Andrew Dorman, M.L.R. Smith, Matthew Uttley-The Changing Face of Military Power - Joint Warfare in An Expeditionary Era (2002)

The Changing Face of
Military Power
Joint Warfare in an Expeditionary Era
Edited by
Andrew Dorman, Mike Smith and
Matthew Uttley
The Changing Face of Military Power
This page intentionally left blank
The Changing Face of
Military Power
Joint Warfare in an Expeditionary Era
Edited by
Andrew Dorman
Lecturer in Defence Studies
Joint Services Command and Staff College
Mike Smith
Lecturer in War Studies
King’s College, London
and
Matthew Uttley
Senior Lecturer in Defence Studies
Joint Services Command and Staff College
Editorial matter and selection © Andrew Dorman, Mike Smith and
Matthew Uttley 2002
Chapter 1 © Mike Smith and Matthew Uttley 2002
Chapter 7 © Matthew Uttley 2002
Chapter 9 © Andrew Dorman 2002
Chapters 2–6, 8, 10 © Palgrave 2002
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of
this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or
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The authors have asserted their rights to be identiﬁed as
the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2002 by
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The changing face of military power: joint warfare in an expeditionary
era / edited by Andrew Dorman, Mike Smith, and Matthew Uttley.
p. cm. – (Cormorant security studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–333–91892–4
1. Unified operations (Military science) 2. Combined operations (Military
science) 3. Great Britain–Armed Forces. 4. Great Britain–Military policy. I.
Dorman, Andrew M., 1966- II. Smith, M. L. R. (Michael Lawrence Rowan),
1963- III. Uttley, Matthew. IV. Series.
U260 .C49 2002
355.3’57–dc21
2001054889
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire
Contents
List of Tables vii
Notes on the Contributors ix
List of Abbreviations xi
1 Military Power in a Multipolar World

Mike Smith and Matthew Uttley 1
2 The Dimensions of Asymmetric Warfare

Wyn Q. Bowen 15
3 Limitations on Joint Warfare: the Impact of the

Proliferation of Conventional Weapons Technology
Paul Rogers 45
4 Reconciling Humanitarianism and Reality:

the Analytical and Moral Challenges
of Urban Operations
Alice Hills 73
5 Western Strategy in the New Era: the

Apotheosis of Air Power?
Philip Sabin 91
6 Britain and the Revolution in Military Affairs

Lawrence Freedman 111
7 Equipping Britain’s Armed Forces: Continuity and

Change in Defence Procurement and Industrial Policy
Matthew Uttley 129
8 Defence Management and the Impact of ‘Jointery’

Martin Edmonds 151
9 British Defence Policy in the Post-Cold War

Era: History Comes Full Circle?
Andrew Dorman 177
v
vi Contents
10 The Economics of Joint Forces

Keith Hartley 201
Index 217
List of Tables
10.1 Joint Forces, UK 203
10.2 UK Defence Budget, 2000/2001 205
10.3 Employment in Joint Units, 2000 206
vii
Notes on the Contributors
Wyn Q. Bowen is Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department, Joint

Services Command and Staff College, Watchfield.
Andrew Dorman is Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department,

Joint Services Command and Staff College, Watchfield.
Martin Edmonds is Professor and Director of the Centre for

Defence and International Security Studies, Cartmel College,
Lancaster University.
Lawrence Freedman is Professor of War Studies, Department of

War Studies, King’s College, University of London.
Keith Hartley is Professor at the Centre for Defence Economics,

University of York.
Alice Hills is Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department, Joint

Services Command and Staff College, Watchfield.
Paul Rogers is Professor of Peace Studies, Department of Peace

Studies, University of Bradford.
Philip Sabin is Professor of Strategic Studies, Department of War

Studies, King’s College, University of London.
Mike Smith is Lecturer, Department of War Studies, King’s College,

University of London.
Matthew Uttley is Senior Lecturer in the Defence Studies

Department, Joint Services Command and Staff College, Watchfield.
ix
List of Abbreviations
AAA Anti-aircraft artillery

ABL Airborne Laser
AMRAAM Advanced Medium Range Air-to-air Missile
ARRC Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps
ASTOR airborne stand-off radar
ASW anti-submarine warfare
ATACMS Army Tactical Missile System
AWACS Airborne Warning and Control System
BVRAAM Beyond Visual Range Air-to-air Missile
CCW Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons
CDS Chief of the Defence Staff
CSC Chiefs of Staff Committee
CSCE Conference on Security and Cooperation in
Europe
DCS Defence Cost Studies
DESO Defence Export Services Organization
DEW directed energy weapons
DIB defence industrial base
DLO Defence Logistics Organization
DRA Defence Research Agency
EADS European Aerospace & Defence System
EU European Union
FLF Front Line First
FMPG Financial Management and Planning Group
FRY Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
FYROM Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
IFOR NATO’s implementation force in Kosovo
IPT Integrated Project Team
ISTAR Intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition
and reconnaissance
JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff
JHC Joint Helicopter Command
JRDF Joint Rapid Deployment Force
JRRF Joint Rapid Reaction Forces
xi
xii List of Abbreviations
JSCSC Joint Services Command and Staff College

KFOR NATO’s peace-enforcement force in Kosovo
KLA Kosovo Liberation Army
LPD amphibious landing craft
MANPAD man portable air defence system
MAXIS Budget System for Administrative Expenditure
MINIS Management Information System for Ministers
and Top Management
MOD Ministry of Defence
NAO National Audit Office
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NBC nuclear, biological and chemical
NGO non-governmental organization
NMD National Missile Defense
NMS New Management Strategy
OCCAR Organisme Conjointe de Co-operation en Matière
d’Armament
OSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe
PGM precision guided munition
PIRA Provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army
PJHQ Permanent Joint Headquarters
PPBS programme planning budgetary systems
PPP Public–Private Partnerships
PSO peace support operations
PUS Permanent Under-Secretary
QDR Quadrennial Defense Review (US)
RAB Resource Accounting and Budgeting
RAF Royal Air Force
RMA Revolution in Military Affairs
RN Royal Navy
ROE rules of engagement
RPA Revolution in Political Affairs
RSI rationalization, standardization and
inter-operability
SACEUR Supreme Allied Commander Europe
SAM surface-to-air missile
SBL Space-based Laser
SDR Strategic Defence Review (UK)
List of Abbreviations xiii
SFOR NATO’s stabilization force in Kosovo

SPI Smart Procurement Initiative
SSN nuclear-powered attack submarine
STOVL short take-off and vertical landing
THAAD Theatre High Altitude Area Defense
TLAM Tomahawk Land Attack Missile
TMD theatre missile defence
UCAV unmanned combat aerial vehicle
UN United Nations
USAF United States Air Force
USSOCOM US Special Operations Command
WCMD Wind-corrected Munitions Dispenser
WEU Western European Union
WMD weapons of mass destruction
1
Military Power in a Multipolar
World
Mike Smith and Matthew Uttley
Introduction
The intention of this volume is to examine critically the contours of

military power as they present themselves a decade after the end of
the Cold War. The title, The Changing Face of Military Power, empha-
sizes the central assumption that underpins this study, that the fun-
damental nature of military activity has not changed but merely its
outward forms. The role of military power, defined here as the con-
struction, deployment and use of organized armed forces to attain
political objectives, remains the same. In this connection military
power is assumed to be a functional phenomenon that can be
exploited to serve a number of purposes. It can be employed by
states and non-state social organizations alike. It can be employed to
prosecute warfare, to issue threats, to maintain deterrence. It can
even be utilized non-aggressively for symbolic reasons, for
pageantry, for nation-building.1 But the essential function to fulfil
the ends of policy never changes. The ways in which military power
is exercised and the context in which it is practised does, however,
evolve. It is these processes in which this book is primarily inter-
ested because it is they which affect employment of military power.
The origins of this book reside in two conferences held back in
1997. The first, in April of that year, at the then Royal Naval
College, Greenwich examined the evolution of maritime power in
the post-Cold War environment. The second conference, held at the
newly formed Joint Services Command and Staff College, Bracknell,
in June, looked at the broader themes in the military ambit. The
1
2 The Changing Face of Military Power
conference was notable for being the first of its kind to assess the
trend towards what was known as ‘joint operations’, that is the
‘integration of significant elements of more than one armed service
in order that they function as a single unit’.2 In both conferences,
evolving patterns of military practice were examined against the
backdrop of the changed international setting that was increasingly
witnessing the deployment of armed forces in ‘out of area’ opera-
tions in peacekeeping and humanitarian roles.
It might seem short-sighted to admit, but the stimulus for these
conferences was the fact that six years after the end of the Cold War
understanding of the manifold changes and increased complexity of
the new multipolar world was still rudimentary. Analysts were, of
course, aware that a ‘radical change in the global security system’3
had been ushered in which was challenging the familiar parameters
of bipolarity and introducing us to the ‘New World Disorder’.
However, beyond the feeling that the ‘ground was shifting beneath
our feet’ there was little comprehension of where all this was leading.
The truth was that the 45-year Cold War had made planning
assumptions, to a remarkable degree, extraordinarily stable because
the principal deterrent function of Western armed forces was,
according to Admiral Paul D. Miller, ‘well-defined and understood’.4
International relations and strategic scholars were lulled by this sta-
bility, falling into line as supporting counsellors to the established
defence policy orthodoxy, seeing their role essentially to analyse and
nuance the rather narrow processes of deterrence thinking, rather
than to challenge official thinking or to anticipate change.
Come the end of the Cold War, scholars, as ever behind the times,
were caught out by the multiple disruptions that afflicted the world
order. These disruptions meant there was little time to reflect sys-
tematically on the nature and implications of the post-Cold War
era. The primary emphasis in defence circles was to contend with
the practical and operational imperatives brought about by the
sudden shift to a complex, multipolar environment that was in
some ways more unstable than the nuclear stand-off between the
superpower blocs during the Cold War. Concurrent with the disinte-
gration of the East European Communist bloc, the international
community had to contend with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990
and the subsequent coalition war in the Gulf in 1991. This was fol-
lowed by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the violent breakup
of the Balkans and Transcaucasia, which necessitated the interven-

tion of outside powers to attempt to contain the spread of what was
perceived to be a new and increasingly prevalent kind of war:
‘ethnic conflict’ fuelled by unmediable passions and hatreds.5
The perception of a rise in low-intensity challenges around the
world was always a more complex picture than has sometimes been
portrayed. For every incidence of a surge in nationalistic, separatist
inspired conflict, one could point to putative, though often inade-
quate, peace processes and conflict settlements in places as far afield
as Mozambique, El Salavador, Lebanon, Cambodia, Northern
Ireland, the Middle East and South Africa. At the same time, by the
later 1990s a number of these peace processes, most notably in the
Middle East, were in serious trouble, while it was increasingly possi-
ble to discern a rising incidence of violent identity politics among
non-state groups in certain areas of the world, notably in Southeast
Asia where the relative failure of 30 years of nation-building efforts
were exposed by the effects of severe economic recession, especially
in places like Indonesia.6
The political effects of the end of the Cold War coincided with
social and technological changes that also assisted in the transfor-
mation of the environment in which military power could be exer-
cised. Technological innovations in developed states, most notably
in the United States, heralded the prospect of the ‘Revolution in
Military Affairs’ (RMA).7 The 1991 Gulf War displayed the potency
of high-technology precision munitions and the integration of
systems that collect, process and communicate information to bring
devastating firepower to bear on enemy forces. The technological
RMA combined with significant, yet paradoxical, social shifts that at
one and the same time made it easier to fight wars yet also con-
strained other aspects of military power.8
At one level the end of superpower ideological conflict reinforced
a tendency in Western society towards ‘post-heroic’ warfare, where
it became increasingly unacceptable to expect citizens to lay down
their lives for their country out of patriotic duty, thus making states
– most notably the United States – ever more reluctant to incur
casualties in military operations.9 At another level, a changing sense
of international obligations resulted in a greater willingness to
deploy forces in military operations, especially in so-called humani-
tarian and peacekeeping roles. This produced a further contradictory
effect. The post-colonial and post-Cold War eras had resulted in the
creation of many new states, which seemingly accentuated the
importance of sovereignty. Yet the new dispensation also gave rise
to an apparent willingness to intervene militarily in the internal
affairs of states, overriding traditional ideas of sovereign sanctity.
This was most graphically demonstrated by the NATO intervention
in the states of former Yugoslavia, particularly the province of
Kosovo. Was this, as some allege, indicative of neo-imperialism in a
post-colonial era? An additional twist was provided by the financial
stringency and cost-cutting in defence establishments in the expec-
tation of a ‘peace dividend’ at a time when the military forces of the
developed world had never been busier.
The early 1990s was therefore a time of uncertainty about what
armed services and military power were for.10 The post-Cold War era
had overturned many notions of traditional high intensity
warfighting upon which the defence policies in most developed
states had been predicated. Initially, scholars of strategy and inter-
national affairs did not read this situation well. Having failed to
predict the end of the Cold War, they were poorly placed to offer
any guidance for the post-Cold War world. Not that this inhibited
them from offering their misdiagnoses. Before 1989 leading scholars
had convinced themselves that it was the United States, not the
Soviet Union, that was in decline and suffering from ‘imperial over-
stretch’.11 As Wohlforth remarked: ‘The debate focused like a laser
beam on US decline, even when the Soviet Union was entering its
final stages of collapse.’12 Even after the dramatically swift collapse
of the East European Communist bloc, analysts were often reluctant
to let go of such certainties or else engaged in idle speculation, little
of which came to pass. Some said the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) had outlived its usefulness and would be
swept away. Others predicted a resurgence in German militarism.
Yet others clung to their belief in American declinism, arguing that
Japan, East Asia generally, and the putative European Union would
eclipse the United States in economic terms. Some were even moved
to warn that the US would find it heavy going using military power
against formidable opponents, like Iraq, warning before Operation
Desert Storm that the war would not be a ‘three day turkey shoot’.13
We now know, of course, that Japan plunged into a decade-long
recession, that the East Asian miracle was really a mirage, that
NATO not only hung together but outshone the hopelessly ineffec-
tive European Union (EU) in dealing with the violent convulsions in
south-eastern Europe and that the United States not only won a
turkey shoot in the deserts of Arabia but went on further to
entrench its leading position as the global economic and technolog-
ical hegemon. Being so detached from reality, and thereby having
so clearly got it wrong, some scholars retreated entirely from the
empirical scene into so-called ‘international theory’, usually of a
postmodern and rational choice provenance, the effect of which
has, in the words of James Kurth, made the study of international
relations ‘even more uninteresting and irrelevant’.14
Such analytical confusion was symptomatic of the early years of
the New World Order. Even books that did try to evaluate the appli-
cation of military power in a multipolar world, while cognisant of
the changing strategic landscape, often had a limited grasp of the
new, and old, kinds of military challenges that were presenting
themselves.15 Even though armed forces were being deployed all
over the globe in expeditionary roles, from the Persian Gulf and
central Africa to the Balkans it still took a relatively long time for
analysts to comprehend fully the implications. It was only towards
the mid and later 1990s that commentators began to discern the
confluence of factors, both tangible and intangible, that necessi-
tated the rethinking of the ways in which military power was both
applied and constrained.16 Up until this time, it was particularly
noticeable that little systematic attention had been paid to the
impact of these changes on the armed services of developed states,
especially in terms of the moves towards expeditionary warfare in
an era of budgetary constraints and greater inter-service collabora-
tion. What thought was given to these matters was largely done ‘in
house’ within the defence establishments themselves.17
It was a growing awareness of this gap in analytical attention that
provided the initial stimulus for both conferences in 1997. The con-
clusions at that time were inevitably tentative: that while much had
changed at the superficial level, the post-Cold War era had not pro-
pelled military thinking into innovative, ground breaking territory
but had often led to a shift in really quite traditional notions of mil-
itary activity. The task for the analyst was to monitor and investigate
the trend.18 Thus, five years on, there is a clear imperative to review
some of the key themes visited in 1997: the role of military power in
a multipolar world; emerging threats; the challenges in the military

sphere posed by technology and the changing international en-
vironment; and the implications for the armed services themselves.
Much of the assessment in this volume is premised on the
assumption that military power is exercised in the defence of a
state’s regional or global interests. In this sense, the primary focus of
this volume reflects predominantly British perspectives on military
power, an extension of the fact that all of the contributors are based
in the United Kingdom. It might be contended that this emphasis
inevitably circumscribes the wider applicability of the conclusions
beyond the British case. It is true that the UK is hardly a superpower
and is therefore heavily restricted in what it can do on the interna-
tional stage both diplomatically and militarily. Neither is the UK
representative of the vast majority of states at the other end of the
spectrum which have neither the tradition nor the resources to
sustain wider-ranging commitments. But, in other respects, Britain
is illustrative of middle-ranking powers in Europe, North America
and Australasia that do maintain global and regional interests, with
attendant responsibilities, that in Britain’s case has seen it con-
tribute to military operations in the Gulf, Bosnia, Kosovo, East
Timor and Sierra Leone.
This book, then, brings together a number of defence studies
scholars to examine important ideas that are currently affecting the
practice of military power in its broadest sense. The book makes no
claim to assess the full complexity of all the themes at work in the
military ambit today, an impossible task in a single volume. The aim
is however to illustrate the sorts of debates taking place in the field,
to analyse the principal drivers of change as well as the lines of con-
tinuity, and to raise some critical and challenging questions that
may be necessary to delineate the outlines of the future practice of
military power.
Changing defence roles
Since 1989, the collapse of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe and

the subsequent breakup of the Soviet Union have led to a funda-
mental transformation in the strategic setting. The demise of the
bipolar system and the diminished military threat posed by the
former Soviet Union19 have eliminated the short-warning threat of a
large-scale offensive in Central Europe.20 Cold War certainties in

Western defence planning previously provided by bipolarity have
been replaced by perceptions of a more diffuse set of risks on a
global scale.
One important implication has been that Western armed forces
are now expected to provide a spectrum of military capabilities
ranging from nuclear deterrence and high-intensity warfighting to
actions against relatively minor opposition, coercive diplomacy,
peacekeeping and peacemaking, and alliance-building through to
security assistance and disaster relief, or to use the US term, ‘full
spectrum dominance’.21 Another implication has been a trend
towards increased Western military involvement in so-called ‘wars
of choice’ at the lower-intensity end of the conflict spectrum. The
first four chapters of the book analyse the types of threats and risks
that Western states currently face and the factors that are shaping
the nature of their military responses.
Since the Cold War two important tendencies have emerged in
the employment of Western military power. First, Western states
have become embroiled in conflicts where they have enjoyed a deci-
sive technological advantage in weapons systems over their adver-
saries – a qualitative gap in capabilities illustrated initially by the
comprehensive defeat of Iraq by the American-led United Nations
(UN) Coalition in 1991 and, more recently, by the successful co-
ercion of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by NATO. Secondly,
Western countries have been involved in conflicts where less than
vital interests have been at stake – such as humanitarian values –
but where the vital interests of their opponents – such as territorial
integrity and regime survival – are directly threatened.
On this basis, a growing Western concern is that potential adver-
saries will attempt to offset their military-technological capabilities
and political resolve through ‘asymmetric warfare’ strategies. Wyn
Bowen’s contribution analyses the conceptual dimensions of asym-
metric warfare and the risks that asymmetric responses could pose
for Western military intervention. Paul Rogers develops the theme
of unconventional responses to Western intervention in the context
of the proliferation of conventional weapons technologies. Professor
Rogers outlines the key tenets of what he conceives as the ‘Western
security paradigm’ and its impact on the post-Cold War structuring
of military forces in terms of thinking about the projection of
power. He also demonstrates that there are a number of strategies

and tactics that can be used to respond to Western intervention,
which may involve conventional use of conventional military tech-
nologies but may also involve unconventional responses.
The post-Cold War increase in so-called ‘complex emergencies’
and the trend towards urbanization have focused attention on doc-
trine and planning for ‘urban operations’. Alice Hills analyses urban
operations against the backdrop of the UK’s assumption that armed
forces organized primarily for high-level warfighting roles can
succeed in complex urban environments. In doing so, the contribu-
tion synthesizes the analytical, theoretical, strategic and moral chal-
lenges that policy-makers need to address when considering military
intervention in the urban context.
An important post-Cold War development is the expectation
among Western governments that air power can provide a low-risk
mode of military intervention. This has been predicated on two
assumptions. The first is that Western air forces have now acquired a
decisive technological edge in offensive and defensive air systems
over potential adversaries. The second assumption, evident in the
Kosovo campaign, is that air power can offer a low-casualty solution
to armed intervention. Philip Sabin’s contribution evaluates this
orthodoxy. It shows that though air systems can act as a force multi-
plier, contemporary political and operational considerations also
generate major constraints for policy-makers contemplating the
application of air power. As Professor Sabin demonstrates, these
constraints include, inter alia, the difficulty of achieving political
consensus between allies in coalition operations, difficult targeting
dilemmas and the adverse effects of the blurring of political and
military responsibilities when air power is employed.
The technological dimension
One consequence of the role that American technological superior-

ity played in the 1991 Gulf War and conflicts in the former
Yugoslavia has been the fuelling of expectations about the
‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ (RMA): the notion that the marriage
of technological systems that collect, process and communicate
information will reinforce established tendencies towards the cre-
ation of a US capability far superior to that of any other country or
group of countries. Lawrence Freedman analyses the RMA in the

context of the ‘Revolution in Political Affairs’ (RPA), or the environ-
ment in which Western military force is likely to be applied, that
has arisen from the long-term effects of decolonization and the
short-term impact of the end of the Cold War. Against a background
of almost universal enthusiasm for the RMA concept in military
organizations, Professor Freedman provides words of caution for
those who see it as a ‘solution’ for all forms of Western intervention
and questions the extent to which medium-sized powers like Britain
should aspire to independent national RMA capabilities.
Despite the overwhelming emphasis on the RMA in much of the
literature the UK’s current defence equipment plan focuses very
much on the acquisition of ‘traditional’ defence platforms.
Enunciated most extensively in the 1998 Strategic Defence Review
(SDR), Britain’s defence equipment plans and priorities for the
period to 2015 are predicated on the achievement of a flexible ex-
peditionary warfare capability. Matthew Uttley’s contribution
evaluates the SDR equipment programme and supporting defence-
industrial policies. It outlines the difficult decisions that British
administrations will have to make if the SDR vision is to be achieved
in full. Matthew Uttley shows that although the SDR and support-
ing initiatives are presented as policy ‘solutions’ to long-term British
defence acquisition, future governments will continue to confront
challenges arising from the high cost and inherent complexity of
major equipment programmes and ongoing dilemmas in formulat-
ing supporting defence-industrial policies.
Reconfiguring national armed forces: defence

management reform, ‘jointery’ and emerging force
postures
The post-Cold War transition in the international security milieu

has had fundamental implications for force postures in individual
Western states and collective defence and security architectures as a
whole. During the Cold War Western forces were structured to deal
with a specific threat and predicated primarily on collective security
through the NATO alliance on the assumption of high-intensity
conflict within the European theatre. After the Cold War, the objec-
tive has been to configure forces in terms of capabilities and intend
their use in expeditionary warfare in its various guises through

flexible force packages capable of projecting power to meet the spec-
trum of military contingencies that Western states are likely to con-
front on a global scale.
This transition from Cold War assumptions has had important
effects on the level and nature of cooperation between the armed
services within individual NATO states. During the Cold War ‘a dis-
tinction between the institutional and operational arrangements for
the armed forces made some sense’22 because of the functional roles
of each service within NATO’s overall force posture. That is not to
say inter-service cooperation was absent: in the United States, for
example, the Air Force and Army jointly developed the ‘Air-Land
Battle Concept’ to counter the Warsaw Pact conventional threat to
Western Europe.23 However, the primary focus of the Alliance’s land
assets and supporting air elements was the Central Front in West
Germany while maritime forces concentrated on anti-submarine
warfare in the North Atlantic. The consequence was that operational
integration was primarily combined between the maritime, land
and air forces of the different Alliance members rather than with the
other armed services of a particular state. Since the Cold War,
however, the requirement to project military power has created an
imperative for the systematic integration of national forces and
planning, or as the current terminology has it, ‘jointery’: planning
for ‘military operations in which elements of more than one service
participate’.24 The primary drivers for jointery, or ‘jointness’,25 are
the requirement for the projection of power from littoral areas of
the sea by naval forces26 and the deployment of expeditionary
forces27 which are supported by air elements, as a means to meet
contingencies on a global scale. The fundamental shift away from
Cold War planning assumptions is that ‘jointery’:
signifies a reverse order of [Cold War] priorities; it connotes the

fusion of effort in place of ad hoc arrangements and, most impor-
tant, it subordinates all operations directly to events on land.28
In practical terms, in the United Kingdom, jointery has been

reflected in the development of a range of measures to enhance
joint operations including the formation of the Permanent Joint
Headquarters (PJHQ), the Joint Rapid Reaction Forces (JRRF)29 and
the Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC).
Professor Martin Edmonds addresses the issue of defence manage-

ment today within the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) and armed
services and analyses where and how the concept of jointery has
been applied. A primary finding is that the preoccupation with join-
tery after 1989 only happened when the MOD, in response to pres-
sure from the Treasury to find savings in the defence budget, found
that economies could be achieved by bringing the three armed ser-
vices together in joint commands, combat support and ancillary
functions. Moreover, as Professor Edmonds identifies, pressures for
radical reform of British defence organization leading to increased
jointery that pre-dated the end of the Cold War were driven, in part,
by the particular and distinctive approach adopted by successive
Conservative administrations after 1979.
In practical terms, the shift towards an expeditionary capability
has had significant implications for the doctrine, equipment and
force postures of the individual armed services in the UK. Moreover,
the development of the jointery concept has had a major impact on
the nature and level of cooperation between the British Army, the
Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Royal Navy. Andrew Dorman’s contri-
bution analyses how these changes have been implemented and
assesses their impact on overall British defence capabilities.
The contemporary orthodoxy concerning jointery is that: Those

who believe that military matters can easily be categorized into
land, sea and air, in our modern technologically agile world, are
making a facile and anachronistic judgement.30
Professor Keith Hartley critically evaluates this assumption in the

final chapter. Adopting an economist’s perspective, he argues that
uncritical acceptance of jointery can lead to the adoption of wrong
or skewed performance indicators. Drawing on the tenets of ‘Public
Choice’ economics, Professor Hartley’s analysis indicates that the
armed services may use the jointery concept to collude with or
entrench inefficient practices that do little to enhance operational
capabilities. Moreover, other implications of the analysis are the
concerns that jointery may not facilitate closer cooperation
between the services, but rather, displace inter-service rivalries to
other areas; that it may result in ‘minimalist jointery’, whereby
jointness is only adopted in peripheral military functions rather
than applied to those activities that affect the core organizational

interests of the individual services; and that it may obscure the flow
of information to policy-makers on the costs and benefits of indi-
vidual service procurement proposals that have traditionally been
generated by overt inter-service competition.
Conclusion
This volume addresses a range of key issues in what is a dynamic

area of contemporary security policy. Taken collectively, the various
contributions indicate some of the likely pathways in military
thinking and practice in the years ahead. Inevitably, perhaps, a large
element of post-Cold War defence planning will be characterized by
a high degree of continuity. In part, this reflects the generic nature
of military strategy and doctrine as well as the restrictive roles for
which armed forces can be employed. However, as this book shows,
the context and ways in which military power is exercised continue
to evolve and affect the employment of armed force. For the
analyst, therefore, while the challenge remains in investigating
these trends, it is hoped that the contributions to this volume reveal
more clearly where these trends are leading.
Notes
1. See J. Garnett, ‘The Role of the Military Power’, in J. Baylis, K. Booth, J.
Garnett and P. Williams, Contemporary Strategy: Theories and Policies
(New York: Holmes and Maier, 1987), pp. 74–6.
2. A. Dorman, M.L. Smith and M.R.H. Uttley, ‘Jointery and Combined
Operations in an Expeditionary Era: Defining the Issues’, Defense
Analysis Special Edition: Jointery and Combined Operations in an
Expeditionary Era, vol. 14, no. 1 (January 1998), p. 5.
3. G. Till, ‘Maritime Strategy and the Twenty-First Century’, Journal of
Strategic Studies, vol. 17, no. 1 (March 1994), p. 166.
4. Admiral P.D. Miller, ‘Both Swords and Ploughshares: Military Roles in
the 1990s’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institute (April 1993), p. 13.
5. See J. Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Vintage, 1994), p. 58.
6. D.M. Jones and M. Smith, ‘Identity Politics in Southeast Asia’, Jane’s
Intelligence Review, vo1. 12, no. 11 (November 2000), pp. 44–5.
7. For a discussion see J.R. Fitzsimonds and J.M. van Tol, ‘Revolution in
Military Affairs’, Joint Forces Quarterly (JFQ) (Spring 1994), pp. 24–31;
W.A. Owens, ‘JROC: Harnessing the Revolution in Military Affairs’, JFQ
(Summer 1994), pp. 55–7.
8. See M. Clarke, ‘Constraints on UK World Power Projection and Foreign

Policy in the New World Order’, in A. Dorman, M. Smith and M.
Uttley, eds, The Changing Face of Maritime Power (London and New York:
Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press, 1999), pp. 65–80.
9. See E. Luttwak, ‘Towards Post Heroic Warfare’, Foreign Affairs (May/June
1995), pp. 109-27, and E. Luttwak, ‘A Post Heroic Military Policy’,
Foreign Affairs (July/August 1996), pp. 33-4.
10. See J.W. Honig, ‘Strategy in a Post-Clausewitzian Setting’, in G. de Nooy
(ed.), The Clausewitzian Dictum and the Future of Western Strategy (The
Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1997), pp. 109–11.
11. See for example P. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers:
Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (London:
Fontana, 1989), pp. 564–692.
12. W. Wohlforth, ‘Realism and the End of the Cold War’, International
Security, vol. 19, no. 4 (Winter 1994), p. 103.
13. K. Booth, ‘New Thinking’, in K. Booth (ed.), New Thinking about
International Security (London: HarperCollins, 1991), pp. xii–xiii.
14. J. Kurth, ‘Inside the Cave: the Banality of I.R. Studies’, The National
Interest (Fall 1998), p. 37.
15. See for example, M. Van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York:
Free Press, 1991).
16. See for example, C. Bellamy, ‘From Total War to Local War: It’s a
Revolution’, Independent, 24 July 1996. Also see Bellamy’s book, Knights in
White Armour: the New Art of War and Peace (London: Hutchinson, 1996).
17. In this respect the American armed forces journal, Joint Forces Quarterly
(JFQ) has been consistently ahead of the game since the early 1990s in
systematically examining the way in which the evolving strategic land-
scape will shape future military operations and defence establishments.
See for example, S. Cropsey, ‘The Limits of Jointness’, JFQ (Summer
1993), pp. 72–9; F.R. Strain, ‘The New Joint Warfare’, JFQ (Autumn
1993), pp. 17–24; W.A. Owens, ‘Living Jointness’, JFQ (Winter
1993–94), pp. 19–26; and E.J. Rokke, ‘Military Education for the New
Age’, JFQ (Autumn 1995), pp. 18–23.
18. M.L. Smith and M.R.H. Uttley, ‘The Changing Face of Maritime Power’, in
Dorman et al., The Changing Face of Maritime Power, op. cit., pp. 189–90.
19. For a more detailed analysis of this point, see for example: S.E. Airey,
‘Does Russian Seapower Have a Future?’, RUSI Journal (December 1995),
pp. 15–22; and J.S. Breemer, ‘The End of Naval Strategy: Revolutionary
Change and the Future of American Naval Power’, Strategic Review
(Spring 1994), pp. 40–52.
20. See R. Mottram, ‘Options for Change: Process and Prospects’, RUSI
Journal (Spring 1991), p. 22.
21. See, for example, the United Kingdom’s ‘Seven Mission Types for British
Forces’, in MOD, Statement on the Defence Estimates 1996, Cm 3223
(London: HMSO, 1996), p. 18.
22. J.R. Stocker, ‘Canadian Joint Operations’, RUSI Journal (June 1996), p. 36.
23. See, for example, Miller, op. cit., p. 18.
24. United Kingdom Doctrine for Joint and Combined Operations, Joint
Warfare Publication 0–10, 3rd Study Draft, 1997, p. 1-1.
25. The term ‘jointery’ is employed in the United Kingdom, whereas ‘joint-
ness’ is the term adopted in the United States. Both share the same
meaning and they are used interchangeably in this volume.
26. See, for example, R. Cobbold, ‘A Joint Maritime-based Expeditionary
Capability’, RUSI Journal (August 1997), pp. 23–30.
27. See, for example, R. Ross, ‘The Role of Amphibious Forces in a
Changing World’, RUSI Journal (April 1996), pp. 21–3.
28. Breemer, op. cit., p. 46.
29. See P. Hine, ‘Developments in Measures to Enhance Joint Operations’,
RUSI Journal (October 1996), pp. 28–30.
30. J. Slater, ‘A Fleet for the 90s’, RUSI Journal (February 1993), p. 8.
2
The Dimensions of Asymmetric
Warfare
Wyn Q. Bowen
The term ‘asymmetric warfare’ has been used with increasing regu-
larity in recent years in reference to the emerging strategic environ-
ment. Specifically, it has been used to analyse and describe how
future conflicts involving Western countries will be characterized by
significant dissimilarities between them and potential opponents.
The term has been used primarily in relation to the growing techno-
logical gap in conventional military capabilities between Western
countries – with the United States occupying a pre-eminent position
– and non-Western countries. This qualitative gap was illustrated
initially by the comprehensive military defeat of Iraq by the
American-led UN Coalition in 1991. More recently, it was demon-
strated by the less convincing but ultimately successful coercion of
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) by NATO in 1999.
Most work on asymmetry to date has focused on the ‘means’
through which potential adversaries might attempt to circumvent
Western conventional superiority in future conflicts. The term
‘asymmetric strategies’ has often been used to label approaches that
such opponents might employ to avoid direct military confronta-
tion and to focus instead on exploiting key political and military
vulnerabilities, such as the perceived Western sensitivity to casual-
ties and collateral damage. Examples of approaches cited through-
out the literature on asymmetry include: the threat or use of
nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons; threats or acts of
terrorism; the use of propaganda and disinformation; and informa-
tion attacks against military and civilian computer systems and
networks.
15
The concept of asymmetry can also be applied to other areas

where significant differences will exist in future between Western
and non-Western adversaries. Two key areas stand out. The first
involves the relative balance of interests likely to be at stake. For the
foreseeable future, Western countries will probably get involved in
conflicts where less than vital interests are at stake – such as human-
itarian values – but where the vital interests of their opponents –
such as territorial integrity and regime survival – are directly threat-
ened. This mismatch could have a profound influence on the resolve
of all parties to realize their objectives, stated or otherwise. The
second area involves political, economic and cultural differences
between opponents that will dictate the political, ethical and legal
constraints under which both sides operate when engaged in armed
conflict. The greater the divergence between opponents in this area,
the more significant the impact will be on the conduct of conflict.
This chapter examines each dimension of asymmetric warfare in
turn. The first section addresses the relative imbalance of interests
likely to be at stake in future conflicts between intervening Western
powers and non-Western opponents. The second section looks at
how political, economic and cultural differences between such adver-
saries could potentially influence the nature and conduct of warfare.
The third, and most important, section examines the types of
approaches and techniques available to potential Western adversaries
to avoid direct military confrontation. To help illustrate the concept
of asymmetric warfare, NATO’s conflict against the FRY over Kosovo
is used as a case study throughout the chapter. Indeed, the fourth
section looks specifically at what Belgrade did and did not do in terms
of its asymmetric response to the NATO air campaign, Operation
Allied Force. The aim is not to present an in-depth analysis of Allied
Force or the Serbian politico-military counter-strategy. Rather, the
objective is to offer a brief but nevertheless illustrative examination of
this asymmetric encounter between an advanced military alliance
conducting a limited conflict of choice against a militarily inferior,
and politically dissimilar, opponent fighting a war of necessity.1
Asymmetry 1: imbalance of interests
Since the end of the Cold War, external military threats to Western
countries such as the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States
Wyn Q. Bowen 17
(US) have diminished radically. The resultant strategic environment

has proved immeasurably safer, albeit relatively unpredictable and
uncertain. Indeed, the conflicts in which Western countries have
intervened militarily over the past decade have been notable
because they have challenged desirable interests such as humanitar-
ian values, rather than hard-nosed vital interests such as national
survival. To quote the US Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the types of
conflict in which the US and its allies have become involved have
primarily been ‘ambiguous situations residing between peace and
war, such as peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations’.2
Examples include Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti, Kosovo, Indonesia and
Sierra Leone. In all of these situations, Western countries intervened
for altruistic reasons such as the need to avert humanitarian cata-
strophes or to restore legitimate government. Iraq is probably an
exception because the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and Baghdad’s
continued threat to regional stability and security since the 1991
Gulf War, posed a direct threat to oil supplies vital to the world
economy and consequently vital to Western economic interests.
However, from a Western perspective all of these examples, includ-
ing Iraq, were limited conflicts or crises of choice as opposed to total
wars of necessity. Western countries had the choice of whether to
get involved or to remain on the sidelines, and they are likely to
retain this choice. In contrast, for the non-Western parties to the
above conflicts, vital interests were directly threatened, whether this
involved territorial integrity, regime survival or control of disputed
areas. This imbalance in the stakes involved in recent conflicts will
remain a key feature of Western military intervention for the fore-
seeable future.
The stakes involved in regional conflicts will impinge directly on
Western decisions to intervene, as well as on the resolve of all
parties to pay the human and financial price to realize desired objec-
tives. The greater the interests at stake, the greater this resolve is
likely to be and vice versa. For example, domestic popular and polit-
ical support for America’s humanitarian intervention in Somalia
plummeted in September 1993 once casualties were taken and pic-
tures were beamed around the world of dead US serviceman being
dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. In short, US voters and
politicians deemed the cost in American lives to be far too great rel-
ative to the humanitarian interests at stake in Somalia. Moreover, if
one side’s vital interests are jeopardized that side is more likely to be
willing to resort to drastic measures to protect them. This is particu-
larly the case if a regime perceives it has no other option or nothing
left to lose. From a Western perspective, a lack of clearly identifiable
interests can be particularly problematical when Western states
attempt to coordinate their military responses under UN, NATO or
other multilateral auspices. This is because constituent members will
need to reconcile potentially divergent interests in order to develop
and sustain the political cohesion and unity of purpose necessary
for effective military action. When things go wrong militarily, or
political objectives are not met as quickly as initially hoped, such a
divergence can prove highly divisive in terms of alliance or coalition
politics.
NATO’s war against the FRY to stop Serb ethnic cleansing of
ethnic Albanians in Kosovo is an excellent example of a conflict
characterized by a significant imbalance of interests at stake
between the opponents. In the summer of 1998, the Serbian regime
under Slobodan Milosevic initiated a violent counter-insurgency
campaign in the Serbian province of Kosovo to end increasing
ethnic Albanian resistance to Serb rule mounted by the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA). This campaign prompted a humanitarian
crisis with many ethnic Albanians forced to flee their villages and
towns.3 The Milosevic regime had three core objectives in resorting
to force in Kosovo. First, increasing Albanian secessionism in the
province posed a challenge to the territorial integrity of the Serbian-
dominated FRY. Second, Albanian resistance exacerbated Serb
nationalism vis-à-vis Kosovo because several sites of historic and
religious significance to Serbian national identity are located in the
province. Third, Milosevic could not risk losing Kosovo for fear of
undermining his ‘domestic national credentials’ which were ‘often
doubted’ among his nationalist supporters. Consequently, if
Milosevic lost Kosovo his political survival would have been jeopar-
dized. When diplomatic attempts to resolve the crisis failed follow-
ing Belgrade’s rejection of the Rambouillet Accords in March 1999,
and NATO action looked increasingly imminent, these objectives
took on greater importance.4 Indeed, it has been argued that the
Milosevic regime rejected Rambouillet because of a perception that
any political agreement would have threatened the future freedom
of Serbia because of the potential for NATO supporting future seces-
sionist activity by other ethnic minorities.5 The stakes involved for
Wyn Q. Bowen 19
the Milosevic regime in Belgrade, then, included the vital interests

