Def Pol Austerity

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National defence in the age of austerity

International Aairs85: 4 (2009) 733753 2009 The Author(s). Journal Compilation 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd/The Royal Institute o International Aairs

PAUL CORNISH AND ANDREW DORMAN*

Introduction

What are the implications or the deence o the United Kingdom in the new age

o austerity?1 With preparations or the next deence review already under way, astruggle or resources is imminent and the lines o battle are being drawn. Propo-nents on behal o the three armed services have been mobilized and have begun tocomment in the media. Writing in The Times,Allan Mallinson argues that we needto be ruthlessly honest about the state were in. Much o the Ministry o Deenceseems to be carrying on as i we were not at war. He claims that there is no needor aircrat carriers or the Euroghter; instead, a larger army is needed in order toconduct wars amongst the people.2 By contrast, Jon Lake in Airorces urges thatthe carrier programme should be scrapped in avour o more ast jets or the RoyalAir Force (RAF).3 With the exception o Andrew Brookes o the International

Institute or Strategic Studies, who claims that [t]he nancial picture is not asdire as sometimes painted,4 commentators generally accept the premise that thedeence programme and the budget are signicantly out o step with one another.Many argue that the challenge currently beore the Ministry o Deence (MoD) islargely one o careul programme management, a view taken by John Nott duringhis controversial 1981 deence review. John Huttons December 2008 announce-ment o delays and cutbacks,5 and, more recently, the governments hesitationover acquisition o the third tranche o Euroghter Typhoon aircrat or the RAF,are uncomortably redolent o Notts assertion that [t]alk o apocalyptic choicesbetween key deence tasks is wide o the mark, but we must, over the next year orso, look realistically at our programmes in order to match them to the resourcesthat may be available.6

* The analysis, opinions and conclusions expressed or implied in this article are those o the authors and do notnecessarily represent the views o the Joint Services Command & Sta College, the Ministry o Deence orany other government agency.

1 Deborah Saunders, David Cameron warns o a new age o austerity, Guardian Online, 26 April 2009, athttp://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/apr/26/david-cameron-conservative-economic-policy.

2 Allan Mallinson, War has changed. We need men on the ground, not aircrat carriers, The Times, 8 May 2009.3 Jon Lake, JSF and carriers: the Great British debate,Airorces, May 2009.4 Andrew Brookes, Into battle, Airorces, May 2009.5 John Hutton, House o Commons Parliamentary Debates, Written Statement, 11 December 2008, cols 657WS.6 John Nott, House o Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 997, th series, session 198081, 1930 January 1981,

Statement, 20 January 1981, col. 152.


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Paul Cornish and Andrew Dorman

734International Aairs 85: 4, 2009 2009 The Author(s). Journal Compilation 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd/The Royal Institute o International Aairs

I the challenge is to nd ways to balance the deence programme against thedeence budget, the problem with much commentary so ar has been the ocuson inputs (or means; i.e. particular weapons systems) rather than on outputs (or

ends, i.e. the eects deence policy is trying to achieve). Some commentatorshave begun to look at outputs, however. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, IrwinStelzer asks whether Britain is about to lose its world role7 while Max Hastingscontroversially suggests that i deence is to be strategic rather than politicallyexpedient, dump Trident,8 echoing an earlier view o Michael Portillo.9 BothDavid Cameron, the leader o the Conservative Party, and Sir Menzies Campbell,ormer leader o the Liberal Democratic Party are, in dierent ways, encouraginga more thoughtul debate about the uture requirements or Britains armed orces,with the latter arguing that [p]erhaps Britain has reached a second East o Suezmoment.10

In a previous article in this journal, we concluded that the deence o the United

Kingdom was in ar more trouble than many realized.11 Here we develop thatargument, rst by analysing the economic challenges that deence is likely toconront. Second, we consider how best to approach the problem o undiminished(and even expanding) commitments at a time o decreasing resources and arguethat deence must be driven by a national political vision. Third, we assert thatdeence must transorm itsel in order to be able to achieve the outputs required inthe most ecient and responsive manner.

Future government spending and its implications for defence

With the next general election less than a year away, current uncertainties overgovernment spending are rather like the unnerving moment when the tide runsout shortly beore the tsunami hits: something is clearly going wrong, but it is tooearly to tell how bad it might be. In our view, the global nancial crisis is aboutto overwhelm government spending, and the implications or deence are certainto be extensive. The next government, whatever its political persuasion, will haveas its legacy the challenge o providing or a wide-ranging deence posture rom adiminished (and diminishing) resource base.

In his 2009 budget the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, announced that governmentborrowing or the next nancial year would amount to 175 billion, roughly vetimes the annual deence budget.12 His budget assumed that the economy would

7 Irwin Stelzer, Britain will be missed on the world stage, Daily Telegraph online, 5 May 2009, at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/5280118/Britain-will-be-missed-on-the-world-stage.html.

8 Max Hastings, I deence is to be strategic rather than politically expedient, dump Trident, Guardian Online,19 January 2009, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/19/defence-weapons-nuclear-trident.

9 Michael Portillo, Does Britain need nuclear missiles?, The Sunday Times, 19 June 2005.10 Sean Rayment, David Cameron is right to look beyond Trident, Daily Telegraph online, 1 May 2009, at http://

www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/5257344/David-Cameron-is-right-to-look-beyond-Trident.html, and MenziesCampbell, No choice but change for Britains Armed Forces, The RUSI Journal154: 2, April 2009, pp. 428.

11 Paul Cornish and Andrew Dorman, Blairs wars and Browns budgets: rom Strategic Deence Review tostrategic decay in less than a decade, International Aairs 85: 2, March 2009, pp. 24761.

12 Alistair Darling, House o Commons Parliamentary Debates, Financial statementBudget statement, 22 April2009, cols 23750.


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National deence in the age o austerity


begin rapid recovery beore the end o the current nancial year. Governmentplans also assume, however, that borrowing as a percentage o gross domesticproduct (GDP) will continue to rise, reaching 79 per cent o GDP by 201314,

with the level o national debt not returning to its pre-2009 level until the 2020s.13

The government aces a twoold problem. First, it has relied on the nancial

sector or some 27 per cent o corporate tax revenue.14 Yet it is the nancial sectorthat is at the heart o the recession, meaning that government income rom taxationwill all signicantly. Second, rather than save during the years o prosperity, thegovernment chose to increase the nations relative debt and allow expenditure tooutstrip income. Government spending has increased by some 42 per cent in realterms since 1997, compared to 15 per cent in the previous decade.15 This increasehas ocused on specic areas: the health budget, or example, rose rom 35 billionto 89 billion over that period.16 In other words, a number o government depart-ments have become used to budgets rising signicantly year on year in real terms.

