LONDON \u2014 Northrop Grumman’s European chief executive, Andrew Tyler, has resorted to an unusual method to raise the level of debate on defense issues in the UK ahead of the planned strategic defense and security review (SDSR) planned for later this year: He purchased space on the Financial Times.com site to air his views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An advertorial asking whether Britain can remain a world-class fighting force, and a second one on cybersecurity, appeared on the leading national business dot-com Jan 12. A further fours<\/span> subjects, including maritime surveillance and the F-35 combat jet, are planned to be aired over the next six months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Much of the content has been written by Tyler, the one-time chief operating officer at the Ministry of Defence’s equipment procurement and support arm who moved , before moving <\/span>back into industry and eventually <\/span>joineding<\/span> Northrop Grumman to run their European operations in 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We are trying to stimulate debate and broaden exposure on key issues in the sector over the next few months,” said a Northrop Grumman spokesman in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As you might expect, the company is not being entirely altruistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maritime surveillance platforms, military networks, the F-35 and cybersecurity all figure prominently in the line-up of key products the company would like to sell and support here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Defense will struggle for air time as with <\/span>health, immigration and how to repair public finances likely will to <\/span>be the main battlegrounds between the political parties ahead of what is probably going to be a very messy election with coalition or minority gG<\/span>overnment a possible outcome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tyler said SDSR needs to grip some “fundamental questions.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Amongst these questions are: How do today’s threats impact the peace and prosperity of the UK? To what extent do we see ourselves as part of a global police force? Under what realistic circumstances could we envisage ourselves fighting alone,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “If ever there was a time for a mature reflection on the UK’s defense and security strategy it is now,” said Tyler in the advertorial on whether Britain can stay in the premier league of world military powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s a question increasingly being asked, not just here but by the USA<\/span>, Britain’s main ally, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of December Lt. Gen Ben Hodges, the new commander of US Army Europe, became the latest in a string of senior US figures to raise the issue of whether the British military can retain its capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Britain has done an exceptional job in “making the best use of available resources to provide a land force that the UK needs, both on it‘<\/span>s own, as well as part of the alliance or to conduct coalition operations, but there is not enough resources for what they need,” he is reported by various media outlets as saying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The next few months may answer the question one way or the other as to whether Britain’s future resources match strategic ambition as the already <\/span>heavily ravaged defense sector faces three potentially game-changing events: with <\/span>a general election in May, followed by <\/span>potentially significant cuts to military budgets and completion of a new SDSR in 2015 or 2016. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Peter Luff , the former defense procurement minister in the Conservative-led coalition, reckons that further defense cuts will require the SDSR to see Britain to <\/span>step back on the military stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “For too long now we have been living a lie \u2014 that we can avoid strategic shrinkage while cutting defence spending. The 2015 SDSR must face up to the fact that avoiding strategic shrinkage is impossible with current and likely future budgets. Of course I would welcome an increase in the resources for defense, but if that doesn’t happen \u2014 and I can’t see it will \u2014 then we have to start making some genuinely hard choices,” he said in the Northrop Grumman advertorial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of those choices, said Tyler, could be for the British to abandon the full spectrum force and focus on specialization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “One way forward would be to concentrate on fewer capabilities so our armed forces could remain centres of excellence, be it in airborne surveillance, expeditionary warfare, or strategic strike. Britain’s armed forces would then sustain their status as go-to partners when coalitions are formed for specific operations, and instill confidence they could be sustained for a meaningful period of time,” said the Northrop Grumman Europe boss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The MoD could also do better in squeezing more capability out of the equipment it has acquired in recent years if it refocused some of its procurement effort toward networking between individual systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “At a time when the UK is seeing the fruits of major recapitalisation of its warships, aircraft, and land equipment, there has been distinctly less emphasis on networking this equipment to deliver a greater and more versatile effect,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Despite being far less costly than the platforms themselves, networking has been the poor relation in funding terms. The increase in effectiveness from being able to seamlessly communicate across UK and coalition forces and share huge quantities of information far outweighs the comparative investment in platforms,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Northrop Grumman’s European chief executive, Andrew Tyler, has resorted to an unusual method to raise the level of debate on defense issues in the UK ahead of the planned strategic defense and security review (SDSR) planned for later this year: He purchased space on the Financial Times.com site to air his views.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":114317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":44,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[44,8,33,19],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3351],"class_list":["post-53964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-budget","category-congress","category-home","category-pentagon"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"G6VNTGWSORDJNBLELK2RFSYVHU","arc_canonical_url":"\/congress\/budget\/2015\/01\/12\/ng-europe-boss-debates-defense-in-media-ads\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n