of territorial integrity, national identity and regime survival.
In contrast, NATO intervened over Kosovo for less than vital inter-
ests. Five political objectives were identified: a verifiable stop to all
military action and the immediate ending of violence and repres-
sion within Kosovo; the withdrawal of Yugoslav military, police and
paramilitary forces from the province; the stationing of an interna-
tional peacekeeping force with NATO at its core; the unconditional
and safe return of all refugees and internally displaced persons and
unhindered access to them by humanitarian aid organizations; and
the establishment of a political framework for Kosovo, on the basis
of the Rambouillet Accords.6 These objectives did not reflect the
vital interests of the NATO member states. Rather, the Alliance’s
involvement was driven by the humanitarian imperative of ending
the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians by Serbian police and
security forces. Moreover, Allied Force was fought outside NATO’s
borders and it was not an act of collective self-defence under Article
5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. The absence of vital interests was to
cause significant problems for the Alliance in its attempt to coerce
Milosevic militarily into accepting NATO’s objectives. In the words
of General Klaus Naumann, Chairman of the NATO Military
Committee during the Kosovo conflict, Allied Force was conducted
‘by a coalition of 19 democratic nations who did neither have a
clearly defined common interest in Kosovo nor did they perceive the
events in Kosovo as a clear and present danger to anyone of them’.7
This lack of vital interests contributed to a lack of political cohesion
and unity of purpose among the member states vis-à-vis military
action, with Italy and Greece standing out as notable weak links. It
should be noted, however, that as the air campaign progressed and
Belgrade did not capitulate as quickly as hoped, the stakes for NATO
increased as the Alliance’s future credibility was jeopardized. Indeed,
the credibility issue arguably served to stiffen NATO resolve as Allied
Force developed into a more protracted affair than initially planned.
Following the Kosovo conflict, Klaus Naumann said the Alliance
had been faced by ‘an opponent who accepted war whereas NATO
nations had accepted an operation’.8 This imbalance had a
significant impact on the conduct of the conflict in terms of the
political and military strategies and tactics adopted by both adver-
saries. To fully appreciate this impact, however, attention first needs
to be focused on the second dimension of asymmetric warfare.
Asymmetry 2: political, legal and ethical constraints
The manner in which a government or regime approaches armed

conflict is shaped by the interaction of numerous political, cultural,
economic and military factors. This interaction determines the
specific value systems, mindsets and hence perceptions of reality of
key political and military decision-makers. In turn, this determines
issues such as the extent to which political, legal and ethical con-
straints are a factor in decision-making and implementation, the
ability of a government or regime to take or impose heavy casual-
ties, and the ability to conduct military operations without regard to
popular support. If adversaries are significantly dissimilar from one
another in these areas, the impact on a conflict can be profound.
Although all Western democratic countries possess their own
unique characteristics based on history, language and culture, they
also possess certain general attributes that set them apart from
undemocratic, non-Western countries. Charles Dunlap, for example,
identifies the following qualities as characteristic of the Western
mindset: individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, respect for
human rights, equality, liberty, rule of law, democracy, free markets,
separation of church and state, and the key role of technology as a
fixer or enabler.9 These are all desirable qualities. However, such
qualities can prove highly constraining when democratic govern-
ments contemplate the use of military force. There are two principal
reasons for this. First, democratic governments are dependent upon
generating and maintaining popular and political support for large-
scale military action. Indeed, popular support is particularly impor-
tant when less than vital interests are involved because it is far more
difficult for politicians to justify the expenditure of national
resources, and the imposition of casualties and collateral damage, if
only desirable interests are at stake. It is probably true to say that
political sensitivity on these issues is currently the biggest constraint
on democratic governments contemplating the use of military force
in limited regional conflicts. This has been evident in recent years
from Western involvement in Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo.
The second reason is that democratic governments are subject to
legal and ethical constraints such as the need to fight in an accept-
able and civilized way by adhering to the norms and laws of armed
conflict. Pertinent examples include adherence to the principles of
Wyn Q. Bowen 21
proportionality and the non-targeting of civilians. Obviously, the

specific mix of constraints will differ between individual democratic
countries and depends on the specific context of the intervention.
However, the key point to make here is that the types of constraints
outlined above often inhibit democratic countries when it comes to
military intervention to protect less than vital interests.
It follows that undemocratic regimes are likely to possess
significantly different value systems and mindsets. Consequently, their
perception of reality is likely to differ as is their view on what is per-
missible in conflict. For example, undemocratic regimes are unlikely to
be influenced in the same way by political, legal and ethical con-
straints. They are less likely to be concerned about human rights and
will not feel the same responsibility to ensure a conflict is conducted
in a just manner. Moreover, undemocratic regimes will not have a
similar need to generate and maintain popular support for action and
they are not likely to be as averse to casualties and collateral damage.
In future conflicts political, legal and ethical constraints will not
only influence Western military strategies and tactics, they will also
shape the political and military counter-strategies and tactics
adopted by less advanced opponents. When Western countries
intervene for less than vital interests, aversion to friendly casualties
and collateral damage is a key constraint on military action. This
constraint constitutes a key strategic vulnerability open to exploita-
tion by opponents that are not similarly averse to, or constrained by
the political need to avoid, casualties and collateral damage; the
Somalia example was used earlier to illustrate this point. Another
Western vulnerability stems from the dependence of technologi-
cally-advanced democratic societies on advanced computer and
information systems in both the military and civilian fields. This
vulnerability could potentially be targeted asymmetrically by future
opponents to produce strategic, operational and tactical effects.
In Kosovo, significant political differences existed between the
NATO member states and their Serbian opponents and these had a
marked impact on the nature of the conflict. On one hand, NATO
was a defensive alliance of 19 democratic states with each govern-
ment accountable to its own electorate and dependent upon
popular support for military action. Moreover, each member state
possessed its own unique characteristics which further influenced
the issue of popular and political support. Two pertinent examples
are Greece and Italy, both of which were geographically close to the
conflict and governed by administrations from the traditional left of
the political spectrum. In Italy, these factors interacted to under-
mine popular and political support for Allied Force. During the air
campaign the Italian Communist Party threatened to withdraw
from Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema’s centre-left coalition, and to
destabilize the Italian political system, if the bombing did not
stop.10 Moreover, D’Alema himself called for air strikes to be brief
and for a quick resumption of political negotiations. Traditional
pro-Serb feelings in Greece meant the Greek government refused to
make aircraft available or to send troops to the former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).11 Indeed, poll ratings of 98 per
cent against air strikes were recorded in Greece during the conflict.12
Elsewhere within NATO, Germany’s Social Democrat-led coalition
government grew increasingly nervous about public opinion as the
campaign proceeded, because of collateral damage concerns but also
because the Luftwaffe’s participation in Allied Force marked the
country’s first offensive military action since the Second World
War.13 In contrast, the British and American governments appeared
relatively enthusiastic although both had to cope with domestic
opposition.
Differences in the level of popular and political support between
the NATO member states were exacerbated by the fact that humani-
tarian rather than vital interests were at stake. This was a significant
issue because the ultimate success of Allied Force was largely depen-
dent on sustaining the political cohesion and unity of purpose of
the 19 countries and other coalition members. Several months after
Allied Force, US Secretary of Defense William Cohen and Chairman
of the JCS Henry Shelton told the Senate Armed Services Committee
that, ‘without the direct support of our NATO allies and key coali-
tion partners, the campaign would not have been possible’.14
Indeed, although the United States provided the majority of opera-
tional capabilities, Allied Force was dependent on the airfields, mili-
tary bases, airspace and political and diplomatic support of other
key coalition members.15 This was particularly true for those coun-
tries in close proximity to the theatre of operations including
Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy and the FYROM.16
Belgrade differed markedly from its NATO adversaries in political
terms. The pseudo-democratic governments of Serbia and the FRY
Wyn Q. Bowen 23
(Serbia and Montenegro) were dominated by FRY President

Slobodan Milosevic. Although Milosevic’s Socialist Party of Serbia
did not possess a majority in the Federal or Serbian parliaments, it
still dominated the ruling coalitions and occupied the key adminis-
trative positions. Milosevic retained power through control of the
Serbian police – a force of approximately 100 000 responsible for
internal security. Other foundations of the regime’s power included
the state-controlled media and the industry barons who provided
Milosevic with the finances necessary to stay in power.17
Consequently, NATO faced an adversary that was not similarly
dependent upon, or constrained by the need to maintain, popular
and political support. Moreover, vital interests were at stake for
Milosevic including territorial integrity, the security of a province of
great significance to Serbian nationalism, and regime survival.
The first and second dimensions of asymmetry were pivotal in
influencing the nature of the Kosovo conflict because their interac-
tion determined the political, legal and ethical constraints imposed
on NATO military planners in terms of the strategy and tactics
adopted. The chief constraint was the imperative of minimizing
friendly casualties and collateral damage to avoid undermining
domestic support for action. This was key to maintaining the politi-
cal cohesion and unity of purpose of the Alliance. The Serbs were
quick to identify this constraint as a key vulnerability and adopted
an asymmetric politico-military strategy that focused principally on
rupturing NATO’s political cohesion. This leads to the third dimen-
sion of asymmetric warfare.
Asymmetry 3: asymmetric strategies and techniques
The final area where critical differences will exist between Western
countries and future non-Western opponents is conventional mili-
tary strength and capability. Western conventional forces currently
enjoy a vast qualitative superiority in areas such as precision-strike
munitions, surveillance, targeting, reconnaissance, intelligence and
command, control, communications and computers. The defeat of
Iraq’s armed forces in 1991 by the far more technologically-
advanced Coalition forces led by the United States is regularly cited
by military commentators as having demonstrated the gap between
the conventional capabilities of the developed and developing
world. Moreover, this gap continued to grow in the decade follow-

ing the Gulf War with continued investment by the United States
and other Western states in hi-tech conventional weapons, primar-
ily air power systems.
The upshot of this divergence in military capabilities has been a
realization, by potential adversaries and Western defence planners,
that it would be unwise for a less developed country or group of
countries to take on the United States and its allies in a direct, force-
on-force military confrontation. This is primarily because less devel-
oped countries will not possess, and cannot afford, the capabilities
to guarantee victory in a conventionally ‘symmetrical’ conflict.
Consequently, it is apparent that the only realistic way to take on
the West in a military confrontation is by adopting indirect
approaches: approaches which seek to negate Western conventional
superiority by avoiding direct confrontation on the battlefield
through targeting key military and political vulnerabilities using
non-traditional or ‘asymmetric’ approaches.
In 1997, the US Department of Defense’s Quadrennial Defense
Review (QDR) referred to the potential employment by future adver-
saries of asymmetric means: ‘to delay or deny US access to critical
facilities; disrupt our command, control, communications, and
intelligence networks; deter allies and potential coalition partners
from supporting US intervention; or inflict higher than expected US
casualties in an attempt to weaken our national resolve’.18 The fol-
lowing year, Britain’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) picked up the
concept by stating that in future ‘potential adversaries may choose
to adopt alternative weapons and unconventional (or asymmetric)
strategies, perhaps attacking us through vulnerabilities in our open
civil societies’. Moreover, the SDR referred to ‘new ways of fighting
such as information warfare’ involving attacks via computer systems
on which military forces and civil society ‘increasingly depend’. In
addition, reference was made to the impact of media reporting that
can result in the application of great pressure on operational deci-
sions. Finally, the SDR highlighted the proliferation of technologies,
specifically those that could be used against the UK and its allies
including biological weapons.19 It is now rare for a major American
or British publication on defence and security policy to omit at least
one reference to the asymmetric dimension of future conflict.
Indeed, Joint Vision 2020, published in June 2000 by the JCS, stated
Wyn Q. Bowen 25
that the appeal to adversaries of ‘asymmetric approaches’ would

increase in future in the face of strong conventional American mili-
tary capabilities.20 It should be noted, of course, that the concept of
asymmetry is not new. In the words of a recent director of the US
Defense Intelligence Agency, ‘attacking an adversary’s weaknesses
with unexpected or innovative means while avoiding his strengths,
is as old as warfare itself’.21 That said, the concept has received
significant attention in Western defence and security circles in
recent years.
Levels of conflict
Asymmetric approaches and techniques can be implemented at all

levels of conflict. At the strategic level,22 an asymmetric strategy
would focus on influencing national, alliance or coalition policy
objectives. The aim could be to deter extra-regional intervention, to
compel an adversary to alter behaviour or objectives once hostilities
are underway, or merely to complicate an opponent’s decision-
making to buy time to realize military or political designs. Whatever
the aim, the focus will be on targeting the opponent’s strategic vul-
nerabilities. As already demonstrated, a key Western vulnerability is
the requirement to generate and maintain popular support to
conduct large-scale military operations. This is particularly impor-
tant when humanitarian rather than vital interests are at stake. A
lack of, or deteriorating, popular support will sap a democratic gov-
ernment’s political will to pursue a particular course of action.
Moreover, when coalitions or alliances are involved the degree of
popular support can vary greatly between member states as a result
of divergent interests and objectives. This can have negative conse-
quences for political cohesion, especially if there are one or more
‘weak links’ in an alliance potentially open to exploitation. A lack of
political cohesion can undermine credibility as well as the opera-
tional effectiveness of coalition forces.
An asymmetric strategy designed to deter outside intervention
would need to focus on convincing the target that the potential
costs of involvement far exceed the potential gains. In limited
conflicts of choice, potential costs are likely to be measured in terms
of the expenditure of national resources but primarily in friendly
casualties and collateral damage. Potential gains are likely to be cal-

culated in terms of how an intervention could further national or
alliance interests. In an era of humanitarian interventions, it often
appears that the potential cost–gain equation is loaded in favour of
the former. Indeed, it is in the interest of future Western adversaries
to help create and sustain this perception. Alternatively, an asym-
metric strategy could be designed to compel the target to withdraw
or to disengage. The aim would be to threaten or to act in a particu-
lar way with the hope of convincing the target that the costs
incurred, or likely to be incurred, are too great relative to the inter-
ests at stake, thereby undermining popular and political support for
continued action.
At the operational level, asymmetric techniques would focus on
hindering an opponent’s application of military resources towards
the realization of military strategic objectives. Specifically, attention
would centre on techniques to influence an opponent’s planning,
sustenance, sequencing, direction and conduct of its military cam-
paign. Vulnerabilities at this level are primarily the product of con-
straints imposed on an adversary projecting military power far from
home. A good example here is the vulnerability of deployed or
deploying forces in allied countries in proximity to the theatre of
operations. Ports of disembarkation, airfields and other static targets
such as troop and equipment concentrations constitute large and
potentially rewarding targets for future adversaries. Successful
attacks or threats against such targets could reduce an adversary’s
operational effectiveness. This could be achieved by slowing the
build-up of forces in theatre or diverting resources to provide for
necessary defensive measures. In doing so, an adversary could
potentially create the conditions required to realize operational or
strategic objectives.
At the tactical level, asymmetric techniques would be typified by rel-
atively inexpensive and low-tech approaches that seek to counter the
effects of advanced conventional weapon systems, primarily air power
systems. The aim would be to disrupt an opponent’s tactical applica-
tion of military resources in the pursuit of operational objectives. This
could be attempted by reducing susceptibility to strategic bombard-
ment and reducing the vulnerability of friendly forces to air attack.
Asymmetric approaches can be applied, therefore, at all levels of
conflict. In this era of humanitarianism, it should be remembered
that approaches applied at the tactical level always have the poten-
Wyn Q. Bowen 27
tial to produce strategic effects, especially if the target is desperate to

keep casualties to a minimum. Indeed, an underdog may attempt to
generate tactical events with the sole purpose of producing a strate-
gic effect when confronting an opponent fighting to protect desir-
able rather than vital interests. To help illustrate this and other
asymmetric issues, the Kosovo conflict is offered as an example in
the following section. First, NATO’s military objectives in Allied
Force are outlined, the constraints under which the Alliance oper-
ated are highlighted, and the air campaign style is briefly described.
Consideration is then given to the approaches and techniques
adopted as part of Serbia’s asymmetric counter-response to the
NATO air campaign. Attention is also given to what the Serbs did
not do either because of capability gaps or the potential existence of
thresholds which the Milosevic regime was not prepared to cross.
Kosovo 1999
Operation Allied Force: objectives, constraints and campaign style

NATO began Allied Force with the following military objective: to
degrade and disrupt the military and security forces of Yugoslavia
responsible for depopulating and destroying the Albanian majority
in Kosovo23 in order to ‘systematically reduce the ability of President
Milosevic to sustain his repressive operations’.24 From the outset it
was apparent there would be significant constraints on Alliance
operations. These included the effects of bad weather and rugged
terrain on targeting, a ‘robust’ integrated air defence system and the
ability of Serbian forces to disperse and camouflage equipment to
avoid detection and destruction.25 However, the principal con-
straints were political because, as discussed earlier, this was a limited
conflict of choice waged on humanitarian grounds. Hence, from day
one the issue of popular and political support among the 19
member states became a pivotal issue. The need to sustain the polit-
ical cohesion of NATO resulted in a heavy emphasis on avoiding
collateral damage in Kosovo and Serbia as well as minimizing allied
losses.26 This dictated the imperative of avoiding a potentially very
costly ground war, the graduated nature of the air campaign and the
imposition of minimum flight ceilings for NATO aircraft. These con-
straints reduced NATO’s military effectiveness and to a large extent
determined Serbian counter-strategies and tactics.
By making it clear at the outset that the use of ground forces was
out of the question, NATO effectively told Belgrade the Alliance did
not have the stomach for a prolonged fight or for taking significant
casualties.27 According to Klaus Naumann, NATO failed ‘to preserve
uncertainty in Belgrade’s mind regarding the consequences it might
face in the case of his [Milosevic] rejection of peaceful solutions’.
Naumann added that ‘some NATO nations began to rule out simul-
taneously options such as the use of ground forces and did so,
without any need, in public’, thus allowing Milosevic ‘to calculate
his risk and to speculate that there might be a chance for him to
ride the threat out and to hope that NATO would either be unable
to act at all or that the cohesion of the Alliance would melt away
under the public impression of punishing air strikes’.28
The air campaign was designed to ramp up pressure gradually on
Belgrade to end the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians and to
withdraw Serb forces from the province. It was evident that NATO
hoped Milosevic would return to the negotiating table after a few
days of minimal air strikes. However, the initial few days of the cam-
paign further solidified Belgrade’s resolve because it demonstrated
that the Alliance lacked the stomach for anything more than
limited operations. What followed was a 78-day air campaign that
progressed through several phases as Milosevic refused to give in as
quickly as at first hoped. The campaign focused initially on a limited
list of fixed targets associated with the air defence system through-
out the FRY. Once it was evident that Milosevic had not been
coerced and ethnic cleansing was continuing,29 NATO expanded the
campaign to include security forces infrastructure, the military in
Kosovo and reinforcement forces (for example, headquarters,
telecommunication installations, matériel and ammunition depots,
military barracks, oil terminals).30 Eventually, once it became appar-
ent that Belgrade had stepped up its campaign of ethnic cleansing,
the air campaign was expanded to include simultaneous attacks on a
broad range of targets of military significance throughout the entire
FRY, including individual tanks and positions in Kosovo, as well as
strategic civilian targets in Serbia itself (including bridges, factories,
party headquarters, TV transmitters, power stations).31 Since the end
of the conflict numerous analysts have argued that NATO should
have gone after strategic targets much earlier and with greater force.
According to Klaus Naumann, phase two should have focused ‘more
Wyn Q. Bowen 29
and earlier on those targets which hurt a ruler such as Milosevic and
which constitute the pillars on which his power rests’.32 However, in
political terms the expansion of the campaign to hit strategic targets
in Serbia was a highly controversial and divisive issue within the
Alliance. According to William Cohen and Henry Shelton, ‘for
selected categories of targets – for example, targets in downtown
Belgrade or targets likely to involve high collateral damage – NATO
reserved the approval for higher political authorities’.33 After the
conflict, General Michael Short, the NATO Joint Force Air
Component Commander, said the French government played the
red card so often on target choices that these restrictions made air
operations predictable and thus dangerous.
The political imperative of avoiding friendly casualties forced
NATO military planners to limit tactics to a medium-level bombing
campaign to protect pilots from Serbian air defences. The rationale
was to minimize the risk of losing Allied aircraft and air-crew
because of a perception that downed aircraft would provide the
Serbs with a propaganda victory and potentially turn Alliance public
opinion against NATO involvement.34 Consequently, the majority
of NATO aircraft operated above 15 000 feet for protection, espe-
cially against the most unpredictable threats posed by shoulder-
launched MANPADs (man portable air defence systems) and AAA
(anti-aircraft artillery).35 According to Michael Short, this ceiling
offered NATO’s ‘best opportunity to survive’ in association with
night attack and the use of precision-guided munitions.36 Approval
for weapons release and forward air control excursions below 15 000
feet was subsequently granted, however, after NATO aircraft hit a
convoy of civilians, generating the political need to avoid similar
events occurring again. This enabled NATO pilots to fly much lower
to see if targets were ‘tanks, tractors or buses’ and then return to a
safer altitude.37 The style of the air campaign ensured that only two
allied aircraft were lost to air defences in nearly 10 000 bombing
missions. As the air defence threat degraded, operating restrictions
on NATO aircraft were eased and some operated down to 6000
feet.38 However, the general reluctance to fly at low levels was not
conducive to engaging mobile tactical targets including the vehicles
and military personnel perpetuating the humanitarian conflict on
the ground. Moreover, Michael Short said that by seeking to reduce
civilian casualties, NATO placed its aircrews in danger. For example,
by bombing bridges only on week-nights between 10.00 pm and

4.00 am. Such regular schedules made NATO planes more vulnera-
ble to anti-aircraft fire.39 The whole situation was exacerbated
during the first 45 days by cloud cover and thick mist.40 However,
the strategic element of the air campaign did prove more effective
because the targets were generally static in nature.
The public refusal by NATO leaders to consider ground forces at
the outset, the graduated nature of the air campaign and the impo-
sition of height restrictions on Alliance aircraft all interacted to
reduce the ability of NATO military planners to do their job effec-
tively. These constraints were lifted somewhat when NATO resolve
was bolstered as it became clear the Alliance was losing credibility.
Although ultimately successful in coercing Milosevic, the political
constraints on the Alliance did, to a large extent, determine the
nature of Serbian counter-strategies and tactics.
Serbian counter-strategies and tactics

Speaking after Allied Force in September 1999, William Cohen and
Henry Shelton said the United States and NATO would have to
prepare in future for adversaries who rely increasingly on unconven-
tional and ‘asymmetrical warfare’. In doing so, Cohen and Shelton
said Kosovo had not been a ‘traditional conflict’ because there was
no ‘direct military clash of massed military forces’. Indeed, the
Milosevic regime was not in a position directly to challenge the
Alliance’s superior military capabilities, so it chose to fight indi-
rectly. The means adopted included ‘terror tactics’ against Kosovo
civilians as part of an ethnic cleansing strategy; ‘attempts to exploit
the premium the alliance placed on minimizing casualties and col-
lateral damage’; the ‘creation of enormous refugee flows to create a
humanitarian crisis’; and the ‘conduct of disinformation and propa-
ganda campaigns’.41
Although the Milosevic regime knew NATO could not be defeated
militarily, Belgrade clearly believed that if the conflict could be pro-
longed then it might outlast NATO politically. This was because the
Alliance suffered from internal differences in terms of objectives,
interests and responses vis-à-vis the Kosovo crisis. Indeed, the over-
arching counter-strategy pursued sought to exploit Western fears
about friendly combat casualties – especially in the United States –
and enemy civilian casualties in the hope of exacerbating these
differences.
Wyn Q. Bowen 31
An initial approach adopted by the Serbs, and subsequently

pursued throughout most of the conflict, was ‘Operation
Horseshoe’.42 Cohen and Shelton claimed that the operation was
‘comprehensively planned months in advance’ as a ‘brutal means
to end the crisis’ on Milosevic’s terms by ‘expelling and killing
ethnic Albanians, overtaxing bordering nations’ infrastructures,
and fracturing the NATO alliance’.43 Klaus Naumann claimed the
expulsion of Kosovars was ‘an obvious attempt to counter NATO in
an asymmetric response and to deprive NATO of its theoretical
launching pad for ground force operations through a destabiliza-
tion of FYROM and Albania’. To Naumann, NATO was lucky it still
had the Extraction Force in the FYROM and was thus ‘able to
deploy and assemble an appropriate force’.44 However, the expul-
sion of Kosovars caused operational problems for NATO and the
wider coalition, and made the prosecution of the air campaign
problematic.45
Following Allied Force, Supreme Allied Commander Europe
(SACEUR), General Wesley Clark, said the Serbs had been ‘very
smart on the ground’ in the way they reacted to the air campaign.46
The Serbs adopted extensive concealment and deception tactics
which served to protect much of the FRY mobile ground forces, con-
sisting of self-propelled artillery and tanks, armoured personnel car-
riers, mortars and other military vehicles. The initial lack of a
ground war threat contributed to this situation because the Serb
forces did not have to gear up for a ground attack by preparing
defensive positions and stockpiling supplies. Thus, instead of pro-
viding vulnerable defensive targets for NATO air power, Serb ground
forces were able to remain mobile and to hide from Alliance air-
craft.47 KLA representatives reportedly told SACEUR in April 1999
that NATO’s refusal to consider a ground war had ‘allowed the Serb
army to disperse its armoured forces, personnel and equipment
throughout the province often using the cover of the homes of
ethnic Albanians purged over the past month’.48
Another counter included widespread deception techniques and
concealment of the damage suffered by ground forces.49 According
to the SACEUR Strike Assessment following the conflict, the Serbs
removed evidence and cleaned up the battlefield to conceal the
damage inflicted by NATO. For example, equipment was towed out
of bomb-damaged revetments and transported out of Kosovo.50 The
Serbs also built decoy bridges to divert NATO’s attention from
camouflaged bridges nearby. Other bridges were painted with

infrared paint in zigzag patterns to break up their shape to forward-
looking infrared sensor systems on NATO aircraft. In addition, road
movements were conducted in and around refugee columns to
confuse NATO reconnaissance systems and to deter attacks.51
Moreover, male Kosovars were placed in a variety of vehicles to act
as ‘human shields’ in front of and behind Serbian convoys. Civilian
hostages were also held at military barracks, factories and power
plants.52 These tactics were designed to play on NATO concerns
about collateral damage and served to constrain air operations
against Serbian ground forces.53 According to one account, ethnic
Albanians were herded into an ammunition factory and a metal pro-
cessing plant used as a depot for Serb armoured vehicles.54 After the
conflict, Michael Short said Milosevic had no compunction at all
about putting civilians inside ‘valid military targets’ and on a couple
of occasions NATO ‘struck those targets’ and subsequently ‘saw the
results on CNN’.55 As the air campaign progressed, however, NATO
air activity increased and Serb ground forces were forced to remain
hidden from view and to move only in limited circumstances. This
had a detrimental effect on their tactical combat effectiveness,56
which subsequently enabled the KLA to engage Serbian ground
forces with increasing success.
Throughout Allied Force the integrated air defence system
remained functional despite a sustained NATO effort to put it out of
action.57 In the face of local NATO air superiority – based on enemy
air defence suppression, altitude sanctuaries and precision stand-off
weapons58 – the Serbian strategy was designed to conserve air
defence assets ‘while attempting to down NATO aircraft as targets of
opportunity’.59 In short, the Serbs sought to employ its air defence
assets to strengthen opposition within the Alliance by shooting
down a few NATO planes. In doing so, the Serbs were forced to
‘husband’ their anti-aircraft missile defences to sustain their chal-
lenge to NATO aircraft.60 Throughout the conflict, surface-to-air
missiles (SAMs) posed the only credible threat to NATO aircraft;
more than 700 radar-guided SA-3 and SA-6 SAMs were launched.61
However, Serb radar operators realized that using tracking radar to
attempt to guide missiles against NATO aircraft meant they were
invariably subject to counter-attack. Thus, Serb air defence systems
were suppressed in that they were forced to hide or move around to
Wyn Q. Bowen 33
remain undetected. Moreover, tracking radar was only activated

briefly when Allied aircraft were in close proximity in order to mini-
mize their vulnerability to counter-attack.62 Occasionally, the Serbs
even launched missiles without radar guidance.63 Although
prompted by NATO suppression, these defensive tactics made the
targeting of Serbian air defence systems problematic. Indeed, at the
end of the air campaign, according to US Marine Corps Brigadier-
General Flanagan, ‘only a handful of Serbian SAM sites and early
warning radar networks had been destroyed’. As a result, ‘bombing
missions on day 70 were potentially as dangerous as missions on
day one’.64 Moreover, the command and control system supporting
the air defences was ‘redundant, flexible and adaptable’ which
further complicated its defeat.65 Fortunately for NATO, on the whole
Serbian air defence tactics failed, achieving only very limited success
in shooting down Alliance aircraft.
Belgrade waged a sustained propaganda and disinformation cam-
paign throughout Allied Force. This was designed to manipulate
both internal and external perceptions of the air assault and was
made possible through Milosevic’s state-controlled media and
Belgrade’s control of international media access to Serbia. Internally,
the aim was to suppress news about ethnic cleansing emanating
from Kosovo to the rest of Serbia to sustain morale during what was
believed would be a long campaign. The movement of ethnic
Albanians in Kosovo was depicted as the result of their need to flee
unprovoked NATO air strikes. Moreover, within a week of the hostil-
ities commencing, the regime had claimed that seven NATO planes
had been shot down, two pilots had been captured and the Alliance
was deliberately targeting the civilian population.66
Externally, the regime sought to project images of death and
destruction to undermine domestic popular support within the
NATO member states. The aim was to fracture the Alliance politi-
cally, but also to prompt international condemnation of NATO’s
actions. Initially, Western journalists in Serbia received threats,
they suffered from harassment and many were deported.67 However,
the Serbian approach altered subsequently when it became evident
the international media could be manipulated.68 Indeed, some
of the graphic images of death and destruction that emanated from
the FRY did help to generate opposition to Allied Force within
the NATO member states and the international community as a
whole. Although this approach ultimately failed to fracture NATO’s

political cohesion, it did undermine the operational effectiveness of
the Alliance.
During Allied Force, the Serbian media claimed that NATO had
dropped napalm on children.69 Moreover, one Serbian general
claimed that 47 NATO aircraft and four helicopters had been shot
down.70 Serbian officials also claimed that during the campaign
around 2000 civilians were killed by NATO. For example: it was
claimed that 55 were killed when two missiles hit a train crossing a
bridge in southern Serbia; 75 were killed when NATO accidentally
bombed a refugee column; and 87 died when the village of Korisa
was bombed. The Alliance countered these claims by asserting that
the Serbs used civilians as ‘human shields’ and that Korisa was a
legitimate military target.71 However, it was evident that the Serbs
were exploiting and generating tactical events in an attempt to
produce strategic effects. Moreover, intelligence sources reportedly
stated that Serb forces had been seen parking trucks packed with
explosives in civilian areas in several towns in Kosovo. According to
these sources, the intent was to detonate the trucks when NATO air-
craft flew overhead and to blame the resulting civilian casualties on
NATO.72 Another tactical event exploited for potential strategic
effect was the capture of American soldiers on the Kosovo border
with the FYROM. This appeared to be designed to undermine
American domestic support. Another example included the appear-
ance of Milosevic on Serbian TV with Ibrahim Rugova, the moderate
leader of the ethnic Albanians. During his TV appearance, Rugova
said he was under the protection of Serb forces and he appealed for
an end to the NATO campaign and called for a political solution
instead. It was widely speculated that Rugova had been captured
and was speaking under duress.73 NATO’s accidental bombing of the
Chinese embassy in Belgrade also provided the Milosevic regime
with an event it exploited for significant strategic effect.
Throughout the conflict Belgrade attempted to capitalize on its
pre-existing politico-strategic relationship with Moscow in an effort
to generate a wider international crisis. In large part, this played on
Russia’s general opposition to Western interventionism. Given that
the eventual withdrawal of Russian support for Belgrade has since
been identified as a key factor in influencing Milosevic’s decision to
give in to NATO, he evidently believed this approach had the poten-
Wyn Q. Bowen 35
tial to be quite effective. The Russian connection was demonstrated

in late March 1999 when Moscow announced it was sending a naval
reconnaissance vessel to the Adriatic Sea.74 Indeed, the Russian gov-
ernment reportedly ‘confirmed that intelligence gleaned by a recon-
naissance ship on way to the Mediteranean would be passed to
Belgrade to help counter the air campaign’.75 Belgrade’s strategy of
exploiting its relationship with Russia was also evident in Moscow’s
attempts to broker a political settlement during the conflict. These
attempts appeared designed to undermine the political will of NATO
member states to continue with the air campaign.
What the Serbs didn’t do: capability gaps and threshold perception
Ultimately, of course, the Alliance prevailed over Belgrade and there
has been much debate since regarding the key factors that brought
Milosevic to accept NATO’s ceasefire terms.76 Given NATO’s victory,
was there anything the Serbs could have done to avert defeat? This
question is potentially significant in terms of identifying capability
gaps and potential thresholds that Belgrade chose not to cross in its
counter-response.
An oft-cited asymmetric response is that of terrorism against civil-
ian and/or military targets. Belgrade did not consider, or chose not
to resort, to terrorist activity against NATO interests outside the
Kosovo theatre of operations. However, the threat of terrorism was
considered to be very real by several NATO governments. The
Italian government was concerned about possible revenge attacks
by Serb missiles or aircraft, or even acts of sabotage or terrorism,
because the majority of NATO warplanes were operating from
Italian bases.77 Similar concerns about terrorist acts were also
present in France. In late March 1999, media reports drew attention
to the potential vulnerability of Royal Air Force (RAF) personnel to
terrorist attacks in and around the NATO airbase at Gioia del Colle,
Italy. In response to these stories, an RAF spokesman was reported
as saying that if there had not been a terrorist threat before, there
‘bloody was one now’.78 Although terrorism outside Kosovo was not
a feature of the conflict in 1999, this does not mean future oppo-
nents will not resort to this approach. Indeed, future underdogs
might perceive the absence of this technique as a key failing of the
Serbian counter-campaign. This omission could have been the
result of the Serbian leadership’s perception that resorting to such
means would have crossed a NATO threshold by posing a direct

threat to Alliance security. This could then have prompted greater
political cohesion and resolve within NATO. In the future, it
appears the likelihood of terrorist activity will be determined by
three issues: the degree to which a regime feels threatened; the
extent to which a regime believes it has nothing left to lose; and
whether a regime calculates that such an approach would prompt
greater rather than less resolve in an opponent.
The Serbs did not employ or threaten to use chemical weapons, at
least not publicly. This was despite reports that Serbia inherited a
chemical warfare capability after the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991.
Chemical agents reportedly possessed by Serbia include soman and
VX nerve agents, sulphur mustard and phosgene, and chemical-
capable delivery systems included artillery shells, air-delivered bombs,
rockets and mines.79 Again, the issue of threshold perception could
have been important here. For example, it is possible that Milosevic
would have resorted to chemical threats or use if the survival of his
regime had been threatened during the air campaign itself.
The threat or use of chemical, biological and even nuclear
weapons has received great attention in the literature on asymmet-
ric warfare. It is widely postulated that chemical and biological
weapons in particular are likely to become weapons of the underdog
in future conflicts primarily because they are relatively straightfor-
ward to manufacture, in comparison to nuclear weapons, and they
offer the capability to inflict casualties out of proportion to their
conventional military capability. In future, the possession of chemi-
cal, biological or nuclear weapons could help adversaries raise the
potential costs and risks of Western intervention way above the
interests at stake. Indeed, their destructive potential and Western
sensitivity to casualties implies they may become the preferred
means to deter Western involvement. This is especially the case if
the stakes involved are much lower for the intervener. A disturbing
prospect is that a regime under siege could consider threatening or
actually initiating terrorist acts employing these types of weapons.
However, the decision to do so would probably be influenced by
whether an attack is deemed necessary to prevent the total defeat of
a regime or if it perceives there is nothing left to lose.
During Allied Force there was speculation in the media that
Belgrade would exploit the Hungarian connection. At least one
Wyn Q. Bowen 37
report claimed there was ‘a risk that Milosevic might order a hit-
and-run raid across the border by specialist troops to exploit opposi-
tion in Hungary to the bombing campaign and try to shatter NATO
unity’. One potential option singled out was ‘a raid on the nuclear
power station at Pecs in southern Hungary’.80 There were also
reported to be concerns in Hungary that Belgrade might conscript
men from the 300 000 ethnic Hungarians in Vojvodina, Serbia, as a
reprisal for Hungary’s role in Allied Force including the provision of
bases and air space to NATO aircraft.81 However, any direct attack
on this new NATO member would have constituted an Article 5
aggression requiring all other member states to come to Hungary’s
assistance. If Belgrade did indeed contemplate this option, the
Article 5 issue could have been a sufficient deterrent.
Allied Force also drew attention to Serbia’s lack of a long-range
strike capability. It has been speculated that if Serbia possessed
‘long-range power projection’ capabilities such as ballistic or cruise
missiles this could have helped to deter NATO involvement or to
impose operational constraints on the Alliance. Such capabilities,
potentially married with chemical or biological weapons, could
have played on Western concerns about avoiding casualties. One
analysis asked the question: ‘if Serbia had possessed even the com-
paratively crude Scuds used by Iraq during the Gulf War, would
American and allied planes have operated from bases so conve-
niently close to the Yugoslav border?’82 Moreover, what if Serbia had
possessed the capability to hit Rome, Paris or London? Would
France, Italy and the UK have participated? Would US planes have
operated from bases so close to the border?83 These are hypothetical
questions in the case of the Kosovo conflict. However, they draw
attention to the strategic and operational leverage such capabilities
can potentially afford Western adversaries in future asymmetric
conflicts.
During Allied Force NATO expected the Serbs to launch informa-
tion attacks against military and civilian targets. Prior to the
conflict, Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters
reportedly warned about the potential threat that Serbian computer
hackers posed to the UK’s critical information infrastructure in retal-
iation to the air campaign.84 According to a report in the Sunday
Times, the warnings took on greater urgency once Allied Force com-
menced. There was reported to be a particular concern about those
utilities and services ‘highly reliant on Internet connections’ and

which were most ‘vulnerable to attack’.85 Indeed, the Serbs were
reported to have considerable expertise in computing and to have
trained programmers in electronic espionage and sabotage skills.86 It
appears the Serbs did not attempt, or did not possess the requisite
capabilities, to perform an effective cyber-campaign against NATO.
However, there is little data available in the open sources on the
extent to which Serbia attempted to wage such a campaign. One
exception was the saturation with approximately 2000 e-mails a day
of the server hosting the NATO website (http://www.nato.int) by an
individual in Serbia. This effort put the website out of action for
three days. Although high security electronic systems were unaf-
fected, the attack did partially undermine NATO’s ability to project
the Alliance’s policy and views vis-à-vis Allied Force. Moreover, it
did demonstrate the potential for information warfare in future
conflicts.87 Indeed, by developing the means to hold the informa-
tion infrastructure of advanced countries to ransom, future adver-
saries could be in a position to deter or constrain Western
intervention in regional contingencies.
Conclusion
This chapter used the recent conflict in Kosovo as a case study to