This explains in part the political urore surrounding the projected decit in thehealth budget o 810 billion in the three years rom 2011.17 The Conservativespledge to protect the NHS budget alongside education and international develop-ment by cutting other government expenditure by 10 per cent was attacked by thegovernment, but without any explanation as to how they intend to balance thesecommitments.18

Instead, Darling has pledged to ease government spending restrictions in thecurrent nancial year, i.e. in the run-up to the general election.19 But rom 2010,government orecasts assume a year-on-year tightening o spending by 0.8 percent o GDP,20 with the admirable result that spending as a percentage o GDP

is scheduled to all steadily ater the election rom 48 per cent o national incometo some 39 per cent by 201718. Nevertheless, government income will continueto lag behind expenditure even as it is tightened, and the level o gilts (or bonds)that will need to be issued in order to und government debt will amount tosome 220 billion or the current year. Based on these gures, total governmentborrowing or the next two years is planned to exceed that o all previous govern-ments combined,21 and over the next ve years it will amount to 900 billion.22As a consequence, interest payments alone will rise to an estimated 42.9 billion in201011, assuming that the government continues to be able to borrow at low rates

13 Budget 2009: building Britains uture, HC.407, session 20089 (London: TSO, 2009), p. 4.14 Alistair Darling, House o Commons Parliamentary Debates, Financial statementBudget statement, 22 April2009, cols 23750.

15 Budget 2009: building Britains uture, p. 114.16 Budget 2009: building Britains uture.17 See Dealing with the downturn, NHS Conederation, paper 4, June 2009, p. 1, at http://www.nhsconed.org/

Publications/Documents/Dealing_with_the_downturn.pd, and Tories rebu spending cut attacks, BBConline, 10 June 2009, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8093036.stm.

18 Sam Lister, Spending cuts start to bite as hospitals lose 500 million, The Times, 11 June 2009.19 David Wighton, A g lea to cover the real crisis, The Times, 23 April 2009.20 Alistair Darling, House o Commons Parliamentary Debates, Financial statementBudget statement, 22 April

2009, cols. 23750.21 David Cameron, House o Commons Parliamentary Debates, 22 April 2009, col. 251.22 Ian King, Could we become a banana republic?, The Times, 25 April 2009.


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o interest.23 Achieving this level o gilt sales is not guaranteed, and the Treasuryaces the prospect o competing with much o the advanced industrial world tosell debt, with the dollar and the euro being viewed by many as ar more desir-

able than sterling. To oset this, the Treasury may well have to oer higher rateson its gilts so as to achieve the required sales, thus raising the cost o governmentborrowing even urther. It is not surprising that the head o the Treasurys DebtManagement Oce has admitted that he could not rule out some o its auctionso bonds ailing.24

The health o Britains economy might be even worse than these dismal guressuggest. Within minutes o the budget being released, the International MonetaryFund issued gures contradicting the Chancellors, estimating that the currentyears (20092010) slump in GDP would reach 4.1 per cent (compared to Darlingsestimate o 3 per cent) and that 201011 would still see Britain in slump rather thanbeginning Darlings hoped-or revival o 1.25 per cent growth in GDP. 25 Worse

still, the Oce o National Statistics revealed three days ater the budget that theeconomy had shrunk by 1.9 per cent in the rst quarter o 2009 rather than the1.6 per cent that the chancellor had predicted.26 This meant that his budget wasalready out by almost 1 billion or the current year.27 In addition, the governmentannounced temporary support or private nance initiatives (PFIs) until marketconditions improve. The implication is that it will underwrite PFI projects thatare currently looking to raise approximately 13 billion in capital and that in sodoing will remove much o the commercial risk rom the companies concerned.28Arguably, it does not matter much whether Darlings orecast proves to be correct.The next government will ace the challenge o having to both raise taxes and cut

government spending on a scale unseen or many years. The question will be aboutthe scale o the readjustment necessary and the level o contribution that deencewill be expected to make.

It is inconceivable that deence could remain untouched by this economic turbu-lence, especially in view o the political pressure to protect other, more popularbudgets. As Duncan Sandys emphasized in his 1957 Deence White Paper, deencecan never operate as i in an economic vacuum:

Britains inuence in the world depends rst and oremost on the health o her internal

economy and the success o her export trade. Without these, military power cannot inthe long run be supported. It is thereore in the true interests o deence that the claims omilitary expenditure should be considered in conjunction with the need to maintain the

countrys nancial and economic strength.29

23 The big numbers, The Times, 23 April 2009.24 Philip Webster and Gary Duncan, Red all over, The Times, 23 April 2009.25 Memo to Darling: your gures on the economy are out by nearly 1bn, The Times, 25 April 2009, p. 6, and

Alastair Darling, House o Commons Parliamentary Debates, Budget statement, 22 April 2009, cols 23750.26 Battering or Darlings Budget, The Times, 25 April 2009, p. 1, and Alastair Darling House o Commons Parlia-

mentary Debates, Budget statement, 22 April 2009, cols. 237250. For the Oce o National Statistics, seehttp://www.statistics.gov.uk/instantgures.asp.

27 Memo to Darling.28 Budget 2009: building Britains uture, p. 120.29 Deence: outline o uture policy, Cmd. 124 (London: HMSO, 1957), para. 6.


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Deence will very probably be conronted with a call or major reductions toits current budget, a challenge that is already beginning to be elt. The revised2007 Comprehensive Spending Review target included savings o 35 billion;

deences share was some 3.15 billion.30

But i the government wanted to balanceits books in the current nancial year by reducing spending to match its projectedincome, and i this exercise were to be applied equitably across departments, thenthe deence budget would all by approximately 10 billion in a single year.31Although such a drastic reduction appears uneasible in the short term, it is worthremembering that in a similar period o nancial angst in the mid-1970s, theLabour governments deence review o 1975, led by Roy Mason, sought to reducedeence spending to an amount based on the average share o GDP spent by NATOmembers. I the same device were used today, the deence budget or 2007 wouldhave been 1.73 per cent o GDP instead o 2.29 per cent, which would result incuts o over 7 billion per year.32 And i the shadow health ministers statement

is accurate that departments such as deence would suer a 10 per cent cut in theirbudgets in order to protect health, education and international development, theimplication or deence would be a budget cut o 34 billion per year.33

Managing and leading defence

Other than in times o war or grave national emergency, it has been usual orthe British deence budget to be tightly constrained, oten more so than deenceplanners and military leaders have thought wise or comortable. Periodically, theUK has embarked upon a deence review intended both to set out the task o

deence and to rebalance the books.34

At times o nancial crisis, however, thedownward pressure on deence spending can become very severe. In the 1930s, thepressure led to the adoption o the inamous 10-year rule,35 and in the late 1940s,when the postwar economy was in a parlous state and beore the Cold War hadbegun to drive deence spending upwards, deence struggled hard.36

