by Daniel Korski | Jul 10, 2008 | Conflict and security, UK
Today’s defence news is a new survey showing that British soldiers – and the British army – are operating at breaking point. In the Army, 59 per cent of those questioned rated the level of morale as “low” or “very low”. In the Royal Navy it was 64 per cent and the Royal Marines 38 per cent. The worst perception of morale was in the RAF, where 72 per cent of those asked thought that morale was low.
Yesterday, I discussed the British army’s operation in Afghanistan with James Fergusson – whose fast-paced book A Million Bullets about British operations in Helmand is a must-read – and he backed up the survey with real-life anecdotes of poor morale among the frontline troops.
But how do the survey results compare to the experience of other allies, for example the U.S military?
Two months ago, findings showed that US troop morale improved in Iraq last year, but soldiers fighting in Afghanistan suffered more depression and lower morale. Eleven percent of U.S soldiers surveyed in Iraq said their unit’s morale was “high” or “very high”, compared with 7 percent the previous year. Individual morale was reported “high” or “very high” among 20.6 percent, compared with 18.3 percent the previous year.
But more than 27 percent of troops on their third or fourth combat tour suffered anxiety, depression, post-combat stress and other problems. That compared with 12 percent among those on their first tour. (Extensive suvreys of the U.S military’s mental health can be found here)
When U.S officers were asked in a recent survey to grade the health of each military service on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 meaning the officers have no concern about the health of the service and 10 meaning they are extremely concerned, the officers reported an average score of 7.9 for the Army and 7.0 for the Marine Corps. In a fascinating contrast to the RAF, the health of the Air Force fared the best, with a score of 5.7.
On the question of the morale of the U.S. military today, U.S officers responded:
17% Very high
47% Somewhat high
22% Somewhat low
4% Very low
10% Don’t know
Conclusion: winning wars – like the U.S Army is in Iraq today – makes a difference on how troops feel. But – no surprise here either – long tours, poor equipment, continued stress and a seemingly endless war effort hurt morale.
In 1941, U.S. Army’s morale chief, James A. Ulio explained what morale was:
I’ll tell you what morale is. It is when a soldier thinks his army is the best in the world, his regiment the best in the army, his company the best in the regiment, his squad the best in the company, and that he himself is the best damn soldier-man in the outfit.
Not a bad definition, and something the MoD should hard about how best to achieve.
by Alex Evans | Jul 9, 2008 | Cooperation and coherence, Influence and networks
Gideon Rachman’s feeling a bit down in the mouth. He had been planning, he says, to write his column this week on the obvious subject – the G8 – but then he had lunch with Alan Beattie, the FT’s world trade editor. As Gideon reports, Alan said “Let me guess, you will say…” – and then proceeded to forecast the entire planned column with uncanny accuracy.
Better yet, Alan then emailed Gideon with a standarised column on international institutions. It goes like this:
By reporters everywhere
An ineffectual international organisation yesterday issued a stark warning about a situation it has absolutely no power to change, the latest in a series of self-serving interventions by toothless intergovernmental bodies.
“We are seriously concerned about this most serious outbreak of seriousness,” said the head of the institution, either a former minister from a developing country or a mid-level European or American bureaucrat. “This is a wake-up call to the world. They must take on board the vital message that my organisation exists.”
The director of the body, based in one of New York, Washington or an agreeable Western European city, was speaking at its annual conference, at which ministers from around the world gather to wring their hands impotently about the most fashionable issue of the day. The organisation has sought to justify its almost completely fruitless existence by joining its many fellow talking-shops in highlighting whatever crisis has recently gained most coverage in the global media.
“Governments around the world must come together to combat whatever this year’s worrying situation has turned out to be,” the director said. “It is not yet time to panic, but if it goes on much further without my institution gaining some credit for sounding off on the issue, we will be justified in labelling it a crisis.”
The organisation, whose existence the White House barely acknowledges and to which hardly any member government intends to give more money or extra powers, has long been fighting a war of attrition against its own irrelevance. By making a big deal out of the fact that the world’s most salient topical issue will be placed on its agenda and then issuing a largely derivative annual report on the subject, it hopes to convey the entirely erroneous impression that it has any influence whatsoever on the situation.
