UK looks to new ‘Ranger’ regiment to tackle emerging conflicts

UK defence chiefs are launching a special operations “Ranger regiment” modelled on the US army’s elite Green Berets, which will embed with foreign forces to help combat emerging conflicts before they escalate.

The unit, which has been described as “special forces lite”, is part of radical overhaul of the British military that will be detailed in a defence white paper on Monday.

The review is expected to include cuts of thousands of army personnel and the retirement of hundreds of tanks and armoured vehicles to help the fund new investments in cyber and space technology.

General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, chief of the general staff, refused to comment on the details of the restructuring but said modern armies would “no longer be defined purely by scale”.

He said: “Size today actually matters much less, the real currency is capability, utility, relevance and deployability,” adding: “What I think will emerge is the right-sized army for the digital age, ready to compete much more effectively with a new form of land competition, associated with the information age, rather than the industrial age.”

Carleton-Smith said the new 1,000-strong regiment would stand up the first of its four battalions early next year.

It is expected to focus on counter-insurgency operations in regions such as east Africa, and will not only train and assist local forces but could also accompany them on missions if required, supplying intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assistance, as well as military cyber expertise. One area of future operations could include helping to counter al-Shabaab terrorists in Somalia.

The Rangers, which will recruit primarily from army infantry battalions, will operate in a similar way to special forces but will be public, rather than covert. They will use their presence in “high-threat” areas to collect intelligence on emerging conflicts.

Ben Wallace, defence secretary, said the Rangers had been partly inspired by the US army’s special forces unit, known as the Green Berets, which specialises in counter-insurgency.

“This is about preventing the spread of conflict, it’s about shoring up our allies,” he said. “It’s about helping build their resilience, and if necessary, providing more options to a prime minister and a foreign secretary in the future. If you want to go from just training to assisting [local forces] to accompanying or even fighting alongside, that is an option that is available.”

The Green Berets were deployed earlier this month to help local troops in Mozambique battle Islamic State militants.

The British unit fits in with the new strategy of “persistent engagement” set out this week in Downing Street’s defence, security and foreign policy review. This will mean deploying more troops overseas “more often and for longer periods of time,” the document stated.

“Greater global presence will improve our understanding of events, help us to detect and tackle problems earlier, and give us a foundation to respond more assertively to threats.”