Tribalism in defence

At these moments o heightened budgetary pressure, there is a tendency or thedeence debate to be dominated by tribalism, maniested in one o two ways. Thereis, rst, what might be termed service tribalism or inter-service rivalry, as theproessional heads o the three armed services and their civilian advocates arguevigorously or an undiminished or perhaps even increased share o the deencebudget as it begins to shrink (whether in real or relative terms). An aggressive

30 Budget 2009: building Britains uture, p. 131.31 Budget 2009: building Britains uture, p.12.32 IISS, The Military Balance 2009 (London: IISS, 2009), pp. 106 and 158.33 Tories rebu spending cut attacks.34 See Andrew Dorman, Crises and reviews in British deence policy, in Stuart Crot et al., Britain and deence,

1945-2000: a policy re-evaluation (Harlow: Longmans, 2001), pp. 928.35 Peter Silverman, The ten year rule, The RUSI Deence Journal116: 661, March 1971, pp. 424.36 See Paul Cornish, British military planning or the deence o Germany, 1945-50 (London: Macmillan, 1996).


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and sometimes rather unediying bargaining process can begin, with each servicepresenting an exaggerated account o its competence to deal with the larger ormore important aspects o the problem o national security and deence, i only

they were given the resources to do so.The second orm o tribalism is what might be described as campaign tribalism,

which embraces not only the demand that current operations should be under-taken seriously, with both the right equipment and the requisite level o politicalsupport, but also the idea that these campaigns represent the nal, dening momentin the history o strategic thought. The rst o these claims is unexceptionable.It is entirely reasonable to argue that current campaigns and military commit-mentswhatever and wherever they might beshould be a central concern odeence policy and planning or the present and or as long as the commitmentsendure. The second idea is altogether more ambitious, however. This amounts toan argument that current commitments (in the case o the UK, the commitment to

a complex, largely rural counter-insurgency operation in a land-locked, economi-cally and socially underdeveloped and ethnically divided country) are nothing lessthan the end point o strategic thinking and planning.

I strategy is the preparedness to use organized, legitimate armed orce topursue and secure the national interest, then in important respects both ormso tribalism are non-strategic (and possibly even anti-strategic). Service tribalismplaces the interests o an individual service (in Britains case, the Royal Navy, theArmy or the RAF) at the centre o the deence debate. This suggests an unsettlinginversion o strategic language (armedservices are, ater all, expected toserve societyrather than vice versa), and oers a model o the relationship between the armed

orces and society that probably does not meet the expectations o an advanceddemocracy.

Campaign tribalism contains an even more corrosive heresy, however. Althoughit is reasonable to expect current military commitments to be properly equipped,unded and supported, there is a danger that concern about the current activity othe UKs armed orces might overwhelm the principle that it is theirpolitical purposethat should be our rst concern. The United Kingdom is heavily committed tooperations in Aghanistan, where, it might be claimed, the British Armys needor, say, more durable battleeld communications or or better armoured vehiclescould be more than adequately unded by the cost o a handul o the relativelyunder-used Typhoon aircrat currently being delivered to the RAF. Intensemilitary activity can have a tyrannical eect on deence equipment acquisition, asunused or little-used weapon systems are loaded into tumbrels and dragged o tomeet the Treasurys guillotine.37 This image is as brutal as it is nonsensical: judgingthe worth o the Typhoon aircrat against that o a battleeld radio system is a littlelike comparing televisions with trampolines. But it does describe the way in whichcampaign tribalism can distort our understanding o strategy, by demanding tooclose a ocus on current activity and military inputs. It would surely be absurdly

37 See, or example, Simon Jenkins, Lovely new aircrat carrier, sir, but were ghting in the desert, The SundayTimes, 24 February 2008.


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non-strategic, or example, to suggest that as no RAF aircrat has intentionallyshot down another aircrat since 1948, there is no need or the United Kingdom tohave an air deence capability.38

The role of defence

What can be done militarily, and what is currently being done, is o course oconsiderable importance in the deence debate. But the rst concern o strategyought to be with political purpose and military outputsthe reasons why armedorce should be used in specic circumstances and the political eects that shouldbe expected o it. These circumstances might o course change, and as they dothe political purpose (and thereore outputs) o armed orce must also expect tochange. The penalty o campaign tribalism then is not only that it binds strategytoo closely to a specic area o military activity but also that strategy becomes too

preoccupied with current circumstances. Tellingly, in the rst report o the CivilService Capability Review in 2007 the MoD was warned that the current level osustained operational commitments puts at risk the Departments ability to prepareor potential uture missions and was urged to strike a balance between short-term operational activity and long-term capability development.39

In any account o the role o armed orce in the early years o the twenty-rstcentury, the words complexity and uncertainty are sure to gure prominently.In this evolving strategic environment, strategy should place a premium on agilityand exibility, and on an ability to provide the outputs most likely to be neededor contingencies that are as yet stubbornly unclear. Thus when the historian Allan

Mallinson argues passionately or new thinking on UK deence, he alls into thetrap o campaign tribalism by insisting that real and present dangers must takepriority over possible uture threats.40 Similarly, Philip Stephens declares withsome condence that [a]ny reasonable analysis o likely uture conicts pointsto British engagement in theatres comparable to those in Iraq and Aghanistan.41But i there is a case or cancelling the navys aircrat carrier programme, orabandoning the Armys ability to conduct heavily armoured tank warare or orreducing the RAFs eet o Typhoon aircrat, then these decisions must be takenin the right way, beginning with an articulation o the interests o society and thepolitical purposes to which armed orce should be put in the uture rather than onthe grounds that aircrat carriers are not needed in Aghanistan, or similar. Aterall, a careul strategic assessment might well reveal that the United Kingdom willneed aircrat carriers and ast attack aircrat as well as men on the ground.

Historically, the uture has usually been dierent: it tends not to develop in theway predicted, expected or even hoped or. Given the risks involved, this general

38 The last occasion an RAF aircrat shot down an opponent intentionally was in 1948, when an RAF Spitreshot down an Egyptian Spitre.

39 Civil Service Capability Reviews, Capability Review o the Ministry o Deence, Cabinet Oce, London,2007, p. 17.

40 Mallinson, War has changed.41 Philip Stephens, Britain rearms itsel or a vanished age, Financial Times, 19 May 2009.


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caution should resonate particularly loudly in the arena o national securityand deence. Future strategic requirements might correlate closely with currentmilitary practices and capabilities. But they might not; and when uture and

present are ound to have diverged, it might be too late to catch up. To return to theargument made by Mallinson and others, it is not war but warare that has changed.Yet wararethe prevailing mixture o geographical, technological and humandrivers o military activityhas never been uture-proo. I it were, the modernbattleeld might still be limited to a relatively small patch o ground and mightstill have use or horse-drawn chariots, longbows and trebuchets. It is the natureo war itsel that does not change, and war requires that legitimate armed orcesshould conduct warare in such a way that outputs or eects are generated that areconsistent with the political requirements o the day.42 It cannot be assumed thatthe military inputs o today will provide the strategic outputs required tomorrow.

