AO3- Operations Impact

UK Army recent deployments:
This piece of work is based on the British Army and where they are stationed/fighting currently all over the world. Countries include Northern Ireland, Afghanistan and Iraq. Information included is about; why they are there, what exactly they are doing there, what regiments are involved, and how long we have been there for.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/75896714/Uk-Army-Recent-Deployments

Gathered Information:
This work contains information I have gathered up to use in my newsletter and has information about the war in Afghanistan.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/97069753/AO3b-An-Analysis-Into-How-the-War-in-Afghanistan-is-Impacting-on-Other-Operations-Around-the-World

Newsletter:

This work is a newsletter on the current UK Army deployments and talks about why we are in Afghanistan. It mentions about reasons, as well as cuts being made and some statistics about the war.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/96799248/Newsletter-About-Afghanistan

This is what the newsletter contains:
Introduction

I have been researching why the British Army have been in Afghanistan and what the purpose is in the past weeks to determine if we are still a superpower, or if being in Afghanistan is ruining our chances of staying a superpower. In my article, I will tell you about the reasons we are in Afghanistan and about how the Army has changed in depth and how it is still changing. Also, I will mention about the plans for the British Army in the future.


What is the purpose of it

There are many reasons why we are in Afghanistan and why we will be there for many more years. Those reasons are the drugs trade, terrorism (9/11, 7/7), terrorist groups (Taliban, Al Qeada), Osama Bin Laden and the rights of the Afghan people.

One of the reasons is because Afghanistan has one of the biggest drugs trade in the world, especially in heroin (or the production of opium). Afghanistan harvest around 90% of the world’s opium, which is used in the creation of heroin. In an average year, Afghan farmers sell about 7,000 tons of opium at £83 a kilogram to traffickers who convert that into 1,000 tons of heroin, worth perhaps £1,036 a kilogram in Afghanistan and £2,560 at wholesale in neighbouring countries.

That works out to roughly £576.4million in annual revenues for the farmers, £1billion for traffickers from operations within Afghanistan, and another £900million for those who smuggle heroin out of the country. Terrorist camps use this money to help fund terrorist attacks on military and civilian targets.

Another reason we are there is terrorism and terrorist camps. After the 9/11 attacks, we entered Afghanistan trying to rid them of terrorists and trying to capture Osama Bin Laden and trying to eliminate the Taliban and Al Qaeda to stop the terrorism. Although it is suspected that Afghanistan was involved in the attacks on 9/11 and 7/7, 92% of Afghan’s had no idea about the attacks.

After asking 17 countries, 46% of people said Al Qaeda was responsible, 15% said the US government, 7% said Israel, 7% said other countries and 25% said they didn’t know.

The situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan is a topic of some controversy and conflict. While the Taliban were well known for numerous human rights abuses, several human rights violations continue to take place in the post-Taliban government era.

Armed Forces Reformed

So although we are in many countries fighting or protecting, the government are still making cuts to the British Army.

A range of things will be cut in the next few years (or have already been cut), like the Challenger 2 Tanks (cut by 40% to 200), cut in personnel (a cut of 7,000 to bring total down to 95,500), presence in countries (Presence in Germany will be finished by 2020), artillery (AS-90 heavy artillery will be cut by 35% to an estimated 87) and vehicles (Armoured vehicles won’t be made until 2025).

But there is a plus side; the numbers of Chinooks are going to be increased.

Strategic Defence Review 

The government put in-place a plan in 1997 on what will be happening to the Army in the next couple of years called the Strategic Defence Review.

It has information about cuts being made, funding and equipment. It shows how numbers have decreased in the Army from just over 203,000 in the 1800’s, to around 100,000 present, and still set to decrease another 7,000. This is affecting  personnel in other countries helping control or peace keep as numbers are decrease. This has lead to the Army pulling out soldiers in Germany by 2020. By 2020, we will also make another 1,000 cuts which will take the total number of troops down to around 94,000, although Afghanistan is not going to be effected by the cuts.

The funding is also being cut by the government in a lot of areas, including on personnel, on vehicles and equipment.

There is going to be a massive £718million cut on armoured vehicles in the coming years, as well as an 8% reduction to funding in the Army as a whole. As well as this, equipment will also suffer from the cuts. The Challenger 2 Tanks, heavy artillery are being cut from the equipment list.

Deployment in Afghanistan
Since 7th October 2001, the British Army  have been deployed in Afghanistan helping in support of the UN authorised, NATO led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission.  The number of soldiers in Afghanistan at any one time has changed throughout the years. The peak reached 172,000 UK soldiers between the years of 2002, and 2008. Coming to the end of 2009, the Uk had  9,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan, while America had the most sliders deployed with 29,950 soldiers in Afghanistan during 2009. That  figure has increased slightly since then and at the end of 2011, the UK had 9,500 soldiers (500 increase) deployed, compared to America’s 90,000 (60,000 increase). The reason this has been happening because of the constant and rising threat of terrorism and the vast amount of terrorist camps in Afghanistan.