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Tag Archive for: United Kingdom
Tag Archive for: United Kingdom
Adding to the picture: The UK’s serious and organised crime threat assessment
The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has just released their 2015 serious and organised crime risk assessment.
With a few exceptions, you could be reading its Australian counterpart, which was released last month by the Australian Crime Commission (ACC). Both documents cover similar threats, and describe the harm caused by criminal activity in their respective communities in similar ways. There are, of course, differences due to the scale of the UK’s criminal problem, which can be accounted for by its role as a leading global financial hub, the size of its population, and its particular geographic, social and political conditions.
But differences arise in other contexts as well.
For one, the UK assessment conveys the NCA’s operational priorities. Their assessment contains a table, right up the front (see p. 6), to explain that not all crime has the same priority for attention. Some are ‘high priority’, while other crime threats receive a rating of ‘priority’ (there’s also the rating of ‘significant’, but that’s not used in this assessment. After all, governments can’t say serious crime is ‘not a priority’).
Those in the high priority category across all the threat areas include money laundering, child sexual exploitation and abuse, and ‘cross-cutting’ threats like corruption, border vulnerabilities and identity crime.
For instance, the categories of cybercrime, drugs, economic and organised immigration crime include both high priority and priority threats. On the cyber side, they treat international groups targeting the UK as high priority, but consider UK-based cyber criminals as only a priority.
On the drugs side, cannabis and new psychoactive substances (so-called ‘legal highs’) are rated as a priority, while cocaine and heroin are high priority.
And the whole category of organised acquisitive crime, which focuses on the threat of vehicle crime, is rated in the priority category by the NCA too. Perhaps this indicates a view that such crime should be managed mainly at the local level in the UK. This type isn’t covered in our ACC assessment, which probably means the level of acquisitive crime is not perceived as ‘serious and organised’ in Australia.
Dividing criminal threats into priorities is an interesting technique that’s worth examining for future Australian assessments. While the basis for the NCA’s categorisations aren’t explicit, harm seems to be a major factor in the ranking decision. For instance, they assess the harm caused by cannabis as less than that for heroin and cocaine. The harm caused by international cybercrime groups are clearly considered greater than that posed by UK-based groups.
As for border crime, the NCA puts less emphasis on those who abuse legitimate means to remain in the UK, while putting human trafficking, modern slavery and clandestine people smuggling at the top of their list.
It might be the case that there’s less that UK law enforcement can do about some criminal threats. For instance, countering new emerging crimeware is likely to be a difficult and resource-intensive task, especially when you’re not sure of exactly how much damage a particular program might cause initially.
Either way, this rating system is a good communicative tool for law enforcement. The table presents their focus to the public, and the assessment gives their reasons. It also illustrates the impact of spending decisions when budgets are discussed with government. It’ certainly one the ACC might consider mirroring in a future threat assessment.
The second major difference involves the high priority given to criminal activity in prisons and ‘lifetime management’. The UK recognises that serious and organised crime can be perpetrated from prison, and that links among criminals, and between them and extremists, can be forged behind bars. This focus also reflects the tools available to UK law enforcement, which include parole conditions and serious and organised crime prevention orders, and the UK’s overall approach to countering serious and organised crime.
That area isn’t covered in Australia’s national-level documents, of which the ACC’s threat assessment and the National Organised Crime Response Plan 2015-18 are the most important. That could be because our prisons are run by state governments. Or perhaps it’s because education, health, prisons, civil regulations and social services aren’t properly considered when it comes to a national approach to dealing with serious and organised crime. Current thinking about how Australian governments can bring all of these instruments to bear on serious and organised crime is underdone, and that should change.
The defence challenges of the United Kingdom II
Amidst increasing alliance concern that the United Kingdom is approaching the point at which ‘little Britain’ may, in military terms, be both perception and reality, the British government has embarked upon a new Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR). The auguries aren’t good for Defence, which has already had to find £500 million to satisfy the Treasury.
For the defence effort as a whole, the key problem is the need to replace the four Vanguard-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines. This program can’t be delayed without risking the continuous at-sea deterrent, the holy grail of the British deterrent, which has been sustained, albeit sometimes under great strain, for more than four decades. Both the Conservatives and Labour have committed to the successor force, while a number of studies have confirmed that the submarine-borne ballistic missile remains the most effective mechanism for maintaining a nuclear strike capability.
What has also been confirmed—to the Navy’s relief—is that there will be four boats, the practical minimum for surety of operational availability. After the scarring experience of the Astute-class nuclear attack submarine program, which suffered the effects of a gap in submarine design and construction, the approach will be conservative, building as much as possible on the Astute experience. The UK will cooperate with the USA on both the missiles and the nuclear reactor, while there will be consultation, as was required with Astute, on detailed design problems.