Adopting a strategic approach to the defence review

So ar in this article, we have argued that nances are tight (and likely to becomemuch more so), that the siren calls o inter-service rivalry (service tribalism)should be resisted as non-strategic and that it is too risky to succumb to campaigntribalism and the promise that uture strategic requirements will be met bycurrent military practices and capabilities. We have described the complexity othe challenge conronting the United Kingdoms strategic planners and militaryleaders, without contributing much to the review and recalibration o UK deencethat must inevitably take place. We now suggest three steps in this process. Deence

is a our-cornered debate involving policy and ideas, military ability and strength,nancial resources and deence industrial capacity. The rst step is to ensure thatthe debate is approached rom the right direction, and the rst cornerpolicy andideasis the only acceptable entry point. Policy should be, as ar as possible, thedisinterested voice in the deence debate insoar as it should articulate a broad visiono Britains place in the world and set out the interests o society that the remainingthree elements are to serve. The alternatives are not attractive. A deence reviewdesigned either to serve the interests and preerences o Britains armed orces orto set current military practices in stone would be undamentally undemocraticand non-strategic respectively. Equally, a deence review driven solely by nancialconstraints would be as nonsensical as, say, deciding oreign policy on the groundso the number o overseas missions that Treasury ocials decide the countrycan aord. The interwar period demonstrated the dangers o just such a policy.Finally, a deence review designed to satisy the wishes o deence manuacturersand their shareholders might be good or business but could scarcely be describedas strategic.

The second step is to argue that it should not be the task o the deenceestablishment (the MoD and the armed orces) to provide that grand strategicvision. Recent deence reviews have tended to pronounce on matters o oreign,

42 See Colin Gray,Another bloody century (London: Phoenix, 2005), chapter 1.


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economic, social and even environmental policy, which are beyond the scope odeence policy and strategy. Thus the 1998 Strategic Deence Review (SDR) wroteo Britains place in the world being determined by our interests as a nation

and as a leading member o the international community and discussed a varietyo issues, including Britains commitment to Europe and the European Union,its long-standing relationship with the United States, the importance o oreigninvestment to the UK economy and the openness o British society.43 Similarly,the 2003 Deence White Paper Delivering Security in a Changing World argued thatthe United Kingdom has a range o global interests including economic well-being based around trade, overseas and oreign investment, and the continuing reeow o natural resources.44

O course, deence policy can never be developed and implemented in a policyvacuum, as other policy areas shape the context in which deence must operate.And it can saely be assumed that other relevant government departments would

advise the MoD when it eels the need to make positioning statements o this sort.Nevertheless, it is possible that deence might have crossed a boundary when itoers an overall vision o Britains place in the world, much as an attempt by theRAF (or the other armed services) to pronounce on general deence policy shouldbe regarded as peculiar. Discussion o these broader themes might even appearto have been securitized and tainted by close proximity to the deence debate,with the result that discussion o Britains place in a changing world becomes lesscomprehensive and vigorous than it might otherwise be. What should be an artic-ulation o a broad national vision that it is the task o deence to serve becomes anexample o conrmation bias that those critical o or not involved in deence can

thereore eel ree to dismiss. Other government departments might then chooseto present a vision o the world in their own terms and according to their ownpriorities, with conusion likely to result. Basically, no government departmentshould be expected to set its own terms o reerence but should derive its missionrom a political vision that emanates rom the heart o government rather thanrom one part o it.

There is a means available or decoupling the national vision rom the narrowerscope o a deence review. The March 2008 National Security Strategy o the UnitedKingdom (NSS) set out to provide a single, overarching strategy, describing both theinternational landscape in which Britain must operate and secure its interests andthe threats and challenges to those interests.45 The NSS oers a careully wordedwarning that over the longer term we cannot rule out a possible re-emergenceo a major state-led threat to the United Kingdom, acknowledges the need tosaeguard the United Kingdom against the re-emergence o [a major and direct]threat, to deend the territory o the United Kingdom, its sea and air approaches,its inormation and communications systems, and its other vital interests, includingour Overseas Territories and insists that the possible re-emergence o a state-led

43 The Strategic Deence Review, Cm. 3999 (London: TSO, 1998), p. 7, paras 1721.44 Delivering security in a changing world, Cm. 6,041-I (London: TSO, 2003), p. 4, para 2.1.45 Cabinet Oce, The National Security Strategy o the United Kingdom: security in an interdependent world, Cm. 7291

(London: TSO, March 2008), paras 1.3, 1.7.


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threat requires the maintenance o strong national capabilities.46 This is preciselythe grand strategic, cross-governmental guidance that a document o this sortshould providea general statement o intent rom which the deence establish-

ment can derive its mission and plan accordingly.The NSS arguably strays too ar into the specialist domain o deence planning

and military aairs, however, when it insists that a premium should be placedon orces that are deployable and exible, able to move rapidly between dierentenvironments and dierent types o operations, and that are capable o operatingclosely with US orces.47 Even so, the NSS represents a relatively novel attemptto establish a constructive relationship between a national vision, articulated ona cross-governmental basis, and the policy and strategy that are properly theresponsibility o the deence establishment. The NSS is being revised, with closerinvolvement o the MoD, providing an important opportunity to consolidatethe relationship between the national vision, on the one hand, and deence policy

and strategy, on the other. I the revised NSS can set out even more clearly androbustly the national vision, then the orthcoming deence review might be ableto spend less time on the high politics o Britains place in the world and more timeensuring that the deence mission can be met. The task o the deence establish-ment, ater all, is to turn military inputs and capacity into strategic outputs, andthis task cannot be completed without a clear sense o political purpose, romwhich the deence mission can be derived.

I policy-making processes can be consolidated in this way, it should be possibleto enter the deence debate, and indeed the orthcoming review, with a good dealless baggage and with a clearer sense o what is expected o deence. It should not

be inerred, however, that the deence debate has somehow been simplied: all wehave argued so ar is that it should be approached in the right way. Deence willremain a highly complex problem o balancing priorities (and risks), capabilitiesand resources (both budgetary and industrial).