The intervention follows a resounding call to action in the communiqué of the Group of [number goes here] countries at their recent summit in a remote place no-one had previously heard of. The G[number goes here] meeting was preceded by the familiar interminable and inconclusive discussions about whether the G[number goes here] was sufficiently representative of the international community, or whether it should be expanded into a G[number plus 1, 2 or higher goes here] including China, India or any other scary emerging market country that attendees cared to name.
The story was given further padding by a study from an ambulance-chasing Washington think-tank, which warned that it would continue to convene media conference calls until its quixotic and politically suicidal plan to ameliorate whatever crisis was gathering had been given respectful though substantially undeserved attention.
Ends
by Alex Evans | Jul 9, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Global system
Lots of people converging on the need for an integrated approach to food, climate and energy this week (funny how the same ideas often seem to sprout in different places at the same time). Just as I was about to publish my paper on multilateralism and scarcity on Monday, I saw Indian PM Manmohan Singh quoted as saying that,
Climate change, energy security and food security are interlinked, and require an integrated approach.
Then yesterday Mark Malloch Brown and I spoke at a meeting in Parliament organised by the All Party Groups on Africa and Conflict, which was on (guess what?) the conflict risk posed in Africa by the convergence of peak oil, climate change and soaring food prices – here’s the speech I gave.
But the prize for joined-up thinking of the week goes to the United Nations University in Japan, who yesterday launched a new site on the three scarcity issues entitled Our World 2.0: one to add to the bookmarks list…
Update: I’ve done a piece on the G8 and joining up the dots on scarcity issues on Comment is Free.
by Mark Weston | Jul 8, 2008 | Middle East and North Africa
I have just spent two weeks holed up in a sleepy Turkish fishing village in the far eastern corner of the Mediterranean. Even there, one cannot escape the storms raging in the west of the country.
The culture wars are hotting up: the industrialist Rahmi Koc, one of Turkey’s richest men, has banned his companies from employing anyone with a mustache or beard. As well as ruling out pretty much any man over the age of about 45, this can only inflame radical and also many moderate Muslims, who are already smarting over the reaffirmation of the ban on headscarves in universities. Koc’s move was criticised by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdo?an, who is the subject of a new book which accuses him and his wife of being “Moses’s Children” (in other words, Jews). The book has become a bestseller and the topic of heated and righteous conversation among the same desperate secularists who a few minutes later, straightfaced, will tell you Erdo?an wants to turn their country into a new Iran (which wants to exterminate the Jewish race). Confused? Me too.
Further arrests of retired generals in the Ergenekon case have raised the stakes in the battle between secular fundamentalists and the moderately Islamic governing AK Party. The army and media are now arguing that the case is a revenge attack by the government in response to the imminent ban on its activities – a suggestion undermined by the fact that the first Ergenekon arrests came months before the case against the government was launched. If enough newspapers peddle this story, however, Turks start believing it – few ask whether in fact the prosecution of the government may be an attempt to protect the generals.
Meanwhile, on an overnight coach journey to Istanbul, we are stopped at a checkpoint. It is 3am. A young gendermarie officer marches through the bus collecting ID cards. He strikes lucky. A few minutes later, he comes back onto the bus and calls out a name. A young male passenger stands up, and is led off into a waiting car. After half an hour, he is brought back on to collect his bags, and then spirited away, face full of fear, into the vast Anatolian night. Speculation among the remaining passengers is rife that he may have been linked to the Kurdish-separatist PKK group (we began our journey near the Syrian border), but the coach driver later tells me that the man had dodged military service; the army’s grip on the country, as Daniel noted last week, remains vicelike.
by Daniel Korski | Jul 8, 2008 | Off topic
Having just read Alex and David’s new paper, I wonder whether the we have not moved away from an Age of Nation-States to an Age of Continents? I don’t mean that continents will replace the nation-state as the primary focus of political sentiments or public policy delivery. The EU shows both how far you can go and the limits to continent-wide, supranational governance.
Rather, I mean that we will be forced to think more “continentally” about how to solve energy problems, trade issues, crime etc. etc. Strictly speaking, of course, this is not new; mankind probably began thinking “continentally” in the 15th century. Conversly, with 9/11 we saw that thinking continentally may not be enough. What happens in one continent….you know the rest.
But we may now be returning to this in a new and different way, as our failure – even by the U.S – to project sustained intercontinental power becomes apparent. Must think about this some more…