This program lies like a shadow over the conventional forces for two reasons. The first is cost. It will be an impost when all three Services require investment. The second reflects the problems of scale, all too familiar to Australia, with which Britain must now deal. The technical and production capacity of the UK is limited, as is the capacity of Defence and the Royal Navy to provide the expertise required. The demand on human resources will not only be substantial but, given the reductions in recent decades, represent a much greater relative call on the whole than did the two predecessor deterrent force programs.
Reducing UK capacity to be a ‘parent’ to different capabilities is something that the British are starting to realise. It’s manifested itself in debates over industry, but all three Services are beginning to understand that they no longer have the ability to generate the back-rooms needed to maintain nationally autonomous support for every force element. The UK will have to work with both the USA and Western Europe to solve this conundrum.
The Army may be most in need of a renaissance. The Chief of the General Staff (CGS), General Sir Nick Carter, author of the current ‘Army 2020’ concept, has been arguing for change, particularly to revive ‘a modern general staff’, with the intellectual commitment that this will require. The Army seeks to retain the ‘ability to generate a war-fighting division in an expeditionary context’. The problem is, even with an approved regular ceiling of 82,000 and reserves of 30,000, its ability to generate and sustain such a force is, at best, doubtful.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army consistently achieved a much less effective roulement than the Royal Marines. The regimental system in particular has great value instilling esprit de corps, but may have contributed to a less than efficient army structure. There remain no less than 18 infantry regiments, providing 32 regular and 13 reserve battalions, plus six companies (the majority of which are Guards’ units for ceremonial duties).
The reserve is also under stress. In part, the last government’s commitment to an Army Reserve of 30,000 was a way of maintaining overall numbers on the cheap. Apart from the fact that the relationship between readiness and resources has never been clearer for land forces, the scheme may be in trouble because of the difficulty of recruiting enough suitable reservists for the infantry. The talented and capable are usually the least likely in a modern economy to have the free time to acquire and maintain the skills required for the combat arms, as opposed to the successful use of professionals such as doctors and lawyers in their specialist roles.
Weight may also be in question. The second arm of Army 2020 is an ‘Adaptable Force’ to focus on conflict prevention and international engagement. This will have obvious utility in many contingencies but the difficulty is, whether remaining combat-ready or not, such forces may not be ideal for the higher intensity warfare which state (and some non-state) threats imply. This adds another element to the readiness problem. The reformist CGS may well prefer that the traditional constituency for preserving regiments, strongly represented in the Conservative party, give him room for manoeuvre in exchanging people for equipment, weapons, vehicles and ammunition.
The Royal Air Force (RAF) has its own challenges. It’s missing a key element in the absence of maritime patrol aircraft. SDSR 2010 saw the capability abandoned as a cost saving after the effective failure of the modernisation of the aged Nimrod. Following the even more ill-starred Nimrod AEW project, the effort to renew a design half a century old was a good demonstration of the perils of supporting national industry without adequate thought to the alternatives. The MPAs’ removal was intended to be temporary and expertise is being maintained with the help of personnel loans to partner MPA forces, but a replacement has yet to appear. This is apparently a high priority for SDSR2015, as it should be, given increasing Russian activity around British waters and the potential vulnerability of the ballistic missile submarine force in particular.
The Air Force also needs to consider its position on the Navy’s new aircraft carriers and the F-35. The original 1998 SDSR concept was for a close relationship between RAF and Navy that would create air groups of sufficient size to be a significant strike and air defence capability in their own right. The RAF’s original view that carrier aviation, if used, had to done properly was one driver in making the two Queen Elizabeth-class the size they are.
Financial stresses caused the Air Force to walk back from this—to the point where the maintenance of as much as possible of the land based fighter/strike force became a higher priority than retention of the Harriers intended as the initial air element of the first carrier and the precursor of a powerful RN-RAF F35 carrier air group. It may be time for the RAF to recommit and give the carriers a higher priority than the current intended effort of one RN ‘heavy’ and one RAF ‘heavy’ squadron.
At this point, the carriers are likely to deploy with a dozen F-35B, but would be much more powerful signals of British intent—and much more useful in higher intensity and larger scale operations—if they could go close to matching the American concept of 36 embarked fighter/strike. The RN has been discussing the regular embarkation of USMC F35B, but there are complications to such an approach—and the possibility that the Marine Corps’ aircraft may be committed elsewhere.
Author response: Britain not a player in Asia?
Thanks to Brigadier Will Taylor (ret.) for an elegant summary of what seems to me to be the prevailing orthodoxy in Britain on this issue (in response to my piece here). The core of his argument is that Britain has important interests in Asia, and that those interests are growing. So it’s good policy to seek significant influence in Asia.
Will makes three main points. The first notes the strength of Britain’s interests in Asia, the second asserts that Britain can still achieve some objectives in the region, and the third questions my suggestion that Britain wants to be America’s ‘best friend in Asia’.
It’s certainly true that Britain has substantial interests in Asia, and they’re growing. The problem is, Britain can have interests but may still not have the heft to secure them. Read more