illustrate that three factors are likely to characterize armed conflicts
in which Western countries become involved for the foreseeable
future. First, there is likely to be an imbalance of the interests at
stake between the adversaries, skewed in favour of Western oppo-
nents. Second, future conflicts are likely to be characterized by
significant political, economic and cultural differences between the
adversaries. As a result, the opposing sides will be subject to differ-
ent political, legal and ethical constraints. This factor will be exacer-
bated by the first because future opponents will be defending vital
interests whereas this will not be case for intervening powers. Third,
future opponents will increasingly seek to avoid direct military con-
frontation and adopt indirect approaches that target key vulnerabil-
ities such as the perceived sensitivity of democracies to casualties
when intervening to protect less than vital interests.
Wyn Q. Bowen 39
It is inevitable that potential adversaries will study Kosovo to

derive lessons in countering intervention by a hi-tech opponent
capable of rapidly establishing air superiority. SACEUR recognized
this fact when he told the US Senate that future adversaries would
examine Kosovo ‘with the goal of improving their own capabili-
ties’.88 Some of these potential capability gaps were highlighted in
the previous section. It is imperative for NATO states to accord
equal attention to this issue, including how best to offset future
enemy counter-strategies and tactics. The context of the Kosovo
conflict was, of course, shaped by ‘distinct military, cultural, geo-
graphic, political and economic factors’.89 This fact places a
premium on timely and pertinent intelligence gathering and analy-
sis vis-à-vis the emergence of future regional opponents. Indeed, as
early as 1997 the National Defense Panel’s report on the QDR of
that year stated that, ‘As the asymmetric challenges of the future
increase the complexity of warfare, the importance of human intel-
ligence (HUMINT) and other intelligence disciplines will likely
grow.’90 Moreover, given the multidimensional nature of asymmet-
ric threats, it follows that any effective response must be inter-
agency in nature and the issue should be viewed in broad ‘security’
rather than narrow ‘defence’ policy terms.
Notes
1. It should be noted that an open-source analysis of this type can in no
way be exhaustive and therefore will be open to debate.
2. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Vision 2020, Director for
Strategic Plans and Policy, J5, Strategy Division (Washington, DC:
USGPO, June 2000), p. 8.
3. B.R. Posen, ‘The War over Kosovo: Serbia’s Political-Military Strategy’,
International Security, vol. 24, no. 4 (Spring 2000), pp. 42–4.
4. Ibid., pp. 42–9.
5. Ibid., p. 48.
6. See: combined prepared statement of W. Clark, J. Ellis and M. Short of
the United States European Command before the Armed Services
Committee of the United States Senate, 21 October 1999, pp. 2–3; and
prepared statement of the Honourable W.S. Cohen to the Armed
Services Committee of the United States Senate, Hearing on Operations
in Kosovo, 20 July 1999, p. 3.
7. Statement of K. Naumann, German Army, former Chairman NATO
Military Committee, to the Senate Armed Services Committee,
3 November 1999, p. 2.
8. Ibid.
9. C.J. Dunlap, ‘Preliminary Observations: Asymmetrical Warfare and the
Western Mindset’, in Lloyd J. Matthews (ed.), Challenging the United
States Symmetrically and Asymmetrically: Can America be Defeated?
(Carlisle, PA: US Strategic Studies Institute, 1998), p. 2.
10. C. Bremner, ‘Waiting Game Puts Resolve to Test’, The Times, 1 April 1999.
11. M. Binyon, ‘How NATO Members Are Facing the Flak’, The Times,
27 March 1999.
12. A. Campbell, ‘Communications Lessons for NATO, the Military and
Media’, RUSI Journal, 144/4 (August 1999), pp. 31–6.
13. ‘Spinning for Victory’, Daily Telegraph, 16 October 1999.
14. Joint Statement of US Secretary of Defense W.S. Cohen and JCS
Chairman General H.H. Shelton to a hearing on the Kosovo After-
Action Review, Senate Armed Services Committee, US States Congress,
14 October 1999, p. 3.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid. See also Clark, Ellis and Short, op. cit., p. 4.
17. See US Department of State, ‘Background Notes: Serbia and
Montenegro’, Bureau of European Affairs, August 1999 (http://www.
state.gov/www/background_notes/serbia_9908_bgn.html); Naumann,
p. 4; and ‘Serbia and Montenegro’, US Central Intelligence Agency
(http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/sr.html).
18. W.S. Cohen, Secretary of Defense, ‘Report of the Quadrennial Defense
Review’, May 1997 (http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/qdr).
19. ‘Security Priorities in a Changing World’, Strategic Defence Review,
Ministry of Defence, London, July 1998, Chapter 2, para 34.
20. Joint Vision 2020, p . 6.
21. P.M. Hughes, Director US Defense Intelligence Agency, statement to the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 28 January 1998, ‘Global
Threats and Challenges: the Decade Ahead’.
22. Grand Strategy involves the application of a country’s, or an alliance’s,
entire resources in line with policy objectives. It involves bringing to
bear all elements of national or alliance power – economic, political,
diplomatic and military. See for example P. Paret, ‘Introduction’, in P.
Paret (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy: from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 3. Military Strategy
involves the application of military resources to achieve Grand Strategic
objectives. Aims have to be identified and selected and then exposed to
critical examination of feasibility and likely enemy strategy and
reactions. K. Macksey and W. Wodehouse, The Penguin Encyclopaedia of
Modern Warfare (London: Viking, 1991), pp. 312–13.
23. See Clark, Ellis and Short, op. cit., p. 3; Cohen and Shelton, op. cit.,
p. 1; Statement of W.S. Cohen, Hearing on US Policy towards FRY,
House Armed Services Committee, 15 April 1999 (http://www.
house.gov/hasc/testimony).
Wyn Q. Bowen 41
24. Statement of General H.H. Shelton, Hearing on US Policy Towards FRY,

House Armed Services Committee, 15 April 1999 (http://
www.house.gov/hasc/testimony).
25. Ibid.
26. Wesley, Ellis and Short, op. cit., p. 3.
27. R. Norton-Taylor, ‘Conflict Where Politicians Called the Shots’,
Guardian, 11 June 1999.
28. Naumann, op. cit., pp. 3–4.
29. ’Operation Allied Force’, Federation of American Scientists,
Washington, DC (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/allied_force.
htm).
30. ‘Operation Allied Force’, Daily Telegraph, 22 July 1999.
31. ’Operation Allied Force’, Federation of American Scientists, Wash
-ington, DC (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/allied_force.htm);
‘Operation Allied Force’, Daily Telegraph, 22 July 1999. General J.P.
Jumper, Commander US Air Forces in Europe, USAF, to the Military
Readiness Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee,
26 October 1999, pp. 2–3.
32. Naumann, op. cit., p. 4.
33. Cohen and Shelton, op. cit., p. 9.
34. Taylor, op. cit.
35 John A. Tirpak, ‘Short’s View of the Air Campaign’, Air Force Magazine,
September 1999, pp. 43–7.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid.
38. Lord Robertson, ‘Kosovo: an Account of the Crisis – NATO Air Strikes’,
Ministry of Defence, London (http://www.mod.uk/news/kosovo).
39. D. Priest, ‘Air Commander Says He Would Have Bombed Belgrade
First’, Washington Post, 22 October 1999, p. A34 (http://www.
washingtonpost.com).
40. J.A. Tirpak, ‘Short’s View of the Air Campaign’, Air Force Magazine,
September 1999, pp. 43–7; ‘Lessons from Kosovo: Military Operational
Capabilities’, The Military Balance 1999–2000 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press/IISS, 1999), p. 289.
42. Naumann, op. cit., p. 2.
44. Naumann, op. cit., pp. 4–5.
46. W. Clark and J. Corley, Press Conference on the Kosovo Strike
Assessment, 16 September 1999, US European Command (http://
www.eucom.mil).
47. Jumper, op. cit., p. 4.
48. A. Loyd, ‘NATO Campaign Not Working Say Guerrillas’, The Times,
24 April 1999.
49. T. Butcher and B. Rooney, ‘Damage Done by Bombing was Over-

estimated’, Daily Telegraph, 19 June 1999.
50. Clark and Corley, op. cit..
51. T. Ripley, ‘Kosovo: a Bomb Damage Assessment’, Jane’s Intelligence
Review, September 1999, pp. 10–13.
52. D. McGrory and S. Walker, ‘You Will Go Everywhere With Our Tanks,
Human Shields Are Told’, The Times, 27 March 1999.
54. P. Bishop, P. Smucker and C. Randall, ‘Children Used as Human
Shields’, Daily Telegraph, 27 March 1999.
55. Tirpak, op. cit., pp. 43–7.
56. Cohen and Shelton, op. cit., pp. 13–14.
57. Statement of D.J. Murphy, US Navy Commander, US Sixth Fleet and
Striking and Support Forces, Southern Europe, to the Military Readiness
Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, 26 October
1999, p.5
58. Ibid.
60. Ibid., p. 4.
61. Jumper, op. cit., p. 4.
62. Ibid.
64. Statement by R.M. Flanagan, Deputy Commander, II Marine
Expeditionary Force, United States Marine Corps, to the Military
Readiness Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee,
26 October 1999, pp. 2–3.
66. M. Binyon, ‘Dubious Tactics Mar Hearts and Minds Campaign’, The
Times, 3 April 1999.
67. M. Henderson and C. Midgley, ‘Belgrade Steps Up Expulsion of Press
“Spies’’’ , The Times, 26 March 1999.
68. R. Boyes, ‘Serb Unity is the Deadliest Weapon Confronting NATO
Alliance’, The Times, 30 March 1999.
69. Campbell, op. cit., pp. 31–6.
70. Clark and Corley, op. cit.
71. ‘Operation Allied Force’, Federation of American Scientists,
Washington, DC (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/allied_force.
htm).
72. M. Evans, T. Walker and R. Boyes, ‘NATO Steps Up Bombing With
24-Hour Raids’, The Times, 31 March 1999.
73. M. Evans, T. Walker and I. Brodie, ‘Outrage at PoW Show Trial’, The
74. M. Warren, ‘Russian Ship to Sail for Adriatic’, Daily Telegraph, 1 April 1999.
75. Evans, Walker and Brodie, op. cit.
76. General contributory factors included sustained Alliance cohesion; the
build-up of NATO ground forces in Albania and FYROM and public dis-
cussion by NATO leaders of a ground invasion; a recognition that
Wyn Q. Bowen 43
Russia could not rescue Milosevic; the persistent efforts of Kosovar

Albanians against Serbian ground forces; war fatigue of the civilian pop-
ulation and military conscripts; mounting damage from NATO’s
intensified air campaign against industrial infrastructure and national
command and control targets, as well as attacks against Milosevic’s
fielded forces in Kosovo; an inability to cause any notable damage or
casualties to NATO forces. See for example, Cohen to the Armed
Services Committee of the United States Senate, op. cit.; Naumann
op.cit.; Tirpak, op. cit., pp. 43–7; Cohen and Shelton, op. cit.
77. R. Owen, ‘Missile Batteries Set Up to Defend Adriatic Resorts’, The
Times, 25 March 1999.
78. R. Owen, ‘RAF Fights Press in a Time-warp War’, The Times, 31 March
1999.
79. Federation of American Scientists, ‘Chemical Agents in the Former
Yugoslavia’, 23 April 2000 (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/serbia/
cw/index.html); I. Alborghetti, ‘Serbia’s Chemical Weapons
Stock Detailed’, Zagreb Globus, 16 April 1999, pp. 18–19 (http://ww
w.fas.org/news/serbia/fbis-eeu-1999-0416.htm).
80. T. Butcher, ‘NATO Plans to Open up New Front’, Daily Telegraph, 20
May 1999.
81. N. van der Laan and C. Lockwood, ‘Bulgarians and Hungarians Fear
Effects of War’, Daily Telegraph, 9 April 1999.
82. E. Fox and S. Orman, ‘Lessons Others Will Learn from Kosovo’, Centre
for Defence and International Security Studies, Lancaster University,
August 1999 (http://www.cdiss.org).
83. E. Fox and S. Orman, ‘National Missile Defense Deployment Could
Have Unforeseen Consequences for US-Allied Relations’, Centre for
Defence and International Security Studies, Lancaster University, July
1999 (http://www.cdiss.org).
84. S. Farrar, ‘British Firms on Alert for Hackers’, Sunday Times, 4 April 1999.
85. High-value targets include communications and financial networks,
telephone exchanges, power grids and transportation networks.
Although systems accessible via the Internet will be the most vulnerable
even stand-alone systems could be targeted by insiders. Examples of
stand-alone systems include air traffic control, train networks and
nuclear power plants.
86. Farrar, op.cit.
87. C. Bremner, ‘Belgrade Holes Net’, The Times, 1 April 1999.
88. Clark, Ellis and Short, op.cit., p. 7.
89. H. Shelton, testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, 20 July
1999, p. 3.
90. ‘The National Defense Panel, Assessment of the May 1997 Quadrennial
Defense Review’, Department of Defense, Washington, DC
(http://www.defenselink.mil/topstory/ndp_assess.html).
3
Limitations on Joint Warfare: the
Impact of the Proliferation of
Conventional Weapons
Technology
Paul Rogers
In October 2000, the USS Cole, an 8600 ton Arleigh Burke class
destroyer was en route to join the Fifth Fleet for a deployment in
the Persian Gulf. As one of the world’s most modern warships, it
was equipped with a range of land-attack systems including
Tomahawk cruise missiles. In the event of a further crisis with Iraq
during its period of deployment, the Cole would have been one of
the warships likely to fire its weapons.
In the event, on 12 October the Cole was subject to a paramilitary
attack while at anchor in Aden harbour, when a small inflatable
boat packed with explosives came alongside and its two-man crew
detonated the charges, killing themselves and 17 sailors and injur-
ing 39 others. The damage to the ship was massive, with a 40-foot
by 20-foot hole in the side, and decks and bulkheads compressed
out from the point of explosion. By early January, the Cole had been
returned to the shipyard where it was built in Mississippi for repairs
estimated to cost $350 million.
The attack on the Cole was widely seen as a terrorist assault on the
United States, part of a general anti-American sentiment throughout
the Middle East. This may have been the case, but it is probably
more correctly seen as a direct military response to US intervention
in the Persian Gulf. As such, it is part of a line of attacks over recent
years, all of them either directly or indirectly linked to US action in
the region.
45
In the analysis presented in this chapter, it is argued that uncon-

ventional responses to Western intervention are likely to be more
common than the direct use of conventional forces, not least
because of the overwhelming military superiority now enjoyed by
the United States and its allies. In developing this analysis, though,
it is advisable first to look at some of the broad parameters of
conflict now developing and to examine how Western military
forces are currently being configured to meet the circumstances of
an apparently volatile and insecure world.
The chapter then specifically discusses the manner in which states
that are subject to military intervention by Western states or
alliances might respond to that intervention using military or para-
military methods involving conventional weapons technology. It
does not extend the discussion to the use of weapons of mass
destruction, whether they be nuclear, chemical, biological or radio-
logical, although it is recognized that a number of states are devel-
oping such capabilities, in part to be in a position to deter such
intervention. Neither is it primarily concerned with peacekeeping
interventions, whether these are under a United Nations directive or
a result of regional or alliance initiatives. Such interventions might
elicit a military or paramilitary response, but the emphasis here is
on opposed interventions in pursuit of the perceived foreign policy
interests of the state or alliance undertaking the intervention.
An underlying theme of this chapter is that the proliferation of
conventional weapons technologies may be a significant hindrance
to joint warfare in an expeditionary era, but what is of at least equal
importance is the manner in which even crude weapons technolo-
gies may be used to considerable effect in responding to Western
intervention.
The Western security paradigm
When President Clinton’s nominee for the Directorship of the

Central Intelligence Agency, James Woolsey, was questioned in
Senate hearings he characterized the new security paradigm conse-
quent on the ending of the Cold War by saying that the United
States had slain the dragon but now faced a jungle full of poisonous
snakes.1 Although this comment was made in the early 1990s, it
remains an effective representation of US security attitudes, the
Paul Rogers 47
near-universal view in security circles being that the US is the sole

superpower, but its worldwide economic and political interests will
be subject to diverse and unpredictable threats, not from a single
superpower as in the Cold War era, but from a variety of states and
sub-state actors, or to put it rather more crudely, rogue states and
terrorists.2
Within this view of an uncertain world, there are four features
that are likely to endure. The first is that there is some risk that
United States ascendancy could eventually be challenged, either by
Russia or China. Russia is currently seen as impoverished and its
armed forces are close to collapse, but a resurgence remains possible
in the longer term, perhaps under an intensely nationalistic govern-
ment, and in any case Russia remains a significant nuclear power. In
the more immediate future, it is recognized that one of the few ways
in which Russia can gain export earnings is by the sale of arma-
ments and the transfer of technological expertise. China may still be
a poor country, but its huge population, rapid economic growth and
self-perception of great power status means that it could eventually
lead an Asia-Pacific challenge to Western power.
Second, two areas of the world are likely to present persistent
security challenges to the United States – East Asia and the Middle
East. In East Asia, the future status of North Korea is uncertain,
although it remains, in the US view, a potential source of instability,
but the Middle East is, without question, of enduring strategic
significance. This is primarily because of the oil reserves of the
Persian Gulf, but it also relates to the status and security of Israel
and its special relationship with the US.
The third feature is that there are numerous lesser areas of poten-
tial instability and conflict in which US interests might be threat-
ened, not least the narcotics trade from Latin America and Central
Asia, problems in parts of Africa and Asia and continuing conflict in
the Balkans. Permeating all of these areas of risk is the final factor, a
persistent concern with missile proliferation and with sub-state
political violence directed at the US or its overseas interests. In part
this comes from the experience of the Scud attacks in the Gulf War,
in part from the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam embassy bombings in
1998 and other attacks on US interests.
The overall international security paradigm, as seen from the
United States but largely accepted elsewhere in the West, is thus rea-
sonably clear. The United States is the world’s pre-eminent military
power, it is not currently threatened by any state of even remotely

similar power, yet it does consider that it faces diverse threats to its
own security and its wider economic and political interests. Even so,
it has the capability to adapt its military forces to meet the new
threats and, in the final analysis, should be able, along with its
allies, to maintain international security in such a way as to protect
its own interests and preserve its inherent power.
Within this general security context, and since the ending of the
Cold War, there has been a perceived risk in the eyes of some ana-
lysts that the United States could retreat into a form of isolationism
reminiscent of the period before World War II. After all, it is the
world’s most powerful economy, it is rich in resources and it faces
no direct military threats to its continental territory. The more
common view, certainly in the US diplomatic community, is that
this is unrealistic in that the United States is thoroughly and irre-
versibly integrated into the global economy. While it remains a
resource-rich country, the extent of this is far less than 60–70 years
ago, with a considerable and increasing dependency on imported
energy resources, especially from the Middle East, and an overseas
requirement for a wide range of strategic minerals. Furthermore, a
number of US industries depend fundamentally on export markets
and US financial and business interests form a substantial part of a
global network.
There is a growing recognition that economic globalization
increases vulnerability to particular forms of political violence. As a
report of the United States (US) Commission on National Security in
the 21st Century put it:
Many of the threats emerging in our future will differ

significantly from those of the past, not only in their physical,
but also in their psychological effects. Threats may inhere in
assaults against an increasingly integrated and complex, but
highly vulnerable, international economic infrastructure, whose
operation lies beyond the control of any single body.3
Actions might involve elements of cyber-war – namely, disruption

of communications or computer systems controlling regional stock
exchanges or other centres of the global economy through hacking
and viral infections, through to direct acts of violence against nodes
of economic control.
Paul Rogers 49
One other factor that is significant in terms of US security is the

intense desire to minimize casualties in foreign military operations.
The ‘body bag’ syndrome has, in the past decade and especially
since the Somalia disaster, been taken to extraordinary lengths, not
least in Kosovo and Serbia in the early months of 1999.
Military forces for an uncertain world
Structuring military forces for the uncertain decades ahead has been
a core concern for all four branches of the US military. The United
States Air Force (USAF) was relatively quick to adapt to the post-
Cold War era. While it lost about 40 per cent of its personnel during
the 1990s through the contraction of the service, it was able to
withdraw substantial forces from Europe and to reconfigure its
forces for global reach, utilizing a far smaller number of overseas
bases, mainly in secure locations such as Guam, Diego Garcia and
Britain.
The USAF has set out to develop two main forms of force pro-
jection to enable it to participate in overseas interventions in
pursuit of US interests. The first is to maintain a capability to
undertake air strikes anywhere in the world, either from the con-
tinental United States or with limited dependence on overseas
facilities. The first air raid of the 1991 Gulf War was an
air-launched cruise missile strike from B-52 strategic bombers
flying non-stop from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana 4 and
B-2 air raids on Serbia in 1999 were also staged direct from the
United States.
The second tactic is to reorganize the USAF into a number of Air
Expeditionary Wings, each comprising about 15 000 people with
up to 200 aircraft including strike aircraft, interceptors, tankers,
transports, reconnaissance and electronic counter-measures air-
craft. Two air expeditionary wings are to be on deployment readi-
ness at any one time, and are able to move rapidly to secure
overseas bases.5 Global reach, by either of these two main means,
is aided by an increasing reliance on stand-off weapons such as
conventionally-armed cruise missiles, and by the use of precision-
guided weapons delivered by stealthy aircraft such as the F-117A,
B-2 and, in the future, the F-22 and the Joint Strike Fighter.
The well-known emphasis on precision-guided weapons for point

attack is, however, somewhat misleading, in that this is proceeding
in parallel with the development and deployment of a wide range of
area-impact munitions. These include cluster munitions, fuel-air
explosive systems and specialized weapons such as versions of the
Wind-corrected Munitions Dispenser (WCMD) designed to destroy
power networks.6
Such weapons, provided there is appropriate targeting, can be
used alongside conventional weapons to do massive damage to the
economy of a target state. In the air war against Serbia in the early
months of 1999, it proved extremely difficult to detect and destroy
Serbian military facilities, partly because of poor weather but mainly
because of a restriction on operating at altitudes below 15 000 feet
(to protect air crew) together with the Serb tactics of dispersal,
camouflage and protection of their military forces. During the
course of the war, the US forces and their NATO allies moved pro-
gressively to attack the Serbian economy as a whole. By attacking
power plants, refineries, factories, transmission lines, roads, railways,
bridges, tunnels and other aspects of the economy, NATO forces did
some $60 billion of damage to the Serbian economy, reducing the
already weakened state to the poorest country in Europe.7
During the 1990s, the US Navy and the Marine Corps underwent
substantial changes. The navy experienced heavy cuts in personnel,
from nearly 600 000 to less than 400 000, but it divested itself of
much of the forces pertinent to the Cold War, especially anti-
submarine forces, while largely maintaining its capacity for force
projection. Central to this are aircraft carriers and ships armed with
land attack cruise missiles. In 1989, there were 14 carriers, five of
them nuclear-powered, yet by 1999 there were still 12, nine of them
nuclear-powered. Cruise missiles were used on several occasions
against Iraq and have also been used against targets in Afghanistan,
Sudan and former Yugoslavia.
The marines have experienced the smallest cut in personnel,
barely 10 per cent in a decade, and the combination of the navy’s
force projection capabilities and the Marine Corps’ amphibious
forces has ensured that the US armed forces maintain by far the
most substantial power projection capability in the world. The US
Marine Corps is larger than the combined British Army and Royal
Navy, and a single US carrier battle group has the sea-borne air
strike capability of all other navies combined.
Paul Rogers 51
The US Army faced the most substantial cuts in the 1990s. It has
faced up to a more volatile security dimension by placing more
emphasis on rapid deployment and the deployment of longer-range
mobile artillery systems such as the Army Tactical Missile System
(ATACMS). The army also forms a major part of the US Special
Operations Command (USSOCOM) and an indication of training
priorities within the US military is the increase in training available
to friendly regimes, especially in Latin America.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, US forces were involved in many
internal conflicts, most commonly aiding conservative governments
fighting left-wing rebels. Many of the conflicts were part of the Cold
War confrontation, opposing rebels aided on occasions from Cuba
and Eastern Europe, and many of the activities, including those of
the School of the Americas, were seen as controversial, not least
because of human rights abuses.
With the Cold War more than ten years distant, the training of
foreign armies, especially that involving US special operations
forces, has expanded. Much of it appears at first sight to be directed
at anti-narcotics action, but it all too commonly involves counter-
insurgency training in support of local elites. In 1998, some 2700
special operations troops were involved with training the armed
forces of every one of the 19 Latin American states and nine
Caribbean states, including armies in Guatemala, Colombia and
Suriname that have been widely criticized for human rights abuses.8
Future force projection
The direct projection of military force currently depends primarily

on the use of land-based or carrier-based air power, frequently
employing stand-off weapons, together with amphibious forces and
air-mobile ground forces. The use of an increased array and number
of stand-off weapons is an existing trend, and beyond that there is
likely to be a substantial investment in the development and
deployment of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), akin to
reusable stand-off weapons.
Arising primarily from a concern with the interception of ballistic
missiles in their boost phase, there is an expanding research and
development budget for directed energy weapons (DEWs).9 In the
United States, this currently focuses on the Airborne Laser (ABL) due
for deployment before 2010 and intended to be capable of boost-

phase interception at ranges of up to 400 miles. Beyond that, by up
to a decade, is the development of the much more powerful Space-
based Laser (SBL), with current configurations suggesting 12–24 17-
ton satellites in low Earth orbits.10
While such directed energy weapons are a few years into the
future, there is already considerable interest in their potential use
against a wide range of targets, especially if it proves possible to
develop hybrid DEWs utilizing combined laser and particle beam
technology to overcome atmospheric attenuation of lasers. An early
indication of this interest has been a US Air Force study, Directed
Energy Applications for Tactical Air Combat11 set up in 1998
specifically to look at the use of DEW systems in various forms of
power projection.
Current and future developments in force projection are being
undertaken in the context of a heavy concentration on improve-
ments in surveillance and communications systems. Central to this
is considered to be the need to have clear and unequivocal control
of space, an aim fundamental to the US Space Command’s Long
Range Plan through to the year 2020.
Finally, the concern over missile proliferation has resulted in sub-
stantial investment in anti-missile systems, extending to a possible
National Missile Defense (NMD) programme. This will be developed
in parallel with appropriate conventional and nuclear offensive
forces, and one perceived value of NMD is that it will give US forces
more freedom of manoeuvre in theatres of war where an opponent
may have a limited deterrent capability for action against the conti-
nental United States. If weapons of mass destruction could poten-
tially be weapons of the underdog, then NMD would have a value in
the process of controlling such underdogs.
NATO and European allies
The changes in the armed forces of the major European members of

NATO have, to an extent, mirrored those in the United States, with a
cutting back of forces deployed as part of the East–West rivalry of the
Cold War years, accompanied by an increase in mobility and power
projection. Southern European countries have also tended to reorien-
Paul Rogers 53
tate their forces to the south rather than the east, not least because of
political instability and migratory pressures from North Africa.
Even so, although the European members of NATO are collec-
tively larger than the United States, the capacity of these countries
to project military force is far smaller, not just individually, but even
collectively. They did not have the capability to intervene in Kosovo
without US involvement, and SFOR/IFOR/KFOR (NATO’s stabiliza-
tion force, implementation force and peace-enforcement force)
commitments have stretched the resources of several states. There is
a recognition of the need for closer Western European cooperation
and the establishment of collaborative force projection capabilities,
but there are political differences behind such developments.
The view from Washington is that, in the case of such collabora-
tive forces, ‘burden sharing’ is all that would be expected from
European allies, whereas in some European capitals, notably Paris,
the opinion is that cooperative European military forces could do
much more than this, providing Europe with a much-needed focus
of strategic influence. According to this view, Europe should not
only develop a defence identity that counterbalances US power and
influence within Europe, but it should also have some capability to
operate ‘out-of-area’, with a degree of military power that enables it
to curtail or at least limit US control of major military operations.
This is not a view shared by Washington and the underlying
tension is likely to persist well into the twenty-first century.
Keeping the violent peace
The view from the Western security community, especially in the

United States, is that the Cold War was won, that there is no one
state that can challenge US military dominance, but that there will
still be many significant security problems to face. For the United
States, the ‘jungle full of snakes’ will present many issues of control,
most of them regional and distant from the United States itself, but
US military forces have already undergone a transition from their
Cold War posture and are developing new forms of military power
appropriate to a volatile world.
This is not to minimize the problems ahead, not least in terms of
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and risks of terror-
ism, but the basic view is that the United States and its Western
allies have the means to maintain international security in a

manner which safeguards their way of life. Furthermore, free market
democracy is the appropriate form of economic and political behav-
iour for the world community as a whole, and Western security pos-
tures will protect it against any likely threats. It will be possible to
keep the violent peace.
This is a seductive paradigm, especially from a Western perspec-
tive, but it is open to fundamental criticisms in that it takes little or
no account of two increasingly substantial trends in world affairs,
the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor, and the devel-
opment of environmental constraints on human activity. Taken
together, these ‘drivers’ suggest a far more unstable world than is
otherwise predicted, with the rise of particular kinds of conflict,
together providing a degree of insecurity that may prove difficult if
not impossible for the West to control.
The wealth–poverty divide and its security implications
The world economy is now a largely unimodal free market

economy, as distinct from the more bimodal system of the Cold
War years. Both during and since the Cold War, this liberal market
system has delivered economic growth but has been persistently
unsuccessful at ensuring social justice. Put simply, the end result has
been the success of the few at the expense of the many. Socio-
economic disparities are growing and extreme poverty is experi-
enced by a substantial proportion of the world’s population. The
actual numbers are massive – between one and two billion – and
show little sign of any decrease; they may even be increasing as the
world’s population continues to grow by over 80 million a year.
The liberal market system is not delivering economic justice and
there is a decline in welfare across much of the system, a process exac-
erbated by the erosion of publicly funded welfare provision. During
the Cold War there were powerful motives in the liberal market
economies for ensuring the maintenance of social stability, not least
through welfare provision. With the ending of the Cold War, and the
perhaps temporary ascendancy of a single economic system, these
motives have declined, and so has public welfare provision.
Perhaps most important of all, international wealth transfers in
the past five decades have consistently gone from the poor to the
Paul Rogers 55
rich. The main engine of this inequality has been the post-colonial
trading system and its endemic imbalances, expressed most persis-
tently in the steadily deteriorating terms of trade borne by most ex-
colonial states in the 1950s and 1960s, but continuing through to
the 1990s with the brief exception of the commodities boom of the
early 1970s. More recently this situation has been exacerbated by
the debt crisis which remains a huge hindrance to the development
potential of most Southern states.
As well as endemic deep poverty, there is a steadily widening gap
between a rich minority of the world’s population, located primar-
ily, but not solely, in North America, Western Europe and Japan,
and most of the rest. One of the crudest measures is that the 300 or
so dollar billionaires in the world are collectively as wealthy as the
poorest 2.4 billion people. In 1960, the richest 20 per cent of the
world’s people had 70 per cent of the income; by 1991 their share
had risen to 85 per cent while the share of the poorest 20 per cent
had declined from 2.3 per cent to 1.7 per cent. It is also notable that
the rich/poor gap widened at a faster rate in the 1980s as free
market liberalization took hold. There are indications that there was
a further widening in the 1990s, a consequence of the severe eco-
nomic problems affecting first Southeast Asia and then South Asia,
Africa and Latin America.
This widening rich–poor divide contrasts markedly with an
implicit assumption of most current economic thinking that eco-
nomic growth is part of the worldwide phenomenon of globaliza-
tion that is delivering economic growth for all. This is not so. As
Cavanagh has remarked:
More than three-quarters of the new investment into the devel-

oping world goes into China and nine other rapidly developing
countries. A new global apartheid of 24 richer countries and 140
that are growing slowly or not at all becomes one of the major
new threats to global security.12
All the indications are that the increasing rich–poor divide will con-
tinue over the next 30 years and may even accelerate, with the
development of a trans-state global elite surging ahead of the rest.
This elite, of rather more than one billion people, a sixth of the
world’s population, lives mainly in the countries of the North
Atlantic community, Australia and parts of East Asia.
There is a further factor in this global socio-economic polariza-

tion. In the past four decades, there has been substantial progress in
some aspects of development in the South, often achieved against
the odds and in a global economic environment that works more in
the interests of the states of the North. Progress has been particularly
marked, at least until recently, in the fields of education and literacy
and there is current progress in communications. An effect of this is
that an increasing number of marginalized people in the South are
aware of their very marginalization and of the rich–poor gap.
Such a circumstance, the combination of a widening rich–poor
gap with an increasingly knowledgeable poor, is leading to a ‘revo-
lution of unfulfilled expectations’, an increasingly prominent
feature of instability in Latin America, North Africa and the Middle
East. The Zapatista rebellion in Mexico is a recent example, notable,
among other features, for the manner in which its leaders have
communicated their message via the Internet. Another is the far
more radical Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) movement in Peru.
Sendero Luminoso may be temporarily in retreat, but its tough and
often brutal quasi-Maoist ideology took root among the poor both
of the high Andes and of the urban shanty towns, resulting in a
long and bitter conflict with the Peruvian security forces that saw
over 20 000 people die.
Similar revolts from the margins are evident in other countries, with
much of the attraction of organizations such as Hamas coming from
their ability to offer a way out of exclusion. Hamas cannot be under-
stood without appreciating the position of tens of thousands of young
Palestinians growing up in the 50-year-old refugee camps of Gaza.
Of concern in France, if less widely recognized in the rest of
Europe, is the bitter civil war in Algeria that has claimed over 60 000
lives in less than a decade. It has been a war fought between a
repressive government and radical (and often extreme) fundamen-
talist groups who gather support from among the millions of mar-
ginalized people, especially unemployed young men, who are
largely excluded from the Algerian economy. The conflict in Algeria,
with its violent effects felt in France, may well be a prototype
conflict for the next several decades.
One of the most spectacular examples of a revolt from the
margins was the uprising in many parts of Indonesia in 1998, with
incidents in Jakarta described vividly by one journalist as the dispos-
Paul Rogers 57
sessed rising out of the shanty towns to loot the shopping malls of
the rich. Mexico, Algeria, Peru and Indonesia are among the increas-
ing number of examples of anti-elite action and insurgencies that
look likely, on present trends, to spread to many other countries –
not so much a clash of civilizations, more an age of insurgencies.
Environmental constraints and conflict
If increasing socio-economic polarization is already apparent, it is

happening in parallel with the second global trend, the growing
impact of environmental constraints on human activity. In essence,
the limitations of the global ecosystem now look likely to make it
very difficult if not impossible for human well-being to be continu-
ally improved by current forms of economic growth. This is not a
new prognosis, and forms a key part of the frequently derided
‘limits to growth’ ideas of the early 1970s.
Since then, though, some of the early indications of environmen-
tal constraints such as deforestation and decline in fisheries have
been joined by much more significant global effects, the first to be
recognized being the depletion of the ozone layer. Two further
global phenomena are likely to have profound security implications.
The first of these is the resource shift,13 the tendency for strategic
non-renewable resources to be located primarily in Southern coun-
tries as the supplies in the North that largely fuelled the industrial
revolution have been progressively exhausted. By far the most
important strategic resource is oil, and the Persian Gulf region has
rapidly acquired a quite astonishing role in energy resource provi-
sion, becoming the world’s key resource zone. This is attributable in
part to the location of close to 70 per cent of the world’s oil reserves
in the region, even allowing for Central Asian and Latin American
reserves. Furthermore, oil from the Persian Gulf is now essential for
the oil-based economies not just of Western Europe and Japan but
also the United States.
While oil is the most important resource, there are others of
significance. These include minerals yielding ferro-alloy metals such
as cobalt and tungsten, catalytic metals such as platinum and anti-
corrosion metals together with certain non-metallic minerals such
as rock phosphate and industrial diamonds. Several recent conflicts
have had much to do with strategic resource location. They include
the protracted conflict over Western Sahara, with its remarkable

reserves of rock phosphate, a basic component of compound fertiliz-
ers used throughout world agriculture. The Franco-Belgian and
other interventions in Shaba Province of Zaire/Congo since the mid-
1970s are closely related to the cobalt resources of the Central
African copper belt. These amount to some two-thirds of known
world cobalt reserves, cobalt being a key ferro-alloy metal whose use
includes missile motors and electronics.
Perhaps most obvious as a resource conflict was the 1990–91 Gulf
crisis and war. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, it
doubled the oil reserves it controlled to one-fifth of the world’s
total, and was seen by the United States and its allies to be a threat
to the Saudi Arabian reserves which represented a further quarter.
The ability of the United States and its coalition allies to assemble a
massive force to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait was itself dependent
on the existence of numerous bases and port facilities built in the
previous decade in case of a threat to Gulf oil from the then Soviet
Union during the Cold War years.
The second environmental constraint is the developing phenome-
non of climate change, especially the likelihood that one substantial
effect of climate change will be changes in rainfall distribution.14 In
global terms there is expected to be a shift in world rainfall patterns,
with more rain falling over the oceans and polar regions and less
over the tropics. Areas affected will include most of South and
Central America, almost the whole of Southern and Southeast Asia
and the majority of Africa. The effect of this climatic change, likely
to take effect increasingly in the early decades of this century, will be
a ‘drying out’ of many of those parts of the humid and semi-humid
tropics that currently support the majority of all the world’s people,
many of them living by subsistence agriculture. As a result, the eco-
logical carrying capacity of the land itself will decline sharply,
putting a greatly increased pressure on migration and internal inse-
curity as poorer people become further marginalized. One assess-
ment suggests that pressures on migration could increase more than
ten-fold from current levels to involve up to 400 million people.
Such migratory pressures come on top of movements that already
focus on regions of relative wealth that are leading to shifts in the
political spectrum in recipient countries including the increased
prevalence of nationalist attitudes and cultural conflict. Such ten-
Paul Rogers 59
dencies are often most pronounced in the most vulnerable and dis-
empowered populations within the recipient regions, with extremist
politicians ready to play on fears of unemployment, a trend appar-
ent in a number of European countries.
Revolt of the middle kingdoms
Deepening socio-economic divisions and environmental constraints

on economic growth provide a context for instability and conflict
that should be expected to affect the security of Western states, pri-
marily through a range of effects on their international interests,
including anti-elite insurgencies and resource conflict. Many of the
military interventions will relate to particular threats to Western
interests, as indeed they have in the past 20 years, whether in the
Gulf, Latin America, Africa or elsewhere, but these two ‘drivers’ of
insecurity make it likely that intervention will be frequent.
In this context, what are likely to be the attitudes of major non-
Western states? States that may be led by radical anti-Western
regimes or dictatorships can readily be regarded as rogue states, a
catch-all term increasingly applied to smaller states considered to
threaten regional Western interests. But beyond them are much
more powerful states that may have their own entrenched elites yet
are unwilling to accept a global polity dominated by a Western
military, political and economic alliance. China, India and Iran
are all examples of states which, in many ways, seek to challenge a
perceived Western hegemony, and many of their attitudes and out-
looks are shared by numerous other states of the South.
There are many examples of these divergent views and outlooks.
There is opposition to the development of further trade reforms
through the World Trade Organization, and there remains resent-
ment at the attempt to force through a Multilateral Agreement on
Investment. There is a deep and persistent bitterness at the
entrenched attitudes of Northern states to environmental issues.
They are seen as having the major responsibility for problems such
as ozone depletion and climate change yet as being deeply reluctant
to accept responsibility or take remedial action.
This perception of hypocrisy extends to many other areas. In the
view of many Southern states, the Non-Proliferation Treaty enables
a few states to retain nuclear status while controlling further prolif-

eration. While there was deep antagonism to Iraq’s invasion of
Kuwait, there was also a widespread view that the subsequent US-led
intervention had far more to do with controlling Gulf oil than with
righting a wrong.
Even the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 was seen as an essen-
tially economic war – causing $60 billion in damage to the Serbian
economy by an alliance deeply unwilling to take risks with its own
military, and once again readily bypassing the United Nations. For
public opinion in much of the West, the Serbia/Kosovo War was a
just war against an aggressive regime. In much of the rest of the
world, it was a selective war, using selective force against an objec-
tionable regime, yet one that was no worse than many that con-
tinue to maintain friendly relations with the West.
Many of the new parameters of insecurity may operate at sub-
state level, and will be directed at local elites and their collaborative
Western interests, but they will operate within the context of a
broader ‘axis of disagreement’ between Western governments and
leading states of the South. While this may not deteriorate into
conflict, it could further encourage a perception of ‘the civilized
West versus the rest’. During the Cold War, the West saw the Soviet
bloc as the ever-dangerous ideological giant, encroaching on and
threatening the free world. It will be all too easy for Western atti-
tudes to a new world disorder to coalesce into a perception of ‘them
and us’ – a combination of insurgencies and competitive Southern
states threatening the peace, security and economic well-being of
the self-appointed Western guardians of civilized values.
Responding to intervention
As has been discussed earlier in this chapter, developments in

