The British Way of Strategy Making

8/3/2019 The British Way of Strategy Making

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Royal United Services Instute

occasional PaPer

Gwyn Prins

The BriTish Way of sTraTegy-making

Vital Lessons For Our Times

In partnership with

HUMANITIES RESEARCH INSTITUTE


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About the Humanies Research Instute, University of Buckingham

This paper is jointly sponsored by the University of Buckinghams Humanies Research

Instute, where its author is a Vising Professor.

The University of Buckinghams Humanies Research Instute brings together scholars of

internaonal disncon in a wide variety of subjects, but especially in the areas of history,

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the leading authority on internaonal terrorism, Professor Michael Burleigh; the historians

Professors John Adamson, Lloyd Clark, Saul David, Simon Sebag Monteore, and Dame

Rosamond Savill FBA; as well as the author of this present paper, Professor Gwyn Prins.

Among the University of Buckinghams London-based graduate courses is its Masters in

Modern War Studies, with an internaonally acclaimed programme of seminars through

the course of the year, delivered by senior ocers (including former Chiefs of the Defence

Sta) and leading academics in the eld.

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Cover Image

An Allegory (Vision of a Knight) or Scipio and the Muse. Oil on poplar, c.1504. The sleeping

knight may be intended to represent the Roman hero Scipio Africanus (236184 BC) who

was presented in a dream with a choice between Virtue (behind whom is a steep and

rocky path) and Pleasure (in looser robes). The gure on the le is somemes interpreted

as represenng the Acve Life. The sword and the book oered to the warrior, inving his

engagement, capture well the subject of this study.

Reproduced courtesy of the Naonal Gallery.


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With Britain more heavily involved in overseas warsthan at any point in the last half century, the Universityof Buckingham is opening up a limited number ofplaces at its seminar programme on modern war tomembers of RUSI to attend as Associate Students (whoare able to attend all the seminars and dinners, but donot have to submit a dissertation or write examinationpapers).

Current serving officers in HMs Armed Forces havetheir fees discounted by 50 per cent as either AssociateStudents or if studying for the MA.

The programme examines why and how modern warsare fought, and the principal influences that will affectthe conduct of war and Britains role in the future.

There are ten lectures, each by a leading internationalexpert, held at the Cavalry and Guards Club inPiccadilly and starting at 7 pm. Each seminar isfollowed by a formal dinner with the speaker, wherethere is an opportunity to continue the seminardiscussion.

This years seminar programme runs from October2011 to March 2012 and includes:

Sir Rodric Braithwaite (formerly BritishAmbassador in Moscow) on Russia Afghansty: theRussians in Afghanistan, 1979-89, on 5 October 2011

The former Chief of the General Staff, General TheLord Dannatt, on contemporary warfare, on

2 November 2011

The leading LSE historian and advisor to NATO,Professor Gwyn Prins, on how generals andgovernments get their analysis of strategy wrong, on23 November 2011

Professor Steven Haines, from Geneva Centre forSecurity Studies, the world authority of the laws of war,on war and legality, on 7 December 2011

The veteran war correspondent and historian, RobertFox, on war and the media in the 21st Century, on

11 January 2012

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Professor Edward Luttwak, the GeorgetownUniversity professor who has been among the mostinfluential thinkers on grand strategy in the US, on thenew forms of warfare that confront the modern world,on 7 March 2012

The seminar programme concludes with the formerChief of the Defence Staff, General The Lord Guthrie,on the moral and ethical questions of war

Those wishing to attend the seminars and to conducttheir own research into a topic in the field may also

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The Brish Way of Strategy-Making


Gwyn Prins

Occasional Paper, October 2011

www.rusi.org


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The views expressed in this paper are the authors own, and do not

necessarily reect those of RUSI or any other instuons with which the

author is associated.

Published in 2011 by the Royal United Services Instute for Defence and

Security Studies in partnership with the Humanies Research Instute,

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Contents

Introducon: History to the Rescue 1

Origins 3

The Great Test, 193235 7

The Four Cardinal Post-War Studies 11

Conclusion: The Key Future Innovaons Suggested From Past Successes 15

Appendix: The Dicules of Forecasng Peace 23


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About the Author

Professor Gwyn Prins is a research professor at the London School of Economics

and Polical Science and the Director of the LSEs Mackinder Programme for the

Study of Long Wave Events. He is also a vising professor in War Studies at the

Humanies Research Instute, University of Buckingham. Previously a university

lecturer in Polics at Cambridge and Fellow and Director of Studies in History of

Emmanuel College, he has served in advisory posts in the Oce of the Secretary

General of NATO and as Senior Vising Fellow in the (former) Defence Evaluaon

and Research Agency of the Ministry of Defence. He is currently a member of the

Chief of the Defence Stas Strategy Advisory Panel.

The assistance of Colonel J Hazel, Research Fellow in the Strategic Studies Cell,Royal College of Defence Studies, is gratefully acknowledged, as is the help

of Professor Lord Hennessy of Nympseld and of Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy

Blackham for discussions about these data and cricism of dras.


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Introducon: History to the Rescue

The October 2010 House of Commons Public Administraon Select

Commiee inquiry into how strategy-making is conducted in the Brish

government nowadays came to a remarkable nding. It concluded that

no-one does strategy. In consequence, the Brish system can no longer

make eecve naonal strategy as it once did.1 The August 2011 House of

Commons Defence Select Commiee inquiry into the 2010 Strategic Defence

and Security Review and the Naonal Security Strategy (NSS) was historic

in its constuonal importance. It cricised the SDSR in concepon and

consequence. It declined to accept the prime ministers view of its eects,

or views similar to Mr Camerons in tesmony from certain other policians

and senior ocials. On broadly the same root and branch grounds as its sistercommiee had done, it quesoned the competence of the methodology used

to produce the new Naonal Security Strategy.2 Neither commiee thinks

that Britain has a robust naonal security strategy today. Neither commiee

thinks that this problem can be xed by marginal adjustment. They believe

that the internaonal departments of state have poor maps and compasses

with which to plot their detailed courses and disposions.

Ulmate civilian control of the military within our constuon is to be found

on the oor of the House of Commons, exercised through its power over

both supply and ministers because, in Walter Bagehots words, The constant

proximity of Parliament is the real force which makes ministers what theyare ... which enforces a substanal probity throughout the administraon

or should do so.3 Today through a dierent and applied polical work of

Walter Bagehots editor and interpreter, Lord St John of Fawsley, namely his

innovaon of the modern select commiee structure while Leader of the

House with increasing weight the House entrusts the rst line exercise of

its authority on specic issues to specic select commiees. As appointed

bodies of the sovereign House of Commons, select commiees have

recently acquired addional sway in consequence of the introducon in

2010 of chairmen elected by fellow MPs, which has enhanced the standing

of the chairmen in ways that are sll unfolding. The duciary authority

of select commiees on behalf of the public interest is above that ofministers who must answer to them for their acons. In the case in point,

the Defence Commiee embodies that rst line. Views on the SDSR and

NSS are therefore maers which, emanang from these commiees, have

serious constuonal implicaons as well as security dimensions. It is not

voluntary for the government to aend to the commiees concerns on the

commiees terms. It is mandatory. There is no more fundamental debate

about the defence and security of the realm than this.


