Recommendation 99

One option that was suggested was that the UK Armed Forces could specialise in certain roles, relying on Allies to fill gaps in capability. Professor Bronk used the example of the Typhoon force which he described as covering “far too many mission sets” following its adoption of the roles previously covered by Tornado. The range of activities which the Typhoon force trains for and carries out means that “they cannot possibly be good at everything” and instead are “not particularly excellent at any mission”. He contrasted this to the situation in the early part of the 2010s, when “Typhoon was somewhat mature but was only doing air superiority, where that fleet was specifically and very highly valued by the Americans, because it was superb at air superiority”. He warned that: 203 Q74; 76 204 Q289; 309 205 Oral evidence taken on 18 April 2023, HC (2022–23) 1246, Q1 206 Oral evidence taken on 18 April 2023, HC (2022–23) 1246, Q1 207 Oral evidence taken on 18 April 2023, HC (2022–23) 1246, Q2 208 Oral evidence taken on 18 April 2023, HC (2022–23) 1246, Q5 209 Q73 40 Ready for War? The biggest issue with high-intensity warfare now is that it is so lethal and so demanding that the generic force of gifted amateurs that can try and span everything, which is essentially what Britain has always tried to be very good at and in the past has been excellent at, does not really work any more. You need to be very good at one or two things.210 However, General Sir Nick Carter warned that specialisation “is obviously a risk, but … these things are about trade-offs. You may need to invest in that because you fear that others might not mitigate it for you.”211