Western military postures have resulted in a range of forces appro-
priate to intervention in pursuit of Western interests, including
powerful air assets and naval and amphibious forces, and a substan-
tial capability for counter-insurgency and elite support. It follows
that states or sub-state groups that are facing such Western interven-
tion will have considerable difficulty in responding to such inter-
vention using traditional military forces – in most circumstances
Paul Rogers 61
they will not have the capacity to resist in conventional head-to-

head conflict.
However, the response options are far wider than may be ordinar-
ily recognized and to examine this further it is appropriate to
explore the security perceptions and potential behaviour of two dif-
ferent kinds of actor, a state with modest technical and military
capabilities pursuing its security interests which are in conflict with
those of, for example, either NATO as a whole or the United States
in particular, and an insurgency which is directed at a local elite
supported by elements of the Western alliance.
These two examples are likely to represent the most common
forms of conflict involving Western intervention in the coming
decades. While they are not all-embracing, an examination of the
defence potential of such actors will also give a more general indica-
tion of problems facing Western military intervention in other cir-
cumstances. It should also be recognized that there is an area of
security overlap. A state responding to intervention may employ
paramilitary techniques, and an insurgency may be aided, directly
or indirectly, by supportive states.
After the 1991 Gulf War, there were many analyses undertaken in
the United States and other coalition states in order to ‘learn the
lessons’ of the war. It is reasonable to assume that any state, and
indeed any insurgency, likely to face Western military intervention
will examine the Gulf War with a similar motivation, and will also
look at experiences in Afghanistan, Panama, Grenada, Lebanon,
Libya, and Serbia, as well as more distant conflicts such as Vietnam,
Cuba and wars of decolonization. From an accepted position of
weakness in the face of substantial and technically superior inter-
vention forces, attempts will be made to look for ‘force levellers’
which will improve the security balance and, just possibly, serve to
deter or at least limit the intervening military force and its ultimate
political leadership.
Military responses from states
Taking the state first, it is tempting immediately to fall into the

mindset of thinking only of so-called ‘rogue states’ such as Iran,
Iraq, Libya or North Korea as being likely to be subject to interven-
tion. This is misleading – the rogue state categorization is essentially
ephemeral and frequently relates to the foreign policy interests of

the US and its allies rather than to the intrinsic status of a particular
regime, particularly in relation to its own inhabitants. Iraq was
regarded as a Western ally, and received substantial military aid in
the 1980s, whereas Syria was treated with great suspicion until its
support for Desert Storm in 1991. Israel is a surrogate Western state
that has intervened repeatedly in several states and occupied a sub-
stantial part of Lebanon for nearly two decades. The authoritarian
military junta in Argentina had close links with the British govern-
ment until a matter of days before its invasion of the
Falkland/Malvinas Islands in March 1982.
Any consideration of responses to Western intervention therefore
has to take in a more general range of states than those subject to
recent intervention, although key strategic regions such as the Gulf
and those involved in narcotics production remain prime candi-
dates. However, a state pursuing its own interests in the knowledge
that they might ultimately incite a Western military response has a
singularly difficult task to face, given the likelihood of a highly
asymmetric ratio of force capabilities, even allowing for Western
forces operating ‘out-of-area’.
Even so, it has a range of military and related options to safeguard
its security, and these may frequently operate within the context of
two potential weaknesses for the intervening force. The first, espe-
cially in the case of the United States, is the ‘body bag’ syndrome –
the need to minimize casualties, so that any tactic likely to increase
casualties is of unusual military value, even if it does not have much
effect on the overall military capabilities of the intervening force.
The second is action that might be taken against states allied to the
intervening force, especially those that are logistically or otherwise
necessary for support of the intervention.
One of the main options, obviously, is the pursuit of a capability
to deploy weapons of mass destruction – the nuclear option being
the most difficult, the chemical, biological and radiological options
less so. This option is being pursued by a number of states, the most
notable example of recent times being Iraq, with a remarkable range
of chemical and biological programmes in addition to its nuclear
ambitions.
While the development and potential use of weapons of mass
destruction is beyond the scope of this particular chapter, there are
Paul Rogers 63
two relevant points to make. The first is that the Iraqi experience
with biological and chemical weapon deployments is of far greater
interest and significance than was generally recognized at the time
of the Gulf War. Following strong Western responses to the inva-
sion of Kuwait in 1990, Iraq faced the prospect of large-scale inter-
vention and initiated a crash programme to weaponize its biological
warfare systems. By January 1991 it had deployed numerous missiles
and spray bombs to four sites in Iraq, pre-delegating launch author-
ity to regional commanders in the event of the destruction of
Baghdad. The broad details of this strategy were known to US intelli-
gence, and formed an important part of the Iraqi strategy of regime
survival which was so central to its war aims.15
The second point is that developments in weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) tend to go together with ballistic missile deliv-
ery systems – and, in the future, cruise missile systems as well. This,
in turn, is leading to an intense interest in theatre missile defence
(TMD) in countries such as Israel and the United States, resulting in
the need for states that are potentially subject to intervention to
invest in methods to counter TMD systems.
Missile options
While it may be considered that the development or acquisition of

ballistic and/or cruise missiles sufficient to cause problems for a bel-
ligerent intervention force may require the use of WMD warheads,
even conventionally-armed missiles can have a considerable tactical
and even strategic significance. They might have a primarily psy-
chological value – perhaps for threatening a local state that is allied
to the intervention forces – they might have a role against choke
points, or they might have a direct value against a variety of
deployed forces. In this connection, the proliferation of area-impact
munitions, whether air-to-surface or surface-to-surface, is of some
relevance, especially when ballistic or cruise missiles may be capable
of use against soft targets within the intervening forces such as
logistics supplies, base camps, disembarkation ports or air bases.
During the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq launched a number of Scud-type
missiles against Israeli cities. The missiles were armed with conven-
tional unitary warheads, some were intercepted, other failed, and a
few reached their targets. Even when they did so, they caused little
damage and relatively few casualties. If the missiles had been fitted
with efficient sub-munitions warheads, the results might have been
much more devastating, but is also clear that the use of the missiles by
Iraq, crude though they were, did have a substantial political effect.
Within Israel, the 1991 attacks represented the first occasion for
some decades in which major Israeli cities had come under any kind
of attack from external forces. Israeli society already had some con-
siderable concerns about paramilitary groups operating within its
borders, but the impact of any external power being able to attack
Israeli cities caused huge concern. Similarly, missile attacks on civil
targets in Saudi Arabia had political effects, and coalition responses
included the emergency deployment of Patriot anti-missile systems
and the diversion of a large proportion of coalition air power in the
so-called ‘Scud-hunts’.
Although the Iraqi missiles were crude and inaccurate, they had a
military as well as a political impact. The most substantial US losses
in the entire Gulf War were incurred towards the end of the war, on
25 February 1991, when a missile hit a storage and billeting depot in
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 28 people. Another Scud incident, a
few days earlier and not made public at the time, came close to
being a much greater disaster for US forces. On 16 February, a
missile narrowly missed a large pier complex in the Saudi port of Al
Jubayl. The missile landed in the sea some 300 yards from the US
Navy’s aviation support ship Wright and close to the large amphibi-
ous warship Tarawa, both of which were moored alongside the pier
complex which included a large ammunition storage dump and a
petrol tanker parking area.16
A substantial effect of the Gulf War, especially for Israel and the
United States, has been intensive research, development and
deployment of a range of theatre missile defences. For Israel this has
focused on the Israeli-American Arrow anti-missile system and for
the United States there has been the PAC-3 (Patriot Advanced
Capability) system, the Theatre High Altitude Area Defense
(THAAD) system and a number of other initiatives. All are designed
to guard against Scud upgrades and related missiles, but they are
made more difficult by the need to guard against warheads carrying
sub-munitions, especially those capable of dispersing these muni-
tions early in the flight path of the missile.
Boost-phase interception is inherently more difficult than
terminal-phase or even mid-course interception. Even so, concern
Paul Rogers 65
with such warheads is leading to a much greater concentration on

boost-phase interception. Options include very high-speed
air-launched interceptors, interceptors based on loitering UCAVs
(unmanned combat aerial vehicles) or directed energy systems such
as the airborne laser. All of these are up to a decade in the future,
and states potentially subject to intervention will obviously seek
ways to limit their effectiveness.
At the immediate operational level, emphasis will obviously
be placed on developing or acquiring precisely these warheads
that make terminal interception so problematic. There is also a
need to accentuate highly mobile multiple launch capabilities,
preferably with launch authority pre-delegated – under defined
circumstances – to field commanders to avoid interruption
of communications. As well as enhancing the potential effect of
current missiles and their unitary warheads, a priority will be to
counter boost-phase interception and there are three approaches
to this.
First, boost-phase interception will require airborne launch plat-
forms typically operating up to 400 miles from the missile launch
sites, or ground-based UCAV launch sites. Airborne launch plat-
forms might be relatively close to the borders of the country, so
would potentially be susceptible to long-range surface-to-air missile
systems, and ground-based UCAV launch sites would be priority
targets for ballistic missile attack.
Second, some limited measures can be taken to counter boost-
phase interception based on directed energy systems. Directed
energy weapons such as the airborne laser depend on lasing the
booster to weaken it at a time when it is under the very high
mechanical stresses consequent on rapid acceleration. Some
strengthening of the booster body is feasible, though weight and
therefore performance penalties are considerable, and spinning
the missile can make lasing more problematic, even if it causes
guidance problems.
Finally, the most effective counter to boost-phase interception is
likely to be the use of booster decoys, large crude rockets that have
the sole purpose of simulating the appropriate infrared and radar sig-
natures and early flight characteristics of actual missiles. Barrage
firing of a cluster of cheap simulated missiles in parallel with, or fol-
lowed immediately by actual firing of missiles would overload the
boost-phase interception capabilities of an intervening force.
Deception, dispersal and protection
Apart from mobile ballistic missile responses, to which may be

added cruise missiles, the more routine military forces, and the
command, control, communications and intelligence facilities of
the defending state will be subject to attack with near-impunity by
the intervening forces. The United States could hit any part of a
defending state with stand-off weapons or stealthy strike aircraft,
including penetrating warheads against hardened targets, and this
must be a working assumption in the military posture of the defend-
ing state.
Deception, principally through camouflage and decoys, was used
by Iraq in 1991 and even more prominently by Serbia in 1999. Iraq
also chose to keep most of its elite forces, including six out of eight
Republican Guard divisions and all of the Special Republican Guard
units well away from the fighting, helping to ensure regime survival.
Serbia also used dispersal to particular effect, more so than Iraq
which had a weaker dispersal geography, although the latter found
it possible to conceal weapons and equipment in urban areas.
Serbian and Iraqi tactics will have been studied carefully by poten-
tial target states and future interventions may find these tactics
much more fully developed, including much higher levels of redun-
dancy built into communications systems.
The defending state may have an option of ‘digging in’, especially
in order to protect its highest-value assets such as the national
command authority or WMD facilities. Again this was a feature of
the Gulf War, where Iraq had prepared for a possible air war with
Israel. States such as Libya, Iran and North Korea have taken a lead
in this kind of defence. Since 1991, there has even developed an
arms race between the diggers and the bombers. According to a US
Army source in 1997:
Following the Gulf War, the number of deeply buried targets

began to proliferate rapidly as countries round the world realized
that going deep was the only way to protect their critical assets
from our precision strike weapon systems. Today, there are thou-
sands of hard and deeply buried targets in countries such as
Libya, Syria and North Korea. These hardened structures protect
command and control centers, chemical and biological weapon
Paul Rogers 67
production and storage facilities, rocket and missile launchers,

and other high-priority targets. Destruction and neutralization of
these targets will be essential in any future conflict.17
The experience of the Gulf War was that only the most heavily pro-
tected shelters, deep underground, were impervious to coalition
attack. Since then, in addition to constructing even deeper shelters,
some states have opted for deep tunnelling through rock in moun-
tainous regions, producing shelters which are invulnerable to con-
ventional attack. In response, the United States is investing in
detection systems to help them plot the location of such facilities,
together with advanced conventional earth-penetrating warheads to
‘dig deep’ against underground systems. There has also been heavy
investment in systems designed to map the many entrances to
tunnel complexes – if the tunnels themselves are too deeply buried,
the other option is to block the entrances.
This ‘dig/bomb’ race continues, and there remain many questions
concerning Western capabilities to destroy deeply buried hardened
structures. This has led the United States to modify its standard tac-
tical nuclear bomb with a hardened case and fusing to produce a
new variant, the B61-11, specifically intended for the earth-penetrat-
ing role18 with delivery platforms including the B-2 stealth bomber.
In addition to hardening and dispersal, one of the most effective
responses to intervention is the deployment of protective systems
such as land mines and sea mines, and the deployment of dispersed
offensive systems aimed specifically at launch platforms. Thus, anti-
ship missiles, deployed on warships or, more likely, merchant ships
or shore-based sites, would represent problems for intervening
forces, and any kind of system that could affect forward-based facili-
ties including air bases and ports, would have the effect of being a
force multiplier. Such a system might include crude UCAVs, but
could also involve appropriately equipped paramilitary units, espe-
cially if operating in an adjacent state that had been prepared to
offer forward-based facilities to the intervening state.
One example of this was, in all probability, the attack on the
Khobar Towers barracks complex at Dhahran in Saudi Arabia in June
1996, when a crude bomb hidden in a sewage truck killed 19 and
injured over 500. The US Air Force subsequently relocated its key air
assets to a new air base in a remote part of Saudi Arabia at a cost of
$500 million. It is still not clear who was responsible for this attack,
but there are suspicions of direct or indirect Iraqi involvement.
Although not directly involving a state, a further example is the
militia attack on the US Marine Corps barracks at Beirut Airport in
October 1983, killing 241 people and hastening US withdrawal from
Lebanon. Although this, and the Khobar Towers attack are tradition-
ally seen as ‘terrorist’ actions, it is much more appropriate to see
them as surrogate responses to Western intervention.
Military responses from sub-state actors
As has already been argued, there is a substantial overlap between the

activities of states and of sub-state actors in responding to interven-
tion, but there are also a number of lessons to be drawn from a further
examination of the actions of sub-state groups, principally paramili-
taries, whether or not allied to states that are facing intervention.
It has further been argued that a major factor in the current evolu-
tion of conflict is the development of anti-elite action, stemming
partly from the widening socio-economic divide within and
between countries. Since joint operations are highly likely to
involve the support of local elites in unstable periods of rebellion
and insurgency, it is appropriate to examine the manner in which
such action may impinge on the external forces of intervention.
Most paramilitary forms of political violence have tended to
involve traditional and often rather conservative tactics involving
kidnappings, knee-cappings and assassination of members of the
police, armed forces or political elite. On more rare occasions, groups
have targeted the business community, and there have been occa-
sions when paramilitary organizations, such as Sendero Luminoso in
Peru, have directly targeted elite groups, as when Sendero Luminoso
killed 18 and injured 140 in a wealthy quarter of Lima in 1992.
Similarly, the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka have engaged primarily in
conflict with the Sri Lanka Army, but have also engaged in eco-
nomic targeting. In January 1996, a Tamil Tigers suicide attack with
a lorry bomb did massive damage to the central business district of
Colombo, as well as killing nearly 100 people and injuring over
1000. Although not a traditional paramilitary action, the Tokyo
subway nerve gas attack in 1995 by the Aum Shinrikyo sect was
intended to kill thousands, but failed because of technical
Paul Rogers 69
difficulties and incompetence, although several thousand people

were affected and 12 died.
Another ‘failed’ action was the hijacking of an Air France A300 in
1994 by a radical Algerian group. Their intention of crashing the
plane on the centre of Paris was countered by a commando assault
during a refuelling stop at Marseilles. In contrast, a ‘successful’
action was the devastating bombing of a federal building in
Oklahoma City, a clear demonstration of the enduring availability
of ‘soft’ targets. Perhaps the most notable failed action was the
attempt to demolish the twin towers of the New York World Trade
Center in 1993, an action that killed six and injured over 1000 but
was intended to kill at least 30 000, potentially the most devastating
military action since the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki in 1945.
Perhaps the most sustained example of anti-state paramilitary
action was the extensive use of economic targeting by the
Provisional IRA (PIRA) against central business districts and trans-
port networks in Britain between 1992 and 1994 and again between
1996 and 1997. This campaign included four major city-centre
bombs, three in London and one in Manchester, the bombing of a
major road interchange in London and protracted disruption of
road, rail and air routes, at a collective cost of several billion pounds.
Even though many PIRA attempts failed, there is evidence that the
campaign had a profound effect on key aspects of the UK business
community, and, as a result, had a substantial effect on the willing-
ness of the UK government to engage in substantive negotiations.19
All of these examples demonstrate, in different ways, the potential
for paramilitary action, and it should be recognized that these inci-
dents during the 1990s are examples which, along with the embassy
bombings and many other incidents, demonstrate the potential for
indirect rather than direct action against forces of intervention. By
no means all of them have actually been in relation to responses to
specific Western interventions, although many of them were just
that. What they do show is the potential for indirect responses, and
this body of experience is available for future development and use.
It was demonstrated to devastating effect on 11 September 2001
when hijacked aircraft were crashed into the New York World Trade
Center and the Pentagon, killing over 3000 people. The response was a
sustained military campaign to destroy the group believed responsible,
the al-Qaida network, together with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan
that had allowed it to operate there for several years. There was less
analysis and understanding of the complex political, social and eco-
nomic issues existing in south-west Asia that had engendered substan-
tial support for the network
Conclusion
What this chapter has sought to show is that there are a number of
strategies and tactics that can be used in response to Western
intervention, that these may involve the conventional use of con-
ventional military technologies but that they may also involve
unconventional responses. As Western capabilities for intervention
improve, not least with the development of long-range stand-off
weapons, hard-target kill vehicles, UCAVs and even directed energy
weapons, it is possible that the balance of conventional force and
counter-force will tend to move in favour of Western states.
This is by no means certain, and traditional tactics of dispersal, hard-
ening and camouflage may make intervention uncertain, as in Serbia
in 1999, with this leading to a propensity to use economic targeting. In
either circumstance, however, if the balance does move in favour of
Western states, then the expected response should be one of uncon-
ventional tactics, not least with an increasing use of paramilitary forces.
Given the experience of the past ten years, it would appear that there
is considerable potential for action in response to Western intervention
using conventional systems, and even various forms of weapons of
mass destruction. Thus the uncertain and volatile world that seems to
be evolving may involve considerable risks for elite Western states as
they seek to maintain control. It might therefore be sensible to ques-
tion whether such a security paradigm represents the wisest cause of
action, or whether it might be more appropriate to put greater empha-
sis on analysing the underlying causes of potential conflict. It might be
the case that there are more fundamental responses to insecurity that
may make intervention itself less necessary, though those responses
might lie well outside conventional strategic thinking.20
Notes
1. Statement by J. Woolsey at Senate Hearings, Washington, DC,
February 1993.
Paul Rogers 71
2. See, for example, Prepared Statement by P.M. Hughes, Director, Defense

Intelligence Committee, before the Senate Armed Services Committee,
‘Global Threats and Challenges: the Decades Ahead’, 2 February 1999.
3. The Commission was a Department of Defense funded bipartisan panel
of experts set up in 1998. Its initial report was published in September
1999, see Disarmament Diplomacy, no. 40 (September/October 1999).
4. J. Tirpal, ‘The Secret Squirrels’, Air Force Magazine, April 1994.
5. D.A. Fulghum, ‘USAF Embraces New, Fast-moving Air Units’, Aviation
Week and Space Technology, 10 August 1998.
6. D.A. Fulghum, ‘Secret US Warhead Nearer to Fielding’, Aviation Week
and Space Technology, 3 April 1995.
7. Economist Intelligence Unit, 21 August 1999.
8. D. Farah, ‘Shadowy US Troop Training Operation Spreads across Latin
America’, International Herald Tribune, 14 July 1998.
9. G.E. Forden, ‘The Airborne Laser’, IEEE Spectrum, September 1997; ‘YAL-
1A Attack Laser’, Air Force Research Laboratory Office of Public Affairs
Fact Sheet, Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, January 1998.
10. ‘Space-based Laser’, Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Fact Sheet
TO-98-01, Washington, Department of Defense, July 1998.
11. ‘Directed Energy Study Kicks Off ‘, Air Force Research Laboratory Office
of Public Affairs DE Release No. 98-32, Kirtland Air Force Base, New
Mexico, 26 June 1998.
12. J. Cavanagh, ‘Globalization: Fine for Some and Bad for Many’,
International Herald Tribune, 24 January 1997.
13. P. Rogers, ‘Resource Issues’, in T. Salmon (ed.), Issues in International
Relations (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 132–58.
14. D. Rind, ‘Drying Out the Tropics’, New Scientist, 6 May 1995.
15. P. Rogers, ‘Security Consequences of the Osiraq Raid’, Contemporary
Security Policy, vol. 19, no. 2 (1998), pp. 115–17.
16. J.D. Gresham, ‘Navy Area Ballistic Missile Defense Coming On Fast’,
Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute, January 1999.
17. Defense News, 6 October 1997.
18. ‘US Nuclear Bomb Passes Final Drop Test’, Jane’s Defence Weekly,
1 April 1998.
19. For a detailed account of the PIRA campaign, including a consideration
of other examples of economic targeting, see P. Rogers, ‘Political
Violence and Economic Targeting – Aspects of Provisional IRA Strategy,
1992–97’, Civil Wars, vol. 3, no. 4 (Winter 2000) pp. 1–30.
20. For a tentative discussion of an alternative security paradigm, see
P. Rogers, Losing Control: Global Security in the Twenty-first Century
(London: Pluto, 2000).
4
Reconciling Humanitarianism
and Reality: the Analytical and
Moral Challenges of Urban
Operations
Alice Hills
One of the most notable global transformations in recent decades

has been the change from a predominantly rural world to an urban
one, often in the context of rapid large-scale urbanization. Neither
the military, political, societal or environmental implications of this
shift are fully understood though it is clear that urbanization will
provide an interactive context for future politico-military operations.
A number of conflicting trends in military thinking about the
effects of urbanization are already evident. Urban operations are
thought increasingly probable even as experience suggests they are
costly, vicious and best avoided. Threats are becoming more diverse,
less predictable and probably less challenging in terms of conven-
tional warfare but intervention is also increasingly discretionary.
British forces are repeatedly described by politicians and govern-
ment officials as being a ‘force for good’ and operations are subject
to a restrictive legal and moral framework. At the same time,
however, the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) considers that
operations (including those of peace support and crisis response)
require capabilities based on warfighting because ‘Optimising the
force structure for either a warfighting or non-warfighting role is not
the way forward. Building a force by planning for both will produce
a more robust force structure with wider utility.’1
What we know of urban operations suggests that such tensions
will increase and will be further emphasized by controversy over the
extent to which such operations can, or should, be reconciled with
73
contemporary social norms.2 Tension between humanitarian imper-

atives and warfighting capabilities is at the heart of the challenges
confronting the contemporary military but it will be acute in urban
operations.
Urbanization
Demographers, the World Bank, the United Nations, the CIA, and
experts from urban studies and disaster management all suggest that
future tension points will be found in urban areas, primarily in
cities.3 In fact urbanization already shapes contemporary conflict,
with many of the most notable operations of recent years taking
place in an urban environment. Events in Mogadishu, Belfast,
Srebrenica, Mitrovica and Ramallah also illustrate the stress and frus-
tration felt by military forces, especially those with strong
warfighting capabilities, in the face of politically restrained opera-
tions. Not surprisingly a recent MOD essay on ‘The Future Strategic
Context for Defence’ suggests that we should expect future opera-
tions to take place in urban areas in which it will be difficult to
balance military objectives with the desire for minimal collateral
damage and casualties.4
The resultant analytical and moral challenges of urban operations
are many, not least because much depends on the concerns of the
individual or organization identifying them, but three general con-
cerns can be identified. The first is the lack of a theoretical frame-
work for understanding urban operations. This is important because
success in such operations is rarely an isolated technical process; it is
not enough, for example, to say that social trends determine the
technology used, when the trends result from the interaction of
physical, social and structural continuities. The second is that urban
operations present their greatest challenges at the levels of strategy
and policy, not least because operations will probably be conducted
differently in 2020. Linked to this is the third challenge, which is
that the central question confronting political and military leaders
about military operations in an urbanized world is less about predic-
tion than about reconciling an increasingly restrictive legal and
moral framework with what we already know of the nature of urban
operations.
Alice Hills 75
Analytical challenges
There is no shortage of current initiatives addressing urban opera-

tions at the operational and tactical level. Predictions of the likely
strategic context of operations are also a recognized part of govern-
mental business even if the strategic value of urban operations
appears to receive significantly less attention. Most professional
work is directed to maximizing fighting power5 or enhancing a
battle group’s ability to conduct close operations within a combined
or multinational arms context. It is reflected in future-army work on
the key trends (social and environmental as well as technical) likely
to affect land operations. But, as the MOD essay referred to above
notes, such analysis is insufficient on its own; it cannot predict
major discontinuities with the potential to change fundamentally
strategic circumstances. In a similar vein the British future-army
project acknowledges that significant short-term improvements are
more likely to be influenced by training and equipment than by
emerging concepts or doctrine. The US consultancy group RAND
has, however, gone some way towards suggesting ways in which the
balance might be redressed; recent publications have evaluated the
significance of perceived changes in urban operations, investigated
means by which the conceptual complexity of urban operations
might be reduced to manageable proportions, and considered the
implications of legal and political restraints on the use of air power
over urban terrain.6
Despite this the analytical challenges of urban operations are
significant, not least because many of the issues underpinning
operations, such as national interest, globalization, information
technology, social change, and, indeed, the application of military
force itself, to say nothing of warfighting, are themselves contro-
versial and need to be seen in the wider security context.
Important challenges include the mapping and modelling of cities
and the critical dependencies within them, not least because a
change in one of the elements underpinning a functionally impor-
tant city could set in train a cascade of reflexive changes in others
involving substantial British interests. Identifying technical
changes – such as the changing hazard environment across a
range of cities – with security implications also represents a formi-
dable task.
Theoretical challenges
The challenges of urban operations extend beyond those of geome-

try. Of course terrain remains critical at the operational and tactical
levels but the geopolitical importance of urbanization means that
we need to incorporate insights from a range of disciplines beyond
defence and security studies in order to understand the possibilities
inherent in such operations. The battlespace is now multifaceted,
having expanded to include terrain, time, space, perception, and,
potentially, the activities supporting socio-political stability and
reconstruction. Thus urban studies, disaster management, police
studies, architecture, anthropology, sociology, and geography can
all illuminate the potential strategic importance of, and variables
influencing, urban operations.7
A fundamental analytical challenge will be to build a consensual
model of urban operations incorporating insights from non-military
experience. Understanding the nature and strategic potential of
urban operations will require a contextual model which can incor-
porate, for instance, criteria for assessing the applicability of current
standard scenarios or for judging the effects of the increasingly
common mix of natural, technological and social hazards within
cities, especially when the interactive mix presents problems as yet
unrecognized.8
Contextualizing full-spectrum operations will deepen understand-
ing of the dynamics at work in the urban environment, especially in
big cities. Acknowledging overlapping issues will not guarantee
understanding on its own but it should provide insights into the
physical and human environment and into what success might
mean in such operations. A contextual approach would address the
fact that there are also more fundamental theoretical issues (often
linked to strategy) to be considered. For what is important is not
that there is a spatial linkage between operations but that there is a
conceptual link. The development of such an approach might
involve consideration of how compellent campaigns might be
framed – whether shaping operations could take place at a greater
distance than decisive operations is one such possibility. Such a
development would also extend the current move away from a
linear understanding of conflict based on the traditional hierarchi-
cal framework of separate strategic, operational and tactical levels.9
It would enhance the more integrated approach that has resulted
Alice Hills 77
from this move. Policy goals now represent a central core, framed by
strategic direction, while the operational dimension includes the
tactical capabilities needed to achieve the stated goals. Thus success
at the tactical level translates into operational impact and strategic
significance. Typical investigations based on a contextual under-
standing might as a result focus on the analysis of how military
operations interact with trends such as the diffusion of new tech-
nologies, worldwide economic restructuring and integration, and
reconfigurations of political authority in geopolitically critical cities.
Adopting a wider perspective will facilitate the identification of
the myths and misconceptions of urban operations and open up
new questions and new areas for research. It will encourage con-
sideration of the unexpected or exceptional events that might
compel us to change the focus of our attention. Such flexibility is
especially important for urban operations because cities are not
neutral environments; they can act as catalysts through which
conflict is exacerbated or ameliorated because they introduce ‘a
set of characteristics – proximate ethnic neighbourhoods, territo-
riality, economic interdependency, symbolism, and centrality –
not present to such an extent on wider geographic scales’. 10 This
can bend or distort the conventional linkages on which our
understanding of cities – and thus urban operations – is based. It
is for such reasons that we need to review the narrow range of
assumptions on which current expectations about urban opera-
tions are built.
Strategic challenges
The strategic challenges of urban operations are becoming clearer.

Markedly more attention is now given to the geopolitical and social
factors underpinning urban infrastructure and operations than was
the case in 1990. Flawed operations, most notably those involving
the US intervention in Mogadishu, Somalia, in the early 1990s,
resulted in an explicit recognition of the need to understand such
factors, and this has since become part of contemporary orthodoxy;
its importance is further emphasized by the US Marine Corps’
influential work on three-block operations.11 A recent article by Tim
Thomas on Grozny reflects this view too, arguing that attention
should now be raised from tactics to overarching concepts such as
the limitations of city fighting, the worldwide integration of eco-

nomic assets, types of city and infrastructure, and probable enemy
methods for negating Western superiority.12
Yet precisely how urban operations might fit into strategic policies
remains unclear, partly perhaps because the cultural and economic
conditions of many cities in which we are interested are changing in
complex ways. The effects of internationalization and globalization
must be factored in too, not least because, although multinational
operations involving British forces in a megacity such as Dhaka or
Seoul may be unlikely, instability in such cities could affect British
interests in unforeseen ways. More generally such cities contain a
large proportion of the world’s material investments and economic
wealth and are often important by virtue of their role in the global
economy and trading networks. What this might mean can be seen
from disaster studies. The effects of conflict are not necessarily dis-
similar to those of disaster and, as the earthquake which devastated
the Kobe area of Japan in 1995 showed, a single metropolitan disaster
in a rich country can produce economic losses that shake the global
reinsurance industry.13 An understanding of the way in which opera-
tions in an important city could disrupt global economic functioning
should be developed alongside conventional military concerns.
It may yet prove as necessary to redefine urban operations in the
2020s as it was to redefine security in the 1990s. As the World Bank
has pointed out, there is, for instance, potential for the political
importance of cities (and the provinces they often represent) to
increase at the expense of national governments; certain cities are
becoming important actors on the world stage and may well repre-
sent a critical security issue for the twenty-first century.14 For such
reasons the strategic and policy challenges of urban operations will
probably be greater than those of conventional military-based
analyses.15 And if this is the case then it is likely that future opera-
tions, especially those in important cities, will be marked by policy
incoherence and will be of an essentially ad hoc nature regardless of
the quality of predictive work.16 Such a conclusion emphasizes the
weight of the strategic and policy challenges of operations.
Moral challenges
The strategic challenges of future urban operations are daunting but

the associated moral challenges are potentially more intractable
Alice Hills 79
because, even when combat is not involved, military operations

require escalation dominance in order to manage or contain a situ-
ation at the same time as they are subject to regulation by interna-
tional law, conventions and self-imposed constraints. As Mogadishu
showed, this is required even in humanitarian relief operations,
while the inevitable presence of civilians and the media means that
the moral challenges of operations will be graphically portrayed.
The result is that a balance must be struck between avoiding casual-
ties and collateral damage, minimizing risks to allied forces, main-
taining minimum levels of domestic and international support, and
maximizing military effectiveness.
The presence of non-combatants has directly affected the course
of operations in all recent conflicts, shaping tactics, strategy, plan-
ning and rules of engagement (ROE). Civilians have served as force-
multipliers and as human shields.17 Civilian casualties have even
ended a militarily successful campaign. The Israeli bombing of a UN
refugee camp in Qana in south Lebanon in 1996, for example,
resulted in international outrage and a hurriedly negotiated ceasefire
that stopped the successful Israeli operation.18 Military planners
must divert resources to deal with refugees or public safety tasks
such as emergency law enforcement and the reconstruction of civil-
ian infrastructure, while ROE often conform more closely to politi-
cal than military logic.
The balance of the process is variable though and public state-
ments are not necessarily an accurate reflection of policy, as NATO’s
‘humanitarian war’ over Kosovo showed. Kosovo was justified pri-
marily in terms of stopping actual and anticipated killings and
expulsions by Serbs in the Serbian province but the bombing cam-
paign, with its emphasis on air power and the avoidance of Allied
casualties, was held by many commentators to result in unaccept-
able collateral damage. Pressure to attack fixed targets, rather than
mobile military targets, for instance, meant that in practice targets
were chosen whose destruction had a significant effect on civilians.19
The tangled themes of humanitarian intervention, political expe-
diency and special interests (primarily those associated with air
power) displayed in Kosovo are useful but also misleading in terms
of urban operations, and it is salutary to compare the scale of
destruction and collateral damage in Kosovo to that in the third
battle for Grozny. NATO’s involvement in a Grozny is inconceivable
but the battles for Grozny epitomize urban combat and are the
nearest thing the developed states have had to a warfighting labora-

tory – and Grozny was reduced to rubble at the same time as an esti-
mated 10 000 to 40 000 civilians remained in the city, either unable
or unwilling to escape the bombardment of Christmas 1999.20
Operations in Grozny represent a contemporary extreme. The
main Russian commander, General Viktor Kazantsev, said that only
women, children and men over the age of 60 should be regarded as
refugees, everyone else was to be detained. Leaflets dropped by
Russian aircraft on 5 December warned that anyone remaining in
the city after 11 December would be viewed as ‘terrorists and
bandits’ and would be destroyed. In contrast the pressure on NATO
forces to avoid civilian casualties and collateral damage is more
likely to impact in terms of the perceived immorality of militarily
desirable weapons.
The British government has often been able to work with pressure
groups campaigning against certain types of weapons or damp
down their expectations or criticisms. But the continuing emphasis
on warfighting, the historical evidence of the nature of urban opera-
tions, and the traditional role of the military ensures that NGO
interests will often run counter to military interests. Pressure will
intensify to avoid the use of militarily useful weapons, such as land-
mines, cluster bombs, flame throwers and novel explosives, seen to
create a disproportionate effect in either risk or damage.
Given the emphasis on warfighting capabilities the use of flame
throwers in particular provides a pertinent illustration of what this
pressure means for urban operations, not least because it illustrates
the inevitable mix of operational and ethical issues.21 It is often
regarded as immoral and is spoken of as banned by the UN
Weapons Convention of 1981 but the Convention does not in fact
forbid the use of flame and incendiary weapons against military
targets. It may be that the question of its use has not been seriously
asked in recent years or it may be that its absence has more to do
with operational than ethical issues.
The flame thrower is often described in professional journals as a
low-technology system that is highly effective, particularly in psy-
chological terms, but which is regrettably no longer in the military
inventory.22 It is true that many references to its use in World War II
substantiate this view but, equally, the methods of delivery 60 years
ago were bulky and heavy and, if used today, would expose the
Alice Hills 81
operator to what would be considered as unjustifiable risks.

