: But when they're.
1:09:13
Speaker 2: Retired, where are these people to speak out and and
1:09:19
Speaker 2: stand up and lead? Where are they, Charles?
1:09:24
Speaker 3: Because I don't know, but there are, yeah, exactly and
1:09:28
Speaker 3: and and those that are there are a very you know,
1:09:31
Speaker 3: they're very small in number. And it tends to be
1:09:33
Speaker 3: the same people over and over and that's it. And
1:09:35
Speaker 3: the others just keep a very profile.
1:09:38
Speaker 2: On the golf course.
1:09:38
Speaker 1: Presumably.
1:09:41
Speaker 2: Well, we've missed a few subjects out. We're trying to
1:09:45
Speaker 2: the next time. We're trying to get those in for
1:09:47
Speaker 2: next time. There is so much to talk about and
1:09:50
Speaker 2: time is very short. Indeed, brilliant, but thank you very much.