The deence planning process cannot be made simple, but it might neverthelessbe made more cooperative and less bureaucratically adversarial. The third and nalstep is to argue or an approach to deence planning that is based principally onoutput (strategic eect) rather than on either input (military capability) or cost butthat manages to incorporate each o these key actors. Output, importantly, is nota xed commodity, and is more than mere capability. It is, as we have said, theunction required o the armed orces in order to complete the strategic purposethat the deence establishment has derived rom the overarching (and evolving)national vision (or grand strategy) discussed above.

We propose the application o value analysis and engineering (VE), wherebyvalue is dened as the ratio o unction to cost and a systematic eort is thenundertaken both to provide the required unction at the lowest cost and to ensurethat unnecessary cost is identied and eliminated. In order to hedge against anuncertain uture, and against the possibility that what seems an unnecessary

46 Cabinet Oce, National Security Strategy, paras 3.28, 4.63 and 4.65.47 Cabinet Oce, National Security Strategy, para. 4.44.


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expense today might not be so tomorrow, a value-based approach to deencecould also identiy the costs associated with not delivering a certain unction butthen having to re-equip or to reconstitute at a later date. Value engineering has

gured prominently in deence acquisition in the United States since the SecondWorld War. The Value engineering handbook, published in 2006 by the Institute orDeense Analyses, provides a summary account o the development o VE in the1940s (pioneered by GEC) and a succinct denition o the term:

VE is an organized/systematic approach directed at analyzing the unction o systems,equipment, acilities, services, and supplies or the purpose o achieving their essential

unctions at the lowest lie-cycle cost consistent with required perormance, reliability,quality, and saety.48

For our purposes, the distinctive eature o VE is that it provides an analyt-ical and decision-making ramework that is exible and dynamic. Thus as the

overarching national vision or grand strategy adapts to changing internationalcircumstances, so the purpose or mission o the deence establishment can (andshould) be redened. This in turn provides the basis or a periodic reassessmento the strategic outputs required o the armed services. This reassessment cannot,o course, be conducted with an entirely ree hand because there will always bea certain amount o inertia caused by legacies in military equipment and skills,retraining times and so on. All the same, by gearing the deence planning process tooutput dened in terms o value (the ratio o unction to cost), it should be possibleto ensure not only that the deence establishment can adapt to circumstances asthey change (rather than endure periodic and oten painul upheavals) but also that

nancial constraints are a necessary part o the process by which deence value isanalysed instead o being wielded as a veto rom time to time.The deence establishment might be seen as a complex machine designed to

connect military inputs to strategic outputs and political purpose, producing the rightamount o orce when needed and as eciently as possible. Budgetary constraintsshould be the lubricant in the deence machine rather than the unwelcome grit. Itshould, ater all, be as unthinkable or an Air Force ocer, however conscientiousand public-spirited, to wander the worlds aerospace companies with unlimitedunds to buy the weapon systems thought most desirable as it is or a Treasuryocial, however intelligent and competent, to make complex weapons procure-ment decisions on the basis o little or no awareness o deence or military matters.

In the next section we discuss how deence might adopt a value-led approach.

Transforming defence

There has been a long-running debate regarding the transormation o armedorces in response to political and technological change. Transormation shouldbe a means to an end, a journey rom one set o capabilities to another. The

48 J. Mandelbaum and D.L. Reed, Value engineering handbook (Alexandria, VA: September 2006), pp. 12, at http://ve.ida.org/ve/documents/IDAPaperP-4114.pd.


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danger or policy-makers and commentators, however, is that they can becomepreoccupied with the journey, orgetting why it began. Alternatively, they cannd that the deence system is simply unable to complete the journey. The RAFs

new strategy launched in 2006 made precisely this point: [t]he greatest risk tothe security o the United Kingdom is perhaps that the strategic environmentwill change aster than the UK can adapt.49 This observation appears to havebeen prescient, judging by the most recent annual assessment o the MoDsperormance by the National Audit Oce (NAO), which concluded that it hadmet only one o its six Public Sector Agreement targets.50 Government doubtsabout the MoDs ability to respond to change and provide or deence hardlyseem surprising when a 2008 survey o the MoDs own sta indicated that just 20per cent elt that the MoD as a whole is well managed. This had risen to 27 percent by early 2009, albeit still below the surprisingly low government benchmarko 32 per cent.51

The idea o achieving change through an output- or value-based approach isnot new. In launching the 1993 Statement on the Deence Estimates, the thendeence secretary Malcolm Rifind argued that the document demonstrated, asnever beore, how each o the elements o our armed orces can be matched to thevarious tasks which we require the armed orces to carry out. That matching oorces to tasks is crucial. The two must be in balance i we are to avoid wasteulnesson the one hand and overstretch on the other.52 Since then, we have seen manyeorts to square the circle, described variously as deence missions, deence tasksand deence roles. Resource accounting and budgeting (RAB) has also been intro-duced, in part to enable the governmentrather than the deence establishment

to identiy the true costs o dierent capabilities and to decide which eects itwants to achieve within the resources it is prepared to commit.

Government has also had to reect on the simultaneous achievement omultiple eects. Again this is not new: the 1998 SDR articulated or the rst timethe number o commitments government could expect to maintain simultane-ously. Nevertheless, and in spite o a reassessment made in 2003, the reality is thatdeence has been operating beyond its planning assumptions or most o the pastdecade, as the MoD itsel admits.53

Three requirements must be met i the UK deence establishment is to berecalibrated and transormed into an organization that is ocused as closely aspossible on output and value and that thereore can deal more robustly with radicaluncertainty, in terms both o the level o resources available and the trajectory ointernational security. The rst requirement, as we have argued, is or govern-ment to see itsel not just as the manager but as the leadero the national deence

49 MoD, Royal Air Force strategy: agile, adaptive, capable, London, 2006, at http://www.ra.mod.uk/role/strategy.cm.

50 National Audit Oce, Perormance o the Ministry o Deence 20078, London, 2008, p. 6.51 Cabinet Oce, Capability ReviewMinistry o Deence: progress and next steps, London, 2009, p. 8.52 Malcolm Rifind, House o Commons Parliamentary Debates, Statement on the Deence Estimates 1993, 5July

1993, col. 21.53 Annual Report and Accounts 20078, Volume 1: Annual Perormance Report, HC.850-I (London: TSO,

2008), p. 29.


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eort. National deence cannot be regarded as a peculiarly sequestered preoccu-pation o the MoD in which most o government need have little or no interest;national deence should be undertaken by the MoD on behal ogovernment and

thereore on behal osociety as a whole. I it is to do its job o managing and leadingdeence, central government will require a clear understanding o (and interestin) such apparently arcane matters as minimum troop numbers or military tasks,reconstitution planning, response times, the number and type o operations thatcan be undertaken simultaneously, the level o commitment that can be sustainedand so on.