Projectiles continue to be developed but recent technology has not
produced suitable man-portable flame throwers, and problems of
weight, range, and logistics prevents their systematic use. But while
it may be common sense to avoid the use of flame in combustible
shantytowns its desirability as a psychologically effective weapon
remains as great as ever.
The use of flame is an emotive topic but the issue currently
encapsulating the moral challenge at the heart of urban opera-
tions is, however, that of novel explosives, of the thermobaric
weapon which uses a massive wave of heat and blast pressure to
destroy. The weapon, previously known as the fuel air-bomb, was
developed during Vietnam as an alternative to napalm, was used
against the mujahideen in Afghanistan and Iraq’s Republican
Guard during the Gulf War, and more recently has achieved noto-
riety when used by the Russians in Chechnya.23 The light dispos-
able weapon is admittedly extremely destructive of human bodies
but it already exists, it renders conventional body armour useless,
and is of proven utility against heavily fortified positions or the
buildings typical of urban environments such as those in the
Balkans.
The development of thermobaric weapons by Britain was brought
to public attention in the course of a radio interview in January
2001. The MOD responded to public criticism by emphasizing that
British forces did not yet have such weapons but that it would be
‘irresponsible’ not to consider their possible use given their wide dis-
tribution. Britain is therefore developing a lightweight, precision
hand-held device based on explosive particles rather than
flammable vapour or gas. An army spokesman, somewhat missing
the point of the original criticism, said that ‘We cannot legally
produce something which is a flame weapon but we can produce
something which is a blast weapon.’24
The UK Liberal Democrat spokesman Menzies Campbell argued
that such a weapon would breach the spirit of the Geneva conven-
tions while Joost Hilterman of Human Rights Watch expressed grave
concern that it would be used near population centres. Similar argu-
ments had, in fact, already been presented by Project SirUS, a cam-
paign sponsored by the International Committee of the Red Cross
which seeks to outlaw weapons that can be shown to cause
‘superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering’ – a phrase taken from

the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).25
Project SirUS will be considered as a specific item during the 2001
review conference of the CCW. If, as seems likely, the development
of a thermobaric grenade specifically for urban operations is judged
undesirable, the resultant (political) decision to outlaw the weapon
will be based on claims that the effects of such weapons are dispro-
portionate and indiscriminate. This will be in direct contrast to the
prevailing military judgement that banning thermobaric weapons
poses a serious threat to British forces, to their operational capabili-
ties and to the development of emerging technologies.
Military attention will then be focused on the development of an
alternative system capable of circumnavigating the ethical and
political challenges of thermobaric weapons in a manner reminis-
cent of that associated with anti-personnel land-mines. Land-mines
were a very effective means of providing force protection in an
urban environment and abandoning them on signing the Ottawa
Convention meant that a replacement system was needed.26
The search for alternatives is important because it suggests that
although the role of specific weapons is important in the debate, the
values assigned to them are variable and that other factors, such as
cultural or political norms, are equally significant. Support for this
may be found in Edwards’s recent RAND study that concluded that
the technologies employed in urban operations in the 1990s did not
differ significantly from those employed before the 1980s. Weapons
remained essentially the same but it was politically inspired ROE
that prohibited the stronger side from using advanced tanks and
artillery.27
It is possible that the current debate will prove redundant as alter-
native systems (including sub-lethal weapons) are developed which
can deliver an appropriate military effect in a manner tolerated by
public opinion. Indeed the potential for information warfare and
new forms of conflict suggest that the debate about thermobaric
weapons or their equivalent may prove peripheral in the long term.
If, however, conflict continues to be interventionist, discretionary,
and expeditionary then military action is likely to be justified on
moral and humanitarian grounds – and flame and thermobaric
weapons to be regarded as immoral and excessive. In either case the
moral challenges of urban operation will remain central even if they
Alice Hills 83
are reinforced by the trend, seen in Operation Allied Force over

Kosovo, of combining humanitarian and legal norms with self-
justifying conceptions of national interest (itself something of an
ethical challenge). The result is that governments need to take the
moral high ground and may therefore rule against the use of
militarily effective weapons.
The restrictive nature of contemporary ROE is evidence of both
the sincerity and expediency underpinning such concerns. Strict
ROE do not represent a moral challenge as such though they
undoubtedly reflect current concerns about the appropriateness of
the restrictive legal and moral framework of interventionist opera-
tions. Indeed ROE may represent more of a practical political or
operational challenge than a moral one because they are necessarily
flexible. However the attacking force in almost every modern urban
battle28 has begun operations with a strict set of ROE designed to
limit collateral damage. Such ROE have invariably eased in the
course of operations (especially if combat is involved) because the
desire to minimize friendly casualties is always greater than the
desire to avoid civilian casualties and collateral damage.
Retribution is often an important factor too. On 16 October 2000,
for example, Israeli troops, who were supposed to be showing
‘restraint’ shot and wounded at least 69 people in clashes in Hebron,
Bethlehem and Nablus.29 Such a form of resolution may be unaccept-
able to NATO forces when the stakes are not high, suitable technolog-
ical solutions are available, psychological operations are important, or
if the nature of conflict changes to accommodate new configurations
of economic or political power. But balancing restrictive and permis-
sive ROE has usually proved difficult in the face of the ubiquitous
media presence so ROE tend to conform to political rather than mili-
tary logic. A greater or lesser degree of tension is the inevitable result.
This is unlikely to lessen over the next two decades; global trends
suggest that operations to control or punish within an urban envi-
ronment are more likely than force-on-force but that such opera-
tions will remain characteristically peace support operations (PSO)
in nature. The development of less than lethal weapons is unlikely
to challenge this, being more likely to rephrase the debate than
solve it; electronic means of control (currently seen as a promising
technology by many security forces) are more likely to provoke con-
troversy than resolve the moral debate.30
It is probable that the reconciliation of social values and

warfighting capabilities by an alliance such as NATO will remain
difficult. For the employment of effective weaponry employing
flame and thermobaric munitions is only one facet of a wider
tension between contemporary values and warfighting; other
aspects are to be found in current recruitment and retention prob-
lems. At the same time, however, the existence of thermobaric
weapons and historical evidence of the realities of urban combat
suggest the potential scale of urban operations.
Contemporary discussion of the moral challenges of urban opera-
tions occurs in a vacuum. In many respects the most insightful dis-
cussion of morality in the urban environment is to be found in a
recent article on the sustained discussion of morality of war dis-
played by the film Saving Private Ryan.31 The author, William Prior,
identifies four moral or ethical frameworks within the film: those of
the soldier as an individual, as a member of a small combat unit, as
a member of a specific state, and from the universal perspective as
one moral agent among many. He contrasts the morality of war
with the morality of decency and concludes that the two moralities
are ‘deeply and irreconcilably incompatible’.
Conclusion
It is difficult to identify the fundamental issues underpinning the

range of activities we label urban operations. Humanitarian relief,
policing and combat may take place simultaneously and within
three blocks of each other but each tends to use different tech-
niques, procedures and equipment. One of the few themes under-
pinning military success in all such operations is, however, the need
for mental and moral confidence, backed up by the ability to
conduct forceful or aggressive close operations – of warfighting
capabilities in fact. This is realistic in terms of the historical realities
of urban operations and the existence of thermobaric weapons but
ironic given the contemporary aversion to casualties and collateral
damage. Differing national styles and priorities amongst NATO’s
members mean that the desirability of warfighting capabilities
remains controversial but most would agree with The Future Strategic
Context for Defence assertion that although ‘maintaining fighting
ethos may be difficult in the light of social and legal changes’,
Alice Hills 85
The character of conflict will continue to present a physical and

moral challenge to service personnel: extreme danger, rapidly
changing circumstances in conditions of chaos and uncertainty,
and severe physical and mental demands.32
The Future Strategic Context for Defence’s conclusion that ‘The require-
ment to engender and foster fighting spirit is enduring’ may be
more controversial but escalation dominance remains as necessary
as ever, as events in Mogadishu and Srebrenica made clear.
Attempts to reconcile what we know of the nature of urban opera-
tions with the increasingly restrictive legal and moral framework of
contemporary Western operations have advanced little over the last
ten years. Many of the analytical challenges of urban operations are
now receiving attention but the more intractable moral challenges
are not. This is unfortunate for a number of reasons, not the least of
which is the accompanying analytical ambiguity and operational
implications of restrictive ROE. Meanwhile the current emphasis on
targeting for (allied) casualty avoidance and the continued impor-
tance of discretionary intervention (to ‘correct’ abuses of human
rights within states), combined with an insistence on the military
being a force for good, merely emphasize the complexity of the
moral challenge.
Two significant points emerge. The first is that future urban oper-
ations will force liberal democracies to confront their own values;
operations will continue to represent a battlespace and civilians will
invariably be used as obstacles and sanctuaries to shape that battle-
space, if not by us then by our enemies. And our enemies will be
well aware that public and political perceptions demand that success
must be achieved in a short period of time and involve few casual-
ties. The second point is related to the political need to reconcile the
reality of dismounted close action, especially combat, with the
desire for zero casualties.33 This will be notable in the low-level
conflicts in which civilian casualties are high relative to combatants.
As current conflicts between Israel and Palestine, and India and
Pakistan make clear, ‘technology will count for less, and large,
youthful and motivated populations for more’ in such scenarios.34
This in turn links the challenges of such moral strength into the
analytical challenge of understanding the human systems underpin-
ning politico-military success in cities.
For a professional military force, politico-military success in the

notoriously costly and violent environment of urban operations is
ultimately dependent on its ability (and reputation) to conduct
simultaneous operations, ranging from public safety to combat,
aggressively and persistently. At the same time, however, socio-
political trends emphasize the value of humanitarian intervention
and reconstruction. The result is, inevitably, tension. There is thus a
need to reconcile the increasingly restrictive legal and moral frame-
work of contemporary NATO operations with what we know of the
nature of urban operations. The two appear irreconcilable at
present.
Notes
An earlier version of this chapter was given at a panel on civil-military rela-
tions and warfighting, (American) International Studies Association annual
convention, Chicago 2001. The support of the British Academy is gratefully
acknowledged.
1. Ministry of Defence, The Future Strategic Context for Defence (London:
HMSO, 2001), para. 102. www.mod.uk/index.php3?page2449.
Downloaded 8 Feb 2001. ‘Warfighting’ is still used to characterize force-
on-force operations against well-equipped, technologically-developed
opponents and implies engagement with an identifiable enemy across a
range of military capabilities. The defeat of such an enemy requires the
ability to apply the full range of military capabilities.
2. Sir Charles Guthrie, then Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) said in an
interview in August 2000 that ‘too many humanitarian missions could
turn the professional British Army into a ‘‘touchy-feely’’ organization,
more concerned with widows and orphans than fighting’. The quote
may misrepresent the general thrust of the interview but the cautionary
nature of the comments are undoubtedly widely shared; according to
The Times, ‘other senior officers’ echoed his comments, arguing that too
great an emphasis on peace support operations will result in British
forces becoming a peacekeeping gendarmerie with a diminished reputa-
tion for fighting. ‘Kindly soldiers ‘‘losing their killer instinct’’’, The
Times, 11 August 2000.
3. The World Bank’s definition of cities is used here. The terms cities and
urban areas are interchangeable:
The formal definition of urban areas describes them as concentra-
tions of nonagricultural workers and nonagricultural production
sectors. Most countries call settlements with 2,500–25,000 people
urban areas. The definition varies from country to country and has
changed over time. If the criteria China used in its 1980 census had
Alice Hills 87
been applied to its 1990 census, the country’s urbanization rate for
the 1980s would have been more than 50 per cent – far more than
the 26 per cent produced by the more rigorous approach used in
1990. A city has a certain legal status (granted by the national or
provincial government) that is generally associated with specific
administrative or local government structures. In most countries
large urban areas are referred to as metropolitan areas because they
encompass a geographic area of human settlement (that may
include legally defined cities) within which residents share employ-
ment opportunities and sets of economic relations.
World Bank, World Development Report 1999/2000 (New York: World
Bank, 1999), p. 127.
4. Ministry of Defence, The Future Strategic Context for Defence, para 20.
5. For example, how should the slowed tempo of urban operations be con-
ceptualized in relation to manoeuvrist warfare? How should the
manoeuvrist approach be understood when rubble, generating military
and civilian casualties, dramatically slows tempo?
6. Addressed respectively by S. Edwards, Mars Unmasked: the Changing Face
of Military Operations (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2000); R. Glenn, Heavy
Matter: Urban Operations’ Density of Challenges (Santa Monica, CA:
RAND, 2000); M. Waxman, International Law and the Politics of Urban Air
Operations (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2000); http://www.rand.org/
publications/.
7. See G. Demarest, ‘Geopolitics and Urban Armed Conflict in Latin
America’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, vol. 6, no. 1 (1995), pp. 44–67.
8. For example, the military will focus on physical variables whereas urban
studies tend to marginalize them as a variable. The presence of toxic
chemicals in water supplies during operations may seem a civilian
problem but the potential for litigation inherent in discretionary opera-
tions suggests otherwise. The lawsuits brought against the MOD by
British paratroopers contracting malaria in Sierra Leone emphasize the
continuing importance of ‘duty of care’ considerations. BBC, Today,
Radio 4, 5 February 2001.
9. Director of Infantry, Future Infantry … The route to 2020 (January
2000), p. 7.
10. S.A. Bollens, On Narrow Ground: Urban Policy and Ethnic Conflict in
Jerusalem and Belfast (New York: State University of New York Press, 2000).
11. Operational trends suggest a future scenario of simultaneous or transi-
tional operations, ranging from policing and terrorism, humanitarian
relief and peace enforcement, to force-on-force, within a confined city
area. The idea is encapsulated by the US Marine Corps’s work on three-
block operations.
12. T. Thomas, ‘The Battle of Grozny: Deadly Classroom for Urban
Combat’, Parameters (Summer 1999), p. 93.
13. Economic losses caused by the earthquake are estimated at more than
US$92 billion. Financial Times, 30 December 1996. Hurricane Andrew had
the same effect on Greater Miami. See also S. Sassen, The Global City: New
York, London, Tokyo (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).
14. World Bank, op. cit., p. 127.
15. This might also emphasize the need for the British military to develop a
specific security perspective, reaching beyond ‘defence diplomacy’, on
the Labour government’s development agenda.
16. Information about the spatial parameters of cities (their populations,
physical organization and activities), for example, is a fundamental
theme in urban and security research but there are no coherent pro-
grammes addressing the topic across government departments in either
the UK or the USA.
17. The Gulf War Al Firdos bunker incident of February 1991 starkly
emphasized the problems associated with separating military and civil-
ian targets. US F-117 strikes destroyed the bunker as a command and
control facility. On the night it was destroyed it actually housed fami-
lies of government officials in its upper levels.
18. Previous Israeli claims of precision weapons worked against them. The
United Nations commission investigating the incident concluded that
the shelling of the UN compound was most unlikely to have been the
result of technical or procedural errors. F. van Kaplan, Report of the
Secretary General’s Military Adviser Concerning the Shelling of the UN
Compound at Qana on 18 April 1996 with Addendum (New York: United
Nations Secretariat, 1996).
19. As Adam Roberts has argued, such damage is ‘a salutary reminder’ that
there are moral (and environmental) problems with the whole idea of
the low-risk waging of war. A. Roberts, ‘NATO’s “Humanitarian War”
over Kosovo’, Survival, vol. 41, no. 3 (1999), pp. 102–23. The most dis-
turbing lesson of the air campaign for Roberts is that its most effective
aspect involved hurting Serbia proper, including its population, rather
than directly attacking Serb forces in Kosovo. This has implications for
proxy actions in an urban environment.
20. BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_
594000/594779.stm (8 January 2000).
21. The acceptability of flame in a shantytown of timber or corrugated tin
buildings is one such example.
22. Jary and Carbuncle, ‘In the Jungle of the Cities. Operations in Built up
Areas’, British Army Review, vol. 121 (April 1999), pp. 61–8.
23. Some American analysts judge that the most important equipment
development in the third battle of Grozny was the fuel air-explosive.
See T. Thomas and L. Grau, ‘Russian Lessons Learned from the Battles
for Grozny’, Marine Corps Gazette (April 2000), pp. 45–8. Collateral
damage was not a problem in Chechnya; the Russians believe that
urban combat requires deliberate reduction. It is worth noting that light
anti-tank weapons were used by both British and German forces as anti-
personnel flame throwers to clear buildings in 1945.
24. ‘Britain Works on Grenade that Goes through Walls’, Daily Telegraph, 5
January 2001.
Alice Hills 89
25. 1981 United Nations Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the

use of Certain Conventional Weapons that may be deemed excessively
Injurious, including Amended Protocol II (May 1996). Calmatives, irri-
tants and inflammatory agents, and comparable sub-lethal weapons are
strictly controlled by the convention on certain conventional weapons.
They are authorized for domestic riot control and law enforcement but
are prohibited in warfare. Their usefulness in urban operations is prob-
lematic and indiscriminate.
26. This may take the form of wide area sensors linked to an unattended
system or to an autonomous direct fire system.
27. Commercial off the shelf, non-lethals and precision-guided munitions
were either not used or were not considered decisive.
28. W. Rosenau, ‘‘‘Every Room is a New Battle’’: the Lessons of Modern
Urban Warfare’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 20 , no. 4
(October–December 1997), p. 389.
29. ‘Death Comes Silently in Ramallah Riots’, Daily Telegraph, 17 October
2000.
30. See, for example, ‘Amnesty Condemns Rising Torture Trade’, Guardian,
27 February 2001.
31. W. Prior, ‘‘‘We Aren’t Here to do the Decent Thing’’: Saving Private Ryan
and the Morality of War’, Parameters (Autumn 2000), pp. 138–45.
32. MOD, op. cit., para. 94.
33. It may be that it is not casualties as such that cause the problem so
much as the resultant media images. Whatever the case, victory may be
assured for any adversary still standing after killing a critical number of
NATO forces.
34. Central Intelligence Agency, Global Trends 2015: a Dialogue About
the Future with Nongovernment Experts (December 2000), p. 40;
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/globaltrends2015/index.html.
5
Western Strategy in the New Era:
the Apotheosis of Air Power?
Philip Sabin
Introduction
As we enter a new century, air power is no longer a novelty. We

now have 100 years of theory and practical experience on which to
base our employment of this form of military force. Although this
period is still dwarfed by the centuries and even millennia of tradi-
tion and experience underpinning our use of land and maritime
power, the ‘air power century’ offers a very rich background of
examples and ideas on which twenty-first century air strategy may
be based.
The face of air warfare today is clearly very different from that
exemplified by the frail wood and canvas biplanes of World War I.
In large part this is due to the incredible pace of technological
improvements in the weapons and systems involved. From this per-
spective, air power history may be viewed as a kind of triumphal
progress, from primitive and unsteady beginnings to the ‘coming of
age’ and even ‘apotheosis’ of air power in recent conflicts like the
Gulf War and Kosovo. A common view is that the inflated expecta-
tions of early air theorists such as Douhet and Mitchell were merely
‘premature’, and that technological advance has vindicated their
convictions. After the Gulf War, US air theorist John Warden pro-
claimed this view with characteristic hyperbole:
The world has just witnessed a new kind of warfare – hyperwar. It

has seen air power become dominant. It has seen unequivocally
how defenseless a state becomes when it loses control of the air
91
over its territories and forces. It has seen the awesome power of
the air offensive – and the near impossibility of defending against
it. It has seen a demonstration of the validity of strategic attack
theory. It has seen a war waged primarily against things but one
that produced remarkably few casualties, especially considering
the outcome. For the next two decades – and perhaps for much
longer – an American commander, whether the president in
Washington or a general in the field, will turn first to air power,
just as did President George Bush and Gen Norman Schwarzkopf.
We have moved from the age of the horse and the sail through
the age of the battleship and the tank to the age of the airplane.
Like its illustrious ancestors, the airplane will have its day in the
sun, and then it too shall be replaced. Sic transit gloria mundi.1
However, just as important an influence as technological progress in

air power itself have been changes in the broader political and social
context of the conflicts concerned. This has become particularly
evident over the last decade, since the end of the Cold War. In the
new era, it is by no means clear that lessons drawn directly from
ideas and experience earlier in the twentieth century provide the
best guide when formulating contemporary air strategy. Not only is
there the danger of neglecting technological changes, as in Saddam
Hussein’s disastrous belief in 1990 that air power had proved to be
inherently indecisive.2 There is also a risk of neglecting political and
social changes, which may make certain strategic precepts derived
from earlier experience ineffective or perhaps even counter-produc-
tive. Air strategies, which worked in the twentieth century, may not
necessarily succeed today, even with our vastly improved air tech-
nology. This makes the derivation of lessons from past experience a
more complex and subtle business than one might at first imagine.
In this chapter, I will first outline what I see as the most impor-
tant changes in the strategic environment, as it affects the employ-
ment of air power by Western states. I will then highlight certain
key consequences of these changes for Western air planners at the
start of the twenty-first century.
Trends in the strategic environment
The world in which air power now operates differs very considerably
from that during its formative years in the early and mid-twentieth
Philip Sabin 93
century. Some changes are linked to the end of the Cold War a
decade ago, while others stem from longer-term shifts. Not every-
thing has changed, and even those trends which I will highlight are
often shifts of emphasis as much as complete transformations, but
the changes are important nonetheless. The trends fall into three
broad areas, as follows.
From symmetrical to asymmetrical contests

The twentieth century was dominated by great power conflict,
which on three occasions crystallized into classic bipolar confronta-
tions – between the Allies and the Central Powers in World War I,
between the Allies and the Axis in World War II, and between the
capitalist and communist blocs in the Cold War. Even regional
conflicts like those in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan were ‘bal-
anced’ through great power intervention on both sides, as illus-
trated by the fact that in none of these wars did the great power
most directly involved prevail. With the demise of bipolarity and
the easing of great power tensions over the past decade, confronta-
tions have now become much more asymmetric than in the past.
This reflects the enormous diversity of size and power of the states,
alliances and sub-state groups which now interact across the world –
a diversity so great that many talk not of a multipolar but of a
unipolar world dominated by the USA. Regional wars like those in
the Gulf and the Balkans are no longer proxy reflections of super-
power rivalry as in previous Middle Eastern and Asian conflicts, so
there may be huge imbalances in the power involved.
This shift towards asymmetry is partly also a consequence of tech-
nological trends, especially in air power. A variety of factors are
involved, but the most important is the ‘double-edged’ contribution
of modern military electronics – giving huge ‘force multiplier’
effects in terms of enhanced intelligence and weapon accuracy, but
exposing less advanced users to crippling disruption of their entire
military panoply through electronic counter-measures. As a conse-
quence, modern high-tech air wars tend to be decided in a much
quicker and more one-sided fashion, rather than through the
gradual attritional slogging matches of the past – a trend which is
well illustrated by the quick and sweeping triumph of the electroni-
cally and tactically superior air power in Lebanon in 1982, the Gulf
in 1991 and Kosovo in 1999.3
Related to this increased strategic and technological asymmetry

has been an erosion of alliance discipline, since it is now less impor-
tant for nations to stick together lest they be overpowered by an
opposing bloc. The result has not been a return to a world of inde-
pendent states each pursuing their own narrow national agendas,
since multinational organizations like the UN, NATO and the EU
have imposed an important framework on modern international
relations. Nevertheless, we now live in a world in which real dis-
agreements, even among allies, over crises like Kosovo and the
recent bombings of Iraq, have replaced the theoretical internal unity
on which NATO and Warsaw Pact war planning hitherto relied.
From interests to justice as a motive for the use of force

The demise of communism and the triumph of democracy have not
produced the ‘End of History’ which Fukuyama notoriously pro-
claimed, but rather a revival of the self-determination questions and
ethnic hatreds which pre-dated the fascist and communist threats of
the twentieth century.4 In part this reflects global cultural fissures as
embodied in Huntington’s model of a ‘Clash of Civilizations’, but it
is usually more a local tribal matter, as seen in the long-standing
conflicts within Western Europe in Northern Ireland and the Basque
country.5 A key feature of these ethnic conflicts is the relative lack of
global linkages compared to the ‘domino theory’ which was so per-
suasive during the Cold War. The reaction of outsiders today is
more one of pity, incomprehension and a concern about ‘fallout’
like criminality and refugees, rather than a perceived imperative to
back one side or the other in the dispute itself.
In the previous Hobbesian world of naked power politics, or the
ideologically divided world of the inter-war and Cold War periods,
intervention tended to be motivated by commonality of interests or
ideology and not by an objective judgement of good and bad.
Today, with ideology moribund and balance of power politics ame-
liorated by the gross asymmetries of power and by the relative inter-
nal harmony of the dominant West, states can afford the luxury of a
more altruistic approach. This focus was prefigured in President
Carter’s emphasis on human rights, and has been encouraged ever
since by media dramatization of human rights abuses. Interventions
today tend to be motivated less by ideological linkages or narrow
calculations of national interest than by perceived wrongs, espe-
Philip Sabin 95
cially to innocents, and by breaches of international law like the

invasion of Kuwait.
It is obviously hard to be so black and white when judging
tangled ethnic conflicts like those in the former Yugoslavia. Indeed,
many (especially in Russia) saw Kosovar Albanian violence and
NATO bombing as the real illegitimate acts during the Kosovo crisis
in 1999, with Serbian actions themselves being much less blame-
worthy. However, the key point is that behaviour, as opposed to
identity or ideology, has become a key determinant of outside inter-
vention in modern conflicts – a point clearly illustrated by the fact
that NATO ground forces in Kosovo now find themselves more at
odds with Albanian separatists than with the Serbian forces they
entered the province to guard against.
Partly as a consequence of this trend, there has been a shift from
military to constabulary ethics in the Western use of force. The clear
focus of military organizations prior to 1945 was on war fighting,
including surprising opponents and inflicting military defeat, with
little attention paid to sparing even civilian populations on the
opposing side. During the Cold War, this focus on war fighting
began to be modified due to the overwhelming destructive power of
nuclear weapons, with an emphasis being placed instead on deter-
rence and on graduated escalation to restrain aggressors rather than
to defeat them outright. The same period saw the development of
UN peacekeeping operations, with a mission of neutral interposition
rather than engagement on either side of a conflict. Since the Cold
War ended, there has been a move to a much more muscular use of
force in peace support operations (PSOs), but still with a constabu-
lary ethos of predictability, consent, and safeguarding the innocent,
in line with the focus on justice rather than instrumentality in the
motivation of interventions.
It would, of course, be wrong to exaggerate the extent to which
altruism has displaced ideology and self-interest in Western security
calculations. The Jewish lobby in the USA remains a potent influence
on US policy in the Middle East, while simple considerations of
power explain why Western responses to Russian brutality in
Chechyna were so restrained. The new Bush presidency may, indeed,
presage a return to a more power-politics based security policy,
involving proposed US withdrawals from peacekeeping deployments
and a more confrontational stance vis-à-vis Russia, China, and
regional proliferators. Nevertheless, we remain a long way from the

mindset of the mid-twentieth century, when it was seen as legitimate
for Western air power to threaten or to carry out the incineration of
entire urban populations in the interests of achieving military
victory.6 The stakes today are far lower, and media-dominated
Western societies are much less tolerant of injustice, especially if
their own armed forces are seen to be responsible for it.
From statistical to anecdotal portrayals of effectiveness

Traditionally, military success has been measured in overall statisti-
cal terms, like the number of dead and prisoners, or the amount of
territory captured. This carried over even into the Cold War, despite
a move away from traditional territorial conflict. There was a pre-
occupation with ‘body counts’ in Vietnam, and with the raw
numerical size of opposing arsenals in the conventional and nuclear
balance between East and West – a focus which was paradoxically
encouraged by the arms control process with its emphasis on quan-
titative comparisons. However, the increasing dominance of televi-
sual imagery has now shifted attention away from the statistical and
towards the anecdotal. This was seen clearly in the Gulf War, with a
focus on precision guided munitions (PGM) videos and Scud missile
attacks even though these weapons were only a tiny minority of
those employed overall.
The media will often focus their spotlight on things going wrong,
thereby turning tactical mishaps into strategic events, as with the
bombing of the Amariyah bunker in Baghdad and of the refugee
convoy and Chinese embassy in the Kosovo conflict. This increasing
focus on the anecdotal is not unique to the military. In Britain
recently, the media frenzy over a tragic but isolated train crash at
Hatfield led to the paralysis of the entire rail system for safety work,
thereby statistically giving rise to a far greater death toll on the
roads. The current paranoia over child abductions due to the drama-
tization of individual incidents illustrates a similar mechanism.
National lotteries work on the same basis, with the catch phrase ‘It
could be you!’ perfectly capturing the dominance of anecdotal pub-
licity over rational statistical judgement. This tends to foster zero
tolerance of error, and encourages attempts to exploit the media
through spectacle. The huge effort which the coalition diverted to
tackling the Iraqi Scud threat in the Gulf War shows that such
Philip Sabin 97
media spectacles can have real strategic impact, however marginal

they may be in traditional military terms.
Consequences for air strategy
The three trends which I have highlighted are by no means the only
ones affecting the use of air power by NATO nations today, but they
are among the most important. I will now discuss some of the con-
sequences for Western air strategy, under four broad headings.
A blurring of political and military responsibilities

In the classic ideal model of military professionalism, political
leaders decide the ends, and leave military leaders to manage the
means. In fact, this clear division of responsibility has rarely ever
been fully observed, and it is particularly problematic in the tangled
conflict environments of today.
One well-documented reason for this is ‘reach-back’. The same
communications technology which, through media magnification,
can make tactical setbacks into strategic events, allows politicians to
micro-manage even distant military operations. The classic example
of this is President Johnson’s decision-making in the Vietnam War.7
The problems which Johnson’s ‘interference’ in tactical decisions
created did act as a salutary warning to later leaders, but it has been
very hard for them to avoid the practice altogether, because the risk
of media amplification of anecdotal mishaps makes politicians as
well as senior commanders paranoid about losing control of the
actions of their subordinates. Reach-back to national capitals in
coalition operations like those in Kosovo is natural due to such sensi-
tivities, especially since differences in perspective on how to conduct
military operations are an inherent and unavoidable feature of
limited wars. Theatre commanders can limit reach-back by monopo-
lizing information, as General Ryan and Admiral Smith did during
Deliberate Force in Bosnia in 1995, but this is a bold approach since
it removes ‘top cover’ in the event of the slightest mishap.
Just as important a cause of the blurring of political and military
responsibilities is the politicization of even theatre military
command. In the tangled complexity of peace support operations
(PSO), land commanders like Generals Rose and Smith become as
much diplomats as warriors, negotiating with faction leaders, liais-

ing with non-governmental organizations, and conducting the local
inter-allied diplomacy which is key to the effectiveness of often ad-
hoc coalitions. A particularly difficult relationship in PSOs is with
local ‘allies of convenience’ like the Kurds, Croats or Kosovar
Albanians, who (as recent experience has shown) may become just
as much a problem as the current adversaries if strategically mishan-
dled. The dispute between Generals Jackson and Clark over how to
respond to the Russian occupation of Pristina airport in June 1999
shows how pregnant with political consequences theatre military
decisions may be.8
It might be thought that airmen can remain more detached from
this engagement on the ground, and so more focused on the mili-
tary execution of political directives. However, aerial coercion, by its
very nature, depends on political rather than physical mechanisms
for its effectiveness – a fact all too often neglected by airmen, who
tend to focus on the mechanics of destroying certain targets rather
than on how that destruction will persuade those bombed to
change their behaviour. It is no good leaving this aspect to the
politicians, since they have far less time and expertise to think
about the issue than do the airmen themselves, and tend to pro-
claim ‘something must be done’ while leaving it to the military to
work out what that ‘something’ might usefully be. Hence, airmen
must be proactive in entering this realm of political calculation, so
as to minimize future misunderstandings like those between
Ambassador Holbrooke and NATO commanders over outstanding
targets in Bosnia, and so as to give politicians realistic ideas on what
air power can and cannot do in terms of overall strategic effect on
the campaign.9
The inevitability of constraint

A central tenet of modern air power theory is its emphasis on rapid
and unrestrained use of force, rather than the kind of slow, gradu-
ated attacks interspersed with bargaining which were advocated in
the classic theory by Schelling four decades ago. Schelling argued
that what mattered for successful coercion was not destroying
enemy assets per se, but signalling by those attacks a willingness to
destroy other assets deliberately left untouched at first, if compliance
did not occur. This mechanism was akin to a kidnapper mailing
back a severed finger to the distraught relatives to show his determi-
Philip Sabin 99
nation, rather than killing his hostage outright and so losing any
potential leverage gained. However, for air theorists, this logic has
become anathema. They tend to see the psychological shock of a
rapid, unrestrained air attack as having much more coercive poten-
tial, by giving the adversary no time to adapt, and so inducing help-
less panic.10 Theodore Roosevelt earlier encapsulated this point of
view in his aphorism, ‘Don’t hit at all if it is honourably possible to
avoid hitting; but never hit soft!’
At first sight, air power history over the past four decades supports
this preference very clearly. Restrained and graduated bombard-
ments like Rolling Thunder in Vietnam, the sporadic strikes on Iraq
since the Gulf War, the ‘tank plinking’ during Deny Flight, and the
first phase of the Kosovo air operation, did indeed have very disap-
pointing results, whereas Linebacker II, Instant Thunder, Deliberate
Force and the later Kosovo bombing seemed to produce a much
more decisive outcome. Small wonder that airmen tend to advocate
in future taking the gloves off from the outset, and striking hard
against a target system like electrical power to bring the adversary
rapidly to his knees.
However, several factors suggest that this image of rapid aerial
triumph will probably remain a dream, and not necessarily even a
beautiful dream. For one thing, intra-war deterrence is likely to
remain a key consideration, as the ability grows for adversaries to
strike back with anything ranging from information warfare to bio-
logical or nuclear weapons, if they feel they have nothing left to
lose. Even more significantly, the proactive use of force by liberal
democracies is a highly contentious affair and is always, in circum-
stances other than life or death struggles like World War II, the
product of intense arguments between ‘hawks’ and ‘doves’, with the
mean position adopted by the polity as a whole shifting only slowly
over time. Democracies simply do not transition overnight from
peace to all-out attack, as Germany did against the USSR and as
Japan did against the USA and others in 1941. They tend to enter
war slowly and reluctantly, with many warnings and limitations,
and only when their initial efforts are frustrated and reverses suf-
fered do they become committed to uncompromising crusades like
that against the Axis powers in World War II.
Ignoring this inherent democratic preference for initial constraint
and gradualism could be particularly damaging and counter-
productive given the trends discussed earlier. With the emphasis
on justice and on constabulary use of force by an asymmetrically

dominant Western alliance with only limited stakes in the outcome,
any use of force which is perceived by Western nations themselves
to be excessive could fracture consensus, and weaken rather than
strengthen resolve and credibility for the future. Examples are the
US cruise missile strikes against Afghanistan and Sudan in August
1998 in response to Osama bin Laden’s terrorism, and the attack on
the Belgrade television station in April 1999, in which the killing of
civilian technicians became a significant cause of Western soul
searching.11 Especially if the motive for the intervention is to save
lives, military action which destroys them can quickly be seen as
utterly self-defeating, as in Somalia. Experience in Bosnia and
Kosovo suggests that graduated initial action, which demonstrates
the adversary’s recalcitrance and which ties in the credibility of the
alliance to success (thereby making the conflict a matter of clear
interest rather than altruism) is much more likely to bolster resolve
for escalation and for the long haul.
A recent article by Paul Strickland contains a very good discussion
of these considerations in the context of Kosovo.12 He argues that
Western air doctrine needs to focus less exclusively on the unrealis-
tic ideal of an all-out initial strike, and more on devising ways of
winning despite inevitable initial constraints. Airmen should beware
of reinforcing media and political expectations of a quick victory,
and should emphasize instead the importance of patience and of a
clear resolve to continue air operations for weeks and months if
need be. It is heartening to see a growing (though grudging) recog-
nition of this reality among airmen and air theorists. Writing of the
lessons of Kosovo General Jumper made a similar acknowledgement
in late 1999 that:
From the air campaign planning point of view, it is always the

neatest and tidiest when you can get a political consensus of the
objective of a certain phase, and then go about achieving that
objective with the freedom to act as you see militarily best. But
that is not the situation we find ourselves in. We can rail against
that, but it does no good. It is the politics of the moment that is
going to dictate what we are able to do … If the limit of that con-
sensus means gradualism, then we are going to have to find a
way to deal with a phased air campaign with gradual escalation
Philip Sabin 101
… We hope to be able to convince politicians that is not the best

way to do it, but in some cases we are going to have to live with
that situation.13
The importance of consensus

As is evident from the above quote, airmen remain reluctant to
accept the logic of gradualism in air strategy, and see it as very
much a second-best alternative compared to their preferred option
of a decisive initial blow. Those impatient with the political con-
straints underlying gradualism tend to seek a way out through
escaping the ‘lowest common denominator’ approach inherent in
international negotiations, and pursuing a more robust strategy led
by the less ‘faint-hearted’ nations. However, here too, there are real
questions as to whether, in the changed strategic environment, the
benefits in terms of doctrinal coherence outweigh the costs in
overall mission effectiveness as well as in wider political damage.
One obvious practical cost concerns basing rights. Unlike in the
Cold War, when European air forces planned to operate from their
peacetime bases, post-Cold War crises tend to require deployment to
forward bases inside or outside the NATO area, in locations where
base loading is a major constraint on the total air power which can
be brought to bear. Naval aviation escapes these constraints, but is
subject to serious limits and cost-effectiveness penalties of its own, so
should ideally be seen as a complement rather than an alternative to
local land bases. Long-range or intercontinental operations, similarly,
although more feasible than hitherto in an age of space systems and
air-to-air refuelling, involve serious penalties in responsiveness and
sortie rate. Moreover, even if local land bases are seen as dispensable,
the issue of overflight rights remains a serious constraint. The well-
known map showing US F111s based in Britain flying around Spain
and through the Straits of Gibraltar to attack Libya in 1986 could
hardly have sent a clearer signal of NATO disunity on the issue.14
This leads on to the second aspect of the question, namely that,
even though allied support for air action sometimes appears almost
more trouble than it is worth in terms of practical military contribu-
tions (because of problems of command, capability and interoper-
ability), such support may powerfully boost the legitimacy of an
operation, with real benefits in terms of its sustainability and coer-
cive effect. Given the importance of perceptions of legitimacy in the
new justice-oriented interventions of the post-Cold War world, the

presence of a coalition, ideally with UN endorsement, can bolster
the resolve of the interveners and undermine the assuredness of
their adversaries, compared to what might otherwise be seen as a
self-interested unilateral assault by one or two ill-disposed states in
the face of opposition from others in the international community.
It is very significant that the largely unilateral air operations of
the US in Vietnam, the USSR in Afghanistan, and Israel against the
Palestinians, despite the benefits of needing little or no alliance
coordination, and of being much less restrained than recent NATO
air operations, have been mostly unsuccessful in their coercive
effect. In Iraq since 1991, aerial coercive efforts like Desert Fox in
December 1998 have become a lonely Anglo-American crusade,
with support from other states for the air operations and the sanc-
tions regime now having virtually collapsed, and with Saddam still
defiantly in power despite his pursuit of weapons of mass destruc-
tion. It has become politically impossible to attack ‘sensitive’ targets
or to sustain air attacks for more than a few days at most, and even
the one-off strikes in February 2001 to disrupt Iraqi air defence
improvements threatening the patrolling US and British jets served
mainly to increase international reservations about the continued
legitimacy of the air patrols themselves.15
Conversely, Operation Allied Force in Kosovo in 1999 eventually
succeeded in its coercive objective, despite severe constraints on air
action and on a ground offensive due to disagreements within the
Alliance. Critical to this success was the basic NATO consensus that
restrained air attacks were justified as a means of coercing Serbia
into compliance – a consensus that actually strengthened rather
than eroded as the weeks went by. There has been much subsequent
debate about exactly why Milosevic eventually decided to concede,
but a key role seems to have been played by Moscow’s withdrawal of
support from Serbia on 3 June, indicating the importance of not
utterly alienating even those nations outside the Alliance itself.16
Milosevic’s recent election defeat, and subsequent arrest, at last
breaks the oft-remarked pattern established by Kim Il Sung, Colonel
Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein, whereby bombed dictators tend to
become enduring martyrs, outlasting the democratic leaders who
confronted them. This suggests strongly that the political legitimacy
enjoyed by Operation Allied Force, as reflected in the relative inter-
Philip Sabin 103
national consensus behind the campaign, was critical to its eventual

success, especially given the very dubious formal legal basis for the
intervention.
Casualty sensitivity and the limits of joint warfare