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The British Way of Strategy-Making2

How have we come to this condion that they describe? And if Britain once

did strategy beer, then how did we do it? Can we learn lessons from howwe once made strategy successfully to help us remedy the defects that the

select commiees have signalled, predictably unwelcome as Whitehall has

found their conclusions to be? These are neither academic nor anquarian

quesons and they are the subject of this study.

By its nature and brief, the departmental Levene Report on defence reform

of 10 June 2011 addressed second order quesons compared to the rst

order quesons raised by the select commiees; but Levene was correct to

note that its concerns also were not new. However, aer a nod towards the

subject maer of this work, his report took the view that history was another

country.4 This study takes the opposing posion. It will demonstrate as amaer of fact how primary historical research is essenal for present and

future purposes.

Todays governing class seems to feel no shame about its ignorance of

history, nor does it seem aware of how risky that ignorance can be. The

culture of Whitehall is notable for the absence of corporate memory and

for the constant, churning turnover of people in posts. (By contrast, Maurice

Hankey, one of the main characters in the story that follows, served as

the secretary to the Commiee of Imperial Defence for twenty-six years.)

Together these characteriscs mean that those who forget their history are

indeed condemned to repeat it.

One purpose of this study is to document that old truth in detail in respect

of the current crisis in Brish defence and security. Another is to show how

useful knowledge of ones own instuonal history can be in avoiding present

and future danger. Two key recommendaons from past pracce are given in

the conclusion, which could help resolve eciently and concretely the core

cricisms made by the select commiees and thereby strengthen naonal

defence and security.


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Origins

The army that, with misgivings, Prime Minister Salisbury sent to South Africa

in 1899, commanded by General Sir Redvers Buller, to ght the Boers was

unt for the task. Both its capability and, more fundamentally, its thinking

were defecve. It crashed to successive early defeats in bales at Stormberg,

Magersfontein and Colenso during the black week of 1015 December.

Buller was subsequently relieved of supreme command. The inscripon

on his equestrian statue in Exeter (He saved Natal) is careful. Substanal

Brish reinforcement (to over 180,000 in 1900) and more defeats, as well

as the eventual relief of Ladysmith, followed. Lord Roberts, his successor

as commander-in-chief, turned the de in the war of set-piece bales.

Yet it was Robertss successor Kitchener who fundamentally changed theoperaonal strategy. His army fought a controversial counter-insurgency

war against Afrikaner society as a whole and an an-guerrilla war against

the biereinders. It led to the Boer surrender at Vereeniging in May 1902.

At great cost of human suering, monetary expense and strategic risk, the

Brish Army had been uerly re-forged in the re of combat.5 Rudyard

Kipling bingly observed that it was no end of a lesson.

The polical skulduggery by Alfred Milner and Joseph Chamberlain, the

ad-hoc strategic thinking, complacency and incompetence that preceded

the second Boer War preyed extensively on the mind of A J Balfour, Lord

Salisburys deputy and successor as prime minister. So, too, did the taccallymessy and costly conduct of that war. He was determined that this should

never happen again. By December 1902 Viscount Esher had sketched radical

new means for him. To ensure, as Balfour explained to the House of Commons

on 5 March 1903, that the Cabinet should not be le to the crisis of the

moment, the prime minister created the Commiee of Imperial Defence

(CID). Maurice Hankey, the long-serving and indispensible secretary of the

CID and also later cabinet secretary, aested that it was overwhelmingly

Balfours own iniave.

Chaired by the prime minister, who had absolute discreon in the selecon

or variaon of its members, the CID had an advisory and warning, not anexecuve, role. It therefore worked to no given agenda.6 Its membership

embraced the service chiefs, ministers and ocials. But it had wide latude

to commission and to engage external experts, rather like its successor in

funcon, the Naonal Security Council, or the modern select commiee

structure of the House of Commons. Its funcon, as Balfour explained it

to the Commons, was to survey as a whole the strategical needs of the

Empire, to deal with the complicated quesons which are all essenal

elements in that general problem, and to revise from me to me their

previous decisions so that the Cabinet shall always be informed. It would

be a standing funcon so that when there is no special stress or strain the


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Government and its advisers should devote themselves to the consideraon

of these broad and all important issues. 7 The CID began work formally on4 May 1904. Repeatedly during its thirty-ve year life, it proved its worth

to the countrys security. Central to that success was the culture of the CID.

It welcomed awkward and free-ranging topics and individuals. It was not

hobbled by formulaic procedures, nor curbed by pre-ordained constraints on

thinking, nor by convenonal wisdom , as the late John Kenneth Galbraith

accurately named it, which was convenonal but not necessarily wise.

An early episode usefully demonstrated the CIDs value, by showing the

consequences of not consulng it to check proposed diplomac steps, before

taking them, for conformity with war plans. The issue was the aempt, arising

from the 1907 Hague Peace Conference and leading to the Declaraon ofLondon, to introduce internaonal law into the use of naval blockades. It

would have severely constrained Britain but not the Connental powers. In

the end, despite Asquiths Liberal government whipping the issue through

in the Commons, it was thrown out by the House of Lords. Never before

or since has the Upper Chamber jused its existence more completely,

wrote Hankey.8 In any case, this iniave sank when the guns began to re.

Only laws of war that all pares accept as benecial survive that contact.

The history of aempts to outlaw parcular classes of weapons since the St

Petersburg Convenon of 1868, on the size of bullets, tends to support this

view.

Balfours speech expressing his and Eshers plan for his commiee can be

seen to embrace two disnct meanings of strategy from the outset. Both

are necessary. Each is properly the business of the armed forces. But they

are fundamentally dierent from each other. Neither is the same as a policy

emanang from ministers.

The rst meaning of strategy is grand strategy, which is not enrely shaped

by any government. It cannot be. Grand strategy studies all geo-polical

factors that impact upon Brish naonal interests as both risks and threats

and which are, by denion, beyond the power of any government to

control. It is also about how best the naonal interest is projected. Thatin turn demands a thorough understanding of how the dierent sources

of what are oen in contemporary usage called hard and so naonal

power inter-relate and are best marshalled.9 The second meaning of strategy

is operaonal strategy, which is both subordinate to and dierent in funcon

from the rst. It is about the best marshalling of ways and means to deliver

ends expressed in specic instrucons from ministers to HM Armed Forces.10

The most dicult but essenal step is, having acquired it, to engage grand

strategic and operaonal strategic insight in ways that can materially inform

and shape as well as execute policy. The CID sought and found a way to do

this. The denions remain cogent, and the funcons essenal, today.