It is worth noting that the armed orces have already restructured a numbero units in order to cover current operations and have temporarily suspendedsome capabilities. In other words, risks are already being undertaken with regardto uture operational exibility. But are these risks understood at the heart ogovernment?54 Risk assessment and management have always eatured in the

deence process, and the predicted resource constraints will mean that risk will be amore central concern in uture. It is thereore essential that the government under-stands the concept o risk in the deence context and establishes the general levelo tolerable risk and that ministers (rather than the armed orces) decide wherespecic deence risks are to be run. It will also be essential that these risk assess-ments are reviewed periodically.

Here, RAB poses structural constraints that need to be re-examined. Forexample, deence might decide to stand down a signicant part o a capability suchas ast jets, armoured vehicles or rigates, on the grounds that as long as a minimumcapability and training capacity can be maintained, the capability could be rebuilt

when needed. Placing key capabilities in storage could thereore be a rational step,except that under RAB rules such a move would incur signicant interest charges.For this reason, it would be sensible or central government to broker an agree-ment between the MoD and the Treasury whereby equipment not needed in theront line or or training can be drawn down and placed in store, as was the practicein pre-RAB days, so that i circumstances do change, a uture government wouldbe able to reconstitute orce levels more quickly and at a lower cost.

Having ormed a closer understanding o deence, the government can thenmeet the second requirement, which is to provide guidance as to the sorts o outputit might wish deence to achieve. An intelligent dialogue should then identiy thecapability and cost implications o likely outputs. For example, services-assistedevacuation operations would require guidance as to their likely scale, where theymight be required, the likely level o opposition and whether British armed orcescould expect to be operating alone or with allies. The deence establishment canthen begin to provide capability and cost estimates or the various desired outputs.This must be an iterative process, with other government departments assessingwhat they each might contribute and how they might cooperate. For its part, thedeence establishment will be required to identiy associated support costs or each

54 NAO, Support to high intensity operations, HC.508, session 20089 (London: TSO, 2009), p. 40, and AnnualReport and Accounts 20078, Volume 1: Annual Perormance Report, pp. 989.


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projected output, including sta provision, training and inrastructure. Deencewill also need to assess dierent scales o output and to identiy the costs associ-ated with the loss and potential reconstitution o a capability. For example, the

Trident nuclear submarine system is currently deployed to provide a continuousat-sea deterrent (CASD). The proposed replacement oers a similar output. Otheroptions should be assessed in order to establish whether CASD (the requiredunction) can be achieved at a lower cost or whether only marginal savings couldbe achieved by abandoning CASD.

The third requirement is or the deence establishment to be as t and ecientas possible in order more eectively to provide the outputs required o it. Theparsimonious state o government unding means that deence will need the activesupport o other departments o state or its uture nancial requests, includingthe Treasury, as well as the wider public, who will be expected to contribute moreby way o taxation.

Like most complex bureaucracies, the MoD inevitably harbours a number oinecient processes and practices whereby cost is either disproportionate to theunction being sought or, at worst, is largely unrelated to any deence unction. Atits most basic, the deence budget is concerned with the costs associated withpeopleand with equipment. In each case, we oer examples to show how the MoD mightgo about the task o devising a more ecient system geared to producing theoutputs required. There can be no taboos; every area o deence should be auditedor the value it brings. However, the imposition o eciency savings across theboard would be nonsensical. Deence must, instead, be examined in terms o value:i a given output (set by government) is being achieved as eciently as possible,

then urther cost reductions might reduce rather than enhance value. Eciencysavings should be implemented careully, and in the knowledge that it might benecessary to re-examine the desired outputs rather than assume that they can allbe achieved on the cheap.

People

The MoD has signicant personnel costs, especially as the majority o servicepersonnel and their amilies have to be housed. Within a nite budget, the costsor personnel must compete with unding or equipment and support. Thus ar,the MoDs concern with personnel costs has generally ocused on civil servicenumbers. This approach is largely input-ocused, and misses two key areas: theoverall cost o civil service personnel and the cost o military personnel. Inorma-tion regarding MoD civil service structures and costs is not openly available. Dataconcerning military personnel costs are available, however, and are used here asa means to illustrate how personnel costs might be examined closely in terms ovalue, with costs being saved.

An assessment o military personnel costs reveals some surprising trends. First,not surprisingly, there has been a signicant reduction in personnel numberssince the end o the Cold War (table 1). But the steady reduction in the size o


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Table 1: Strength o regular orces (000), 1990 and 2008

Total Ocers Other ranks

All services1990 305.8 42.9 262.9

2008 187.1 31.7 155.3

Per cent all 39.0 26.0 41.0

Navy

1990 63.3 10.1 53.1

2008 38.6 7.5 31.1

Per cent all 39.0 26.0 41.0

Army

1990 152.8 17.4 135.42008 105.1 14.6 90.5

Per cent all 31.0 26.0 33.0

RAF

1990 89.7 15.3 74.4

2008 43.4 9.7 33.7

Per cent all 52.0 37.0 55.0

Source: Deence Statistics 2008, DASA, 20 April 2009, table 2.7.

Table 2: Total number o ofcers or all three services by rank,* 1990 and2008

Rank 1990 2008 Per cent decrease

Major-general and above 200 140 30

Brigadier 390 350 10

Colonel 1,510 1,180 22

Lieutenant-colonel 4,610 4,070 12

Major 11,800 9,600 19

Captain 14,780 11,900 19

Lieutenant/2nd lieutenant 9,310 4,460 52* Army rank givenSources: Bob Ainsworth, House o Commons Parliamentary Debates, written answer, 2 June2008, col. 671W, and Deence Statistics 2008, table 2.8.

the armed orces has been elt disproportionately by more junior commissionedand non-commissioned ranks (tables 1 and 2). For all three services, senior ocerpositions have not been reduced proportionately. The outcome is a signicantlevel o grade ination, with the result that the cost per individual member o thearmed orces has increased since the end o the Cold War (tables 2 and 3). This is


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no doubt exacerbated by the many allowances and entitlements based partly onrank, e.g. house size and quality. The justication or this imbalance is unclear,particularly given that the majority o combat orces (the core unction o deence,ater all) are led by junior commissioned and non-commissioned ocers. The mostnoticeable change is in the RAF, where the number o other ranks ell by overhal (55 per cent) while commissioned ocer numbers ell by less than two-ths(37 per cent). According to none other than the minister o state or the armedorces (recently elevated to secretary o state or deence), in all ranks above ightlieutenant the RAF has more ocers on its books than it requires. 55 The obviousquestion is, why?

