In my lifetime (and I’m now in my late 60s), I’ve never been so angry and embarrassed by the UK Government and it’s lack of leadership. You know it’s bad when the US President has a dig, how dare he…but then who can blame him?!
This got me thinking about one of the biggest travesties of the wars of the last 20 odd years…the inept US led “corporate wars.”
During that time I watched middle ranking British officers, many with bright career paths, choose to leave the military due to their own senior ranks incompetence…that would be the political Generals playing their political games by wearing their political hats instead of their military ones.
Some of the military acts of leadership in places like Afghanistan and Iraq was absolutely astonishing.
Because of that, the army lost some of it’s best middle ranking officers, those from senior major to full colonel…forever.
Back around 2010, two such officers got in touch with me. We met for coffee and a chat. One was British, the other American, and both half colonels…but both working together in a staff job in the UK. Their aim, to leave their respective armed forces and form a security company together. At the time there were dozens and dozens of companies already clambering for security contracts while self regulating as an industry.
I asked them if they’d be interested in getting into politics…they both laughed…private security and making money was their game. A fair one given the climate at that time. They just wanted to run their ideas past me as I’d been working in the areas that they were interested in.
I don’t know if they followed their idea through, and indeed how they got on and what they are doing today? But it’s men like them, who had enough of weak military leadership, and were willing to show their integrity by cutting short their military careers instead of letting those under their commands down any longer.
No military including the British can afford middle ranking officers, especially good ones to leave early…the only outcome is that it’s the military’s loss. Time inside equals experience, confidence and great leadership…but only if you are the type who are willing to stand up for it.
So, it’s individuals like these, male and female who have left their military careers early for the reasons stated above, delved into a new career path, and spent a few years tasting the outside world as a civilian, who in my view should consider getting into politics.
A good mix of ex commissioned military middle management and individuals from other backgrounds may well bring the word integrity back into government.
They had what it took to get into middle management of the commissioned kind, and have the guts to leave when they know that they are not willing to play along with the political game as a middle military manager. So what better individual or group of individuals to have in government. They have tasted the filth of those corporate wars from the inside. At the coalface…breathing in, seeing, feeling, smelling and tasting the blood. Not just of the enemy, but more importantly of their own young men and women too.
In my humble opinion, they were fu**** by their own government, and they were fu**** by their own generals…what a great time for these individuals to choose politics and ensure that not just the military, but that the country never gets fu**** by their own political leadership ever again!
Bob Shepherd 
I’ve believed in what you’ve written for years Bob, never more so than since Gulf War 1. As a young servicemen in the 70’s & early 80’s I naively believed that our Government served our best interests. Following the end of the Cold War it soon became apparent that HM Government started to see the armed forces as an unnecessary drain on the budget. This was followed by some of our senior officers seeing their own positions become political, having to justify unit roles, strengths and even the very existence of said units.
Good comments and thoughts, the only problem being the weak and inept others who would not support them. I agree with what you say and believe it could work by forces personnel getting together and forming a new party, now is the time but it needs a charismatic leader to start it. I would vote for them.
Spot on yet again Bob. It is time to clear the dross from within the MOD and appoint a civilian manager for all the services. The inter-service rivalry that has hamstrung the UK armed forces, leaving the Royal Navy with two aircraft carriers that continually break down and makes them a laughingstock around the world; an expensive white elephant the Royal Air Force neither needed nor wanted (and indeed, cannot afford to fly) preferring to await the arrival of ‘Tempest’ and the Army with an armoured reconnaissance/fighting vehicle that is £3.5B overbudget, causes ‘excessive noise and vibration which in turn has caused medical problems’ to the troops who are supposed to use it, when there are better vehicles available ‘off the shelf’ and already in service.
to coin a phrase'”You Bob are pi**sing into to wind”. Inept is a prerequisit it be a leader in any western :Democrasy”