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Gwyn Prins 5

The CID was supported by a small and skilful civil service secretariat which

Viscount Eshers plan for the CID regarded as the keystone of the whole

edice. It was brought to life years before the Cabinet acquired its own

permanent secretariat (in 1916) and indeed became the basis of the Cabinet

secretariat when it came into being. The CID worked extensively through

a series of sub-commiees. One of the most vital, the military commiee,

became the Chiefs of Sta sub-commiee. The Salisbury Commiee of1923 had responded to the creaon of a third ghng service, the RAF, by

recommending formalisaon, so laying the foundaons for future joint

working. The purpose of the new sub-commiee was to advise the CID on all

military maers and to prepare plans for war; and secondly, to obtain from

the three Services a combined military opinion for polical consideraon,

in the descripon of its most important inter-war chairman, Lord Chaield,

who served 193338.11 As a naval ocer, Chaield had been Admiral Sir

David Beays ag captain on HMS Lion at the Bale of Jutland in 1916 and

the person to whom Beay had complained that something seemed to be

wrong with our bloody ships that day.

Lord Chaield, First Sea Lord and chairman of the Chiefs of Sta

sub-commiee of the Commiee of Imperial Defence, 193338.


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The Harngton Commission of 1888 had earlier signalled the need for an

oversight organ such as the CID, but had failed to smulate one. The 2010Naonal Security Council that Prime Minister Cameron introduced has many

of the same stated objecves, expressed in todays language. The idioms

and polical contexts may change but the problem remains the same. The

stated purpose of the CID in 1904 was to obtain and co-ordinate for the use

of the Cabinet all the informaon and expert advice required for the shaping

of Naonal policy in war and for determining the necessary preparaons in

peace. The purpose of the 2010 NSC is not dierent although, by report, its

manner of conducng its business is.

The CDSs Enhancing Strategic Capability (ESC) Study 2011 correctly idenes

the Ismay-Jacob Report of February 1963 as the clearest exposion of thesuccession of rearrangements to the higher direcon of defence that have

punctuated the last half century, delineated in a series of white papers.12

Ismay and Jacobs report was commissioned urgently and wrien quickly at

a me of great nancial stringency and in response to discord, uncertainty

and malaise in the department.13 The country and MoD today being in very

similar circumstances, it repays close study. By the same token, their report

was wise in itself studying closely the reasons why the earlier CID was such

a success for so long. We trust, Ismay and Jacob wrote, that we shall not

be thought to be harking back to the bow-and-arrow era instead of looking

forward to the space age when we suggest that there are useful lessons to

be drawn from the experiences of the Commiee of Imperial Defence.14 Thisstudy echoes that view.


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The Great Test, 193235

The most important test of the CID system came between 1932 and 1935.

This was mostly during the period of Ramsay MacDonalds second coalion

Naonal Government. By convenon, the Chiefs sub-commiee rendered

an annual report via the CID to the cabinet. In 1932 it had protested against

the Ten Year Rule, which meant that the country was calculang on no war

before 1942. For more than a decade across the late 1920s and 1930s, the

Treasury had maintained that the weakness of the economy was the over-

riding threat to naonal security and that re-armament would bring ruin. So

the Ten Year Rule was a buress to its view. As chancellor of the Exchequer in

1928, Winston Churchill had installed a ratchet, so that the horizon advanced

a year, each year. The Ten Year Rule was used to jusfy taking a gap incapabilies in the language of the 2010 defence review, which was likewise

underpinned by a Ten Year Rule logic. The Treasurys 1932 line of argument

for the Ten Year Rule was constuonally challenging to a degree that is sll

breathtaking to read, as well as circular.

The Treasury wrote that this formula never ought to be regarded as a study

in prophesy. It is no more than a working hypothesis intended to relieve

the Chiefs of Sta from the responsibility [emphasis added] of preparing

against conngencies which the Government believe to be either remote or

beyond the nancial capacity of the country to provide against[emphasis in

original]. The claim to relieve the Chiefs of their responsibilies on nancialgrounds showed the gulf in understanding across Whitehall. The Chiefs

reply reminded the Treasury that whereas it appeared to view war as a

luxury which we cannot aord, the services took the view that actually it

is a nancial disaster we cannot risk. Contrary to the Treasurys impression,

the ghng services were not raring to go to war but saw themselves as the

premium which we pay for security from war and nancial ruin. 15

In 1932, the Chiefs protested that it was impossible to see three, let alone

ten, years ahead. In the famous House of Lords debate of 12 November 2010,

whose historic importance is already widely aested, Admiral Lord Boyce

(formerly First Sea Lord and Chief of the Defence Sta, 200103) repeatedtheir exchange with the Treasury almost verbam, but in dierent military

currency: the underlying raonale in the [SDSR] review for disposing of this

aircra [the Harrier GR9], which gives the carrier its strike capability unl

the introducon of the Joint Strike Fighter, is this: In the short term, there

are few circumstances we can envisage where the ability to deploy airpower

from the sea will be essenal. What a desperate expression of hope over

bier experience, Lord Boyce observed, adding that, The people serving

on the Naonal Security Council must have been asleep for the past dozen

years or so. We have no problem today because we have no emerging crisis.

That can change in days.16 And so it did. Seven dierent crises with potenal


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Gwyn Prins 9

so brow-beaten had been the three Stas for the last decade ... that there

was a feeling, even in my commiee, that it was almost improper to betoo insistent, to make more than the most moderate demands. But I

suggested a last paragraph to our report to the eect that we could not,

with the arms we had, accept our present responsibilies as they were

laid down.

The implied threat won Chaield tracon in the CID which led to the

establishment of a special Defence Requirements Sub-Commiee (DRSC) to

review the enre strategic scene while taking due regard to the nancial

posion of the country. Hankey co-ordinated and draed this report

which proposed a ve-year deciency programme.20 A special cabinet sub-

commiee sat to receive it. It frightened parliamentary and public opinion.But the urgency of the nancial dangers was again pressed and only moderate

increases in funds were proposed. Furthermore, against the background

of the newspaper proprietor and aviaon enthusiast Lord Rothermeres

campaign for the air force, boosted by his newspapers the Daily Mirrorand

the Daily Mail, and public fear of air war, it was proposed that the RAF be

preferenally funded within the uplied vote.

The chiefs refused to accept this selement. They pointed out that serious

fears about air war were being crudely over-dramased and that the nature of

the planet and geo-polics meant that balanced forces, not just aeroplanes,

were required. Air power alone cannot nish any polical task (neither

then nor ever, one should add).21 Therefore, upon these representaons

Lord Hankey, secretary to the Commiee of

Imperial Defence for twenty-six years.