Past experience suggests that democracies can be anything but squea-
mish about taking casualties in a good cause like fighting Hitler, as
long as the sacrifices they make are felt to be justified in terms of clear
progress towards a worthwhile goal. However, the combination of
asymmetric military advantage, a shift towards altruism rather than
hard national interests as a basis for interventions, and the anecdotal
magnification by the media of statistically insignificant mishaps, has
made Western nations much more sensitive to friendly casualties
during recent military operations. There has been an interesting schol-
arly debate as to whether this casualty sensitivity is strongest among
the general public, politicians, the media, or even military leaders
themselves, concerned to emphasize force protection above all else
because the amorphous altruistic motives underlying intervention are
not seen as vital enough to ask any of their subordinates to sacrifice
their lives.17 Whatever its roots, the increased sensitivity has very
significant implications for air strategy and for the combined opera-
tion of air and surface forces to achieve overall strategic objectives.
Air theorists of the inter-war years had two principal ideals – to
find a cheaper and quicker way of achieving military victory than
through the bloody attritional confrontation of armed masses that
had characterized World War I, and to secure the independence of
the fledgling air forces from the more established land and naval
arms. From these two aims emerged the doctrine of ‘strategic’ air
bombardment of an enemy heartland as a short-cut to victory
which did not depend on close coordination with surface forces.18
Unfortunately, experience in World War II, Korea and Vietnam
proved that air warfare alone did not deliver quick victory, and
could be proportionately even bloodier for those involved than the
trench fighting of 1914–18.19 Moreover, at least as effective as inde-
pendent air bombardment was the synergistic combination of air
and surface forces in joint campaigns, involving for example ground
force manoeuvres which forced enemy ground forces to react,
thereby exposing themselves to air attack. Although some air theo-
rists, such as John Warden, have continued to champion air power
as an essentially independent route to victory, Western armed forces

have increasingly embraced ‘jointery’, with the air and surface
systems of all three services being integrated more and more into
joint campaign planning.
However, the technological and strategic developments which I
discussed earlier have now given the leading Western air forces such
asymmetric dominance over regional adversaries that they can
conduct repeated sorties, like those over Iraq and former Yugoslavia
over the past several years, with only a tiny risk of sustaining losses.
General Clark summed up this state of affairs during the Kosovo
campaign with the incredibly hubristic but undeniably evocative
statement that, for Serbia, fighting NATO air power ‘must be like
fighting God’!20 The combination of this unprecedented advantage
with the increased sensitivity to friendly casualties has understand-
ably led Western nations to shift their emphasis over the past
decade towards air operations in which surface forces play a much
more passive role than in the truly joint campaigns of the past. In
the Gulf War, the Coalition undertook 38 days of preparatory air
and artillery bombardment before the climactic four-day air-land
campaign. During Deliberate Force in 1995, Western ground troops
in Bosnia were withdrawn into protected defensive positions while
air power and artillery coerced the Serbs into compliance. In Kosovo
in 1999, air power alone bore the brunt of the 78-day offensive, and
not even the much-touted US Apache helicopters were risked over
the border until the Serbs had come to terms. In the various puni-
tive air and cruise missile strikes which the US has launched in the
Middle East since 1991, there has not even been a passive threat of a
follow-up ground invasion.
By minimizing friendly casualties to such an unprecedented
degree compared to the bloody campaigns earlier in the twentieth
century, this heavy Western reliance on air power has had a double-
edged effect. On the one hand, it has encouraged the US and other
Western states to initiate and if necessary to sustain the use of force,
despite having little directly at stake. (It is noteworthy that in the
earlier US interventions in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia, the
Soviet/Russian interventions in Afghanistan and initially in
Chechnya, and the Israeli intervention in Lebanon, it was the accu-
mulation of ground force casualties, combined with feelings of
pointlessness about the ongoing campaigns, which eventually trig-
Philip Sabin 105
gered withdrawal.) On the other hand, high-technology Western air

power has become a victim of its own success in minimizing casual-
ties, in that even a single aerial loss (like that of an F16 in Bosnia or
an F117 in Kosovo) is now seen as a victory for the enemy and a
grave setback, despite its statistical insignificance, because of the
anecdotal impact of the media spotlight, and because public expec-
tation of aerial invulnerability has become so exaggerated.
A further cost of relying on air offensives alone has been to forfeit
the synergistic benefits achievable through a more truly joint cam-
paign. In the Gulf War, Iraqi attrition rates increased markedly once
the land attack began, and it also became possible to capitalize on
the tremendous demoralization which the bombardment had pro-
duced.21 In Bosnia and Kosovo, these synergistic benefits were
obtained only at second-hand, through the coincidence of the air
attacks with ground offensives launched by the Croats and the KLA.
Despite this linkage, the damage done by NATO air power to Serb
fielded forces in Kosovo was disappointing, and it was not possible
to frustrate Serb ethnic cleansing directly through air attack.22
In view of these problems, there is an obvious temptation in
future Western air operations to focus more on coercing adversaries
by attacking ‘strategic’ targets, which are harder for the enemy to
hide or protect. However, such a return to the roots of independent
air power theory may be politically problematic if this ‘indirect
approach’ to the problem at hand is seen as unduly escalatory. The
result may be to shatter consensus and increase perceptions of ille-
gitimacy, thereby gravely undermining the coercive effect of the
attacks concerned. The difficulties which the USA and Britain have
had in coercing Iraq through sporadic air action since the Gulf War
illustrate very well the dilemmas involved. Many observers over the
past decade have pointed out the danger that Western air power
dominance offers ‘gratification without commitment’, and may
prompt an irresponsible resort to ‘virtual war’.23 A key challenge for
Western airmen in the twenty-first century is to walk the fine line
between acquiescing in the ‘politically correct’ fallacy that ‘air
power alone can never be decisive’, and championing the equally
flawed vision of zealots like Warden that modern air power offers a
strategically unanswerable coercive tool.
So, how is Western casualty sensitivity likely to develop in the
wake of the incredible performance in Kosovo, with no allied airmen
at all killed or taken prisoner in 38 000 sorties? The ‘revolution of

rising expectations’ (which has afflicted Western militaries ever since
the UN Coalition in 1991 suffered ‘just’ 240 combat deaths) can
hardly go any further, and there are actually some signs of a salutary
reversal.24 During the Kosovo campaign, the insistence that NATO
aircraft stay above 15 000 feet to avoid Serbian air defences was
widely perceived as detrimental to the performance of the mission,
and there were even some unfortunate and wounding accusations of
cowardice due to the humanitarian goals of the operation, as if the
NATO personnel were like firemen who left victims to be burned
alive rather than risking their own lives to save them.25 The fairly
stoic reaction to tragic terrorist incidents like the attacks on Khobar
Towers and the USS Cole, which have killed many more personnel
than in recent combat operations themselves, shows that Western
publics are not paranoid about casualties per se, and that how poten-
tial or actual losses are portrayed is a very important variable.
If Western political and military leaders foster the ‘zero defect’
culture by being hounded into witch hunts about every single
combat loss and friendly fire incident, this will indeed be further
amplified by the media and lead to a future where cruise missiles
and UAVs are seen as the only safe alternative for air operations in
the face of an increasingly capable SAM threat.26 Conversely, if
Western leaders deliberately and boldly challenge the blame culture,
and argue that some losses are inevitable in war, just as for brave
rescue workers in peacetime, then this could build on the reaction
against the 15 000-foot controversy in Kosovo and foster a more
sensible and balanced approach. Truly joint offensive operations
will remain problematic in terms of risk, and air strategies must con-
tinue to be developed which do not depend on the accompanying
action of surface forces. However, as anecdotal dramatization
reaches the point of statistical absurdity in the military field as it has
on other issues such as BSE, rail safety and child protection, robust
leadership is required lest society descend into a media-induced
‘funk’ which will paralyse our response to risk of any kind.
Conclusion
The strategic environment in which Western air power must now

operate is very different from that in the formative years of air
power in the twentieth century. Conflicts are likely to be highly
Philip Sabin 107
asymmetric, and rooted more in local tribal hatreds than in clashing

global ideologies. Western interventions in such conflicts will be
driven more by a constabulary pursuit of justice and peace than by a
military pursuit of traditional national interests. The conflicts will
be played out in an increasingly media-dominated world in which
anecdotal imagery can outweigh solid statistical achievement.
In this changed environment, air commanders must become com-
fortable with a blurring of political and military responsibilities.
Constraint should be accepted as almost inevitable, despite doctrinal
preferences for an all or nothing approach, and airmen must counsel
patience rather than encouraging expectations of a ‘quick fix’.
International consensus is key, not only because of the practicalities
of deployed operations, but also because the legitimacy it provides is a
critical contribution to achieving mission success. Sensitivity to casu-
alties will continue to make dominant Western air power the main
and often the only active instrument for responding to security chal-
lenges, but firm leadership is required to prevent this sensitivity reach-
ing statistically absurd levels and to resist the temptation to apply air
power in inappropriate circumstances, just because it is easy so to do.
What is really needed in the new strategic environment is a re-
focusing of Western air strategy, away from exclusive concentration
on the classic principles of surprising, outmanoeuvring and over-
whelming an enemy during a traditional war fighting campaign,
and towards an updated approach which takes much more into
account the importance of blurred political-military responsibilities,
constraints, consensus, casualty sensitivity, and the whole underly-
ing context of asymmetric warfare, constabulary ethics, media anec-
dotalism and so on. It is sometimes suggested that strategy has no
place in PSO interventions because there is no enemy against whom
to practise it: the very opposite is the case. Strategic thinking is actu-
ally even more necessary in PSO, if interveners are to restrain one
faction while avoiding simply boosting another and so prolonging
the suffering.
It is important to note that the many constraints that I have dis-
cussed do not mean that Western air forces start out at an irre-
deemable strategic disadvantage compared to more ruthless and
unrestrained regional antagonists. Such antagonists must think for
themselves how to meld their various asymmetric responses to the
overwhelming challenge of Western air power into a coherent
overall strategy, and this is a far from easy thing to do.
To take just one example, it is very hard for ‘underdogs’ faced by

superior air power to balance deterrence and provocation, and to exert
real counter-coercive leverage while at the same time appealing for
sympathy by portraying themselves as unjustly oppressed. The bizarre
saga of hostage taking in the Gulf crisis, Bosnia and Kosovo, with
hostages being taken and then released unharmed prior to an escala-
tion of bombing by the relieved Western powers, illustrates this under-
dog dilemma perfectly. So does the Serbian expulsion of Kosovar
Albanians, which made clear the limits of Western air power in pro-
tecting the population concerned, but also showed in the most
graphic terms the ruthlessness of the opposing regime, hence strength-
ening overall NATO resolve. Even when NATO bombs hit a refugee
convoy by mistake, this did not undermine support for the campaign,
since at least the NATO attack was accidental, whereas Serbian oppres-
sion was deliberate. Media amplification is a double-edged sword, and
indulging in frightful behaviour can erode rather than strengthen the
constraints on intervention by powerful adversaries – a lesson the
Chechens have just been taught to their enormous cost.
Putting ourselves in the minds of local adversaries and allies of
convenience is not only an indispensable requirement for the devel-
opment of a refocused air strategy for the new era; it is also a valu-
able reassurance that these regional players too face very difficult
strategic choices in the new environment. If we persist in seeing the
new conflicts as frustrating arenas in which we must fight with both
hands tied behind our back against unconstrained opponents, there
will always be a pernicious tendency to throw off the shackles and
return to the comforting simplicities of the old war fighting para-
digm. If, on the other hand, we embrace the new environment and
adapt our air strategies accordingly, recent experience in Bosnia and
Kosovo suggests that we stand a very good chance of achieving our
objectives, perhaps even with less of the trauma and uncertainty
which these initial ‘trial and error’ campaigns inevitably involved.
Notes
1. J. Warden, ‘Employing Air Power in the Twenty-first Century’, in R.
Shultz and R. Pfaltzgraff (eds), The Future of Air Power in the Aftermath of
the Gulf War (Maxwell, Alabama: Air University Press, 1992), pp. 81–2.
2. See L. Freedman and E. Karsh, The Gulf Conflict, 1990–1991 (London:
Faber and Faber, 1993), pp. 280–2.
Philip Sabin 109
3. For a more detailed analysis, see my contributions in A. Lambert and

A. Williamson (eds), The Dynamics of Air Power (Bracknell: RAF
Staff College, 1996), chs 2 and 11.
4. F. Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free
Press, 1992).
5. S. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
(London: Simon and Schuster, 1997).
6. See J. Buckley, Air Power in the Age of Total War (London: UCL Press, 1999).
7. See M. Codfelter, The Limits of Air Power: the American Bombing of North
Vietnam (New York: Free Press, 1989), chs 2–4.
8. ‘Russians Force British Paras back in Pristina Stand-off’, Sunday Times,
13 June 1999.
9. See Bucknam, op. cit., pp. 227–36.
10. See S. Peach (ed.) Perspectives on Air Power: Air Power in its Wider Context
(London: HMSO, 1998), chs 10–11.
11. See the House of Commons Defence Committee Report on the Lessons
of Kosovo, HC 347-I (London: HMSO), October 2000, para. 122.
12. P. Strickland, ‘USAF Aerospace-Power Doctrine: Decisive or Coercive?’,
Aerospace Power Journal, vol. 14, no. 3 (Fall 2000), pp. 13–25.
13. Quoted in Strickland, op. cit., p. 24.
14. See Peach, op. cit., p. 105.
15. See the various reports in The Times, 19 February 2001, pp. 4–6.
16. See D. Byman and M. Waxman, ‘Kosovo and the Great Air Power
Debate’, and B. Posen, ‘The War for Kosovo: Serbia’s Political-Military
Strategy’, both in International Security, vol. 24, no. 4 (Spring 2000),
pp. 5–38 and 39–84; and the House of Commons Defence Committee
report, op. cit., paras 272–81.
17. See Bucknam, op. cit., and C. Hyde, ‘Casualty Aversion: Implications for
Policy Makers and Senior Military Officers’, Aerospace Power Journal, vol.
14, no. 2 (Summer 2000), pp. 17–27.
18. See P. Meilinger (ed.), The Paths of Heaven: the Evolution of Airpower
Theory (Maxwell, Alabama: Air University Press, 1997).
19. On how British and US aircrew in World War II coped with the tremen-
dous cumulative attrition rates which they faced, see M. Wells, Courage
and Air Warfare (London: Frank Cass, 1995).
20. ‘NATO: we intend to surround Serbs’, The Times, 12 May 1999.
21. See A. Lambert, ‘Synergy in Operations’, in Lambert and Williamson,
op. cit., pp. 40–66.
22. See the House of Commons Defence Committee report, op. cit., paras
112–18.
23. See E. Cohen, ‘The Mystique of US Air Power’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 73,
no. 1, (January/February 1994), pp. 109–24; M. Ignatieff, Virtual War:
Kosovo and Beyond (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2000); D. Donald,
‘The West Has Consistently Seen Air Power as a Kind of Geopolitical
One-night Stand, Offering Gratification without Commitment’, The
24. Freedman and Karsh, op. cit., pp. 407–9.
25. ‘Clinton Backs Low-flying Air Campaign’, The Times, 6 May 1999.
26. On the increasing threat to Western aerial invulnerability from surface-
based defences, see Tony Mason, ‘Rethinking the Conceptual
Framework’, in Peter Gray (ed.), Air Power 21: Challenges for the New
Century (London: HMSO, 2000), pp. 209–36; and ‘Serbs Help to Boost
Baghdad’s Firepower’, The Times, 17 February 2001.
6
Britain and the Revolution in
Military Affairs
Lawrence Freedman
The ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’1 (RMA) refers to the strategic

consequences of the marriage of systems that collect, process and
communicate information with those that apply military force. The
modernity of the marriage is reflected in the quality of the informa-
tion that can be collected, and its virtually instantaneous transmis-
sion, in combination with the speed and precision with which force
can then be applied. The offspring of this marriage is the so-called
‘system of systems’.
Advocates of this revolution2 believe that if this marriage can be
consummated then it will reinforce established tendencies towards
the creation of an American military capability far superior to that
of any other country or even group of countries. While enemy com-
manders are still attempting to mobilize their resources and develop
their plans, they will be rudely interrupted by decisive and lethal
blows inflicted by American forces for whom time and space are no
longer serious constraints. This opens up the possibility of fighting
wars with scant risk to American troops, let alone the home popula-
tion and territory. It is the culmination of a strategist’s dream.3
There are a number of reasons not to take the full-blown RMA
concept too seriously because it involves organizational changes and
shifts in doctrine that may be just too revolutionary for the
moment.4 It would also require resources to be dedicated to the
development of the requisite systems, which could mean that
investment in more traditional units may be neglected and these
forces might thus be ill-prepared for those conflicts occurring while
this dream was still in the process of being realized. Additionally,
111
there are undoubtedly going to be numerous problems with full

systems integration because of the demands on software.
Without buying in to the totality of the RMA nostrum, and
accepting that the results may fall short of the claims made on its
behalf, we can recognize that new technologies, particularly in
information access and transmission, are having notable effects in
almost every area of our lives, including the military sphere. There
can be little question that advances in defence technologies will
have a potentially profound impact on the conduct of future mili-
tary operations. For example, there is no reason now to doubt that
modern weapons have a high probability of hitting targets when
sent in the right direction at the right time or that there have been
significant developments in precision-guided munitions, stealth
weapons, sensor technology and defence suppression techniques,
although the marginal difference these developments make may not
always be that great.5
To the extent, then, that a revolution is under way, it is rather
particular. Only the United States has the economic resources and
the military infrastructure to begin to follow this path. Allies and
enemies alike risk being left on the fringes of this revolutionary
process. This leads to a large, though obvious conclusion: that the
United States is designing a game that only it can play in a ball-park
all of its own. Unquestionably, the US is in a league by itself in
leading the way in information technology and military innovation.
At this level there may be no serious competition. In other ball-
parks, however, different games are being played.
For a country such as Britain this poses a serious problem.
Britain’s military establishment is high in quality but low in quan-
tity. Its foreign policy requires participation in a range of demand-
ing and generally long-term operations of the peace support variety,
which are manpower-intensive. The Royal Air Force and the Royal
Navy have also been heavily engaged in peacekeeping roles, though
the requirements here have largely come under the heading of ‘pres-
ence’ rather than combat. A capacity for high-intensity operations
has been maintained, and this requirement is reinforced by a
foreign and defence policy that points towards continued close
cooperation with the United States. Britain’s armed forces are closer
to the United States through combined planning and operations, in
force structure and doctrine, than any other military power – but
only in miniature. In size and shape, the UK armed services are just
about comparable to the US Marine Corps.
The issue is, therefore, whether Britain can make a deliberate deci-
sion to follow the Revolution in Military Affairs or whether it must
accept that in certain areas it will inevitably fall behind the United
States, with a consequent loss of inter-operability and scope for
combined operations.
The RMA and the RPA
One of the interesting features of the current debate on the future of

warfare is the sense that two quite separate arguments are being con-
ducted in parallel to one another with only limited points of contact.
The promotion of the RMA sits uneasily with what might be called
the ‘Revolution in Political Affairs’ – the RPA. The RPA can be
described as the consequence of the long-term effects of decoloniza-
tion when combined with the short-term effects of the end of the
Cold War. In terms of its impact on warfare it focuses our attention
on weak states and prolonged low-intensity conflicts in and around
societies with compound economic, social and political fractures.6
For the military planner and the policy-maker alike the coinci-
dence of the RMA and RPA is troubling because the tension between
them affords no reliable model of future war. The range of potential
enemies covers everything from lone fanatics and terrorists to dis-
affected great powers, while the means they might employ crosses
the spectrum from an improvised explosive device placed in a shop-
ping mall to guerrilla-type ambushes, through to traditional con-
cepts of battle and even nuclear exchanges. Terrorists, for instance,
might gain access to weapons of mass destruction, while renegade
states might infiltrate bombs into public places within the enemy
heartland. Put simply, when all is in flux, how does one set budget
priorities, design equipment, organize training and so on?
One possible answer is that you build upon what you know you
do well. This starts to explain the importance in this debate of the
Gulf War of 1990–91. The Gulf War not only popularized the
Revolution in Military Affairs but also provided verisimilitude to all
accounts of the sort of war envisaged under the RMA banner.7 The
RMA can be seen as the explicit codification of the set of steps nec-
essary to exploit the full strategic possibilities revealed by this war.
While the United Nations Coalition triumph in Desert Storm can be

attributed to many factors, of evident importance was the ability to
use information to attack targets with extraordinary precision.
On the eve of the Gulf War, informed opinion was doubtful
about the ability of the American armed forces to pull off such a
stunning victory. The talk was of likely snarl-ups, as the desert
sand would interfere with delicate equipment, and malfunction-
ing indicators would lead Coalition units to inflict as much
damage on each other as on the enemy. Most importantly, it was
almost taken for granted that casualties on any significant scale
would be too much for the American political system to bear and
would oblige President George Bush to accept an inconclusive
settlement.8
All this negativity represented a remarkable underestimation of
the earnestness with which the American military leadership had
addressed both the deficiencies exhibited in the Vietnam War and
the promise offered by new technologies. Until 1991 they had not
had a serious chance to prove themselves. This is one reason why
they took the opportunity offered by Iraq’s seizure of Kuwait.
Neither the generals nor their political masters left anything to
chance in preparing for the campaign. Other factors worked in their
favour. The principal host nation, Saudi Arabia, was a logistician’s
dream come true, with its ports and airfields and on-tap fuel sup-
plies. The Iraqi protagonist, Saddam Hussein, moreover, had only a
limited grasp of strategic reality and allowed himself to be tempted
into a conventional war that played to his American opponent’s
greatest strengths.9
The revolution of 1991 was, therefore, first and foremost a revolu-
tion of expectations. Up to that point, the Americans appeared to
have lost their grip on the art of warfare. This image was compre-
hensively dispelled after Desert Storm. They now appear unbeatable
when fighting on their own terms. In retrospect, Saddam Hussein’s
gamble of taking on the United States in traditional battle seems
reckless, but that was not how it appeared at the time. The result of
Saddam’s failure is that any future gamblers with aggressive intent
in mind will calculate the odds more realistically and avoid combat
of this nature. They may still be prepared to take on their neigh-
bours or some interfering regional power, but they will think long
and hard before taking on the United States.
Asymmetric war
Saddam Hussein’s failure lay not just in his Plan A, of imposing

unacceptable casualties on the Coalition forces, but also his Plan B,
which was to threaten the political cohesion of the Coalition.10 The
reason for this failure lay in execution as much as concept. The
methods available to him were:
1. Make the Coalition’s leaders look unreasonable in their political

demands, by appearing ready to compromise.
2. Impose pressure on local elites by turning the war into an
Arab–Israeli conflict.
3. Raise the stakes by inflicting severe environmental damage.
4. Conduct a campaign of terror against the Coalition’s home
population.
5. Threaten the use of weapons of mass destruction.
Most of these methods were tried, but they failed because Iraq
lacked the political and military capacity to make them work.
Saddam had left himself with little freedom of manoeuvre in negoti-
ating a political settlement and his Arab opponents knew better
than to be distracted by their dispute with Israel. Furthermore,
Saddam was fearful of either American or Israeli retaliation when
considering his main weapons of mass destruction – chemical muni-
tions – and the means of delivery were poor. His nuclear programme
had yet to be completed. He lacked the organization for an effective
terror campaign, though the mere thought that he might resort to
such methods had a dire effect on air travel in the West.11 Most suc-
cessful were Iraq’s attempts to inflict environmental damage, with
the Gulf itself saved from terrible pollution only by an American
operation to close oil pipes that had been left open and cap oil-wells
deliberately set on fire.
Saddam’s Plan B offers a natural menu for a Plan A for any other
country that expects to confront American power. This brings us to
what has been described as ‘asymmetric war’, that is, when two
combatants are so different in their characters, and in their areas of
comparative strategic advantage, that a confrontation between them
comes to turn on one side’s ability to force the other to fight on
their own terms. Vietnam was a classic example of asymmetric war.
When North Vietnamese and Viet-Cong forces were tempted into

open battle with American forces they often suffered badly, as some
of the early encounters in the war during 1965 testified; so long as
they stuck to guerrilla methods and prepared for the long haul, the
Americans were vexed and frustrated.
The strategies that the weak have consistently adopted against the
strong often involve targeting the enemy’s domestic political base as
much as his forward military capabilities. Essentially, such strategies
involve inflicting pain over time without suffering unbearable retal-
iation in return. They often rely on the opponent’s intolerance of
casualties. This intolerance is more likely if it can be assumed that
the stronger force has a weaker stake in the resolution of the
conflict. Thus, it did not take many casualties to encourage
the United States to cut its losses in Somalia in 1994 following the
abortive UN peacekeeping mission.12 These strategies can also play
on the reluctance in many states in the West to inflict suffering on
civilian non-combatants. Both the Iraqis in the Gulf War and the
Bosnian Serbs during the protracted ethnic warfare in the former
Yugoslavia located some of their most important military assets
close to schools, architectural monuments or in the middle of
densely-populated areas. In short, whereas stronger military powers
have a natural preference for decisive battlefield victories, the
weaker are more ready to draw the civilian sphere into the conflict
while avoiding open battle.
Asymmetric strategies of deterrence were also in evidence during
the Cold War period where parallels can be drawn. For example,
when NATO confronted what it perceived as an overwhelming
Warsaw Pact superiority in conventional forces, it refused to rule
out the first use of nuclear weapons in the belief that such implied
threats enhanced deterrence.13 Furthermore, in the Eastern bloc, a
growing sense of inferiority in most advanced conventional
weapons capabilities had begun to cause anxiety in Moscow long
before the collapse of European communism and has now stimu-
lated a greater readiness in Russia to rely on nuclear threats to
bolster its security.
The foregoing assessment is not intended to argue that it is waste-
ful to pursue the Revolution in Military Affairs because potential
enemies will prefer to fight a different sort of war. This is the same
fallacy that often dogged discussions about nuclear strategy during
the Cold War. Just because a capability is not used does not render it
irrelevant. The deterrent function remains important. The develop-
ment of the RMA may extend the range of wars that are now
unlikely to take place, and for that we may well be grateful. The
issue is whether the over-energetic pursuit of the RMA could weaken
the capacity to cope with the sort of wars with which Western states
may still have to contend. To develop this argument it is necessary
to examine more closely the ideas associated with the RMA.
The nature of the RMA
At the heart of most versions of the RMA is to be found the view

that information technology, in conjunction with precision-guided
munitions, is now the key to success in war. The objective is to
achieve information dominance. This means knowing much more
than the opponent and knowing it in a more timely and exploitable
fashion.14 Achieving information dominance involves a series of
capabilities. It is first necessary to be able to gather relevant informa-
tion on all military, paramilitary and non-military units and equip-
ment from a large geographical area. Then this must be processed so
that the full military situation, including the terrain and climate,
can be described almost immediately to relevant commanders. In
the most optimistic versions of the RMA, this description will iden-
tify the enemy’s most critical military vulnerabilities. Alternatively,
and taking a little longer, human judgement may also be necessary.
Either way, the commanders will be able to employ further informa-
tion systems to ensure that the most appropriate forces are used to
target these vulnerabilities. These forces will react with great speed
and accuracy, carrying their destructive power over extended ranges.
The success of these actions will then be determined by sensory
systems capable of almost immediate battle assessment.
A major advantage of such a system is that high-quality informa-
tion on the battlespace should make it easier for critical forces to
remain based outside the space, given their ability to strike with pre-
cision over great distances. This carries with it an important implica-
tion: it may no longer be so necessary for ground forces to close with
the enemy and seize territory. If ground forces still have a part to
play in all of this it may be as another type of sensor, almost revert-
ing to the traditional scouting role. Their capacity to engage could be
limited to self-defence, allowing them to remain agile and manoeuv-

rable. Other than that, they need not move with their own organic
firepower, but could call in what was needed from outside. The high
tempo of operations would also allow commanders to move these
units in and out of the battlespace to gain relief and replenish stocks,
again contradicting conventional notions of seizing and holding
ground. The hope is that this general reliance on non-organic
firepower can reduce dependence upon large, cumbersome, self-con-
tained divisions. It should also reduce casualties. While the implica-
tions for land forces are thus potentially severe, those for maritime
and air forces are less dramatic as they have been tending towards a
greater reliance on stand-off weapons for some time.
The potential of long-range precision weapons has long been rec-
ognized. The problem has always been one of precision intelligence so
that these weapons, which are often individually quite expensive,
are not wasted on inappropriate targets or, worse, hit civilian
centres. The Gulf War demonstrated that considerable progress had
been made in these areas, but important problems remained as the
overrated performance of the Patriot missiles and the attack on the
Amiriya command bunker/air raid shelter which killed over 300
civilians clearly indicated.15 Some of these problems might be over-
come with improved technology, but a number will inevitably
remain part of the fog and friction of war.
High-quality information does not always make possible high-
quality interpretation. There were notorious squabbles over bomb
damage assessment in the Gulf War. These were aggravated in part by
bureaucratic factors but also by important questions of judgement
over such matters as to what constituted sufficient degradation of
enemy forces.16 Fixed points of obvious military relevance could be
readily identified, but mobile military units remained problematic (as
demonstrated by the Great Scud Hunt).17 ‘Nodal points’ of apparent
significance to the enemy’s economic, social and political system,
which might be justified as ‘strategic’ targets, were not always accu-
rately identified and, more importantly, were not always as vital to the
enemy as had been assumed. What this illustrates is that, while more
intrusive sensors will always be able to improve the data received,
some features of potential targets will only ever be appreciated by use
of the ‘Mark One Eyeball’ and, in many cases, by human intelligence.
High-quality information, even when correctly interpreted, does
not always lead to high-quality decisions. There are obvious prob-
lems with the sheer quantity of material coming into a headquarters

at any time during the course of a campaign. It is possible to depend
on systems to process and filter the incoming material, but this
again reduces the human input.18 Moreover, any commander or
political leader must always balance a whole series of considerations
when deciding upon a course of action. The high-speed analytical
systems at their disposal may drive them towards certain kinds of
decision, but they will always need to take account of aspects which
may not be readily quantifiable, such as the morale of the armed
forces, the demands of allies, the mood of the United Nations, the
state of domestic opinion, the economic implications of resources
expended at a particular rate, and so on.
When two substantial sets of armed forces are confronting each
other in a conventional battle in a vast, under-populated area such
as a desert, then the range of capabilities envisaged under the RMA
might be invaluable. But the more it becomes necessary to operate
in confined spaces in and around populated areas and against the
backdrop of often highly intricate political contexts, the less useful
these capabilities will become.
However, even in the ‘ideal type’ conventional battle, the image
of a future land war may be exaggerated. In one important aspect it
is reminiscent of some of the early ideas in the 1950s prompted by
the development of tactical nuclear weapons.19 For a while, it was
assumed that tactical nuclear forces would provide such concen-
trated firepower on the battlefield that the full needs of a unit could
be accommodated with a few systems and conventional weapons
would only be needed for self-defence. This would allow for rela-
tively small and agile units, able to exist separately from a supply
chain, manoeuvring around each other on the battlefield almost as
if they were ships at sea. This was the basis of Pentomic divisions
(five platoons per company, five companies per battle group and so
on) upon which the US Army lavished much care and attention
during that decade. Eventually, it was recognized that the nuclear
age did not remove the need for large-scale troop formations and
that tactical nuclear weapons could not be used as if they were just
more powerful conventional systems. Ground forces would still be
dependent upon their supply lines and this would mean that all ele-
ments of their logistical network, including cities, might be targeted.
The strategic environment of the 1990s is very different from the
Cold War pax atomica, but the basic issue remains the same. There is
the same hope that by reducing the size of the active ground units it
might prove possible to reduce dependence upon logistics.
Dependence upon non-organic firepower will always appear as
running unnecessary risks. The amelioration of such risks requires
reliable communications systems, a responsive command structure
and available weapons. Moreover, to the extent that contemporary
conflicts are about the ownership of land, then ‘presence’ remains a
high priority for armed forces. The insertion of large numbers of
troops capable of holding their ground into critical positions
remains a vital military task. This is never a prospect that appeals to
politicians because they dislike putting troops into exposed settings
which they may have to occupy for a long time. It is also a task
upon which new technologies may have little impact. Sheer
numbers and raw military power can be valuable precisely because
they are conspicuous.
Furthermore, the need to think about substantial forces based in a
particular area over an extended period requires an acute apprecia-
tion of logistics. This is still the limiting factor for the more ambi-
tious schemes. Technology has taken us a long way. We can collect,
process and transmit vital information in nanoseconds, respond
almost instantaneously and a missile will be on its way in seconds.
We have yet, however, to crack the problem of instantaneous logis-
tics. It is true that with ever-extending ranges and lift capabilities, air
power is less reliant on overseas bases than ever before and that
ships can stay longer at sea without visiting port. But getting troops
and their equipment to the right place still takes time.
Information inflation
The role of information technology naturally attracts great attention

currently because that is where system development is at its most
dynamic. At the moment discussion wanders between consideration
of ‘information war’ as a feature of conventional battle and as a
means of conducting unconventional warfare by targeting those
aspects of the economic and social system which are dependent on
information technology. In other words, at one level the idea of
information warfare is regarded as a way to enhance and refine
high-intensity war, while at another level it is seen as a means of
avoiding high-intensity war. In the first instance, there is a continu-
ing search for greater efficiency in the intelligence function and in

communications. Here, the importance of ‘electronic warfare’ has
been recognized for some time in terms of either ensuring – or pre-
venting – weapons reaching their targets.
With regard to the wider concept of ‘information warfare’ this
seems to be more relevant to what was described earlier as the
Revolution in Political Affairs. It provides another method by which
the weak can challenge the strong. Given that the advanced
Western states are more reliant upon information systems for the
general functioning of their economies and their societies, they
would also seem to be most vulnerable to direct attacks on these
systems. However, the nature of information means that it is not
vulnerable to attack in the same way that fuel, food and material
supplies might be vulnerable. These are finite resources that tend to
be stored in known locations and can only be moved to where they
are most needed by specific forms of transportation. There is also
normally a deficit in these commodities so that if some are lost then
the systems that depend upon them will be impaired. In war, an
otherwise well-equipped army will become desperate and immobile:
denial makes a real difference. Information is quite different: it is
not a finite resource. More is generated than can ever be used and it
can be distributed and collected by a great variety of means. When
lost, it can often be replaced. Because it is readily accessible, mili-
tary-relevant information can be obtained through the civilian
sphere and can be shared by friend and foe. Thus, when we move to
the sort of conflicts generated by the Revolution in Political Affairs,
it is by no means clear that ‘information dominance’ is a realistic
possibility. There is no doubt that the availability of a great variety
of sensors, navigational aids, methods of communication and pow-
erful computers is opening new possibilities for the conduct of all
types of conflict, but that is not the same as the anticipation of an
age of ‘information war’. The ends and means of conflict will still be
more physical and tangible.
‘Information superiority’ – if not quite dominance – has more
meaning when it comes to conventional war. Even so, this comes
into the category of ‘force multipliers’: that is a means of obtaining
greater effect from available firepower than would otherwise be pos-
sible. However, no multiplication can take place without a basic
force with which to start. The Revolution in Military Affairs may
combine systems that collect, process and communicate informa-

tion with those that apply military force, but the most important of
these is the military force. We can speculate that this is not recog-
nized so much in the United States simply because firepower, at
least these days, is not in short supply. The novelty lies on the infor-
mation side; but for most countries, for most of the time, it is
firepower and manpower that are the vital resource.
This leads to three observations:
1. The major comparative military advantage of the United States

and the West in general remains high-quality firepower. War
involves physical violence; it cannot be reduced to a contest
between information systems.
2. To get the full benefit of this comparative advantage requires
logistical support as much as information support.
3. In many conflicts troops on the ground will be as important, and
sometimes far more important, than high-technology firepower
or ‘information dominance’.
The implications for Britain
It may make perfect sense for the United States to develop the logic
of the RMA as far as it can be taken, but that does not mean that it
will make equal sense for Britain, let alone other Europeans, to
follow. Again, the considerations might be quite similar to those
associated with nuclear weapons. The pursuit of the RMA might be
essentially for deterrent purposes, to persuade others that there is
little point in confronting the United States in an ‘ideal type’ con-
ventional battle, just as the nuclear threat was once used to con-
vince potential adversaries that it would be foolish to engage the
United States in total war. As with the nuclear threat, the question
then becomes whether allies are able to draw upon this deterrent
effect when they find themselves facing an enemy with great con-
ventional strength. With extended nuclear deterrence the problem
was always the suicidal implications of such a policy. With extended
conventional deterrence this problem need not be so severe, because
the continental United States is not at risk in a conventional war.
Nevertheless, it is widely assumed that the United States is reluctant
to tolerate even modest amounts of battlefield casualties. This intol-
erance may have been exaggerated, especially in connection with

conflicts where the United States clearly has vital interests involved,
but it may limit Washington’s readiness to accept major liabilities in
this area. Furthermore, if the opponent adopts an asymmetric strat-
egy, then Americans might feel themselves vulnerable to weapons of
mass destruction or terrorism, or just a long-drawn out campaign,
thereby reducing their incentives to get involved in the first place.
Consequently, unilateral United States adoption of the logic of the
RMA may provide a limited deterrent against continued threats to
Western Europe and thus contribute little to ‘combined defence’
through extended deterrence.
For Britain, and the rest of Europe, this raises the question of
whether they will need extended conventional deterrence from the
United States. For the moment, and for some time to come, they
will be able to cope directly with ‘ideal type’ conventional military
threats in Europe. It is unlikely that any other powers that the
Europeans are likely to confront outside the NATO area will want to
risk battle on ‘ideal type’ conventional terms, or at least will expect
to confine themselves to a conventional battlefield. If they do, the
Europeans will face problems of power projection which might well
appear to be insuperable without American support. Even if a com-
bined joint European task force could be set up without any direct
American contributions to combat forces, a logistical input would
probably be vital. This assumes that the Europeans are unlikely to
get involved in, for example, the Asia-Pacific region without the
United States under any circumstances. It also suggests that in all
but the most limited forms of power projection, United States policy
objectives will dictate when and where combined operations involv-
ing the Europeans will occur.
There is a risk that in future combined operations the Europeans
will be expected to provide the infantry while the United States pro-
vides logistics, intelligence and air power. There is a further danger
that if the United States moves too far ahead of its allies, then inter-
operability may become a problem or, more seriously, that it will be
difficult to act in concert in combined operations if the United
States develops forces based on quite different operational expecta-
tions from those of its allies. Such a development would be unfortu-
nate and clearly at odds with contemporary Western European
expectations of increasing inter-operability to enhance future com-
bined military operations.
We can assume that British foreign policy will still be tied to the
United States and, like the Americans, will follow a line of limited
liability but without lapsing into isolationism. If the Americans
intervene in a particular conflict, it will be difficult for Britain to
remain a spectator (although it may still opt for minimal participa-
tion). If the Americans decline to get involved, this is more of an
option for Britain. Britain also follows the United States in the reten-
tion of a nuclear option which could, in principle, deter opponents
from moving to weapons of mass destruction in the course of an
‘asymmetric war’. As in the past, Britain’s force structure will be
designed to find the minimum level sufficient to ensure access to
high-level American decision-making.
There is clear evidence that British policy-makers have been
heavily influenced by the RMA concept, although they rarely take it
as far as the American proponents. The reasoning tends to be that
information technology will inexorably have an increasing
influence on all aspects of armed conflict, and that Britain dare not
fall too far behind the United States in this regard. Thus the 1998
Strategic Defence Review’s essay on ‘The Impact of Technology’
supported the view that ‘information technologies will lead to
significant improvements in military capability’.20 It looked forward
to a single battlespace in which distinctions between sea, air and
land decline in importance, and sensors, weapons, platforms and
logistics are all somehow integrated together. Since the review, and
in the light of such operations as Kosovo and Sierra Leone, senior
military officers have been anxious to stress that it would be inap-
propriate for British forces to be configured purely for low-intensity,
peace support operations, and that Britain must be prepared for
high-tech, high-intensity warfare.21 All this adds to the general pres-
sure to stay in touch with American developments. One analyst has
even suggested that ‘ensuring that there is no technology gap
between U.S. and British forces has become a de facto goal of UK
defense policy’.22 This even extends to working with the Americans
on aspects such as cyber-terrorism and net warfare.23
The 1999 Kosovo war indicated just how far there was to go. While
the Defence Committee in its substantial report, generally took the
view that the conflict did not ‘have a great deal to teach us about the
performance of weapons and their platforms in the most taxing cir-
cumstances or about joint and combined operations involving air,
land and sea forces’,24 it drew attention to the distance that has to be
travelled before the full military benefits of the information age are
enjoyed by British forces. Problems were caused by reliance upon an
obsolete communications system, as a result of failure of the
Bowman integrated voice and data communication programme,
insecure radios that could be intercepted by Yugoslav scanners, and
the Americans pressing on with the employment of more secure
radios that were unavailable to their allies. Britain has a programme
for the ‘Joint Digitization of the Battlespace’, concerned with how
best to handle vast amounts of battlefield information. The
Committee was told that there were good prospects that the pro-
gramme would succeed but those for its introduction were less clear:
We have already got large parts of the Forces where digital infor-
mation is exchanged on high-data rate links both amongst our
own Forces and with other forces of other nations. The maritime
area is one and the air is another, but the land side has always
been much more difficult … It is a pretty demanding task.25
Even in areas where the problems lie with organization and con-
cepts as much as technology, such as handling the media, there
were clear deficiencies. Two other conclusions might be drawn.
First, although there were a number of examples of attacks on Web
sites and other Internet campaigns, and these achieved considerable
publicity, they were generally marginal in their impact and at most
were morale boosters.26 The second is that whatever the limits on
British forces other European countries faced even more difficulties.
In practice, and with the defence budget still modest, substantial
resources cannot be devoted to the more imaginative versions of the
RMA. Immediate operational requirements will keep the country
focused on the infantry and Special Forces as well as seeing through
established programmes, such as the Eurofighter, with future
demands dominated by power projection, including airlift and the
possibility of a new generation of carriers, and whether the forces
have the right mix of firepower. Do armoured divisions still play a
role? Will there be any point in purchasing a new generation of
long-range strike aircraft? The pressing issues for British forces
involve potential overstretch on manpower and shortages of
firepower. Information systems should be less problematic. This is in
part because Britain is quite strong in information technology and

software development and also because the prices of many of the
relevant systems are coming down and can be bought commercially
off the shelf.
Conclusion
The most difficult missions may still involve transferring ground

forces to politically complex settings and then protecting and sus-
taining them. These missions involve considerations well beyond
military doctrines and capabilities. The wrong sort of planning can
leave policy-makers unprepared for the conflicts they might face.
The concern, therefore, with the RMA need not be that the United
States might pursue many of the programmes associated with the
concept, but that the concept could encourage an image of future
war that bears little relationship to the wars that may actually be
fought. For countries with limited resources such as Britain, the
challenge of the RMA is not to gear established forces and new tech-
nologies to an ideal type of war scenario, but to the sort of com-
bined operations in which it is likely to get involved. For, in the
final analysis, the RMA only deserves to be taken seriously if it keeps
in touch with the RPA.
Notes
1. A number of ‘military revolutions’ have been proclaimed in military
and strategic historiography. The phrase found its most prominent
expression in the debate over the transformation of war from the late
medieval to the early modern period in European history. The term, as
it is often used today, is most commonly attributed to Marshal Nicolai
Ogarkov of the Soviet Union who in 1984 argued that developments in
military technology, particularly in US integrated battlefield systems,
amounted to ‘revolution in warfare’. See B.E. Trainor, ‘War by
Miscalculation’, in J. Nye and R. Smith (eds), After the Storm: Lessons
from the Gulf War (Lanham, MD: Madison Books and the Aspen Strategy
Group, 1992), p. 217. For a discussion on the background to Soviet mil-
itary thinking on the issue see J. Erickson, ‘The Development of Soviet
Military Doctrine’, in J. Gooch (ed.), ‘The Origins of Contemporary
Doctrine’, The Occasional, Strategic and Combat Studies Institute, 30
September 1997, pp. 81–112, esp. pp. 101–6.
2. For a discussion see W.A. Owens, ‘JROC: Harnessing the Revolution in

