‘Tumbledown Dick Dannatt’: Dave buys a pup

The former army chief is not the bright visionary a new government needs

FIRST POSTED OCTOBER 8, 2009

The whiff of musketry is unmistakeable round the Tory field HQ this morning as they announce their newest recruit, the former head of the army, General Sir Richard Dannatt. But is there a sense of a 'negligent discharge' - military-speak for shooting yourself in the foot?

David Cameron may not have got what he bargained for in his new political commando. As a strategic thinker Richard Dannatt is no Clausewitz or Sun-Tzu, and many of his recent pronouncements about the armed forces have looked backwards as much as forwards.

The manner in which he has charged into the political ranks is likely to have alienated from the Tories many of the brighter officers and NCOs of the armed forces. It is a mere six weeks since he left the army. The baked meats of the MoD leaving dos have barely gone cold and he is already the new toast of Tory high command.

There is more than a suggestion of Oliver Cromwell about Dannatt

The appointment of Dannatt as Cameron's defence advisor will be awkward for all those now commanding our forces, but in particular for General Sir David Richards who followed Dannatt as head of the army.

Assuming the Tories form the next government, Richards will be forced to constantly second-guess his predecessor, a man with whom he has not seen eye to eye recently. Crucially, he is vastly more experienced than Dannatt in the affairs of Afghanistan, where he successfully commanded the entire allied effort for a year from 2005 to 2006.

Dannatt is, above all an army man, the son of a small county regiment, the Green Howards, which seems to colour his thinking. His vision for defence appears to be that of army first. This is understandable given the huge commitment of our troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, but his frequent sniping at the expenditure on RAF and Royal Navy equipment may not be entirely well placed.

One of his main roles must be to provide the Tories with a strategic security vision - something in which they are glaringly deficient. He will need to assess the threats and risks to the UK and its allies over the next five, 10 and 20 years. Increasingly strategists are suggesting that the greatest threat in this time will be from air and sea and not on land.

Rising sea levels already pose a measurable security threat to many of the world's great ports and threaten the traffic of goods, energy and food - more than 90 per cent of which come to Britain by sea. The arms race of new intermediate and theatre missiles is now on from the Mediterranean to the Pacific; Britain and its European partners have little time to devise reasonable counter measures.

Dannatt's strength was as a practical operational soldier. He has nothing like the vision and imagination of a Liddell Hart or, in our time, General Sir Rupert Smith, whom he unwisely took to criticising in public forums - and came off the worse.

He is nothing like as fluent in speech or on paper as Richards, and he cannot match the intellectual punch of the best academic strategic thinkers such as Sir Michael Howard, Hew Strachan at Oxford, and Colin Gray at Reading.

There is more than a suggestion of Oliver Cromwell about him. They share the same roots as East Anglian farmers, the driving sense of duty and destiny shaped by their deep faith. Cromwell's regime ended in spectacular failure - summed up in the brief rule of his son and heir Richard 'Tumbledown Dick' Cromwell.

Some in the rank-and-file of the Tory party and in Her Majesty's Armed Forces must wonder if Commander Cameron has simply bought into the political career of Tumbledown Dick Dannatt.

FIRST POSTED OCTOBER 8, 2009

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Slightly odd post here from Mr Fox. Cromwell saved the parliamentary side by creating the New Model Army. For the first time an army devoted to competence. He was an over whelming success.

Posted by Man in a Shed at 12:44pm on October 8, 2009

Well said Man in a Shed! A very strange article that is incorrect on so many levels, not least that the Green Howards are linked to Yorkshire, the LARGEST county in the UK. The UK simply does not face threats that can be met by the Royal Navy and the RAF, the former existed to serve the Empire and the latter the Cold War. Getting rid of Trident replacement and the two air craft carriers scheduled to be built will free up billions of pounds that can be better spent. The 'small county' mentality is EXACTLY what is needed to match the economic and political reality of the UK with future spending on the armed forces.

Posted by Manny Goldstein at 2:54pm on October 8, 2009

Richard Dannatt is a murderous thug whose career got a late-era boost when he found himself the perfect ally for American neonazi madmen. His role in covering-up atrocities by British troops (such as the Baha Mousa case) is nothing short of fascist. This pig belongs in jail - not in the House of Lords.

Posted by Neil McGowan at 4:29am on October 9, 2009

The history of senior military men who go into politics - not just the House of Lords but party politics - is not a happy one. Gen. Dannatt's recent career must now, whatever one thinks of his opinions, be seen as partisan. He was then not making fair and balanced statements of fact but advancing a political position, one he now embraces openly. He is not the first military man who has made the step into the bear pit of politics and he will learn as some of his predesessors have that this is a dirtier game than the 'forward edge of battle'. "Call me Dave" will ditch him after his utility as an flag of embarassment against Brown is over which, I predict, will not be long.

Posted by Barry Larking at 9:59am on October 9, 2009

Got to agree with Neil McGowan, and clearly the writer is thinking the same in comparing him to Cromwell, who became a tyrant who crushed the revolution, murdered the egalitarian diggers, and became the butcher of Ireland. Manny Goldstein, you misunderstood because of a missed comma; not a small county regiment, but a small, county regiment. The writer doesn't mention Yorkshire and isn't implying Yorkshire is a small county. I agree Trident and the carriers should be scrapped, but there's still a role for the Navy considering the proliferation of piracy in recent years, and the Air Force constantly has to be called in to rescue the Army in Afghanistan!

Posted by Peter Simmons at 10:47am on October 9, 2009

Sorry Mr Fox, your piece does not ring true. Mr Dannatt is a well respected leader and soldier. As for negligent discharges I think you'll find the ND is the result of being reckless and/or ill-disciplined with a weapon. I don't see Sir Richard being either where the Tories are concerned; in fact, it is our good fortune Sir Richard didn't go to that other party, you know- tough on crime; changes in NHS, Education reviews etc etc. Perhaps Great Britain will again have a better standing in the eyes of the world now, rather than as a laughing stock.

Posted by Paul Beaumont at 11:15am on October 9, 2009

There seem to be two characters getting assassinated here. General Dannatt for being like an imagined weak Cromwell and Oliver Cromwell for being a highly efficient war leader who if you judged by today's standards would be on trial for how he conducted his war ( though oddly Tony Blair never seems to wind up in the Hague ). Of course you need to understand that Cromwell became decisive ( which lead to the ruthless actions that we know about ) because he saw the result of a slow burnt ever lasting war which was never won and had fury with those who chose to try and restart the process which had cost him the lives of so many men, friends and one of his sons. If we want to win in Afghanistan we need a Cromwell as military leader - someone who hates war enough to get it over efficiently and quickly. If we want noble prizes for community work and a Vietnam style regular air service of coffins and Afghan funerals then we can carry on as is. More will die in this manner, the only moral choices are between a just war that you fight to win and pulling out altogether. Personally I favour pulling out. But if we are to fight it needs to be done with aggression and determination to a clear conclusion. Cromwell learnt that lesson the hard way - I hope we don't need to.

Posted by Man in a Shed at 12:38pm on October 9, 2009