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The British Way of Strategy-Making10 The British Way of Strategy-Making10

and with more strategic shocks occurring, a second Defence Requirements

Sub-Commiee sat in July 1935. It was composed as before but this me,unusually, it was given altered terms of reference to assess and to prescribe force

requirements without regard to nancial consideraons. Mrs Thatcher employed

a similar logic when shaping cabinet procedures for the Falklands war.22

Coincidental with this review work, the Abyssinian crisis broke in May 1935

and revealed the hollowness of collecve security (as the DRSC noted in

November by which me MacDonald had been succeeded by Stanley

Baldwin as prime minister). Countries were prepared to protest against

Mussolinis invasion but not to act against it. Britain was le carrying most

of the military load. By depleng imperial staons, the navy assembled a

much augmented Mediterranean Fleet, under Admiral Sir William Fisher,at Alexandria. As a result, public percepons began to change. Parallels

between the Abyssinian crisis and the 2011 Libyan crisis exceed Mussolinis

part in the other Italian colonial enterprise: the awkward welding together

of that new country out of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. There are parallels

in the internaonal diplomacy leading to UNSCR 1973 in April 2011 and in

the conduct of military operaons arising. No sooner had Abyssinia subsided

than the next unforeseen strategic shock, the Spanish Civil War, occurred in

1936.23

The second Defence Requirements exercise horried the Treasury. The vast

sums required to make up for previous economies ... appalled the nancialminds, Chaield wrote. He added, in words which also have a contemporary

ring, that:24

Time aer me the Services were told that the nancial dangers to the

country were greater than the military ones. So long had the Treasury

remained the real factor in the Government, in deciding what our armed

strength was to be, that other inuences only slowly became eecve.

The Government seemed unable to face the fact that every million spent

now reduced the chance of war, and that if war came it would not be

spent in me, while the cost would be much greater.

Following the second DRSC report, and with Baldwin again prime minister,

but leading the third coalion government, the chiefs did successfully begin

to translate their grand strategic appreciaon into operaonal strategy,

via what under their inuence had now become government policy. The

programme of ve King George Vclass baleships was put in hand; carriers

were built and the Fleet Air Arm was transferred back to the navy from

the Air Ministry in 1938, although Chaield had to threaten resignaon to

achieve this; RAF ghter squadrons were built up and radar-based taccs

for them formed. Thereby the country was equipped to ght the Bale of

Britain in 1940 and sink the Bismarckin 1941 which ensured that later, with


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Gwyn Prins 11

Bletchley Park (and the USA), Britain could win the bale of the Atlanc and

re the army as a projecle,25 or evacuate it from harm, in several operaonsculminang in D-Day. Once decided, this rapid and large re-armament was

only possible because, although aenuated, core industries and skills were

present to conduct it. Britain could not do this today because of the abraded

condion of its defence industrial base.26


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The Four Cardinal Post-War Studies

In drawing its lessons from this same history, the rst major post-war

reorganisaon, in 1946, concluded that whereas it was self-evidently true

that polical and economic consideraons had postponed rearmament unl

it was perilously late, the absence of a unied defence policy for the three

services was also a failure which ought to be remedied. That white papers

proposals laid the foundaon for the three other cardinal reports over the

next twenty years: the 1958 and 1963 white papers and the Ismay-Jacob

Report. Its proposals were not revoluonary; in parcular, The Chiefs of Sta

Commiee will remain responsible for preparing strategic appreciaons and

military plans.27 Twenty years later, Ismay and Jacob glossed the meaning

of strategical skill in precisely the terms used in Prime Minister Baldwinsoriginal Warrant to the Chiefs of Sta: it is the ability to look at warfare as

a whole.28 The prime minister should remain chairman of the successor to

the CID by virtue of his ulmate responsibility for naonal defence.29 This

combined responsibility for both grand and operaonal strategy was exercised

soon but dierently when the Chiefs of Sta withdrew to the Royal Naval

Sta College at Greenwich in 1952 to compose their global strategy paper for

the government.30 This appreciaon became the foundaon for the Brish

commitment to a strategic nuclear capability, with all the consequent eects

entailed on force posture balance for convenonal deterrence.

The 1946 white paper also reiterated a cardinal principle of the Brishorganisaon. This was that it should be the men responsible in the Service

departments for carrying out the approved policy who are brought together

in the central machine to formulate it.31 Others would be a h wheel on the

coach, in Hankeys memorable words. That me honoured principle was

reiterated by Ismay and Jacob in 1963 and in the CDSs Enhancing Strategic

Capability Study of 2011.32 In the long view it is now plain that the Heselne

changes of 1984 which blurred policy with strategy began to corrode that

principle, and that progressive corrosion has occurred since.33

One of the two most important lessons from this history is that this cardinal

principle should again be the backbone which both forms and arculates thebureaucrac skeleton of the MoD. It is especially vital because it restores

lines of accountability: to the service chiefs for designing force structure;

to the permanent secretary for managing the money; and to the CDS for

delivering military success. The moo for this relaonship is collaboraon,

not primacy.

The four cardinal documents in the post-war evoluon of the higher

management of defence and security progressively specied the dues and

relaonships between the military, scienc and administrave branches

of the department. These armed that the CDS is the principal source of


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Gwyn Prins 13

strategic and military advice to the government and that the permanent

under-secretary (PUS) is in charge of co-ordinang the business of theministry and in parcular the advice of the secretary of states three principal

advisers the CDS, CSA (Chief Scienc Adviser) and the PUS as well as

being principal accounng ocer.34 It follows, therefore, that any other

views must arise from dierent principles. By the moo of collaboraon, not

primacy, it is correct in terms of stated and established funcons that the

PUS should only be present by invitaon at the Chiefs of Sta Commiee.35

In summary, therefore, one may observe that the disncve and

complementary roles of dierent public ocials have been clearly expressed

and understood, holding constant for a long period, unl relavely recently.

Recent years have been eccentric to the constuonally well-foundedBrish way of strategy-making. Clarity about roles is essenal for successful

collaboraon and for clear lines of accountability.

