SUMMARY OF SOME KEY POINTS BY PROFESSOR
HEW STRACHAN
A. HOW FAR
THE ARMED
FORCES NEED
TO REFLECT
THE SOCIETY
THEY SERVE
1. Britain has no long-term tradition that
the services should reflect society, and for most of their history
they have not.
2. The received wisdom from the 18th century
(Adam Smith onwards) has recognised the economic benefits of a
division of labour.
3. Historically we have seen no corollary
between citizenship and the right—or obligation—to
serve (contrast, say, France).
4. We have been happy to use mercenaries,
ie non-citizens, if necessary. We do so today—Gurkhas, Irish,
Fijians.
5. Conscription, in 1916-18 and 1939-60,
did align the armed forces and society, but only temporarily.
The effects fostered convergence: world war militarised society
and society introduced some civilian manpower policies into the
services (see especially the work of Ronald Adam as Adjutant General
in the Second World War). The consequences continued at least
into the 1960s, but have inevitably dissipated as those so affected
have grown older.
6. The ending of conscription, not the end
of the Cold War, was what reopened the division between the services
and society.
7. An acceptance that, while we have small,
professional armed forces, we are likely to have fundamental differences
between the two is probably necessary for a coherent policy.
B. THE EMPLOYMENT
PACKAGE
What follows is reflective of broad principles
and short on specific suggestions.
The division between the armed forces and society
1. The acceptance of what is argued in A.
does not mean that there should not be palliatives designed to
foster links between the services and society. They are mandatory
not only for the specific reasons of recruiting and retention,
but also for the more general ones of public accountability and
acceptability.
2. The high estimation in which the armed
forces are held has been relatively constant since the late 19th
century. It is not automatic, and it has few parallels elsewhere
in Europe.
3. The contrast between high public estimation
and low recruiting and retention is also entirely typical of Britain.
This is not a new phenonemon.
4. The operational profile of the services,
so much enhanced in the 1990s, ought to be an advantage in recruiting,
if not in retention.
Palliatives
5. Mercenaries should not be cut—esp
Gurkhas.
6. Pay and pensions do not seem to be major
issues at present, with the exception of RAF pilots, and while
recognising that most people will always want better remuneration.
7. Since the 1960s society has "demilitarised".
The obvious bridges between school and service life—not
just compulsory cadet corps but also compulsory team sports, the
level of responsibility accorded school prefects—have been
weakened. They could be reinforced, although not necessarily by
the same routes. URNUs, OTCs and Air Squadrons provide an already
available entree to the undergraduate population, a position of
service privilege without comparison in western Europe, and they
pay their members—a significant factor in the face of student
debt.
8. The gap between the school-leaving age
of 16 and the age of entry to senior service at 18 has been recognised
as a problem. The Army Foundation College is an answer, but more
probably needs to be done. The UN position on child soldiers does
not help.
9. The armed forces need to recognise that
they have "re-militarised" since the end of conscription.
They have re-evaluated some military values and become more self-contained.
The policy on homosexuality, although now changed, is illustrative
of this point: the services became tougher on this issue in a
period of nominal peace (the 1980s and 1990s) than they had been
in war.
10. The services' own approach both to the
definition of postings and to rotation between postings exacerbates
overstretch. There is a tendency to see any overseas posting as
operational, and to include time preparing to go or returning
as also operational. The need to remain a generalist and the average
of two or so years in each post adds to turbulence. Other armies
have other ways of doing things.
11. Some aspects of service life do not
need to be governed by service procedures as there are robust
civilian mechanisms that are readily transferable—eg on
sexual harassment, racism. Military law should be reserved for
cases that are not offences in civilian law—eg desertion
in the face of the enemy.
12. Equal opportunities need to be clarified.
Some argue as though equal opportunities are the same as rights—especially
the right to serve. Britain has no tradition of linking rights
to service. Everybody should have the right to be considered for
all jobs in the services, but that is not the same as saying that
everybody has the right to do all those jobs. Demands in regard
to—say—physical fitness will mean that in practice
many jobs remain closed to many people. The issues of principle
are different from the issues of practice.
