Forget Ukraine, forget Gaza, the only defence story in town this past few days has been the relaxation of regulations governing beards in the British army. King Charles III has signed off on a new policy that allows them to be sported by soldiers after having been banned for over 100 years.
Why the change of heart? Well, it comes after lobbying that the ban was old-fashioned and might be dissuading those who might otherwise be tempted to join up. With roughly 52% of the British male population sporting facial hair of some sort or other it has been deemed time that the army caught up with the other two services and allowed soldiers to grow beards.
Whether the relaxation will have any real effect on recruiting remains to be seen. I have my doubts. It is much more likely that the sclerotic approach to garnering new recruits is more to blame, not helped by the outsourced firm responsible’s seeming inability to deliver on contract. Waiting over a year in some cases to complete the transition into the army from civilian life is hardly good enough.
Anyway, the only sound reason that I can think of for having the ban on beards in the first place was that it might interfere with the seal of your gas mask. Presumably the risk of chemical attack is now deemed to be extremely low, or is it just that soldiers will just be expected to have off their beards before going to war?
Historically speaking, having whiskers has never precluded a decent performance in combat. Just look at images of British troops in the Napoleonic and Crimean wars of the 19th century. Or the Long Range Desert Group in North Africal in 1942, or the Chindits in Burma in 1944.
And let’s not forget that the self-proclaimed elite of today’s British army, the SAS, have long eschewed the razor blade. Perhaps they will now have to adopt the clean-shaven look just to preserve their “otherness”?
The main criticism of the change in policy is, of course, that it’s hardly the major problem facing the British army. Beards or otherwise, there are sufficient potential recruits coming forward, they’re just not getting through the system.
Elsewhere matters are somewhat dire. We don’t have sufficient tanks. We don’t have sufficient artillery. We don’t have sufficient anti-air missiles. We have spend over £4 billion of a £5.6 billion procurement for the infamous Ajax series of armoured cavalry vehicles and they are ten years late with none in service.
The MoD expects the would-be recipients of Ajax to go to war in vehicles that are 70 years old while they try to get their act together. And still nobody, repeat nobody, has been held responsible. This failure to give our boys and girls the right equipment is a plain dereliction of duty. I hope the government is prepared for the law suits which are sure to follow if push comes to shove.
But, most egregious of all, we don’t have enough personnel. The British army should be able to put a division, of say roughly 15,000 men and women and their equipment, in the field in fairly short order. The sad reality is that currently we’d be hard pressed to field a single brigade (3,500 or so troops).
And that’s the basic problem. Decades of mismanagement by senior officers and civil servants alike have reduced our army to a mere shadow of what it should be. Our staunchest allies, the Americans, have even been heard to say that the UK is no longer a “Tier 1” military power.
How the once mighty have fallen. There’s no use crying over spilt milk though; looking back is for the birds. The question is what can we do to sort it out and make it better going forward.
I don’t think allowing beards is going to crack it if I’m honest. What I would say to the incoming Labour government (c’mon, we all know it’s going to happen) is that radical action is required of they want to make a proper fist of defence.
It’s not just that spending on defence needs to go up to 3% of GDP straight away, which it does (and beyond), it’s that the £55 billion or so which currently constitutes Britain’s defence budget needs to be spend better and more wisely. Continuing to spaff taxpayers’ money on poorly conceived and managed projects and policies is just not good enough any more, if indeed it ever was.
What I would really like to see is a giant of British industry – a Dyson, a Sugar or even, Heaven forfend, a Branson – appointed to take defence by the scruff of the neck and drag it into the 21st century. A bit like Churchill did with Lord Beaverbrook with aircraft production in 1940.
That would go some way to sorting the whole farrago out. We can’t continue as we are for if we do we will be lost. Time is of the essence. Over to you shortly, Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour party. Will you be up to the job?
Lt Col Stuart Crawford is a defence analyst and former army officer. Sign up for his podcasts and newsletters at www.DefenceReview.uk
Lt Col Stuart Crawford’s latest book Tank Commander (Hardback) is available now
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