Britische Parlamentarier fordern ‚Rückbesinnung‘ auf konventionelle militärische Fähigkeiten

Veröffentlicht am von

Der Verteidigungsausschuss des britischen Parlaments hat ein Umdenken in der Verteidigungsplanung des Landes und eine Rückbesinnung auf konventionelle militärische Fähigkeiten gefordert. Angesichts des Verhältnisses zu Russland und der Bedrohung durch die islamistischen ISIS-Milizen am Rande Europas bis hin nach Libyen seien die bisherigen Grundannahmen nicht mehr gültig, heißt es in dem am (heutigen) Dienstag veröffentlichten Bericht Re-thinking defence to meet new threats.

Aus der einleitenden Zusammenfassung:

For the first time in twenty years, an advanced military state has challenged the borders of European nations, and the security challenges in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia have increased dramatically in scale and complexity.

Russia has annexed Crimea, and Russian-backed separatists have taken much of Eastern Ukraine. DAESH (or ISIL) have seized the second largest city in Iraq, and now control areas of a territory larger than the United Kingdom. The Libyan government has retreated to a ship off the coast. The President of Yemen has fled from his capital. Boko Haram controls swathes of Northern Nigeria. South Sudan — the newest country in the world — is in Civil War. Over 10,000 civilians were casualties in Afghanistan last year. Serious instability persists in Darfur, Somalia, the Central African Republic, and Pakistan. Three million people have been displaced and two hundred thousand killed in Syria. (…)
But the UK’s current Defence Assumptions are not sufficient for this changed environment. The 2010 National Security Strategy had assumed that “Cold War” capacities for state-on-state conflict were no longer needed, and that instead, the military would focus on ‘fragile states’, lightly-armed insurgents and terrorists, through enduring stabilisation operations (which were assumed to be relatively infrequent). The SDSR was primarily designed in the light of the UK’s presence in Afghanistan (a mission, in which the UK deployed fewer than 10,000 troops as part of a 100,000 strong, US-dominated coalition). Future Force 2020 planned to deal with one problem at a time by deploying 6,600 troops on a decade-long enduring stabilisation operation in a single country. And even US doctrine, envisaged sustaining a deployment in only two countries. Now there is a requirement to support stability in a dozen different theatres simultaneously, and to engage with both unconventional and conventional threats. (…)
Second, the UK must rebuild its conventional capacities eroded since the Cold War. The requirements are many, including Maritime Surveillance, Nuclear, Biological, Chemical and Radiological warfare training, developing a Ballistic Missile Defence capability, an enhanced Navy and Air Force, a comprehensive carrier strike capability, and full manoeuvre warfare capacity. This will involve demonstrating a conventional and nuclear capacity and determination to deter any further threats to the European order.

Den weltweiten Anspruch des ehemaligen Empire ebenso abgerechnet wie die eigene nukleare Fähigkeit Großbritanniens, sind die zu Grunde liegenden Daten aus deutscher Sicht nicht so viel anders. Gerade im laufenden Prozess für das neue deutsche Weißbuch zur Bundeswehr und zur Sicherheitspolitik wird ja interessant sein zu beobachten wie sich die Schlussfolgerungen in Deutschland und Großbritannien unterscheiden – oder nicht.

Den kompletten Bericht gibt es hier; die zusammenfassende Mitteilung hier.

(Archivbild 2014: A Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank of the Royal Welsh Battle Group on Exercise Prairie Storm at the British Army Training Unit Suffield in Canada – Sgt Mark Webster RLC/MoD/© Crown Copyright 2014)