It would appear that one o the actors driving this trend has been the movetowards increased jointness. For example, the number o brigadier equivalentposts has allen only by 10 per cent despite the size o the armed orces alling by 39per cent. I this is analysed rom a naval perspective, the situation is even more stark.The commodore rank was seldom used during the Cold War years (there were twoposts: one covering amphibious warare and the other the Fleet Air Arm). Yet inMarch 2008, the Navy had approximately 80 commodores, 20 more than it thinks

55 Bob Ainsworth, House o Commons Parliamentary Debates, written answer, 2 June 2008, col. 673W.

Table 3: Average pay by rank,* 20082009**

Rank Average pay () Total number a

Chie o the Deence Sta 231,342 1General 164,281 9

Lieutenant-general 122,404 25

Major-general 101,445 88

Brigadier 94,467 334

Colonel 80,381 1,040

Lieutenant-colonel 68,231 3,572

Major 50,488 8,467

Captain 39,434 8,331

Lieutenant/2nd lieutenant 26,987 4,192

Warrant ocer 1 40,576 n/a

Warrant ocer 2 and sta sergeant 35,724 n/a

Sergeant 31,087 n/a

Corporal 27,421 n/a

Lance corporal and private 18,652 n/a

* Army rank given** At January 2009a As o January 2009Sources: Bob Ainsworth, House o Commons Parliamentary Debates, written answer, 23 March2009, col. 13W, and written answer, 25 March 2009, col. 427W; and Deence Statistics 2008,

DASA, 20 April 2009, table 2.8.


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it requires.56 Similarly, Royal Naval Sea Harrier squadrons were commanded bylieutenant-commanders until they became part o Joint Force Harrier, at whichpoint the responsibility shited up one naval rank, to that o commander, in order

to all into line with RAF practice. In other words, when posts are made jointor tri-service, the highest individual service ranking seems to have been acceptedas the norm. Jointness is, presumably, a desired deence unction, but are theseassociated costs tolerable in the achievement o that unction?

Rank ination is scarcely a new phenomenon. In 1995, the MoD publishedManaging people in tomorrows armed orces (known as the Bett Report ater itschairman), which concluded that the existence o so many ranks is more likelythan not to result in the creation o unnecessary jobs in order to sustain the currentrank structure. Even i it happens only at the margin, it is cost inationary.57 Bettssuggestions about possible consolidations on the ocer scale were largely ignored.The only concession has been to abandon the 5-star rank (eld marshal equivalent),

although the chie o the deence sta continues to be paid on a higher scale thanhis 4-star contemporaries (general and equivalent), which misses the point o theexercise.

Another consideration aecting military sta costs is the practice in the Armyo having units and ormations commanded at higher ranks than in some westerncounterparts. For example, in the US Army inantry companies are commandedby captains and brigades by colonels, while their British equivalents are majors andbrigadiers respectively. Far rom having a pyramid structure or its ocer corps,the Armys rank structure appears more like a Christmas tree, with almost as manymajors as captains. The other services show similar trends. All RAF squadrons, or

example, are now commanded by wing commanders, and pilots must be commis-sioned ocers. Justication or the latter is normally based on the advanced andcostly nature o the equipment that individuals y, quietly ignoring the act thatmany o the Armys Apache helicopter pilots are not commissioned even thoughthe helicopter is one o the most expensive platorms in service. The rank o navalocers commanding ships is also rising while the number o ship commands isgoing down.

Given the current urore over MPs expenses, it might well be that the widerpublic sector will soon be subject to the same level o scrutiny in respect o theexpenditure o public unds.58 To maintain public support or and condence inthe armed orces, and to improve the ratio o cost to unction in personnel whereverpossible, deence should also query and rationalize the system o allowances andbenets. For example, i there is a case or paying special allowances, such as ightpay and submarine pay, to certain individuals, where does the deence value lie incontinuing to pay these allowances to individuals who no longer perorm thoseunctions?

56 Bob Ainsworth, House o Commons Parliamentary Debates, written answer, 2 June 2008, col. 671W.57 Managing people in tomorrows armed orcesindependent review o the Armed Forces manpower, career and remuneration

structures (London: HMSO, 1995), p. 17.58 See Cost o RAF house takes o , Independent online, 5 July 1994, at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/

cost-o-ra-house-takes-o-1411666.html.


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Savings might also be made elsewhere, in the rst place by reassessing headquar-ters and basing requirements. In an eort to meet operational requirements, theMoD has established a third operational divisional headquarters (6 Division) or

deployment to Aghanistan.59

This might seem extravagant when it is remem-bered that or over a decade the Army has also had three regenerative divisionheadquarters, each headed by a major-general, as well as Headquarters LondonDistrict, commanded by another major-general. In view o a nite (and dimin-ishing) budget, our argument is that resources should be ocused where they willprovide the deence outputs needed. I the armed orces are to retain the strongpublic support they currently enjoy (and or good reason), the deence establish-ment cannot aord either to replicate a urore like that over MPs expenses or to beseen to indulge in unnecessary expenditure that deprives the ront line.

I deence is eectively to go back to basics and ocus on achieving the coredeence eects required by government, then a more rigorous approach to costs

will be required. In the rst place, deence might seek to minimize its unding onon-deence items and pass on those costs to the relevant government department.Thus it would make sense to complete the withdrawal o orces rom Germanyand to occupy bases in the UK that are currently becoming available as part odeence downsizing. This would have a number o benets or deence. It wouldremove much o the cost associated with United Kingdom Support Command(Germany), another 2-star-led (major-general level) organization that supportsservice personnel and their amilies based in Germany, overseeing hospitals,schools and so on. The return to the UK o the remaining Army units would allowthe super-garrison project to be completed and provide enhanced support or the

civilian authorities here. With ewer oreign establishments, currency exchangecosts would decline and the newly developed UK bases would help to stimulatelocal economies rather than those in Germany. To support this, a major eort tobring service housing up to scratch would also provide a major llip or both thebuilding and the transport industries struggling in the recession.

Equipment

Deence equipment is extraordinarily costly, and the MoD has continually beencriticized or poor perormance in the acquisition o weapon systems and otherequipment. Although the MoD appears to be no worse than its oreign counter-parts, the annual reports rom Parliament and the NAO make particularly bleakreading, with the ailure to implement the Deence Industrial Strategy and topublish a second edition o it evoking much criticism rom industry. There aresignicant savings to be made on the equipment side through better practice.First, most obviously, it has to be borne in mind that the cost o equipment is notully covered in the initial purchase price. The creation o the Deence Equip-ment & Support organization should make it possible or the MoD to make a ull

59 Annual Report and Accounts 20078 Volume 1: Annual Perormance Report, HC.850-I, session 20078(London: TSO, 2008), p. 98.


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assessment o through-lie costs. It should be pointed out, however, that althoughthere has been considerable praise given to the urgent operational requirements(UOR) process or the speed in which new equipment has been delivered to opera-tional theatres, the longer-term nancial implications give cause or concern. Inresponse to operational requirements, deence has acquired several new weaponsystems without considering ully the cost o sustaining them through their servicelie. This extra cost may well be signicant, thereby posing an additional nancialburden on the existing deence budget, especially as so many dierent systems havebeen acquired in relatively small numbers.