Military Affairs’, Joint Force Quarterly, no. 5 (Summer 1994), pp. 55–7;
E.N. Luttwak, ‘Toward Post Heroic Warfare’, Foreign Affairs (May/June
1995), pp. 109–22; and E.N. Luttwak, ‘A Post Heroic Military Policy’,
Foreign Affairs (July/August 1996), pp. 33–44.
3. See for example J. Nye and W.A. Owens, ‘America’s Information Edge’,
Foreign Affairs (March/April, 1996), pp. 20–36.
4. For a more sceptical and qualified survey of the RMA see Colin Gray,
‘The American Revolution in Military Affairs: an Interim Assessment’,
The Occasional, no. 28 (Camberley: Strategic and Combat Studies
Institute, 1997). See also E.A. Cohen, ‘A Revolution in Military Affairs’,
Foreign Affairs (March/April 1996), pp. 37–54.
5. For an excellent and balanced survey of the claims made on behalf of
RMA and of the technological developments behind them, see M.
O’Hanlon, Technological Change and the Future of Warfare (Washington,
DC: Brookings Institution, 2000).
6. For an elaboration of the globalization and fragmentation debates see F.
Fukuyama, ‘The End of History’, The National Interest, no.16 (1989), pp.
13–18; S.P. Huntingdon, ‘The Clash of Civilizations’, Foreign Affairs (Fall
1996), pp. 617–37; and M. Van Creveld, On Future War (London:
Brasseys, 1991), esp. pp. 192–223.
7. See Nye and Owens, op. cit., pp. 23–5.
8. See L. Freedman and E. Karsh, The Gulf Conflict (London: Faber and
Faber, 1994), p. 362.
9. For an account of the decision-making leading up to the outbreak of
war see ibid., pp. 201–27.
10. See Freedman and Karsh, op. cit., pp. 331–61.
11. Ibid., pp. 343–5.
12. The actual role of casualties in Somalia is complex. See J. Burk, ‘Public
Support for Peacekeeping in Lebanon and Somalia: Assessing the
Casualties Hypothesis’, Political Science Quarterly, vol. 114, no. 1 (1999),
pp. 53–78.
13. See Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (London:
Macmillan/IISS, 1981), pp. 121–38.
14. See Nye and Owens, op. cit., esp pp. 20–5. See also M. Libicki, ‘The
Emerging Primacy of Information Warfare’, Orbis, vol. 40, no. 2 (Spring
1996), pp. 261–76.
15. See Freedman and Karsh, op. cit., pp. 310–11 and 324–9.
16. For more information on the air campaign in the Gulf War see ibid.,
pp. 312–19.
17. Ibid, pp. 307–9.
18. See Gray, op. cit., pp. 30–1.
19. See Freedman, op. cit., pp. 91–119.
20. The Strategic Defence Review, Cmnd 3999 (London: HMSO, July 1998),
Supporting Essay Three. On the review see C. McInnes, ‘Labour and
Defence – the Reality’, International Affairs, vol. 74, no. 4 (October 1998).
21. See the robust interview with C. Guthrie, Chief of Defence Staff, Daily
Telegraph, 10 August 2000.
22. A. Richter, ‘The American Revolution? The Response of Advanced
Western States to the Revolution in Military Affairs’, National Security
Studies Quarterly (Autumn 1999), p. 9. He cites MOD’s director for oper-
ational requirements in a Jane’s interview stressing the importance of
harnessing ‘new technology more quickly and efficiently if we are to
continue to maintain our significant role’ alongside the US. ‘Sea
Change’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, vol. 30, no. 19 (11 November 1998).
23. An Anglo-American exercise in June 1998 reportedly began with an
attack by computer hackers on Britain’s power grid, causing a huge
blackout, to be followed by a ‘complex scenario’ involving a ‘a combi-
nation of state and non-state adversaries’, including money launderers
and terrorists. ‘Britain Fights US in Cyber War Game’, Sunday Times,
7 June 1998
24. Fourteenth Report of the House of Commons Defence Committee,
Lessons of Kosovo, 24 October 2000, para 4. The government’s analysis
of Kosovo is found in Ministry of Defence, Kosovo: Lessons from the
Crisis, Cmnd 4724 (London: HMSO, June 2000).
25. Ibid., para 160
26. The same conclusion might be drawn from the 2000 Palestinian
intafada.
7
Equipping Britain’s Armed Forces:
Continuity and Change in
Defence Procurement and
Industrial Policy
Matthew Uttley
Introduction
The 1998 Strategic Defence Review (SDR)1 contains the most recent and
comprehensive statement of Britain’s defence equipment priorities
and plans for the period to 2015. Marking the culmination of Britain’s
shift from its Cold War posture, the SDR and associated policy docu-
ments explain how UK forces are to be equipped with a flexible expe-
ditionary warfare capability and outline supporting defence-industrial
policies. This chapter evaluates the new equipment programme and
the defence-industrial issues it generates. The first section analyses the
major defence platforms that make up the SDR vision and the mili-
tary capabilities they are intended to provide. Though the SDR and
supporting initiatives are presented as policy ‘solutions’ to long-term
future British defence acquisition, the Blair administration continues
to confront challenges that previous governments have had to
address which arise from the inherent complexity of managing major
equipment programmes and the difficult choices in formulating
appropriate defence-industrial policies. The second section outlines
these challenges and the third section reviews the ‘solutions’ that the
current administration has chosen to adopt. The concluding section
considers the difficult decisions that subsequent administrations will
have to make if the SDR vision is to be achieved in full.
129
SDR and the UK equipment programme
During the Cold War Britain’s armed forces were structured primar-
ily to deal with the perceived Soviet threat. In many respects, the
apogee of Cold War thinking was the equipment programme that
emerged from the 1981 Nott defence review. By the mid-1990s,
however, British policy-makers had concluded that the demise of
bipolar confrontation and the diminished military threat posed by
the former Soviet Union served to eliminate the short-warning
threat of a large-scale offensive in Central Europe.2 At the same
time, planners recognized that the Cold War certainties provided by
bipolar stability had been replaced by a more diffuse set of risks on a
global scale.3 This reappraisal of threats and risks has had funda-
mental implications for British force planning. The response, con-
solidated in the SDR, has been to look for ways to configure forces
in terms of expeditionary capabilities capable of projecting power to
meet the spectrum of new global risks. This shift in thinking has
had a major impact on equipment requirements as Britain seeks to
project power from the sea in littoral areas and deploy expedi-
tionary forces that are supported by air elements, as a means to
meet contingencies on a global scale.4
Against this backdrop, the SDR implies four objectives that under-
pin the current equipment programme: acquisition of explicitly
expeditionary platforms designed to augment the capability of the
Joint Rapid Reaction Forces (JRRF); obtaining equipment to support
balanced forces across a spectrum of national, alliance and multi-
national coalition contingencies, rather than any overt shift towards
role specialization; purchase of flexible weapons platforms that can
operate across the spectrum of conflict types; and acquisition of plat-
forms that will maximize synergy in joint and combined operations.
Given current budget estimates, the SDR procurement plans to
meet these objectives are intended to provide an appropriate balance
of capabilities to maximize the UK’s ability to operate independently
and meet foreseeable alliance and multinational coalition needs,
drawing on both weapons projects initiated during the Cold War
and various new purchases. If SDR plans are fully implemented, the
Royal Navy (RN) will have the capacity for power projection from
two relatively large carriers with associated ASW assets, a brigade-
level amphibious assault capability and nuclear-powered attack sub-
marines equipped with cruise missiles for deterrence and coercion.
Matthew Uttley 131
Land forces will be augmented and assets to be acquired by the

Royal Air Force (RAF) will enhance deployability and strategic lift.
Current UK naval doctrine, as outlined in BR1806,5 is premised on
three ‘Core Capabilities’: aircraft carriers, amphibious forces, and the
nuclear powered attack submarine (SSN) force. The SDR outlines
important capability enhancements under each of these headings.6
The RN’s Invincible-class aircraft carriers will be retained, though
these vessels should be replaced after 2010 by more capable platforms
carrying a larger air group. Four options have so far been put forward
with current preference being given to a short take-off and vertical
landing (STOVL)-equipped carrier capable of carrying 50 aircraft.7 This
next generation of aircraft carriers is likely to be equipped with the
UK–US collaborative Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), which is now under
development. In terms of amphibious capabilities, the RN is sched-
uled to receive more capable ships over the next decade. HMS Ocean,
the new helicopter carrier, and HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion – the
new amphibious landing ships (LPDs) under construction – have and
will enhance power projection and rapid reaction capabilities. The
only major concern is the current ‘window of vulnerability’ which
will remain until the LPDs enter service in 2003.8 The third ‘Core
Capability’ currently comprises ten SSNs that are being equipped with
Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs). The TLAM acquisition pro-
vides a deep strike capability, making Britain one of the few states
with a sea-based conventional deterrence and coercion capability.
In the land environment, operational experience in the Gulf War
and Bosnia has led to the full order of Challenger 2 tanks being
retained. Acquisition of Apache attack helicopters equipped with
the Hellfire missile will enhance significantly the capability of what
will become an ‘Air Manoeuvre Brigade’. These acquisitions, coupled
with plans to purchase extended range munitions for the AS90 self-
propelled gun, are likely to enhance the operational potential of UK
land forces.
In equipment terms, the RAF was the armed service least affected
by SDR. The purchase of 232 Eurofighters initiated during the Cold
War is continuing.9 Though the issue of a possible European strate-
gic lift aircraft remains to be resolved, the purchase of additional
support helicopters, C130Js and C-17 types and potentially the
Airbus A400M will enhance tactical and strategic mobility. In the
longer term, if the ‘Joint Force 2000’ concept is fully implemented –
potentially through the acquisition of the JSF to replace the RN and
RAF Harrier forces – the UK will acquire a truly joint force able to
operate either from land bases or aircraft carriers. While the RAF
have accepted a cut of 36 aircraft from front-line strength, the new
projects and purchases outlined in the SDR are likely to improve
overall effectiveness of UK forces in a range of national, alliance and
coalition contingencies because of the enhanced offensive and lift
capabilities the UK will acquire.
Finally, ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ (RMA)-related technologies
also feature prominently in the SDR. Plans to procure the airborne
stand-off radar (ASTOR) surveillance system, long-range airborne
systems including the Brimstone, Storm Shadow and Hellfire mis-
siles, and the Joint Digitization initiative, will significantly increase
UK military capabilities. Evidence suggests that the UK is currently
evaluating the optimum acquisition as between European and US
sourcing for RMA-related systems and assessing the compatibility of
the UK programme with US and NATO developments.
If the programme outlined in SDR is implemented in full, the UK
should acquire equipment to support a flexible joint national capa-
bility. The planned programme will support a spectrum of indepen-
dent, alliance and multinational operational contingencies in which
Britain should not be ‘dependent on the resources of another nation
as a condition of British participation in an operation’.10 However,
given the long lead times associated with key programmes, notably
the aircraft carrier replacement and the LPDs, a ‘capability gap’
exists before these items enter service that may undermine UK oper-
ational effectiveness in the short to medium term.
Policy challenges and dilemmas
British policy-makers confront various challenges in achieving the SDR

equipment vision and balancing associated defence-industrial consid-
erations. These challenges are not new. Instead, they reflect funda-
mental dilemmas that successive British administrations have had to
confront and are likely to confront for the foreseeable future, which
stem from the inherent complexity of managing the acquisition of
costly and technologically risky state-of-the-art defence projects.
The first challenge is to ensure that SDR equipment requirements
are met within existing budget predictions. Cost escalation over
initial estimates has traditionally been a problem in British defence
Matthew Uttley 133
acquisition: the 1997 National Audit Office review of the UK’s 25

largest projects, for example, found that all but one was running
over budget.11 Moreover, ‘efficiency savings’ are essential to fund
the equipment programme as the SDR costings are predicated on £2
billion savings from the equipment programme as part of overall 3
per cent efficiencies from the defence budget. Cost overruns or
failure to meet efficiency targets could put key projects in jeopardy.
Control of programme costs is made more critical because the pro-
jects making up the UK’s overall expeditionary capability form an
integrated package: failure to acquire the full spectrum of SDR plat-
forms ‘has the potential to undermine completely [the UK’s] whole
vision of expeditionary warfare and raises fundamental viability of
Britain’s armed forces’12 in future operations. Consequently, the first
challenge for policy-makers is to manage the equipment programme
so as to ensure that key platforms enter service within current cost,
lead time and capability estimates.
Though the equipment programme outlined in the SDR will have
the most visible impact on UK military capabilities, policy-makers
also confront a complex web of defence-industrial challenges and
dilemmas. In defence-industrial terms, the UK has been described as
a ‘leader of the second division’13 of weapon producers, though fol-
lowing an order of magnitude behind the United States. The UK
defence industrial base (DIB) contains companies with competence
over a spectrum of weapon platforms, components and enabling
technologies.14 In international comparative terms, UK defence
firms are global players: the list of the largest 100 global arms pro-
ducing companies (by sales value) includes 12 British firms that
account for approximately 20 per cent of arms sales.15 Moreover, in
key high-technology fields, the UK DIB contains major contractors:
in the aerospace sector, BAe Systems is the world’s third largest
company (or fourth if the newly-formed European Aerospace &
Defence System (EADS) is included); prior to its merger with BAe,
GEC was the world’s third largest electronics company; Rolls-Royce
and GKN are the world’s third largest firms in the engines and ord-
nance sectors respectively. Though reliable comparative statistics do
not exist, available data show that Britain accounts for approx-
imately 9.5 per cent of total global defence R&D expenditure.16 The
scope of the UK’s DIB, the strength of its main contractors, aggre-
gate investment in military R&D and arms exports, all indicate that
British firms are well placed to exploit new technologies in future

defence platforms.
Despite the prima facie health of the UK DIB, policy-makers con-
front challenges that arise from long-term trends in military equip-
ment costs and defence budgetary constraints. Since 1945, the trend
has been for the unit production cost of major weapons systems to
increase rapidly in real terms.17 The real costs of tactical combat air-
craft have been growing at 10 per cent per annum, with similar rates
of growth for submarines, frigates, attack helicopters and self-propelled
artillery.18 A significant factor accounting for these cost trends has
been the military imperative for major equipment performance
enhancements when the armed services have acquired successive gen-
erations of weapon systems. Though UK defence budgets have grown
at the same time as equipment costs have been rising, budgetary
increases have been smaller, and ‘only partially compensated for the
concurrent escalation in the unit cost of defence equipment’.19
Developments since the Cold War have exacerbated these trends
because changing threat perceptions have been reflected in reduced
UK procurement budgets. Because post-Cold War budget cuts have
occurred as equipment costs have been rising in real terms, inflation
levels for military equipment have been further compounded by
reduced R&D outlays and shorter production runs.
These trends – which have plagued a succession of British govern-
ments – generate a second challenge, namely the development of
acquisition strategies that balance the armed services’ requirements
for state-of-the-art equipment with wider domestic industrial and
technological considerations in weapon sectors where independent
national development has ceased to be viable. Historically, Britain
has pursued three discrete weapon acquisition strategies in sectors
where national self-sufficiency has become too costly, each involv-
ing differing degrees of indigenous industrial activity on the one
hand and reliance on technology transfer on the other. For some
purchases it has avoided costly domestic R&D and manufacture
altogether by importing foreign weapon systems off-the-shelf. In
other cases, licensed production and coproduction strategies have
enabled the UK to bypass expensive R&D and focus instead on
domestic manufacture of non-national designs. Finally, Britain has
participated in international collaborative ventures involving joint
R&D and production of defence items with partner states.
Matthew Uttley 135
Since the early 1960s, the mix of off-the-shelf, licensed/

coproduction and international collaboration in UK defence pro-
curement has reflected pragmatic responses to equipment needs on
a case-by-case basis. The UK has imported major weapon platforms
from the United States, notably Polaris and Trident missile technol-
ogy.20 The scale of UK off-the-shelf purchases, however, has tradi-
tionally been limited by wider economic, industrial and political
concerns. Balance of payments considerations, government anxi-
eties about UK job losses and fears that domestic technological and
manufacturing capabilities would be eroded if major contracts were
placed overseas have all militated against large-scale importation of
major weapon platforms. As a consequence, off-the-shelf procure-
ment has largely been restricted to purchases where American
industry had a clear technological edge over other procurement
alternatives.
For other requirements British governments have concluded
that coproduction and licensed production provided economic
and industrial benefits over both domestic sourcing and off-the-
shelf acquisition. Unlike independent national development,
coproduction and licensed production have been seen as a mecha-
nism to circumvent the costly and lengthy R&D stages of weapon
development and an opportunity for domestic industry to focus
instead on the manufacture of proven equipment.
Correspondingly, unlike direct imports, licensed production has
provided technology transfer and a role for British industry, albeit
at the manufacturing stage. Since 1960, licensed production has
been relied on extensively in the helicopter sector where succes-
sive generations of British production technology have been of US
design origin.21
Since the 1960s, however, Britain has viewed international collab-
oration as the ‘least-worst’ acquisition alternative in sectors where
independent development has ceased to be viable.22 In part, this has
reflected government assessments of the benefits collaboration pro-
vides over comparable domestic alternatives. In economic terms,
collaboration enables fixed R&D costs to be shared and economies
of scale in production through combined production orders with
partner states. In operational terms, during the Cold War the UK
and its NATO partners saw collaborative projects as a route to
increase Alliance equipment rationalization, standardization and
inter-operability (RSI) through the joint development and operation

of common items of equipment.23 Unlike direct imports and
licensed/coproduction, collaboration has been attractive because of
UK industry involvement in the R&D and production phases of
weapons programmes. Consequently, international collaboration
has been equated with preserving an indigenous design and produc-
tion capability in weapon sectors where national self-sufficiency was
no longer affordable.
In parallel, UK policy-makers have also confronted difficult
choices about the balance between defence-industrial cooperation
with their European partners and the US. This issue stems from
NATO concerns during the 1970s over transatlantic weapon trade
imbalances,24 and subsequent attempts to encourage closer intra-
European procurement cooperation as the mechanism to rationalize
European defence-industrial activity and balance transatlantic arms
flows.25 For the UK, the basic dilemma remains one of balancing the
benefits and costs of transatlantic and intra-European procurement
cooperation.
On the one hand, British policy-makers have recognized that
transatlantic partnerships offer two sets of benefits when compared
with European collaborative arrangements. First, American defence
industries enjoy greater economies of scale in production than their
European counterparts because they cater for the much larger unit
requirements of the US armed services26 and can therefore produce
cheaper equipment than European single national or collaborative
ventures. Moreover, the scale of US investment in a range of equip-
ment sectors has provided American firms with a clear technological
lead over their European counterparts measured in equipment deliv-
ery times and performance. Since the Cold War the incentives for
the UK to enhance its transatlantic defence-industrial linkages have
intensified. This imperative has stemmed, in part, from the RMA. As
Freedman points out, the extent to which the RMA is underway
since the Cold War is ‘rather particular. Only the United States has
the economic resources and the military infrastructure to begin to
follow this path.’27 In terms of the enabling technologies of the RMA
– precision-guided munitions, stealth weapons, sensors and defence
suppression techniques – US defence industries have been acquiring
a clear development and manufacturing edge over their counterparts
in Western Europe. In the face of US technological leadership in key
Matthew Uttley 137
weapon sectors, there are continuing incentives for the UK to access

this American know-how through technology transfer.
On the other hand, for the UK and its European NATO partners,
closer transatlantic procurement cooperation has the potential cost
that reliance on US-designed weapon systems could lead to the
erosion of European defence-industrial capabilities. Since the 1960s,
this concern has generated policies in Britain and elsewhere
designed to foster intra-European procurement cooperation as a way
to offset potential US dominance.28 Since the Cold War, declining
procurement budgets have intensified pressures for the UK and its
Western European partners to rationalize and integrate procurement
policies on a pan-European basis both as a means to reduce equip-
ment costs and to offset the scale of output enjoyed by American
defence firms.
Given the imperative for international weapon partnerships the
second major challenge for British policy-makers remains one of
establishing an appropriate balance between national sourcing of
equipment on the one hand and forms of technology transfer on the
other in meeting defence equipment needs. Subsumed under this is
the imperative to balance the benefits and costs of transatlantic with
intra-European forms of defence-industrial cooperation.
The third policy challenge concerns UK arms exports policy. The
UK defence industrial base has emerged as a major supplier of con-
ventional weapons in the global armaments market to the extent
that between 1993 and 1997, Britain emerged as the world’s third
largest arms exporter after the USA and Russia.29 Though debates
continue about the net financial benefits to the UK of arms trans-
fers,30 official figures indicate that military sales generate some £5bn
per annum.31
Britain’s defence exports policy continues to be driven by two
factors.32 The first is financial since governments view exports as a
way of offsetting inflationary trends in domestic military R&D and
production. The assumption here is that because exports increased
domestic manufacturing runs beyond what they otherwise would
have been, then UK procurement costs are reduced as the fixed R&D
costs of weapon development are spread over a larger production
output. In addition, longer domestic manufacturing runs to meet
export orders have been seen as a source of economies of scale in
production and ‘learning economies’. A further expectation is that
defence sales ‘help to smooth production rates, keep production

lines open and companies in business in times of low domestic
demand’.33 Finally, exports are assumed to ensure the economic via-
bility of UK contractors which, in turn, preserves domestic competi-
tion and maintains the scope of the defence industrial base.
Secondly, in politico-military terms, decision-makers assume that
arms transfers enhance Britain’s influence and leverage over the
domestic and foreign policies of importing states.34 For example,
major arms sales are viewed as mechanisms to promote democracy
in recipient countries, as an indirect means to deter aggression
against UK allies and a means to enhance regional stability. In
essence, therefore, weapons exports are equated with maintaining
linkages with strategically important allies as well as promoting
wider British interests.
Reflecting these considerations, the 1980s and 1990s witnessed
aggressive government-led export promotion strategies. The Defence
Export Services Organization (DESO) was tasked to provide exten-
sive support to industry in the marketing of defence products.
Governments also subsidized arms transfers in the form of ‘export
credits’ that were designed to shift the financial risk from exporting
companies to the British government through the extension of
credit lines to overseas customers. Finally, governments fostered the
offset of export sales against trade commitments backed or under-
taken by national governments.
Despite the prima facie benefits of weapons transfer, arms exports
policy has not been without problems. Concern has emerged about
the financial implications of UK arms transfers. Some critics have
argued that British government export subsidies including, inter alia,
export promotion policies and offsets, have outweighed sales rev-
enues.35 Others claim that reliance on arms exports to offset the
costs of domestic procurement has been costly and inefficient when
compared with other procurement alternatives. In terms of the pur-
ported politico-military benefits of weapon sales, critics have argued
that arms transfers to regions of tension have increased, rather than
decreased, political instability36 and point out that some major
importers have become Britain’s adversaries. For example, the UK
government supplied arms to the Shah of Iran, only for the
Ayatollah to turn against the West after the Iranian revolution.
Similarly, as the Scott Report highlighted, after UK companies aided
Matthew Uttley 139
the development of Iraq’s military capabilities British forces faced

domestically-produced equipment during Operation Desert Storm.37
Rather than supporting the emergence of democratic regimes,
Britain has also been accused of exporting military equipment to
states with questionable human rights records.38 Finally, the claim
that arms exports have increased British influence and leverage has
been questioned on the grounds that importers have been ‘able to
choose from a number of arms suppliers, freeing them away from
dependence on a single arms supplier’.39 Consequently, the ongoing
challenge for governments is one of identifying appropriate arms
exports strategies that maximize UK economic, operational and
political gains while at the same time minimizing the negative
effects of weapon transfers.
SDR and ‘solutions’ to the acquisition challenges
The SDR and associated statements outline how current government

policy intends to address these long-standing procurement and
defence-industrial challenges. The ‘solutions’ that have emerged
include management initiatives designed to lead to ‘faster, cheaper,
better’ acquisition and measures intended to reconcile the dilemmas
of international procurement cooperation and arms exports policy.
The first development has been the ‘Smart Acquisition’ initiative,
which marks an attempt to overhaul management procedures and
government relations with major domestic equipment suppliers. A
salient starting point for evaluating this new initiative is the pro-
curement process that the Blair government inherited from previous
Conservative administrations. After 1979, the Conservative govern-
ment’s aim was ‘to flatten or even reverse the established curve
which shows the trend towards increasing equipment costs’.40 The
government’s analysis was that by privatizing defence contractors
then under public ownership, introducing greater competition for
defence contracts and making ‘value for money’ the guiding princi-
ple in the procurement process, military goals could still be
achieved but within a tighter defence budget.41 The Conservative
analysis was that privatization, the introduction of market forces
and a shift in the risk of weapon development away from govern-
ment to industry would generate major economies from the equip-
ment budget.42
Reinforced by the government’s ‘overall faith in private enter-

prise’,43 state-owned enterprises including British Aerospace,
the Royal dockyards, the naval shipyards of British Shipbuilders, the
Royal Ordnance Factories and Rolls-Royce were privatized on
the assumption that this would bring more efficient management.44
By the mid-1980s Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine sought to
introduce a systematic competition policy that was developed by
the Chief of Defence Procurement, Sir Peter Levene.45 Under the so-
called ‘Levene reforms’ it became axiomatic that a greater propor-
tion of MOD contracts would be awarded competitively. Measures
were introduced to generate rivalry between UK suppliers and
encourage overseas bids for MOD contracts. Competitive bidding
was also extended to all stages of major projects from concept, feas-
ibility and project definition to full development. Finally, increased
pressure was exerted on major suppliers to demonstrate the use of
competition in their dealings with subcontractors.
Other elements of the ‘Levene reforms’ included measures to
transfer the risk of project failure from the MOD to its suppliers and
in return, reward efficiency in industry through higher profits.
Measures here included a shift away from cost-plus forms of con-
tracting towards the use of firm or fixed price contracts and the
adoption of the ‘prime contractor’ approach, whereby a single firm
acted as a prime contractor with responsibility for managing an
entire project and organizing its subcontractors. Finally, the MOD
was required to adopt ‘Cardinal Points Specifications’, whereby
equipment requirements were expressed in terms of key perform-
ance criteria and industry was left to decide how best to meet them.
Taken collectively, the ethos of the ‘Levene reforms’ was that
‘defence procurement was to become more like other kinds of
purchasing of goods and services’.46
Taken collectively, procurement policies under the Conservative
administrations of the 1980s and 1990s were intended to amelio-
rate budgetary pressures and inflationary trends in major weapon
platforms. However, the practical implications of Conservative
policies were controversial. A major area of contention was the
impact of the ‘Levene reforms’. Official reports presented competi-
tion policy as ‘a very effective way of improving value for money’.47
In 1988, for example, the MOD informed the House of Commons
Defence Committee that six equipment projects valued at £2000
Matthew Uttley 141
million that were exposed to competition yielded savings of £250

million.48 Subsequent reports claimed the reforms had reduced the
overall costs of defence procurement by over £1 billion per annum
throughout the early 1990s.49 Moreover, scrutinies maintained that
competition had increased the efficiency of UK defence contractors
which had, in turn, enhanced industry’s export competitiveness.
Illustrative is former Minister of State for Defence Procurement
Jonathan Aitken’s assertion that UK defence firms ‘themselves
would admit that their competitiveness in … international markets
owe[d] a great deal to the competitive procurement policies …
[adopted during] the mid-1980s’.50
Conversely, the ‘Levene reforms’ were criticized in a number of
respects. First, commentators argued that the purported cost savings
reflected MOD tactics of reducing equipment unit orders, delays in
ordering, or stretching programmes in the face of declining post-
Cold War procurement budgets.51 Second, evidence suggested that
MOD changes to equipment requirements and specifications under-
mined the discipline of competition and fixed price contracting on
various programmes.52 Third, concerns were raised about the high
costs of competition for industry, and whether contractors shifted
these costs to the MOD in the form of overheads.53 Fourth, some
analysts have called into question the Conservative administration’s
commitment to international competition for major UK defence
contracts. Schofield, for example, claimed that ‘in some areas there
[was] an unstated policy of preferred suppliers’:54 where national
monopolies existed, some MOD contracts were let without reference
to non-national suppliers, and where international tendering was
adopted British firms maintained an unblemished record of winning
major orders. Finally, critics pointed out that the reforms had only a
marginal impact on rates of inflation on major defence systems.
Kirkpatrick, for example, argued that the savings from Conservative
procurement reform were limited and ‘offset only a small fraction of
the observed unit-cost growth between successive defence equip-
ment’.55 This observation was re-enforced by the 1997 National
Audit Office report on major defence programmes that found evi-
dence of cost overruns on 24 of the top 25 projects (by value), and
delays in 20 of the 25 projects.56
In response to these perceived limitations, the Blair government
undertook a major review of acquisition policy in 1998. The ‘Smart
Acquisition’ initiative that emerged stemmed in part from a percep-

tion that Conservative competition policies failed to achieve the
savings they promised, but also a desire to build on the fact that
‘during the last years of Conservative rule, [government had recog-
nized] the value of moving to a closer relationship with industry in
general and defence industry in particular’.57 A central tenet of
‘Smart Acquisition’ is a rejection of the confrontational approach in
relations between government and industry towards long-term
cooperative relationships and overt acceptance that domestic
defence contractors are legitimate ‘stakeholders’ in the acquisition
process.
The ‘Smart Acquisition’ initiative contains a range of measures
designed to facilitate ‘faster, cheaper, and better’ acquisition.58 A
notable innovation is the creation of ‘Integrated Project Teams’
(IPTs) that bring together the major stakeholders involved in the
manufacture, delivery and operation of a weapon system. Based on
the principle of ‘partnering’, IPTs include representatives from
industry, the Defence Procurement Agency and the Defence
Logistics Organization.
A second strand of reform has been the adoption of the ‘Whole-
Life Approach’ to acquisition whereby contending projects are
evaluated in terms of through-life costs from concept to disposal.
A third tenet of ‘Smart Acquisition’ is the adoption of
‘Incremental Acquisition’ which provides for equipment capabil-
ity to be upgraded in a planned way, from the initial delivery of a
baseline capability to eventual achievement of a higher full capa-
bility. This has the advantages of reducing the risk inherent in
introducing large improvements in capability through a single
major technological step; allowing systems to be developed and
put into service which progressively evolve as technology
becomes available; and avoiding early commitment to a specific
approach which may result in the delivery of obsolete equipment.
A further innovation is a greater use of ‘Public/Private
Partnerships’ (PPP) whereby the MOD contracts with private
industry to provide services where substantial capital investment
is needed in an asset essential to deliver that service. The MOD
pays industry for the delivery of these services through a service-
based payment mechanism. The benefit of this approach is that
the MOD avoids major capital costs, and PPP contracts are being
finalized with industry for the maintenance of major defence
Matthew Uttley 143
equipment items. Finally, attempts to enhance efficiency have led

to the creation of an ‘Acquisition Stream’ in the MOD for both
military and civilian staff that will create a long-term career path
in weapon acquisition.
The current assumption is that the traditional problem of spiralling
programme costs has been solved. Through partnering and other ini-
tiatives subsumed under the banner of procurement reform, the SDR
envisaged £2 billion savings from the UK equipment programme over
the subsequent 10-year period. Current UK estimates are that ‘Smart
Acquisition’ will contribute to an overall efficiency saving of 3 per cent
on the UK defence budget. If successful, the initiative should enable
the MOD to procure its existing and future platform requirements
within initial budget and lead-time estimates.
In parallel, the Blair government’s response to growing pressures
for the internationalization of defence procurement has been char-
acterized by a remarkable degree of continuity with earlier adminis-
trations. This is reflected in the post-SDR blend of acquisition
strategies. British firms will continue to participate in government-
mandated collaborative activities, ranging from ad hoc joint single-
project ventures (Eurofighter), through joint ventures covering a
range of projects in a specific area (Matra-BAe Dynamics) through to
strategic alliances, often involving minority share holding (BAe’s
35 per cent share holding in SAAB). On the other hand, the UK gov-
ernment and defence firms have established collaborative projects
(Joint Strike Fighter), licensed production agreements (Westland and
Sikorsky/MacDonald Douglas) and off-the-shelf plus offsets pur-
chases (Boeing E3A AWACS; TLAM) with the US government and
defence manufacturers.
Since the 1960s, the UK’s approach to international armaments
cooperation in weapons sectors where independent development
and production has ceased to be viable can be characterized as a
pragmatic ‘twin-track’ strategy. On the one hand, through interna-
tional collaborative ventures Britain has worked with partner states
to foster the gradual process of increased European defence indus-
trial cooperation.59 Correspondingly, governments have developed
cooperative links with the US to meet equipment requirements that
were either too costly or beyond the technological capability of
European industries. The SDR indicates a continuation of this prag-
matic ‘twin-track’ approach rather than any overt shift towards
intra-Europe or a transatlantic defence-industrial alignment.
The SDR acknowledges that the reductions in national procure-

ment budgets and internationalization of defence industries since
the end of the Cold War have brought about ‘an increased level of
mutual [international] interdependence in the procurement and
support of equipment’.60 In response, the SDR signals the UK’s con-
tinued commitment to the ‘twin-track’ approach of procurement
cooperation with Europe and the US. The government has stated
that collaborative procurement will account for approximately
40 per cent of future UK equipment expenditure.61 To foster
European defence-industrial rationalization, Britain has become a
member of the Organisme Conjointe de Co-operation en Matière
d’Armament (OCCAR) – a quadrilateral armaments structure with
France, Germany and Italy – which intends to ‘improve collabora-
tive practices’ and deliver European defence systems ‘able to
compete effectively in world markets’.62 At the same time, the Blair
government has pursued closer transatlantic procurement links,
illustrated by the Joint Strike Fighter project.63
Finally, the Blair government has attempted to balance the eco-
nomic imperative to export arms with measures to limit the nega-
tive aspects of conventional weapon proliferation as part of its
‘ethical dimension’ to foreign policy.64 On the one hand, it has rec-
ognized that declining defence procurement budgets and the
growing costs of domestic R&D and production continue to provide
an imperative for aggressive arms exports policies. On the other
hand, the administration has recognized the need for national
restraint in arms transfers, prompted in part by Britain’s military
operations against states deploying weapons originally exported by
the UK. Notable British initiatives to encourage multilateral arms
transfer restraints include proposals forming the basis for the 1998
European Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports, which outlined
broad moral and political considerations to which national arms
licensing authorities should have regard.
Conclusions
Current UK procurement plans, as outlined in the SDR, aim to

provide the UK with balanced forces that will maximize operational
flexibility in the foreseeable spectrum of potential post-Cold War
conflict scenarios. New initiatives and procedures have been
Matthew Uttley 145
adopted which, if successful, should enable the introduction of new

equipment into service within existing cost, lead-time and perfor-
mance estimates. Moreover, the administration has addressed
important supporting defence-industrial issues.
However, various concerns still remain. First, given the long lead
times associated with major projects, the detailed impact of ‘Smart
Acquisition’ on defence procurement costs – particularly incremen-
tal acquisition and new partnering measures – is unlikely to emerge
for some time. As Codner points out, ‘the Defence Programme in
the past has usually erred on the side of optimism. Indeed, it is the
cost aspect of the [Strategic Defence] Review that has been the only
real source of criticism by analysts and commentators.’65 For policy-
makers and analysts of contemporary procurement policy, the ques-
tion remains whether ‘Smart Acquisition’ provides the management
tools to achieve the economies necessary for the UK to realize the
equipment programme outlined in SDR.
Second, despite pragmatic responses to international armament
cooperation options, future UK governments are likely to continue
to face difficult policy choices as the unit costs of sophisticated
defence platforms keep rising with each new generation of major
platforms. Inflationary pressures may force UK policy-makers to
decide more explicitly between systematic European defence indus-
trial integration on the one hand, and forms of transatlantic equip-
ment cooperation on the other. In the context of RMA-related
technologies, for example, the SDR itself acknowledges some of the
difficult choices that UK policy-makers will have to address, includ-
ing the appropriate balance between ‘enabling’ and established plat-
forms, and how the UK and her European Allies can retain
inter-operability with US forces in the longer term.66 At issue here is
whether a consolidated European defence industry has the techno-
logical capacity to ‘keep up’ with US RMA innovations. For policy-
makers and procurement analysts, these scenarios raise important
issues. There is likely to be growing pressure for analysis of the
potential economic and political benefits and costs of different
models of European defence integration.67 Correspondingly, in the
context of RMA debates, there are major questions about the extent
to which US administrations will allow genuine technology transfer
to Britain and other NATO states.68
Finally, for analysts of arms transfer policy, Britain’s attempts to
reconcile the drivers for arms exports with an ethical foreign policy
dimension raises ongoing issues. First, there is scope for a compre-

hensive assessment of the real contribution of arms exports to the
domestic defence manufacturing sector and the UK economy as a
whole. Second, there are questions about the approach that Britain
should adopt in future conventional arms control negotiations, and
the implications of such negotiations for UK industry. Finally,
important questions remain about what an ‘ethical dimension’ to
foreign policy will really mean in practical terms. At issue here, will
be the efficacy of government policy in reconciling the economic
imperative to export arms with a stated desire to control the flow of
defence technology, inter alia, to undemocratic regimes.
Overall, therefore, Britain has adapted to post-Cold War security
challenges through new procurement and defence-industrial initia-
tives intended to support the shift towards expeditionary warfare
capabilities. However, history suggests that defence equipment costs
will continue to increase at a higher rate than acquisition budgets.
Given this structural constraint, a central challenge for future British
governments is likely to reflect those of their predecessors: how to
manage defence acquisition and industrial policies in the face of spi-
ralling costs. A central issue for policy analysts will be to identify
areas of continuity and change as governments address this
complex and perennial challenge.
Notes
1. Ministry of Defence, The Strategic Defence Review, Cm 3999 (London:
HMSO, 1998).
2. For a more detailed analysis of this point, see A. Dorman, M.L. Smith
and M.R.H. Uttley, ‘Jointery and Combined Operations in an
Expeditionary Era: Defining the Issues’, Defense Analysis, vol. 14, no. 1
(1998), pp. 1–8; and S.E. Airey, ‘Does Russian Seapower Have a Future?’,
RUSI Journal (December 1995), pp. 15–22.
3. See, for example, V. Gray, ‘Beyond Bosnia: Ethno-National Diasporas
and Security in Europe’, Contemporary Security Policy, vol. 17, no. 1
(April 1996), pp. 146–73.
4. Dorman et al., op. cit., p. 3.
5. The Fundamentals of British Maritime Doctrine, BR1806 (London: HMSO,
1995).
6. For a more detailed discussion see Chapter 9.
7. See, for example, M. Edmonds, ‘Navy Procurement, Industrial Strategy and
the Future Carrier’, in M. Edmonds (ed.), British Naval Aviation in the 21st
Century, Bailrigg Memorandum No. 25 (Lancaster: CDISS, 1997), p. 29.
Matthew Uttley 147
8. R. Scott, ‘UK Lays Foundation for Tactical Tomahawk’, Jane’s Defence