The cardinal principle aests to this. It was the 1946 white paper that rst

described the roles of the administrave and scienc research services,

respecvely. Ismay and Jacob gave a cogent account of what by 1963 was

wrong with and in need of repair in the administrave and scienc services

of the department.36

In respect of the Chiefs of the Services, and laerly of the Chief of the Defence

Sta, their role as principal advisers to government on both grand andoperaonal strategy has been armed in theory and in pracce, parcularly

in the 1930s, 1950s and 2000s. The 1930s story has been recalled above. The

1958 report which established the post of CDS states that he is responsible to

the Minister of Defence and will be his principal military adviser. As chairman

of the Chiefs of Sta Commiee, he will tender its views, that commiee

being collecvely responsible to Government [sic] for professional advice on

strategy and military operaons and on the military implicaons of defence

policy generally. The Levene Report has in pracce mandated a re-kindling

of this level of vitality in the Chiefs of Sta Commiee when convened by

the CDS in armed forces mode.37 As CDS in the 2000s, Admiral Boyces

role in demanding and obtaining a legal opinion to his sasfacon beforebeing prepared to authorise the use of Brish forces during the Second

Gulf War illustrates these highest funcons of oce precisely. The CDS is

unambiguously the primary link with the prime minister.38 This is perhaps

most conclusively aested by the CDSs role in nuclear release procedures.39

So while collaboraon, not primacy, is the explicit moo of reforms from

194663, acceptance of a division of labour to permit it, with clear lines of

accountability, is its essenal corollary and companion.

In more evolved form than in 1946, the 1963 reorganisaon presented three

co-equal military, scienc and administrave stas. But it made clear, in


21/34


its version of the CID (the Commiee on Defence and Overseas Policy) that

the CDS and Chiefs connue to full their tradional duty to tender militaryadvice to the Government; and they will retain their right of access to the

Prime Minister.40 That line, and the logic of special aachment to the Crown,

is aested by the form of the Oath of Allegiance and by the constant form of

wording in the Sovereigns Commission.41 This understanding remains crystal

clear in the services but has been lost progressively in Whitehall since then,

muddling military and civilian roles in the higher management of defence.

In respect of the civil service, repeatedly its role is described in similar terms

across the decades. It is one of support, of administrave co-ordinaon

and of accounng responsibility. It enables. It lubricates. While individual

civil servants may provide insights, instuonally the administrave civilservice is not an organic source of insights. In the MoD, the civil service

is not responsible for delivery of military eect. It, too, should be subject

to (and sized by) the cardinal principle of the Brish organisaon. Ismay

and Jacob discussed this incisively, in light of the troubles that they were

brought in to help alleviate. However, the role of civil servants as accounng

ocers responsible for the budgetary aspects of the ministry and laerly

with personal duciary responsibility is specied by Ismay and Jacob in

1963 and is progressively given higher prominence in following decades. It is

highlighted in the 2010 Ministerial Code.42

One should also noce an inherent tendency for the size of the administravecivil service to grow in the MoD as more generally across government. This

has been understood for a very long me. A bureaucracy is sure to think that

its duty is to augment ocial power, ocial business or ocial members

rather than to leave free the energies of mankind, wrote Walter Bagehot in

1866. It overdoes the quanty of government, as well as impairs its quality.43

C Northcote Parkinson studied such dynamics in the 1950s. His celebrated

Law of Inverse Proporon has parcular relevance because it arose from the

examinaon of departments with shrinking outputs: the Colonial Oce and

the inter-war Service Ministries. He noted that the Colonial Oce had the

largest number of administrave civil servants at the moment when it had

no more colonies to administer, just before it was folded into the ForeignOce. Between 191428, he observed a 68 per cent decrease in numbers of

capital ships, a 31 per cent decrease in naval ocers and sailors and a 78 per

cent increase in the number of Admiralty bureaucrats. Parkinsons analysis

is somemes represented as mere humour. Only the style of wring is

humorous. The tendencies he explains are real and need periodic pruning.44

As PUS of the MoD, Frank Cooper considered the department over-manned

and cut stang numbers severely.

But civil servants are not just a source of bloat and an impediment to

clarity, although they oen have been so. In the nal analysis, the civil


22/34

servant performs an indispensible duty, in the way that one of the stamp

of Lord Hankey has been seen exercising it in the main narrave of thisstudy. More recently, in the defence eld, Permanent Secretary Sir Michael

Quinlan performed his duty as eecvely when he shaped the departments

intellectual engagement with the general public on nuclear maers at a me

of high public agitaon.

What made for these successes? Collaboraon, not primacy. One of the most

sure principles is, that success depends upon a due mixture of special and

non-special minds of minds which aend to the means, and minds which

aend to the ends. What Bagehot meant was that in the Brish system,

the special (or specialist, as Bagehot meant) mind of the skilled bureaucrat

depended upon the non-specialist mind of the elected head to ensure thatthe natural introspecon of the ocial (skilled in the forms and pompous

with the memories of his oce), and the resulng tendency to bloat the

bureaucracy, was controlled. An extrinsic chief is the t corrector of such

errors ... It is ... he only that brings the rubbish of oce to the burning glass

of sense.45 The model of success that Bagehot applauded and commended

to government was of the joint-stock banks, managed by persons mostly

untrained in the business and administered by persons bred to the task. Each

knew who they were, respected the other and did not try to be the other.

Nothing has changed to alter the value of that judgement and advice. In

fact, its value is recognised in a trend to introduce non-execuves into civilservice boards of management. But it is telling that a frequent diculty

reported from recent experience of these eorts is that understanding of

what a non-execuve director should do to execute that role properly in the

civil service context is vesgial. It is part of a more general atrophy of the

vigorous interpretaon which Bagehot throws across to us from the mid-

Victorian era.46 History can come to the rescue on more fronts than one in

this maer.


23/34


Conclusion: The Key Future Innovaons

Suggested From Past Successes

The two ranking parliamentary select commiees have called for root and

branch return to ecient, constuonally correct and, one might add,

mutually respecul pracces in Whitehall, which they have found to be absent.

In this endeavour, recollecon of the history of the success of the Commiee

of Imperial Defence in the inter-war years has praccal ulity. This study has

explained the reasons for that success and the momentous consequences of

it. It has related how, in the nick of me, the austere, dogged and courageous

Lord Chaield and the supreme civil servant, Lord Hankey, were able to put

into Churchills hands the weapons with which to ght and to prevail in 1940.These two men, so much less famous than President Roosevelt, were the

indispensible sine qua non, being the rst to give Churchill the tools with

which to begin to nish the job by ensuring that Britain had the means to

ght alone in the darkest hour. As the June 2011 Levene Report correctly

observes, the success or failure of any model depends on the people within

the organisaon and parcularly its leaders.47 How true that was then. This

study has also documented the dangerous consequences of the progressive

loss of grip during the post-war years, leading to the present day malaise.

This story has shown that there are several aspects of past pracce which

could be adopted to help resolve the present deciencies. The vitalimportance of re-emphasising the cardinal principle which links formulaon

and execuon of operaonal strategy to permit true accountability has

already been menoned. But the history of the CID proposes an elegant and

specic recommendaon that could help remedy the key defect idened

by the select commiee reports of 2010 and 2011. This is the failure of

the current naonal security strategy methodologies to eect a reliable

and credible introducon of grand and operaonal strategic insights into

ministerial policy-making, thus leaving the Ministry of Defence without

secure guidelines for deployment of its improved and reformed structure,

however good it may be.

