Select Committee on Defence Fifth Report


7 Conclusion

155. The Defence White Paper flows directly from initiatives articulated in the original Strategic Defence Review of 1998. Since then much has changed in the strategic environment. Following the events of 11 September 2001, the world has entered a new era of terrorism with the potential for strategic effect. When the SDR was produced there was believed to be no direct conventional threat to the UK. This belief has been repeated by CDS in discussing the implications of the White Paper.[173] We continue to be concerned that MoD has not significantly altered its approach to dealing with such a terrorist threat beyond the articulation of an expeditionary policy for fighting terrorists at distance. This approach has informed all the MoD's work on policy since the attacks on the United States. It relies on the terrorists agreeing to fight us on our terms rather than theirs.

156. Given the strategic agility demonstrated by global-reach terrorism in the past four years, we remain to be convinced that the MoD has sufficiently addressed the question of the military's role in defending against strategic effect terrorism at home as well as abroad.

157. The Defence White Paper emphasises more clearly than ever before in policy statements the centrality of effects-based thinking in force planning and we welcome this. While conceptually not new, effects-based operations do provide a way of thinking which should allow for a clear focus on ends sought rather than the means available. One crucial enabler of this will be the development of network-enabled capability, which offers the prospect of the better allocation of resources and holds out the potential for precise delivery of effect at greater speed. However, we believe it is essential that the important differences between effects-based operations and network-enabled capability are emphasised rather than obscured. An example of the latter is the way in which discussion of effects-based operations and the relevance of "redundant" platforms has been blurred with the implications of network-enabled capability. While such capability can be a useful tool in the realisation of effects-based operations, it is not a pre-requisite for them and may in some cases play only a supporting role in the delivery of the desired effect.

158. The White Paper remains disappointingly vague about numerous areas of relevance to these questions, including future force structures, manning levels, equipment choices and the costs of embracing new technologies. It refers to the possibility of making reductions in "redundant" capabilities, but goes into no detail about what these might be. We were unable to elicit any further information from the Secretary of State, the Permanent Under Secretary, or the Chiefs of Staff about the likely direction of these changes.

159. This raises important questions about the usefulness of policy statements such as the Defence White Paper. The intention appears to be increasingly to focus on the provision of medium weight forces which are more deployable and therefore appropriate to those tasks identified in the White Paper as likely to be required of the Armed Forces. We remain concerned that the decision to give up heavy-weight forces in favour of lighter capabilities is being implemented long in advance of their medium-weight replacements becoming available. The FRES family of vehicles for example remains a distant prospect, not a specific programme with predictable delivery dates. Overall, we remain alarmed at the slow pace of embracing network-enabled capability—in contrast to the apparently swift capacity for the renunciation of existing capability deemed "redundant".

160. We do not believe that effects-based operations and network-enabled capability justify a reduction in the current scale of the UK's Armed Forces. The policy of reducing existing numbers of platforms in advance of acquiring new capabilities is potentially dangerous. At a scale of forces significantly below that which we currently possess, the Armed Forces would be vulnerable to attrition (losses) during operations. This could undermine our capacity to meet enduring obligations and still be capable of mounting medium and large-scale operations in the future. The White Paper tends to emphasise the projection of force, often at the expense of the presence of force. True effect is a product of quality and scale.

161. We were told by one senior officer that the future of the reserves was one of the most important strategic questions facing the Armed Services following Operation Telic. From what we have seen during this inquiry this question has not as yet been sufficiently thought through by MoD. The White Paper offered little in the way of clarification. Over the past six years the reserves have been used to plug gaps in the regulars. Consistently around 10 per cent of deployed forces have been reservists. This has had significant implications for how the reserves are structured and their relationship with the regulars, but also placed at centre stage the whole question of how the MoD supports reservists and their families and the relationship with employers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the demands of Operation Telic 1 and subsequent post-conflict operations (Operation Telic 2, 3 and 4) have now led to problems of over-stretch amongst the reserves themselves.