Second, i the required output is to be achieved without unnecessary andcostly duplication, the armed services should rationalize their equipment holdings

in terms o actual need rather than aspiration. For example, the RAF currentlyoperates our dierent ast-jet eets (see table 4 above). As the government has nowcommitted itsel to a third tranche o the Euroghter Typhoon (with a ground-attack capability, making the eet multi-role), it might be more rational to havea orce o ast jets comprising the ewest possible types o aircrat, optimized ormaximum availability. With this in mind, it might thus be reasonable to view theTyphoon as a replacement or the entire Tornado orce. Not only would equip-ment and related costs be saved but there would also no longer be any need to traina second crew member or the ast jet orce, thereby removing a signicant trainingburden. The biggest savings are made when an entire weapon system is removed

rom service rather than the traditional salami-slicing o all weapon systems. Inspite o the UOR process mentioned above, the aim should thereore be to reducethe number o weapon systems while maximizing the exibility o those that areretained or acquired.

Third, deence should no longer subsidize industry and be orced to acceptunnecessary costs and ineciencies. I the government wishes that an industrialsector or a particular supplier should be supported, then any extra costs associatedwith such support should be passed on to the Department or Business, Innovationand Skills (DBIS) over the lie o that asset. Even though the reallocation o costsrom one department o state to another does not, evidently, save the public purse

Table 4: The RAFs current rontline ast jet orce, 2009

Aircrat type Total eet Forward eet Fit or purpose Percentage o eet ft

or purposeTyphoon 53 35 20 38

Tornado GR4 138 81 61 44

Tornado F3 69 35 26 38

Harrier 72 49 44 59

Total 332 200 151 45

Source: Bob Ainsworth, House o Commons Parliamentary Debates, written answer, 24March 2009, col. 272/W.


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anything in real terms, it should orce the government to recognize that it has aresponsibility to make complex decisions that should be implemented on behalo the government as a whole. I the DBIS is unwilling to accept this additional

burden, and i as a result support to industry is to decline, then the responsibilityor that state o aairs should lie with the government itsel rather than withdeence.

Conclusions

Clausewitz observed that [e]verything in war is simple, but the simplest thing isdicult. The diculties accumulate and end by producing a kind o riction thatis inconceivable unless one has experienced war.60 Where contemporary deencemanagement and planning are concerned, the equivalent to Clausewitzs axiomwas provided by the late Sir Michael Quinlan when he warned against expecting

the bureaucratic process to be simple and straightorward:

There is an occasional caricature-stereotype o deence planning which supposes that itisor i it is not, that it ought to bea basically linear process. One starts by identiying

ones commitments; one assesses proessionally what orces are needed to meet them; onecosts these; and then one sends the bill to the Treasury, which pays up. It is not only in thenal particular that this model departs rom reality.61

Deence is dicult or a number o reasons, not least because (and in spite ocurrent operational commitments) it is largely about preparing or what mighthappen. In political/electoral terms, then, there can oten be little apparent publicbenet associated with a large slice o government spending. Nevertheless, thereare those who persist in arguing that deence is actually a rather straightorwardmatter o ensuring that, or example, the Royal Navy has everything it needs, opreparing or this or that style o conict and no other or o making deep cutsacross the deence budget in order to balance the books, and so on.

These and similar arguments etishize the deence debate in one way or another,and they all miss the point. The deence debate should not pitch aircrat carriersagainst battleeld radios against ast attack aircrat. Neither should the deencedebate be overly inuenced by esoteric discussions about the evolution (or other-wise) o modern strategy. And neither, o course, should the deence debate bedriven by the Treasury and by the notion that whatever deence is about, it can

probably be achieved at hal the price. The UK deence debate should not beallowed to become a war among the etishes. The point o the deence debate is toensure that the armed orces provide the outputs required, when and where they arerequired, rather than to argue interminably over inputs (or capabilities) or indeedabout the nature o conict. In other words, the deence debate is about usingthe armed orces to achieve value in the orm o specied political purposes, and

60 Carl von Clausewitz, On war, ed. and trans. M. Howard and P. Paret (Princeton, NJ: University Press, 1976),p. 119.

61 Sir Michael Quinlan, British deence planning in a changing world, World Today, vol. 48, no. 89, 1992, p. 160.Sir Michael was Permanent Under Secretary at the MoD rom 1988 to 1992.


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doing so with limited economic resources. Political purpose will change, perhapsvery requently. There is no nal, objective truth about national deence that iswaiting to be discovered and that will obviate the need or articles such as this.

Deence policy is what the philosopher W. B. Gallie described as an essentiallycontested concept, a concept the proper use o which inevitably involves endlessdisputes about [its] proper uses on the part o [its] users.62 How and where thedeence establishment is occupied at a particular moment is o course o immensesignicance. But how, where and when should not be conused with why. Themission o the deence establishment is to meet this essentially contested polit-ical purpose, even as it changes character and direction. This is the challenge odeence, and it is one that requires the deence establishment to do what can bedone in terms o cost savings and eciencies in order to be as agile and responsiveas possible. Moreover, it is a challenge that requires government to take the lead inarticulating a national vision rom which deence can derive its mission and then it

is or government to support the subsequent deence eort.There is the very real prospect that service and campaign tribalism could lead

to a deence review that is based almost entirely on input measures, as ministersand ocials seek to bring the programme and budget into alignment along thelines ollowed in the 1981 Nott Review. Not surprisingly, there have been calls ora new strategic deence review (SDR), assuming that this will provide the undis-puted solution to the problems we have described. The reality o the 1998 SDR,however, was that it promised much to the armed orces but did not tackle theundamental issue that has beset deence or over 50 yearsthe ailure to solve theresourceoutput equation.

The orthcoming review should ocus on achieving value in deence. Thisapproach requires the clearest possible sense o purpose or unction, as well as arm commitment to reduce or eliminate unnecessary costs. The goal should bea deence establishment that is purposeul and ecient, and to achieve this boththe top-down and bottom-up approaches we have outlined will be essential.A deence review that makes grand statements rom the centre o governmentwithout being too concerned about what can or cannot be achieved, or whichinsists that deence is not about ideas but about saving money, will almost certainlyrepeat the errors o the past. Whether the next government is prepared to assess(and accept) risks and make the necessary decisions, and whether deence isprepared to put aside its etishes and tribal totems in avour o a more constructivedebate, remains to be seen.

62 W. B. Gallie, Essentially contested concepts, Proceedings o the Aristotelian Society, vol. 56, 19556, p. 169.

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