There is unique value in a combined grand and operaonal strategic study

which is militarily literate and conducted independently, without fear or

favour to any party or to any transient issue and without reference to nance,

leading to force structure recommendaons. The Defence Select Commiee

welcomes the current coalion governments innovaon of formalising the

review cycle and the Levene Report takes it as read.

To make that cycle really work, the new NSC should cause a modern form of

the CIDs 1935 second Defence Requirements Sub-Commiee exercise to be

repeated regularly as a reality check. Logically, it would be the starng point


24/34

of each review cycle. As in 1935, it should be a specially convened expert

study for which, at present, there is no suitable instuonal frame. It shouldbe provided to, but not conducted by, the Naonal Security Council in its

present form. That baseline would also inform a realisc assessment of the

strength and potenalies of naonal so power agents, which are always

dependant variables of hard power.48

Only when the study is complete should nancial consideraons be

introduced to it, as was done in 1935. Doubtless, the Treasury would resent

and resist this now as it did in 1935. But as then, so now, it is important

that this opposion is overcome. At the point when money is brought into

the discussion, the government of the day would be forced to face and

be unable to avoid an informed understanding of what it could not dobecause it chose not to fund the capability or, alternavely, had to do and

therefore had to fund the capability. This understanding would help to

balance departmental power within the Cabinet, as it did in the 1930s. It

would thereby permit the Cabinet to inform more fully the inevitable choices

about allocaon of taxpayers money, again, as it did in 1935. Crucially, it

might thereby provide some slim buer against being driven uncontrollably

by events.

This is the way in which to address the deciency specically idened by the

Chief of the Defence Sta in evidence to the Defence Select Commiee: to

bring ways and means into correct alignment with ends. The commiee itselfendorsed General Richardss representaon of the problem in its fuller discussion

of the Naonal Security Strategy in August 2011.49 That is what is required for

and of a safe naonal security strategy. The way in which, in order to help us

achieve that state, we may receive a nal benet from the experience, example

and victory of our predecessors, has been the subject of this study.


25/34


Notes and References

1. House of Commons Public Administraon Select Commiee, Who does UK naonal

strategy?, First Report of Session 201011, HC 435, 18 October 2010.

2. House of Commons Defence Commiee, The Strategic Defence and Security Review

and the Naonal Security Strategy, Sixth Report of Session 201012, HC 761, 3 August

2011. On the prime ministers views, see para. 6066, pp. 3133, which includes a

verbam transcript of his exchanges with the chairman, James Arbuthnot MP.

3. The unseen work of parliament, The Economist, 9 February 1861, in Norman St John-

Stevas (ed.), The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot, Vol. VI (London: The Economist,

1974), pp. 4549. The purgave consequences of the recent shaming of parliamentarians

by the scandal over their expense claims help restore this role, of course. It is a nicely

self-correcng eect that Bagehot would have both ancipated and appreciated.

4. Specifically, the report said: The historic record shows there is no single right

answer. Our predecessors found the solution that worked for their time. See

Defence Reform: An independent report into the structure and manpower of the

Ministry of Defence (Chairman Lord Levene of Portsoken), MoD, 10 June 2011,

paras. 1.11 1.12, p. 11.

5. T Pakenham, The Boer War(Abacus, 1992), pp. 9294; Field Marshal Lord Carver, The

Naonal Army Museum Book of the Boer War(PanMacmillan, 2000).

6. Lord Hankey, The Supreme Command, 1914-18, Vol. I (Allen and Unwin, 1961),

pp. 4559 and in parcular pp. 4548.

7. For the 1903 Commons speech, see R J Q Adams, Balfour, The Last Grandee (John

Murray, 2007), pp. 18586. Esher was also a member of Elgins Commission into the

near-failure in South Africa. He held Balfour s views.

8. Hankey, op. cit., p. 100.

9. Halford Mackinders original explanation of geo-politics remains compelling today.

See The geographical pivot of history, Geographical Journal(Vol. 23, No. 4, April

1904). The differences and relationships of risk and threat are elaborated and

illustrated in G Prins and R Salisbury, Risk, Threat and Security: the case of the United

Kingdom, RUSI Journal(Vol. 153, No. 1, February 2008), pp. 2227.

10. Enhancing Strategic Capability Study 2011 (directed by Major-General Mungo Melvin),

para. 2.21; speech by General Sir David Richards, Chief of the Defence Sta, to the FCO

Leadership Dialogue, 9 May 2011.

11. Recommendaons of Naonal and Imperial Defence Commiee, II, Cmd 1938


26/34

Gwyn Prins 19

(CAB104/12), Naonal Archives (NA), para. 8; Admiral of the Fleet Lord Chaield, It

Might Happen Again: Vol II (Heinemann, 1947), p. 77. Chairmanship, pre-guring thefuncon of the CDS, was by rotaon between the ghng services. Chaield was First

Sea Lord and it was the navys turn.

12. ESC Study 2011, op. cit., paras. 2.262.31.

13. General Lord Ismay and Lieutenant-General Sir Ian Jacob, Higher Direcon of Defence,

20 February 1963, DEFE 7/1898, NA, para. 2 of Covering Leer to the Minister of

Defence, 20 February 1963.

14. Ibid., Pt. I, para. 3.

15. Treasury note on Chiefs of Sta 1932 report and Chiefs of Sta reply, 11 March 1932,

1087-B, CAB series, NA, para. 5.

16. Lord Boyce, Debate on the SDSR, House of Lords, 12 November 2010, Hansard, col. 425.

17. Appendix 1 in M P A Hankey, The Ten Years Assumpon: historical notes, 15 Feb 1932,

1082-B, NA; Lord Inge, Debate on the SDSR, House of Lords, 12 November 2010,

Hansard, col. 438.

18. Chiefs of Sta sub-commiee, 23 Feb 1932, 1082-B, NA, para. 39(2); P Kennedy, The

Rise and Fall of Brish Naval Mastery(Macmillan, 1983), pp. 28485.

19. Chiefs of Sta sub-commiee report 1933, 12 Oct 1933, 1113-B CAB series, NA;

Chaield, op. cit., p.79.

20. Report of the Defence Requirements Sub-Commiee, 28 Feb 1934, DRC 14/CID 1147-B,

CAB series, NA.

21. It is interesng to noce that air issues have triggered diculty not only on this occasion

but repeatedly. Naval aviaon being an element of sea power, not of airpower, Chaield

made the return of control of the Fleet Air Arm to the navy one of his three objecves as

First Sea Lord, achieving it just before he le his post. See Chaield, op. cit., pp. 10210.

