Frank Ledwidge

A very interesting book. It was written by someone who participated in the British occupation of Iraq as an intelligence officer and then in Afghanistan as a civilian development adviser. His opinion is that the British military staff has a grossly inflated opinion of its own ability and has repeatedly succeeded in covering up failure and transferring blame to the political leadership of the nation. It does so chiefly to justify its own continued existence. He points out that the MOD contains around 5500 officers of staff rank that is ranks higher than Lieut. colonel , all branches, that is enough men to form an entire division, for compaision he says the Britsh Army could just about field 2 divisions. That same MOD committed the army to Basra and Helmand and then complained that it needed more armour and more helicopters since the staff already knew the no available it was bad staff work. Further in Ledwidge's opinion what was actually needed was more infantry and better strategic direction, which is precisely what the US did known as the surge. What we did instead was keep changing leadership, to ensure that the vast over supply of brigadiers all have a chance to actually command something. If he had the power the staff ranks would be cut heavily and the infantry reinforced but denied access to any of the heavier weaponry. The army in Afghanistan particularly tended to make up for having only tens of infantrymen available by using lots of missiles and gunships.… (plus d'informations)