House of Commons - Defence

Select Committee on Defence Fifth Report

3 Strategic Environment

32. Changes in the strategic environment in recent years have been discussed in reports from a number of organisations. The United States issued a National Security Strategy in September 2002 which was seen as clearly articulating a pre-emptive strategy following the terrorist attacks on America: "to forestall or prevent…hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act pre-emptively…the United States cannot remain idle while dangers gather".[27] The European Union for its part adopted a European Security Strategy in December 2003, "A Secure Europe in a Better World" which emphasised the need for multilateral approaches to security, noting that in most recent military interventions, military efficiency had been followed by civilian chaos.[28]

33. The Defence White Paper's main conclusions have largely flowed from the New Chapter work. The regions of the world that the UK is preparing to operate in are extended beyond those identified by the SDR to include sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The number of military tasks that the Armed Forces are set to perform have been reduced from 27 to 18, and are grouped in four categories, which we discuss below. The armed services are directed to plan to support three concurrent operations (one medium scale and two small scale—of which one is an enduing peace support operation), while retaining the capacity to undertake large Scale operations, with longer notice. The objective is to re-balance forces to allow the reallocation of resources to those capabilities currently over-employed on operations—often called "key enablers", such as those engaged in logistics, engineering and intelligence. There is also a greater emphasis on medium-weight and rapidly deployable forces. One of the few detailed proposals in the White Paper is for the re-categorisation of one heavy armoured brigade to be a medium-weight mechanised brigade and the consequent re-categorisation of a medium weight brigade to light.

34. The lack of detail in the White Paper has been much commented on, with descriptions such as "good light reading", but "no real meat" typical. In the House of Lords, the former Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord Guthrie was disappointed:

Although I approve the thrust of the White Paper…I have serious concerns. It does not attempt to go into detail…it is, as it stands, a bland document and lacks detail. It is full of buzz words and platitudes—flexibility, force multipliers, network enabled capability. What does it actually mean? Everybody gives me a different answer.[29]

35. In this inquiry we have attempted to answer that question, but have found, like Lord Guthrie, a lack of clarity in the document itself and the explanations offered by ministers and MoD officials. We are disappointed that a policy document that could have far reaching implications has been presented with little or no detail on the relevant procurement decisions, funding questions or likely changes in force structures and consequent effect on personnel.

Changes since the Original SDR

36. In the Defence White Paper, MoD accepted the need for updating the SDR, despite continuing to argue that its basic assumptions remained valid:

While the SDR and the New Chapter set us on the right course to respond to the trends emerging in 1998, the security environment and technology have moved on. We therefore need to adapt further our force structures in light of our operational experience and continue the process of modernisation that SDR set in hand.[30]

Most importantly, UK forces have been involved in a wide range of crises in various parts of the world, and at greater frequency than expected since the SDR was published in 1998. This has been accompanied by the rapid and dramatic expansion of NATO, the continued proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and a number of advances in military technologies, such as the increased provision of precision guided munitions (PGMs). There were also lessons to be learned about the nature of the threat to the UK itself in a globalised world in which "strategic-effect" terrorism appeared capable of audacious attacks anywhere in the world. We explored these issues in our Threat from Terrorism[31] and Defence and Security in the UK[32] reports, in both of which we noted (as our predecessors had) how the original SDR had not adequately considered the threat of "asymmetric warfare".[33]

37. One of the particular lessons drawn by the MoD from the terrorist attacks on the United States of 11 September 2001, was the need to be able to prevent, deter, coerce, disrupt or destroy international terrorists and regimes that harbour them. This increasingly might be outside the core regions identified by the original SDR, and this had particular implications for expeditionary logistics.[34] The regional alteration is a significant change from the original SDR. The White Paper identifies the need to project forces further afield into sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, with "medium scale operations" in sub-Saharan Africa; "small-scale operations" in Asia; and "small-scale counter-terrorist operations" world-wide. The Secretary of State told us that:

we can no longer safely assume that the main theatre of operations for the United Kingdom would be Europe and the Middle East, which is essentially what we set out in the SDR. Afghanistan demonstrates that a failed state, providing a harbour for terrorist organisations, means that that threat can strike at us or our close allies from huge distances. Therefore we need to recognise that global environment in which we accept in almost every other respect that we have to face up to dealing with threats from as far afield as they can come.[35]

The White Paper also emphasises "speed, precision, agility, deployability, reach and sustainability".[36] Military operations in the future will have to be undertaken at even shorter notice than anticipated under the SDR. What has emerged in the past six years is the extent to which the Armed Forces have been operating at the limits of what they can achieve. The SDR's planning assumptions provided relatively little resilience to enable the services to re-orientate when called upon to do so.