With the TSR2 debacle before their eyes, Ismay and Jacob in 1963 described how the

defence authories feel completely baed in dealing with a middleman [the Ministry

of Aviaon] who appears to conduct their aairs not only ineciently but without a

single-minded regard for defence interests. See Ismay and Jacob, op. cit., para. 61. Air

issues were idened as a key source of the discord, uncertainly and malaise in the

department which had prompted their report. Air issues were also a main trigger of

the same feelings in 2010, surrounding the abrupt reversal at the very last moment of

seled decisions in the SDSR exercise regarding the Tornado and Harrier eets, leading

by extension to the deleon of the countrys xed-wing marime air capability, possibly

(and unintenonally) permanently.


27/34


22. Report of the Defence Requirements Sub-Commiee, 21 Nov 1935, ToR, para. 4,

p. 5, DRC 37, NA. Regarding Mrs Thatchers exclusion of the chancellor from OD(SA) the Falklands War Cabinet, for similar reasons, see Sir Lawrence Freedman, The Ocial

History of the Falklands Campaign, Vol II (Routledge, 2005), pp 2122.

23. Kennedy, op. cit., gives a useful map of the 1930s worldwide defence problems of

Britain. See Map 10, p. 291.

24. Chaield, op. cit., p. 84.

25. An arresng strategic truth oen aributed to Admiral Jacky Fisher it does sound like

him but actually rst uered by Lord Grey of Fallodon, the Foreign Secretary the

same man who also remarked that he saw the lamps going out all over Europe in 1914,

not to be re-lit in his lifeme.

26. This is for a combinaon of reasons. An obvious one is that the major defence industries

have shrunk. Britain has only one warship builder, no ability to design a new combat

aircra, much reduced missile manufacturing capacity; and modern naval, air and even

land plaorms take around twice as long to build as their equivalents in the 1930s.

Secondly, the engineering and especially soware design skills are running down fast,

because of the lack of work to give engineers experience and high demand for such

skills in the worldwide economy. A relavely short gap (between ve and seven years)

in designing and building destroyers and nuclear submarines led to delays of about six

years in both programmes as skills were recovered to build only one of each kind of

ship per year. Management skills were similarly aected. The task of resurrecng the

defence industrial base would be huge and certainly disrupve to the civil economy.

Today, there are also ras of compliance regulaons that were absent in the 1930s. It

would probably require direcon of labour in a me which, by denion, is not one in

which we are at war but one in which the skies are darkening.

There is of course the opon of purchasing o the shelf. There is a mainly American

shelf in some areas, although we may have to take our place in the queue; and there

are obvious problems of IPR, the ability to adapt and alter capabilies in plaorms for

which Britain is not the design authority and for which we do not hold the informaon.

Finally, there is a severe infrastructure constraint which may be a determining, liming

factor. Many military bases have been sold o, developed as industrial or residenal

space and are almost certainly irrecoverable. Modern equipment is hugely complex and

requires specialist support arrangements which were simply quite unnecessary in the

1930s and 1940s. (I am indebted to Vice Admiral Blackham for advice on this brief

summary of main points.)

27. Central Organisaon for Defence, Cmd 6923, October 1946, III, para. 13, pp. 45; IV,

para. 20 (d) p. 6.


28/34

Gwyn Prins 21

28. Ismay and Jacob, op. cit., para. 72, p. 14; rst specied as consideraon of quesons

of defence as a whole by Warrant from Prime Minister Baldwin, 3 Aug 1926, SECRET714-B, CAB104/12, TNA.

29. Cmnd 6923, op. cit., para. 25, p. 7.

30. Defence policy and global strategy, COS (52) 362, 15 July 1952, DEFE 5/40, NA; for

discussion see, Lawrence Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons (Macmillan/RIIA,

1980), p. 3.

31. Cmnd 6923, op. cit., para. 17, p. 5.

32. CID 1207-B, 3 March 1936 Annex B, para. 32, CAB 104/12; Ismay and Jacob, op. cit.,

para. 29; ESC Study 2011, op. cit., para. 2.29.

33. The Central Organisaon of Defence, Cmnd 9315, July 1984, para. 20 (a) is the rst

occasion where the contemporary blurring of policy with strategy is seen: a strategy

and policy grouping, headed by a deputy secretary and consisng of both military and

civilian stas is prescribed there.

34. Central Organisaon for Defence, Cmnd 2097, July 1963, para. 26, p. 4; para. 54, p. 9.

35. See Streamlining report, 2007 (an internal MoD study), para. 3.21, p. 15; see also,

ESC Study, 2011, op. cit., para. 2.24. The Levene Report suggeson of a strategy forum

jointly chaired by PUS and CDS perpetuates this mistake.

36. Cmnd 6923, op. cit., para. 29, p. 8 and para. 32, p. 9; Ismay and Jacob, op. cit.,

paras. 3744, pp. 810.

37. The Levene Report, 10 June 2011, para. 5.5, pp. 2526 and Key Recommendaon 3(b),

p. 68.

38. Central Organisaon of Defence, Cmnd 476, July 1958, para. 14, p. 5; para. 15, p. 6; and

para. 18 (a-c).

39. The human buon: deciders and deliverers in P J Hennessy, The Secret State: Preparing

for the Worst, 1945-2010 (Penguin, 2010), pp. 31059.

40. Cmnd 2097 (1963), II, para. 9; III, para. 1517.

41. The oath is given in Values and Standards of the Brish Army, January 2008, para.

8 (that I will in duty bound honestly and faithfully defend her Majesty, her heirs and

successors in person, crown and dignity against all enemies) and is glossed at para. 9;

the Sovereigns Commission given at Annex to Order in Council 22 March 1927 being

revision of Order in Council 5 May 1873 holds to this day. It indicates the reciprocity of


29/34

dues and obligaons that came to be known informally as the Military Covenant, now

shortly to be formalised in statute.

42. Ismay and Jacob, op. cit., para. 37; Ministerial Code, Cabinet Oce, May 2010, secon

V, parcularly para. 5.3.

43. First published as On Changes of Ministry in the Fortnightly Review, 15 October 1866,

and subsequently in The English Constuon (1867) in Norman St John-Stevas (ed.),

op. cit., Vol. V, pp. 32728.

44. C Northcote Parkinson, Parkinsons Law or The Pursuit of Progress (John Murray, 1958).

45. Walter Bagehot, The English Constuon, op. cit., pp. 33031. He explains what is

signied by the rubbish of oce more fully, in these words: If it is le to itself, the

oce will become technical, self-absorbed, self-mulplying. It will be likely to overlook

the end in the means; it will fail from narrowness of mind; it will be eager in seeming to

do; it will be idle in real doing. He also makes the equally cogent point that the Brish

system he described builds in a reciprocal control upon the quality of ministers, since

the non-specialist has to defend his department in public and a fool who has publicly to

explain great aairs ... must soon be shown to be a fool.

46. I rely for this comment upon condenal discussions close to the Naonal School of

Government as well as to the Whitehall reform processes.