162. The White Paper has not properly considered possible innovations in the way the reserves might contribute to effects-based operations in the future. MoD's primary focus appears to have been on the implications of network-enabling technologies on the structure of the Armed Forces and their equipment programmes, not on the manpower and training implications of effects-based operations. Given the demanding and increasingly cross-government nature of effects-based thinking, it may be that the volunteer reserves could play a crucial part in expanding the capacity of the Armed Forces to deal with future challenges. The wider strategic implications of effects-based operations, which place increasing demands on the individuals involved to understand the impact of their actions, may require specialised forces, able to operate with, but not necessarily as, regular high-intensity war-fighting troops. Whether reservists could offer this specialised capability remains to be seen, but we believe that a truly innovative approach to the use and nature of the volunteer reserves will need to be at the centre of future work on realising effects-based operational capability.

163. The reserves could not only offer specialised skills that would be uneconomic to keep permanently employed in regular forces, but they could also widen the pool of personnel available for the UK. This could point the way forward for a military contribution not only to effects-based operations at a distance from the UK, but also, in time, to an enhanced contribution to its defence. Innovative and specialised contributions by volunteer reserves could allow for the engagement of a wider pool of citizens in fighting the threat of terrorism. In this way what have been termed "unlikely counter terrorists" (in essence non-traditional elements of British society contributing to homeland security) could be better integrated with pan-Whitehall counter-terrorist policies, within the context of existing military structures. We were concerned to hear that the Home Secretary was unwilling to consider any significantly enhanced role for the Armed Forces in home defence. He emphasised the need for clear divisions in evidence to us and the Home Affairs Committee:

I think we need to retain…the very clear separation between military and civilian forces, the primacy domestically of the civilian authorities seeking the help of and calling on the military but not seeing those as taking over their role and for the public to have confidence in that so that we are very clear where the boundary lies in a democracy. It has worked very well for us and I think we would be wise to retain that distinction.[174]

A novel approach to the nature and potential capacity of the reserves to support effects-based operations at home (and abroad) could be part of a solution to the Whitehall departmentalism that we believe has undermined the British response to the implications of 11 September 2001.

164. Since the SDR of 1998, it has been apparent that the Armed Forces have been over-stretched and not simply in a few specialisms as claimed by MoD. The White Paper is depressingly short on detail about how the challenges of excess stretch and the tempo of operational commitments will be addressed and we believe that this crucial failing in the implementation of the original SDR continues to be the area of greatest weakness in MoD policy. We have seen little evidence during our inquiry that the demanding operational tempo of the past six years and consequent stretch on service personnel will not be repeated. MoD must place this issue at the top of its priorities.

165. While on the surface the Defence White Paper represents only another small incremental step from the original Strategic Defence Review and its successor publications, taken together the steps of the past six years signal the prospect of profound changes in the Armed Forces. We are not clear why the MoD has not made these significant implications more explicit, but believe that the time for obfuscation is now past. CDS told an audience at RUSI that "one of the reasons for the excellent reputation of the UK's Armed Forces is the professionalism of the troops that serve in them and we intend to maintain and maximise this advantage".[175] To ensure this advantage we believe the Armed Forces should be openly and honestly appraised of the implications of MoD thinking and the likely changes that will effect their professional lives, not only so that they feel true engagement with the process, but also so that they can contribute to the process.

166. Finally, we believe that the implications of effects-based operations, utilising network enabled capability, on the relationship between political and military leaders has been inadequately considered by MoD. The fact that the British political-military interface worked effectively during Operation Telic, as we were told during our inquiry into the Lessons of Iraq, should not promote a sense of complacency in MoD and in Whitehall more generally. Technological advances, the growth of a culture of 24-hour news and the increasingly non-linear nature of conflict suggest to us profoundly different and potentially more intense strains on the political-military interface than previously experienced. The existing structures may not be capable of supporting the rapid and politicised pressures of effects-based operations in such a context. They should be reviewed in advance of the next major challenge, not during it.


173   'Annual Chief of the Defence Staff Lecture, December 2003', RUSI Journal, p 37. Back

174   HC 417-I (2003-04), 2 March 2004, Q 84. Back

175   'Annual Chief of the Defence Staff Lecture, December 2003', RUSI Journal, p 39. Back


 
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