Dannatt’s Shopping List

General Sir Richard Dannatt has prepared his Shopping List of equipment and resources he believes necessary to win the war in Afghanistan as a result of a recent visit to the country. The list is not public knowledge yet, but it is likely to include:
1. More Men: you can’t win and then hold territory without manpower to do just that. If you don’t hold what you’ve won the enemy will return. Viz the last 3 years.
2. More Intelligence. Avoid contact through better battlefield awareness, this requires tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. These are currently the subject of a “ministerial review”, which means they’ve recently had funding cut.
3. Better mobility. You always need to move on a wide battlefield, and also need a choice of means of transport. Sometimes it’s best to be on foot, sometimes in armoured vehicles and sometimes in the air. The military need to have an adequate supply of all options.
4. Better Support. The military remain focused, they understand their short term objectives but are also in need of the support of their nation. This not only comes from the Government (or rather it doesn’t appear to at the moment) but most importantly it needs to come from the public. Dannat has been instrumental, for example, in encouraging the home coming parades that show support and he will often repeat this message.
5. Better Leadership. We are now on our fourth Secretary of State for Defence in 7 years, and one of those did it as a shared job with another department. This is at a time when we’ve been fighting 2 wars and are operational elsewhere as well. This instability does not demonstrate true commitment at the top of the Government to give leadership of our Armed Forces.

Finally, and he probably won’t say this until he leaves the Army in August, Dannatt will probably want the Prime Minister to do more than listen, he needs to act on the information provided to him by professionals, not by the suits in the Ministry.

And if I had my way: I’d enoble the good General, he has spoken his mind and told the often difficult truth, they are rare commodities in this country today.