47. The Levene Report, 10 June 2011, para. 1.13, p. 11.

48. Explained further in J J Blackham and G Prins, Why Things Dont Happen: Silent

Principles of National Security, RUSI Journal (Vol. 155, No. 4, Aug/Sept 2010),

pp. 1422.

49. Defence Commiee, Appointment of the Chief of the Defence Sta, Oral and wrien

evidence, HC 600-i, Session 2010-11 Q 3; Defence Commiee, The Strategic Defence

and Security Review, para. 74, p. 35.


30/34

Appendix: The Dicules of Forecasng Peace

This Appendix reproduces from the Naonal Archives the Appendix which

Maurice Hankey composed and caused to be aached to the 1932 Chiefs

of Sta sub-commiee report to the Commiee of Imperial Defence (see p. 8

above).

Historical Notes.

THE following examples illustrate the diculties of forecasting peace:

I.Five months before the Spanish Armada sailed, Queen

Elizabeth dismantled and laid up her eet at Chatham, and, when themoment for action came, our cause was placed in jeopardy for lack ofammunition and supplies.See Froude, English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century.

II.In 1698, after the Peace of Ryswick, King Williams Parliament

reduced the army to a peace footing of 7,000 men at a time when theFrench army was at a strength of 180,000 men.

Optimism and pacism reigned at the festal boards of Englishmenin the Christmas of 1700. But with the New Year these sentimentsreceived a series of rude shocks.

In January 1702, the army was recalled to the Colours. Therefollowed the war of the Spanish Succession, lasting until 1713.G. M. Trevelyan, Blenheim

III.In 1774 The British reduced the number of seamen in the Navy,

and took no serious steps to strengthen their forces in America.War broke out early in the following year. In 1775 Burgoyne wrote

from Boston After a fatal procrastination, not only of vigorous measures but ofpreparations for such, we took a step as decisive as the passage ofthe Rubicon, and now nd ourselves plunged in a most serious warwithout a single requisition, gun-powder excepted, for carrying iton.

G. M. Trevelyan, History of England, p. 553.


31/34


IV.

Extract from a speech in Parliament by Mr. Pitt, on the 17th February,1792, during a debate on Public Income and Expenditure :

I am not, indeed, presumptuous enough to suppose that whenI name fteen years I am not naming a period in which eventsmay arise which human foresight cannot reach and which maybae all our conjectures. We must not count with certainty on acontinuance of our present prosperity during such an interval; but,unquestionably, there never was a time in the history of this country when, from the situation of Europe, we might more reasonablyexpect fteen years of peace, than we may at the present moment.

A year later began the War of the French Revolution and Empire, lasting,with one short interval, until 1815.

V.The great Exhibition of 1851 was pervaded by a sense of international

goodwill and the brotherhood of the human race, which was celebratedby the Poet Laureate in extravagant terms :

Breaking their mailed st and armoured towers, &c.

Three years later the Crimean War broke out, and many of our regimentswere still armed with the Brown Bess of Waterloo days.G. M. Trevelyan, British History in the Nineteenth Century.

VI.On the 6th July, 1870, Lord Granville received the Seals of the Foreign

Oce in Mr. Gladstones rst Government.

The previous day, between 3 and 4 oclock, Mr. Hammond, theexperienced Under-Secretary of the Department, had told himthat with the exception of the trouble caused by the recent murder

in Greece of Mr. Vyner and his friends by brigands, he had neverduring his long experience known so great a lull in foreign aairs,and that he was not aware of any pressing question which LordGranville would have to deal with immediately. By the time LordGranville was addressing the House next day for the rst time asForeign Minister, the sky had already grown dark and the sea ofpolitics was streaked with foam.

Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, Life of Lord Granville.

A fortnight later the Franco-German war broke out.


32/34

Gwyn Prins 25

VII.

On the 14th July, 1914, the Committee of Imperial Defence met and,among other routine business, approved the War Book, a new edition ofwhich, by a coincidence, was just completed. There was no mention of anyprospect of war. On the 22nd of July the Secretary to the Committee wasdirected by the Prime Minister, according to the custom then prevailing,to take the Minutes to the King. On the way to Buckingham Palace hecalled at the Foreign Oce to ask the Permanent Under-Secretary forForeign Aairs, who was also Chairman of the Sub-Committee that wasresponsible for the War-Book, whether there was any risk of its beingput into operation. The news that day was reassuring, and Sir ArthurNicolson considered that there was practically no prospect of the War

Book being put into operation. On the following day the Timesreported optimism in Paris and Berlin more optimistic. M. Poincarwas in Petrograd; the Kaiser yachting in the Baltic. It was only on the 24th July, when the terms of the Austrian ultimatum were known, that thesituation began to be regarded as serious, and on the 27th July that warwas recognised as denitely on the horizon.

VIII.In a Memorandum dated the 13th March, 1917, on his visit to Russia,

the late Lord Milner assured the British Government that

As far as the purely political aspect of the matter is concerned, Ihave formed the opinion that there is a great deal of exaggerationin the talk about revolution, and especially about the allegeddisloyalty of the army.

The Russian Revolution broke out the same day.

(Signed)

M. P. A. HANKEY.

2, Whitehall Gardens, S.W. 1,

February 15, 1932.


33/34

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Gwyn Prins

Occasional Papers

RUSIs occasional papers draw mainly from conference papers, roundtable discussions or

commissioned research.

From the Falklands to Libya, none of the wars in which Britain has engaged was

predicted. Not in locaon, nor in character, nor scale. Surprise is the norm for wars.

So how eciently does government make strategy today to provide for our security in

the face of epic geopolical uncertaines? Very poorly indeed was the verdict given by

parliaments two specialised select commiees on the 2010 Naonal Security Strategy,

and the Strategic Defence and Security Review based on it.

If we have become as dangerously unable to make strategy as they nd to be the case,

then why is that so? How could we do beer? Did we ever do beer? This mely study

documents and explains the progressive loss of clarity in Brish strategy-making since

the Second World War and especially since 1984. It argues that the best rst step in such

a crisis is always to look to history for help.

Using fresh research from the Naonal Archives, Gwyn Prins tells how two largely forgoen

men used the structures of the Commiee of Imperial Defence to break the Ten Year Rule,

to conduct coherent strategic analysis and begin re-armament in the mid 1930s. Lord

Chaield and Lord Hankey gave Churchill the weapons with which to ght in 1940.

This study draws vital lessons for our mes. It describes key future innovaons which

could abolish the weaknesses idened by the select commiees in current strategy-

making. It shows how policy-making and strategy-making can regain harmony. It re-states

tried and tested understandings of the core concepts of grand and operaonal strategy,

and of policy. These lessons are a nal benet that we may receive from the experience,

example and victory of our predecessors.

Documents

The British Way of Strategy Making