Missions

38. The SDR identified 8 Defence Missions for which the Armed Forces had to prepare, under which came 28 Military Tasks. The Defence Missions were as follows:

i. Peacetime Security

ii. Security Of The Overseas Territories

iii. Defence Diplomacy

iv. Support To Wider British Interests

v. Peace Support And Humanitarian Operations

vi. Regional Conflict Outside The NATO Area

vii. Regional Conflict Inside The NATO Area

viii. Strategic Attack On NATO.[37]

39. In the White Paper this has been replaced with a single defence mission:

To deliver security for the people of the United Kingdom and the Overseas Territories by defending them, including against terrorism, and to act as a force for good by strengthening international peace and security.

Below this come 18 Military Tasks which are categorised under four generic headings:

Standing Strategic Commitments,
Standing Home Commitments,
Standing Overseas Commitments, and
Contingent Operations Overseas.[38]

This in turn has led to a revision of the scales of effort being planned for. As discussed above, the SDR developed generic planning assumptions for the type of operations that the Armed Forces might have to undertake, based on capabilities rather than commitments. These in turn were based on the scales that might be required, categorised as Small (battalion-sized), Medium (brigade-sized), Large (division-sized) and Very Large, or Full. The SDR assumptions stated that the Armed Forces should plan to undertake:

a single enduring peace support commitment at Medium Scale whilst providing suitable training and leave to all the forces; or
an enduring peace support commitment at the Medium Scale plus a limited duration Medium Scale intervention commitment; or
a one-off Large Scale commitment.[39]

40. Since the SDR was published, the Armed Forces have managed to do what has been asked of them, but key elements have been significantly over-stretched while other parts of the force capabilities have appeared relatively under-utilised. Furthermore, according to the White Paper, an important lesson of the post-SDR world has been that "in some respects—particularly for enabling assets such as deployable HQs, communications and deployabled logistical support—several Small Scale operations are potentially more demanding than one or two more substantial operations".[40] This should not have been a surprise since the original SDR stated that in addition to the sustainable medium-sized operations mentioned above—the Armed Forces were also supposed to be able to carry our "several small but perhaps long-running commitments and respond to minor contingencies".[41] Although, the SDR's ambition to set out plans for 17 years ahead (to 2015) appears to have unravelled in under six years in the important area of scales of effort, the Defence White Paper repeats the goal of seeking to look "about 15 years" forward.[42]

41. The scales of effort problem was summarised in the White Paper as follows:

Since SDR our Armed Forces have conducted operations that have been more complex and greater in number than we had envisaged. We have effectively been conducting continual concurrent operations, deploying further afield, to more places, more frequently and with a greater variety of missions than set out in the SDR planning assumptions. We expect to see a similar pattern of operations in the future, with the emphasis on multiple, concurrent Medium and Small Scale deployments.[43]

Force Structures are tailored to a set of interlinked planning assumptions, such as frequency, duration, scale of effort, and length of time troops should be asked to serve away from home each year (collectively known as harmony guidelines).[44] If one or more of these are exceeded the inevitable consequence must be greater pressure on people, unless a reserve is held. This can manifest itself in a number of ways: shorter tour intervals; longer tours; the sacrifice of individual career progression training; or less training for other roles.

42. It may be rash of the White Paper to state that "we expect to see a similar pattern of operations in the future", just after its predecessor document—the SDR—has had to be substantially amended, not least because unforeseen developments in the security environment have led to changes in operational demands. We are not convinced that expecting things to follow a similar pattern to the recent past is the best way to shape UK defence policy in an era of rapid change.

43. The White Paper has also refined the concurrency assumptions from the model presented by the SDR. The assumptions are as follows:

That as a norm and without creating overstretch we should be able to mount

— an enduring Medium Scale peace support operation simultaneously with an enduring Small Scale peace support operation and

— a one-off Small Scale intervention operation.

That we should be able to reconfigure our forces rapidly to carry out

— the enduring Medium Scale peace support operation and

— a Small Scale peace support operation simultaneously with

— a limited duration Medium Scale intervention operation.

That, given time to prepare, we should be capable of undertaking

— a demanding one-off Large Scale operation while still maintaining a commitment to

— a simple Small Scale peace support operation.[45]

44. The changes represent a shift from a central focus on the most demanding, but occasional, large-scale activity, towards structuring the armed services to be better able to undertake the most likely medium and small-scale operations. MoD appears to be moving away from a structure and organisation based on the ability to conduct large-scale operations, from which all its other activities flow. Instead the focus is moving to the "effects", which are sought from regular and continuous expeditionary activities around the world at shorter notice and at smaller scale. On the face of it this represents an important departure from the original SDR. It may also have implications for how the ability to conduct high-intensity war fighting operations is defined by the military.