13. The TA, Reserves and Cadets defended
their position in the SDR process in part on the grounds that
they link the armed forces and society. The SDR has done nothing
to help fulfil that role. The cuts have simultaneously weakened
the regional imprint and weakened unit cohesion. Regimental and
other loyalties have not helped: several units from all three
services and from within single services compete in the same area
for the same pool of recruits. The units themselves thus have
ever-expanding geographical zones to cover (eg the whole of Scotland),
with sub-units long distances from unit HQs. A policy of having
a single unit in a single centre would allow more meaningful and
rewarding training, and a higher local profile. There is a recruiting
crisis in the reserves as well as in the regulars: units are only
up to strength because their establishments have been reduced,
and that has been achieved by removing the old and bold without
any obvious sign that a younger generation is coming in.
Current and projected operational requirements
14. The criterion which governs the armed
forces' "need" to be different is operational effectiveness.
This rests on the assumption of "hot war", on the grounds
that "general war" is the most demanding of all types
of war, and that services structured for it can cope with other
demands. If true, this increases the strain on the services; if
untrue, it means that by preparing for one sort of war, a service
unfits itself for another sort.
15. In reality our armed forces are no longer
capable of sustaining "general war", because we have
insufficient reserves to make good "casualties, limited ammunition
stocks, and little capacity to expand rapidly in either category.
Britain has a single-shot capability.
16. The current strengths of our services
are in peace support, peace enforcement and low intensity war.
This is important because armed forces configured for such tasks
do not depend on massive public support for their deployment,
can take some casualties without a public backlash, and are confronted
with recruiting targets which are currently presenting difficulties
but in absolute terms are not large.
17. The "revolution in military affairs"
may allow the services to change their requirements of the people
they enlist, but the RMA is US-led, and assumes a continuing priority
on general war.
18. The Heseltine reforms of 1984 and their
aftermath have equated command with management. The cultural significance
is important. Those who will be good commanders in war may not
prove adept in financial control, health and safety legislation,
and personnel policy. The services' emphasis on the chain of command
makes them reluctant to separate out management in a business
sense from command in a military sense, but arguably some of the
more obvious managerial gaffes might have been avoided if they
had been and even in peacetime commanders would profit from being
freed from the more obviously bureaucratic requirements of the
job.
THE POLICY
FOR PEOPLE
1. The Policy for People was the thinnest
part of the SDR. It is hard to comment on what is largely a promise
to give the matter attention.
2. Its most developed specific recommendation
relates to NVQs. This is preparing people for careers after they
leave the service. Arguably it is undermining retention, not promoting
it.
3. At the very least it is saying that the
services are at best half a career. The services promote themselves
as careers with structures to match, and yet they don't deliver.
Other nations do more to deliver a full career.
4. In practice the majority stay for say
three years and a few stay for 20 years. Would a more explicitly
two-tier structure that took that on board not make sense? The
former do not look for the trappings of a full career; the latter
obviously do.
5. Retention rates are better for those
with transferable skills (eg engineers) than those without them
(eg infantrymen). Those who stay are those who are confident of
getting a job whenever they leave; those who leave early are—ironically—those
with the least likelihood of easily finding a job.
6. The allocation of what have now become
civilian jobs to senior but unpromoteable servicemen would help
create a sense of a full career; so too would the allocation of
such jobs to the spouses of service personnel.
7. There needs more obviously to be better
care for ex-servicemen. The MoD does not emerge from the press
as a caring employer, and many veterans suffering from disabilities
incurred in service would not trumpet the military career.
8. Arguably many of these difficulties have
arisen from the erosion of the paternalist tradition of the services.
The paraphenalia of clubs, married quarters, etc, fulfilled a
pastoral role in self-contained communities. It is indeed pressures
from without that have eroded them, but in seeking to align the
services with civilian life too little attention has been given
to seeking replacements.
15 June 2000
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