45. In shifting the emphasis to one medium and two small-scale operations, with a large operation only achievable with more notice (stated to be a minimum of six months),[46] the MoD has not explained why the next large-scale challenge should necessarily arise with longer warning time than the next two small-scale operations. The actual reason for this may not be that six months is the assessment of how quickly such a challenge might arise, but rather the length of time that will now be required for the UK to be able to mount such a scale of operation. Indeed, the continuing need to conduct multiple small-to medium-scale operations is already beginning to undermine the UK's ability to conduct large-scale operations. This will become more serious the longer this trend continues, in part because as the training establishment becomes geared up to providing forces at the medium level, the urgent requirement to provide forces at large-scale becomes more difficult—a point accepted by CDS in evidence to the Committee.[47]

46. Furthermore, there is no convincing discussion in the White Paper of why it has been judged that one medium and two small-scale operations should be prepared for—why not three or four small-scale? We are left wondering whether the Defence White Paper is properly set in the strategic context of Britain's security circumstances, or whether it is more a reflection of what the UK has actually been doing for the last three years, and the existence of a number of legacy systems of whose continuing importance the MoD is uncertain. In other words it is far from clear whether the review process has actually been effects-led, or rather resource driven.

Homeland defence

47. Despite the events of 11 September 2001, the MoD and Home Office have been reluctant to consider novel ways in which the Armed Forces can support homeland security. The emphasis has been on adapting existing structures, rather than considering significant new mechanisms for military support to the tasks of national security at home. Even the establishment of the 14 Civil Contingency Reaction Force (CCRF), pools of 500 reservists in each of the brigade districts of Great Britain (which we considered in our report on the SDR New Chapter), is not as significant as at first appears. MoD officials and members of the Armed Forces have repeatedly emphasised to us that these reserves would not replace the regulars who previously would have been expected to come to the aid of the civil authorities.[48] Indeed it remains unclear in what circumstances the CCRFs will actually be used, how useful the, rather modest, 5 additional training days per year will be, and how far they will be adequately prepared or equipped to tackle a major emergency. CGS professed himself satisfied with the additional training, but did not elaborate on what it entailed.[49] CDS told us:

we support the civil authorities in terms of the homeland security task rather than are pre-eminent on it. Certainly we are not designed as a structure to be purely capable of doing homeland defence and operating to do all the other optional things we have to do.[50]

His statement sits rather oddly with the Defence White Paper's new single defence mission which begins, "To deliver security for the people of the United Kingdom and the Overseas Territories by defending them, including against terrorism".[51]

48. The presumption continues to be that homeland security will be undertaken with whatever is not being used for other tasks. More importantly, notwithstanding the steps taken to bolster the military contribution to homeland defence since 11 September 2001,[52] the approach remains essentially reactive. CGS told us that no template actually existed, nor should it he argued, for such contingencies, because the nature of the challenge would shape the response.[53] We are unaware of any proper capability review by MoD of the possible contribution of the Armed Forces to home defence. We are not convinced that an essentially reactive approach to defence of the UK homeland is satisfactory given the nature of the threat to the UK today.

49. The Permanent Under Secretary (PUS) pointed to how the Armed Forces had managed to undertake Operation Telic while at the same time providing 19,000 troops for fire-fighting duties under Operation Fresco and argued that this demonstrated the ability "to be valuable at home as well as meeting international obligations".[54] The Secretary of State, who during the New Chapter process had apparently been considering novel approaches to homeland defence, confirmed the expeditionary (and conventional) conclusions that the Armed Forces should fight terrorism away from home, not at home:

if we are to deal effectively with a terrorist threat which might manifest itself in the United Kingdom, the best way of dealing with that threat, so long as we know where it is, is to go to deal with it at source, which is what we did in Afghanistan. That continues to be our assumption. We are not in a world where we have highly trained, extremely expert armed forces waiting for the threat to arrive in the United Kingdom. I do not judge that would be sensible.[55]

The approach of fighting terrorism at distance has informed all of the MoD's work since 11 September 2001, but ultimately assumes that terrorists will agree to fight on our terms and in places of our choosing. As UK Ministers and officials regularly warn, they may choose to bring the campaign closer to our region, or indeed to the UK itself. In the context of repeated attacks on the UK we do not think that MoD's assumption would be sustainable.

27 White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, (September 2002),http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html, p. 15. Back

28 European Union, A Secure Europe in a Better World-European Security Strategy, (12 December 2003), http://ue.eu.int/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf, p 12. Back

29 HL Deb, 13 January 2004, col 516 Back

30 DWP 1, para 1.7. Back

31 Defence Committee, Second Report of Session 2001-02, The Threat from Terrorism, HC 348-I & II. Back

32 Defence Committee, Sixth Report of Session 2001-02, Defence and Security in the UK, HC 518-I & II. Back

33 HC 93-I (2002-03), p 7. Back

34 DWP 1, para 1.5. Back

35 Q 113 Back

36 DWP 1, para 3.4. Back

37 MoD, The Strategic Defence Review - Supporting Essays, Cm 3999, (July 1998), Essay Six, p 6-2. Back

38 DWP 2, p 4. Back