Weekly, 18 April 2001, pp. 35–7.
9. See, for example, Air Vice-Marshal S.M. Nicholl, ‘Why Does the RAF
Want Eurofighter?’, RUSI Journal (August 1998), pp. 49–53.
10. Michael Codner, ‘The Strategic Defence Review: How Much? How Far?
How Joint is Enough’, RUSI Journal (August 1998), p. 6.
11. Ministry of Defence Major Projects Report, Report by the Comptroller and
Auditor General (London: HMSO), HC 238, 15 August 1997, pp. 2–4.
12. Andrew Dorman, ‘SDR – Something Old, Something New or Simply
Something Naval? Britain and the Use of Force in the 21st Century’,
Paper presented at the International Studies Association Conference,
Monterey, November 1998, p. 22.
13. P. Gummett, ‘Problems for UK Military R&D’, in I. Bellany and
T. Huxley (eds), New Conventional Weapons and Western Defence
(London: Frank Cass, 1987), p. 49.
14. See Keith Hartley, ‘Defence Procurement in the UK’, Defence and Peace
Economics, vol. 9 (1998), pp. 39–61.
15. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Yearbook 1998,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 200.
16. SIPRI Yearbook 1998, p. 268. Note that the estimate for global military
R&D expenditure includes data from states spending $1 million or
more per annum.
17. See, for example, D.L.I. Kirkpatrick and P.G. Pugh, Towards Starship
Enterprise – Are Current Trends in Defence Unit Costs Inexorable? (London:
Aerospace, 1983).
18. D. Kirkpatrick, ‘Rising Costs, Falling Budgets and their Implications for
Defence Policy’, Economic Affairs, vol. 17, no. 4 (1997), p. 11.
19. Ibid., p. 10.
20. For a general discussion, see G.M. Dillon, Dependence and Deterrence:
Success and Civility in the Anglo-American Special Nuclear Relationship,
1962–82 (Aldershot: Gower, 1983).
21. For a discussion on UK postwar licensed production in the helicopter
sector, see M.R.H. Uttley, ‘British Helicopter Developments, 1945–1960:
a Case Study of Technology Transfer and Market Dominance’, Science
and Public Policy, vol. 18, no. 4 (August 1991), pp. 235–43.
22. For a wider discussion of the UK’s assumptions in entering collaborative
procurement, see A.G. Draper, European Defence Equipment Collaboration:
Britain’s Involvement, 1957–87 (London: RUSI, 1990); and R. Matthews,
European Armaments Collaboration: Policy, Problems and Prospects
(Reading: Harwood, 1992).
23. Matthews, op. cit.
24. Cited in C. Cannizzo, ‘Procurement Via the Two-way Street: Can it
Achieve its Objectives?’, in M. Edmonds (ed.), International Arms
Procurement: New Directions (Oxford: Pergamon, 1981), p. 59.
25. See, for example, S. Shaffer, ‘Linking Arms: Weapons Cooperation in
NATO’, in M. Edmonds (ed.), International Arms Procurement, op. cit.,
pp. 24–52.
26. See, for example, K. Hartley, ‘Development Time Scales for British and
American Military Aircraft’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy,
vol. XIX, no. 2 (June 1972), pp. 115–34.
27. L. Freedman, The Revolution in Strategic Affairs, Adelphi Paper 318
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 56.
28. See K. Hartley, NATO Arms Co-operation: a Study in Economics and Politics
(London: Allen and Unwin, 1983).
29. SIPRI Yearbook 1998, p. 294.
30. See, for example, S. Martin, ‘The Subsidy Savings from Reducing UK Arms
Exports’, Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 26, no. 1 (1999), pp. 15–37.
31. Strategic Defence Review, p. 43.
32. For an extended discussion and a summary of the literature, see
C. Catrina, Arms Transfers and Dependence (London: Taylor and
Francis, 1988), pp. 70–3.
33. Ibid., p. 71.
34. See House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, Support for Defence
Exports: Minutes of Evidence, 26 April 1989 (London: HMSO, 1989).
35. See S. Martin, op. cit.
36. See, for example, P. Eavis and O. Sprague, ‘Does Britain Need to Sell
Weapons?’, in J. Gittings and I. Davis (eds), Britain in the 21st Century: Re-
thinking Defence and Foreign Policy (Nottingham: Spokesman, 1996), p. 128.
37. See: D. Miller, ‘The Scott Report and the Future of British Defense Sales’,
Defense Analysis, vol. 12, no. 3 (1996), pp. 359–69; and, D. Miller, Export
or Die: Britain’s Defence Trade with Iraq (London: Cassell, 1986).
38. Eavis and Sprague, op. cit.
39. Ibid., p. 129.
40. T. Taylor and K. Hayward, The Defence Industrial Base: Development and
Future Policy Options (London: Brassey’s, 1989), p. 73.
41. W. Walker and P. Gummett, ‘Britain and the European Armaments
Market’, International Affairs, vol. 65 (1989), p. 421.
42. For a general discussion of these assumptions, see Taylor and Hayward,
op. cit., pp. 70–89.
43. Ibid., p. 74.
44. See: M.J. Rawlinson, ‘Government Defence Factories and Dockyards:
the Defence Implications of Privatization’, Defence Force
(January/February 1989), pp. 27–35; and House of Commons Defence
Committee, First Report from the Defence Committee Session
1985–1986, Further Observations on the Future of the Royal Dockyards
(London: HMSO, 1985).
45. See P. Levene, ‘Competition and Collaboration: UK Defence
Procurement Policy’, RUSI Journal (June 1987), pp. 3-6.
46. P. Gummett, ‘Civil and Military Aircraft in the UK’, in J. Krige (ed.),
Choosing Big Technologies (Reading: Harwood, 1993), p. 214.
47. J. Bourn, ‘Securing Value for Money in Defence Procurement’,
Whitehall Paper no. 25 (London: RUSI, 1994), p. 22.
48. House of Commons Defence Committee, The Procurement of Major Defence
Equipment, 5th Report, Session 1987-88, HCP 431 (London: HMSO, 1988).
Matthew Uttley 149
49. National Audit Office, Ministry of Defence: Defence Procurement in the

1990s, HCP 390 (London: HMSO, 1994).
50. J. Aitken, ‘Defence Procurement: Past, Present and Future’, RUSI Journal
(February 1994), p. 41.
51. S. Schofield, ‘The Levene Reforms: an Evaluation’, Defense Analysis,
vol. 11, no. 2 (1995), p. 163.
52. For a discussion, see K. Hartley (1998), op. cit., pp. 54–5.
53. Ibid., p. 51.
54. Schofield, op. cit., p. 160.
55. Kirkpatrick, 1997, op. cit., p. 11.
56. Ministry of Defence Major Projects Report 1996, Report by the
Comptroller and Auditor General, HC 238, 15 August 1997 (London:
HMSO, 1997), pp. 2–4.
57. T. Taylor, ‘Smart Procurement and Partnership with Industry’, RUSI
Journal (April 1998), p. 41.
58. Summarized from Ministry of Defence, The Acquisition Handbook: a
Guide to Smart Procurement (London: Ministry of Defence, 1999).
59. See M.R.H. Uttley, ‘The Integration of West European Defense
Procurement: Issues and Prospects’, Defense Analysis, vol. 11, no. 3
(1995), pp. 279–91; P. De Vestel, ‘Defence Markets and Industries in
Europe: Time for Political Decisions’, Chaillot Paper 21 (Paris: WEU,
1995); and RUSI Working Group, ‘1992: Protectionism or Collaboration
in Defence Procurement’, Whitehall Paper No. 6, (London: RUSI, 1990).
60. Strategic Defence Review: Supporting Essays, section 10–18.
61. Taylor, op. cit., p. 45.
62. Strategic Defence Review, Section 10–19.
63. See J. Elliott, ‘JSF for Everybody? The JSF Programme and its
International Implications’, Military Technology, vol. 22, no. 3 (March
1988), pp. 20–9.
64. See N.J. Wheeler, ‘Good International Citizenship: a Third Way for
British Foreign Policy’, International Affairs, vol. 74, no. 4 (October
1998), pp. 847–70.
65. M. Codner, ‘Policy Topped but Treasury Tailed? The Strategic Defence
Review’, The Officer (July/August 1998), p. 33.
66. Strategic Defence Review, p. 10.
67. See Uttley, 1995, op. cit.
68. See M.R.H. Uttley, ‘Technology Transfer and the RMA: the Scope and
Limitation of Licensed Production for the United Kingdom’, in R.
Matthews and J. Treddenick (eds), Managing the Revolution in Military
Affairs (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001).
8
Defence Management and the
Impact of ‘Jointery’
Martin Edmonds
Introduction: some terminological considerations
Definitions of ‘management’ prove singularly unhelpful when con-

sidering the issue of defence management and ‘jointery’. The Oxford
English Dictionary, for example, offers such synonyms for the verb
(both transitive and intransitive) ‘to manage’ as ‘to handle; wield;
control the affairs of; take charge of; gain one’s ends with, to admin-
ister (finances etc); to carry on successfully or otherwise; to succeed
in accomplishing’. ‘Management’, it continues, ‘is the action or
manner of managing’, but also sees management to mean ‘the use
of contrivance for effecting some purpose’.1 Though these terms
offer some flavour of how ‘management’ may be perceived, none is
precisely what is intended when the Ministry of Defence (MOD)
talks in terms of ‘efficient management’ in respect of ‘the delivery of
public services’.2
The MOD Joint Warfare Publication (JWP) 0-01 British Defence
Doctrine was the first document of its kind and, ‘which sets out how
we go about discharging our defence responsibilities’. Furthermore,
it claimed to be:
based on the enduring lessons of history, placed in the context of

modern experience. It describes the linkages between national
policy and military operations and is intended to guide those at a
senior level, to educate staff officers and officials and to inform
the wider public.3
151
‘Defence management’ as such, does not figure prominently though

under the chapter entitled ‘United Kingdom Security and Defence’,
there is a subheading, ‘Higher Defence Management’. This offers a
structural description of the constitutional authority, political
control, principal advisers, Chiefs of Staff, and MOD Headquarters
and a procedural description of Departmental Planning, expressed
in terms of detailed objectives, and budgets delegated through a
hierarchy of Top, Higher and Basic Level budget-holders down the
chain of command.4
‘Jointery’ does not raise quite the same problem. It is a neologism,
which, in a military context, refers to the uniting, or merging of ele-
ments of the three armed services within a single entity. Nothing is
implied, however, of the manner in which these elements are
brought together, or the structure, properties or characteristics of
the outcome. A ‘joint’ administrative structure may do no more
than disguise what could well be three separate activities going on
under one roof and under a common title.
Nor should it be assumed that ‘jointery’ is confined to the
merging of service functions. The Ministry of Defence is made up of
both service personnel and civil servants who traditionally have per-
formed distinctly separate functions. Many of these functions have
overlapped, particularly in such areas as financial management,
policy advice and planning, operational analysis, science and tech-
nology, and procurement. Where there has been a marked degree of
overlap, the necessity of the office-holder being either from the ser-
vices or an MOD civil servant ceases to be important; often separate
ministry departments have been merged. This also would come
within the framework of ‘jointery’.
Defence management
There is general agreement especially among the senior military that

the world of defence is sufficiently different from the civilian that
some isomorphic read-across is likely to be misleading. War
fighting, which is the ultimate focus of all defence spending, plan-
ning and preparation, leaves no room for ideal ‘management’
models. Nevertheless, some management models and techniques
can be of value and these have been tested in recent years to
improve the quality of defence preparation.
Martin Edmonds 153
The Leavitt model

The Leavitt model of management has proved a useful framework in
the analysis of defence. It is a synthesis of three successive waves of
American thinking about management: structural, behavioural, and
scientific. None is a sufficient solution to effective and efficient total
defence ‘management’.5 The main elements of the defence manage-
ment model – problem, people, structure and management science –
are interdependent and interactive ‘in a myriad of ways’.6 Most
important is the level of analysis at which change happens and
where, in the structure of the defence establishment, it impacts or,
even, affects defence policy as a whole. Alternatively, the problem of
defence can apply to the roles or missions that the armed services
are called upon to fulfil. Defence management therefore impacts on
some aspect of defence structure as well as upon elements of strat-
egy, operations or tactics, and equipment acquisition.
More recently, change has occurred within the domestic economy
and society as a whole; this has had a direct impact, inter alia, on
the human behavioural element of the model. As defence budgets
have been substantially reduced in recent years, so the ‘science’ of
defence management has come to the fore. Consequently, changes
over the past two decades have pushed the issue of the management
of defence down the chain of command even to a point where,
sometimes, it falls outside the defence domain altogether.
The objective of defence

The defence of the state with the protection of its citizens is,
arguably, the primary responsibility of government. The scope of
defence is considerable. It ranges from the defence of national sover-
eignty, the protection of national interests from external threats and
from within the state, support of foreign policy objectives, the orga-
nization and training of armed forces, and the acquisition of the
equipment. All this has to be accomplished continuously over time
in an ever-changing security environment, at a cost that does not
adversely impact on the national economy or the well-being of the
population, and with popular support and endorsement.7 If the
term ‘management’ of defence means anything, it has something to
do with the reconciliation of these separate demands, several of
which are contradictory.
Organizational and structural considerations

After the end of World War II, the focus of defence management
initially was on the structure and organization of defence. The
Ministry of Defence was established in 1946. Organization remained
the main focus of management attention and was the subject of a
White Paper in 1958, the purpose of which was to strengthen
control over the armed services and to bring the Ministry of Supply
into the defence ambit. The White Paper had little impact until the
Jacob/Ismay Report of 1963, the year when the three service min-
istries and the Ministry of Supply were finally absorbed within a
Ministry of Defence.8 Reflecting this change, the Defence Minister
became a Secretary of State.9
The ‘human behavioural’ factor

The awareness of the importance of people and personalities in posi-
tions of influence and power within the Ministry of Defence
received emphasis during the 1950s along with organizational con-
siderations. This was perhaps a feature of the individuals concerned,
such as Field Marshal Lord Montgomery and Admiral of the Fleet
Earl Mountbatten, and specific Defence Ministers such as Duncan
Sandys, Peter Thorneycroft and Denis Healey. Their personal, and
sometime idiosyncratic, views of defence and how things should be
done, not to mention the influence of such Prime Ministers as
Harold Macmillan and, later, Harold Wilson, had considerable
impact during the period.
Coupled with the human dimension was an appreciation of deci-
sion-making theory. Decision processes were seen as crucially
important and the individuals involved brought to deliberations not
merely personal perspectives but, more especially, those of the
branches of government, their professional culture, and different
sources of information. This applied not only to Ministry of Defence
personnel and those who served with the armed services, but also to
the media, commentators, analysts and consultants. Sound defence
management was a matter of getting the right people in the right
order so as to end up with the right decision.
Another dimension of the ‘people’ element in defence manage-
ment is that of ideology, defined as ‘modes of perception and espe-
cially of identifying and responding to problems and challenges on
Martin Edmonds 155
the basis of definite, though not fixed, practices, traditions, continu-

ing historical development and circumstances’.10 Those who serve in
the armed services and within the defence establishment have per-
ceptions both of the world and the role of defence within it and of
the values and priorities of their own institution. In the past, such
perceived attributes as discipline, obedience, and organization, and
values such as duty, honour, patriotism, respect for authority,
courage and so on played a significant part in defence
management.11
The significance of this is the simple fact that many of these ‘ideo-
logical’ attributes of the individual and the ‘collective subjectivities
of the institutions that contribute to (defence) strategic decision-
making have changed radically over recent years. Military service is
becoming less of a profession and “just another job”; traditional
military values are being fast eroded.’12 Moreover, Britain is witness-
ing a ‘commercialization of defence’ that, while being compatible
with new ideological values of ‘military efficiency’, ‘value for
money’ and ‘competition’, puts distance between those with the
responsibility to ‘engage with the enemy’ and those for whom
defence is another commercial, income-generating activity.13
Management science
The third element, management science, has had the most lasting
impact on UK defence management. The United Kingdom was the
first, in 1964, to plan defence policy and posture on a functional
basis prompted by the fact that there was no clear antagonist
against whom to make detailed plans. This opened up the opportu-
nity for new approaches to defence planning and budgetary man-
agement in 1964. Without these management innovations,
subsequent initiatives that characterized the 1980s and 1990s would
have been much more problematic to introduce and implement.
Management science in defence did not end with the introduc-
tion of programme planning budgeting systems (PPBS) in 1964.
However, it took until 1979 for new techniques and approaches to
be introduced into defence planning and management, after which
the floodgates were opened for a succession of management innova-
tions over the ensuing 18 years. These were driven more by new
philosophies about the nature and role of government within
society and the paramountcy of a stable economy than by an aware-

ness, or appreciation, that there was urgent need of defence manage-
ment reform. It took a major crisis to prompt and necessitate change
and, in Britain’s case, it was a major financial crisis, the collapse of
‘corporatism’, and the impact of the ‘Winter of Discontent’ of 1978.
Early introduction of ‘jointery’
Just as it took a major economic and social crisis to bring about

radical reform in government, so it took the experience of World
War I to prompt new ideas about the effective deployment and
conduct of the armed services in time of conflict. Rather than
coming from their political masters, the relevance and benefit of
joint planning came from among the services themselves.
At the level of strategy and operations,14 it was the services that
took the initiative to combine and coordinate their planning activ-
ities in the form of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (CSC). The CSC,
acting as the principal advisory body to the government on
defence policy and matters of military strategy and operations,
remains in existence. It is the prime example of ‘jointery’ inas-
much as the Committee assumes collective responsibility for the
advice given.
Emerging from the CSC was a subcommittee, the Joint Planning
Committee, in 1927. Its relevance and utility increased after 1936
when Sir Thomas Inskip was appointed the first Minister for
Defence Coordination. This remained a centrally important body
throughout World War II, answering directly to the Prime Minister
and, after the US joined the conflict, the Combined Chiefs of Staff.15
As the war in Europe became inevitable, the Service Directors of
Intelligence formed a Joint Intelligence Committee with a represen-
tative of the Foreign Office. This Committee, with the Joint
Planning Committee (referred to as the Joint Planning Staff in
1942), formed the two principal subcommittees of the CSC through-
out the war with considerably expanded staffs.16 The only other
‘joint’ development during the War was the Directorate of
Combined Operations. Set up by the Prime Minister after Dunkirk, it
was responsible for ‘devising all the special equipment required for
amphibious forces in general and opposed landings in particular’.17
Martin Edmonds 157
The ‘conventions of government’ and the ‘Thatcher

revolution’
The purpose of this chapter is to address defence management and

to assess where ‘jointery’ fits into the overall defence scheme of
things in the light of post-Cold War changes in UK defence policy
and the successive defence reviews and structural changes since
Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979. These policy changes
and structural adjustments did not register any contemporary inter-
est in and concern for ‘jointery’ until a relatively late stage.
‘Jointery’ only generated serious interest when the Ministry of
Defence acted in response to unrelenting pressure from the Treasury
to reduce further the defence budget over and above the steady cuts
in defence expenditure after 1989. It found that further economies
were to be achieved by bringing the three armed services together in
joint commands, combat support and support functions and sub-
stantially reducing overhead costs.
The progress of significant administrative and organizational
reform within the Ministry of Defence was premised on a particular
view of the role of government within the affairs of the state. These
guidelines covered all government departments, and were not tail-
ored to the specific responsibilities of either a particular minister or
department. Thus, the Ministry of Defence was obliged to conform
to a particular approach to managing its affairs, irrespective of
whether or not that approach was appropriate to its constitutional
function.
The Thatcher approach verged on becoming an ideology in that it
accepted no exceptions, exemptions or concessions. In fact, the pre-
vious Callaghan administration also recognized that there was need
of radical change in government and in the management of the
British economy, but time had run out and it could not have antici-
pated the breadth or scope of the changes that Thatcher forced
through during 13 years in office.
Her approach was based on a Cabinet paper prepared by Sir Derek
Rayner entitled ‘The Conventions of Government’. It rapidly
became a blueprint for the government’s approach to Whitehall.
Still classified, its impact has been evident over the period of
Conservative administration from 1979 until the New Labour
victory of 1997. The objective was to facilitate and ensure the better
management of the state; ‘its cumulative impact was considerable

and, in so far as these things are knowable, permanent’.18 In
essence, Rayner recommended a break from corporatism and the
removal of the government from activities where it had neither a
justifiable place nor suitability.
Thatcher, in populist vein, referred to ‘getting the government off
people’s back’ and resolved to put an end to the ‘Nanny State’. She
saw the role of government as being to determine policy and give
direction; it was not its responsibility to execute policy in areas
where the private sector was better suited, more experienced, and
operated with greater efficiency. Over a period of ten years, the gov-
ernment sold off those spheres of activity for which it had been
responsible since 1945 such as the public utilities, local authority
provision and services, and state-owned industries such as telecom-
munications, shipbuilding, gas, electricity, water, automobiles, air-
lines, coal, ordnance, steel, oil, banking, brewing and even housing.
It was only a matter of time before this approach would impinge on
sectors more closely identified with the state: defence, social services
and education.
There were two principal drivers behind these privatization and de-
nationalization initiatives: first was an unshaken belief that state
industries and services were inherently inefficient, protected and sub-
sidized. It was the government’s conviction that competition and the
profit incentive were prerequisites before public financial support was
appropriated. Until these were in place in both national and local
government, public expenditure would remain high, industry non-
competitive and the affairs of state badly managed and inefficient.
The second was the realization that Keynesian economics had run
its course. No longer did it provide the answers to the question of
economic growth, full employment and economic stability.
Informed opinion concluded that the Keynesian approach in fact
contributed to Britain’s poor economic performance, lack of inter-
national competitiveness and high unemployment, all of which
were reflected in economic stagnation coupled with high inflation.
Monetarism offered a solution but it meant changing industrial and
trade union practices, strict control over the money supply and
drastic cuts in public spending.
No government department was exempt. Special pleading, for
example on grounds of national security or international treaty
Martin Edmonds 159
obligation, had little impact. However, Thatcher, at the time, hon-

oured election commitments to increase services’ pay that had been
neglected during the 1970s, to renew the UK’s future deterrent, to
fulfil a NATO agreement to increase defence spending in real terms
by 3 per cent per annum for five years, and, after the Falklands War,
gave sympathetic hearing to MOD and service priorities.
Changing defence management 1979–83: problem and

structure
The first approach to changing defence management should pre-

dictably have focused on the ‘problem’ and ‘defence structures’. The
perennial problem of the defence budget and the need to control
public expenditure prompted a defence review in 1980, but the
emphasis was as much to contain defence expenditure and keep up
commitments and capabilities, as to introduce cuts or alter policy. The
timing, however, was not propitious since a ‘second’ Cold War was
about to start, détente having collapsed and President Carter’s PD-59
committing the US to substantial increases in defence spending.
The Defence Review was conducted by the Secretary of State for
Defence, John Nott, and was announced in 1981. It met with strong
opposition, especially from the Royal Navy who saw its surface fleet
reduced significantly as part of a policy shift away from the North
Atlantic to the European Central Front.19 Little structural change
was introduced other than, in May 1981, a reorganization at the
centre that abolished the posts of Service Under-Secretary. This abo-
lition of service political representation was not a recommendation
of the Review but a consequence of Thatcher’s reaction to the Navy
Under-Secretary, Keith Speed, publicly protesting at the Defence
Review’s treatment of the navy. The Services’ Under-Secretaries were
replaced by two new posts, a Minister for Procurement and a
Minister for the Armed Forces. This one alteration gave the MOD a
more functional complexion at the political level and emphasized
defence rather than the services’ focus of defence policy-making.20
The change, it could also be argued, constituted a degree of ‘joint-
ery’ at the political level.
The Falklands War effectively caused the 1981 Nott Defence
Review to be shelved. The war was not the only factor, however, in
the development of management and ‘jointery’. The post-Falklands
period also saw a close relationship between Thatcher and the US

President, Ronald Reagan in which both agreed on the nature of the
Russian threat and the appropriate strategy to deal with it. This led
to an increase in defence expenditure over five years and a commit-
ment to station intermediate range cruise missiles in Britain to
counter a new Soviet SS-20 missile and Backfire bomber threat. To
accommodate these increases in defence expenditure and new com-
mitments, and meet the government’s public spending targets, new
approaches to efficiency had to be found. For this task, a Secretary
of State with novel management ideas was needed. For this, Michael
Heseltine fitted the bill.
FMI, MINIS and MOD reorganization, 1984
The issue of defence policy objectives was not one that offered
much scope for change. Nor was there further scope at that time for
structural changes. Efficiency in defence could only be found in
people and in the application of ‘management science’. The ‘people
factor’ had earlier been addressed when Heseltine had been at the
Department of the Environment after 1979. Equally significant was
the appointment of Sir Clive Whitmore as MOD Permanent Under
Secretary (PUS) who came not from within the ranks of the MOD
but from another department and therefore had no particular inter-
ests to protect.
MOD civil servants did not resist change or the introduction of
new management practices; in fact, the then PUS, Sir Frank Cooper,
aware of the government’s drive for efficiency in Whitehall, had
already prepared the MOD’s response to the government’s Financial
Management Initiative.21 So, by the time Heseltine became Secretary
of State, a system of Responsibility Budgets had already been intro-
duced and the MOD staff were well acquainted with a Management
Information System for Ministers and Top Management (MINIS),
cost-centre accounting, and a Budget System for Administrative
Expenditure (MAXIS).
Within two years all three had been incorporated into the MOD.
Their longer-term effect on later management changes would be
profound. They laid the foundation for further approaches that
would characterize future defence management, namely, the
definition of individual responsibility, enhanced delegation of
Martin Edmonds 161
authority for specific defence functions, greater accountability, and

a commitment to ‘contractorisation’.22 In Heseltine’s own words,
the new management practices introduced a ‘new orthodoxy’ into
the MOD, one which emphasized controlling the defence budget
through managerial change and personnel cuts.23
The introduction of new management practices also went hand-
in-hand with central defence reorganization. A number of key
changes were introduced. First, the two areas of advice given to the
Secretary of State would in future be the PUS on policy, administra-
tive and planning advice, and the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS)
for military operational issues and on matters of policy feasibility.
This effectively left the Service Chiefs with only the responsibility
and oversight of their respective services, a significant curtailment
in their influence.24
Second, a unified (effectively ‘joint’) and central Defence Staff
would report to the PUS and the CDS. The aim again was ‘to provide
a “defence” solution to major problems of a resource or operational
kind’.25 Third, was the creation of a Second Permanent Under
Secretary (2nd PUS) responsible for the civilian programme and
budget staffs and for an Office of Management and Budget. This was
a position that Heseltine likened to a ‘Financial Director’ in a com-
mercial business. He would also have the Chief Scientific Adviser
and the Chief of Defence Procurement reporting to him.
The House of Commons Defence Committee noted that the major
changes were to the unified central staffs but in the pursuit of
efficiency could see no economies coming from the structural re-
organization and concluded that better financial control and
improved cost-effectiveness in defence programmes might bring
about savings. They recommended that the application of better
‘management science’ approaches to defence procurement practices
would make significant savings.
‘Next steps’, ‘New Management Strategy’ and the MOD,

1987–93
The structural, personnel and management reforms introduced into

the MOD in the early 1980s had a significant impact. Some ele-
ments, however, did not change, perhaps deliberately so. Though
there was a unified defence staff, it was still not strictly ‘joint’ and
the government was careful to retain the distinctive identity of the

separate services. Significant progress was made on all fronts but
none more so than in the approach to defence procurement, where
a ‘cardinal points system’ was introduced and competition initiated
not merely to reduce costs, but more especially to force the defence
manufacturers to alter their business practices.
Possibly things might have been left to evolve but, as in 1979,
exogenous factors prompted further internal defence management
reform. In 1987, just prior to the general election, Sir Robin Ibbs
filed his ‘Next Steps’ Report, in which he recommended a restructur-
ing of the Civil Service into a small core of policy-makers. The
remainder would be engaged only in providing or procuring goods
and services through free-standing agencies operating as small busi-
nesses but regulated by independent authorities.
Before much could be done in this respect, the defence and inter-
national security environment radically altered after 1989. The Cold
War ended in 1990 and then, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed.
These momentous developments impacted directly on NATO and
UK defence policies, and led directly to another defence policy
review, Options for Change. In defence management terms, the
problem also changed: defence funding would diminish; levels of
forces’ readiness would decline; there would be different policy pri-
orities; manpower levels would drop by 20 per cent; and equipment
priorities would change. After an interlude caused by the Gulf War,
the implications and import of the Options for Change defence
review began to take effect in 1992.26
The Ministry of Defence, however, introduced the ‘Next Steps’ ini-
tiative under its ‘New Management Strategy’ (NMS) programme in
1991. Commenting after its introduction, Sir Moray Stewart claimed
that ‘the importance of NMS to future resource management cannot
be overstated. Its aim, simply put, is “the better management of
defence”. We want it to allow us a higher level of defence pro-
gramme to be afforded than would otherwise be the case.’27
Encompassed within this initiative was a review of the Ministry of
Defence’s organization, entitled Prospects. This was conducted in
parallel with the Options for Change review and was based on imple-
menting the key principles of the NMS – setting clear objectives,
delegating authority for meeting those objectives to managers, and
making managers accountable for their performance. Prospects led to
Martin Edmonds 163
a 20 per cent reduction in numbers in the Ministry of Defence’s core

headquarters as more responsibilities were taken on by military
commands.28
The emphasis here was clearly one of structural change coupled
with new management techniques. Structurally, the NMS delegated
responsibility for performing defence functions and tasks to specific
budget-holders. Though a strong centre would remain within the
MOD and be responsible for policy, planning and the overall bud-
getary regime, accountability, authority and cash would be put ‘in
the hands of those who run the business’.29 This was done with
three main principles in mind: objectives and responsibilities had to
be clear; management had to be accountable; and authority had to
be delegated as far as possible.
The structure of managing defence, however, would be less
‘compact’ than before, with loosened central direction and ‘an
opaque face to the outside world’.30 The outcome (so it has been
claimed) was better value for money as a result of budget-holders
finding efficiencies and having the authority to act upon them. The
National Audit Office (NAO) raised a concern that levels of delega-
tion might fall short of what budget-holders would like and that
consequently such a gap might risk those holders’ commitment to
the overall strategy. They also raised doubts over the financial skills
of budget-holders, bearing in mind that they were, first and fore-
most, servicemen, not accountants.31
The MOD was required to place emphasis on output and service
to the customer. This again was prompted from outside the MOD
itself, in this case the ‘Citizen’s Charter’ initiative introduced by
Prime Minister John Major in 1993. The output of defence and the
implicit commitment to deliver on that objective was expressed in
terms of the ‘Departmental Plan’, something to which the taxpayer
was expected to be able to relate.32 Only in respect of that Plan
would the Ministry be able to be accountable not merely for defence
per se, but also for the efficiency with which it was provided.33
The other dimension to NMS was the ‘Next Steps’ initiative. This
conformed with yet another government policy, that of reducing
the size and cost of the public sector as a whole. This meant explor-
ing areas where the provision of goods and services to the armed
services and MOD could be provided more efficiently – and give
better value for money. This could be achieved either from the
private sector or from (quasi) government agencies operating along

commercial lines and undertaking functions that would otherwise
be done in-house. This initiative also conformed to another govern-
ment directive, Competing for Quality, which set out proposals for
widening competition in the provision of services throughout the
public sector.34
This initiative had structural implications and promised dramati-
cally to reduce the size and composition of the defence establish-
ment with wide-ranging personnel implications. People working in
agencies would have to change working practices and attitudes, and
outside contractors would have to work according to rules seldom
found in the civilian world. The armed services would have to
become accustomed to combat and logistic support from sources
outside the defence establishment working to different terms of ref-
erence. There was relatively little by way of management science in
the initiative, though it could be argued that the principle of out-
sourcing took advantage of market competition, astute purchasing
practices and private sector expertise.
By 1992, 14 Defence Agencies had been created, of which the
largest was the Defence Research Agency (DRA). By March 1995, the
MOD was able to assert: ‘A large proportion of the MOD’s work is
now carried out by Agencies. These bodies operate within a policy
and resource framework that encourages a business-like approach to
the delivery of services to the MOD and, where appropriate, to the
public.’35 Many of these agencies heralded another dimension of
‘jointery’ inasmuch as their output was defence as a whole, rather
than oriented towards a single service, as had been the case with
many of the former Defence Research Establishments.
Management, the Front Line First: Defence Costs Study
An unforeseen consequence for the MOD of the Ibbs ‘Next Steps’

recommendations and the government’s Competing for Quality
policy was an unexpected requirement to achieve cumulative
efficiency savings averaging 2.5 per cent per annum each year for
the following three years starting in April 1993. The MOD and the
services had effectively to find further savings of £750 million each
year for the next three years. This imposed on an already severely
reduced defence budget and over-stretched armed forces a heavy cut
Martin Edmonds 165
in expenditure that threatened their capability to meet defence

policy objectives. The solutions were few: change defence policy,
reduce the level of training, exercises and operations; cancel major
equipment programmes; or find further efficiencies. In addressing
this, the search was for further ‘management science’ solutions.
Earlier ‘management science’ had set the tone for the MOD and
the armed services from which radical solutions could be explored.
Here, the ‘people factor’ in management theory seemingly produced
dividends: the formalism, conservatism and hierarchy that had
characterized the MOD and armed services’ attitudes in the past had
been replaced by a more ‘entrepreneurial’, cost-awareness and value
for money ethos. At short notice and in the short time at their dis-
posal, the MOD initiated its Front Line First: Defence Costs Study exer-
cise in 1993. The terms of reference were to produce the desired
savings without any detrimental impact on the military capability
of Britain’s front-line forces. Furthermore, the exercise should, first,
engage all branches of the defence establishment from the highest
to the lowest, and second, allow no stone to remain unturned.36
The more than 3000 proposals for savings that were received
demonstrated a ‘general desire for constructive change’.37 The
general direction of these proposals, which were considered by
study teams appointed to explore areas for improved efficiency,
were along the established lines of earlier management changes. The
difference was that it was no defence review in the traditional sense;
the issue of defence policy (that is, the management ‘problem’) was
therefore not at issue. Rather, it was an exercise to reinforce the
Departmental Plan and defence policy goals. The approach was to
consider structural change where it meant economies, and to apply
‘management science’ to the way the MOD and armed services
might conduct their primary business cost effectively.
In all, there were 20 major studies and 13 minor studies commis-
sioned, covering all aspects of the MOD’s business other than the
front line. Those involved were asked to be radical. Not all recom-
mendations were adopted, and some merely reflected changes that
were already in progress. The outcome of the study far exceeded the
savings that the Treasury had demanded of the MOD. First, despite
previous cuts in personnel and central practices within the MOD,
the study found that there was room for change at the top, which
was seen as ‘too large, too top heavy and too bureaucratic’. Second,
the process of delegating responsibility under the NMS was ‘seen as

the key to maximizing efficiency and that there was scope for dele-
gation down the chains of command further than had already been
achieved’. Third, there was need for a greater cost-consciousness
that required improvements in financial management procedures
and linked expenditure more closely with output. Fourth, as future
operations were likely to be carried out on a joint service basis, there
was a strong case for rationalizing command, training and support
structures on a joint service basis that would enhance operational
effectiveness as well as offer savings. Lastly, savings in the longer
term depended on ‘changes in the culture of the department, sim-
plifying working practices and placing more weight on personal
responsibility and accountability’.38
Surprisingly, the Defence Costs Study did not address defence pro-
curement, a sphere of MOD activity that over the previous two
decades had experienced significant change. The management of
the procurement budget and the significant improvement in value
for money in weapons and equipment acquisition (the Downey
system) had been significant and justifiably commended by the
National Audit Office. With the reductions in the numbers, the
armed services had been promised compensation with the best
modern equipment available and the best value for money. With
the unit costs of weapons increasing inexorably, the importance of
efficient procurement practices, market competition and manufac-
turer restructuring and reform to the UK defence effort, could not be
ignored for too long.39
Post-‘Front Line First’ defence management and ‘jointery’
The first outcome of the Defence Costs Study that brought into effect
a ‘joint’ approach involved not the three armed services, but rather
the services and their civilian colleagues within the MOD main
building. It recognized that the MOD was unique in that it con-
tained two core functions, civil and military. The recommendation
was that these could be performed by integrated staffs; provided
these functions were distinctive, the MOD’s structure could make
adequate provision. This would be ensured by ‘preserving clear
lines’ of functional responsibility to Ministers. From an efficiency
perspective, savings were expected to be made by removing duplica-
Martin Edmonds 167
tion and encouraging ‘cooperative problem-solving at the working

level’. To give substance to this development, a Central Staff was
established in the place of the former Office of Management and
Budget and Defence Staff.
One of the more innovative changes at the centre was the cre-
ation of a new body, the Financial Management and Planning
Group (FMPG) with responsibility for policy, management and
finance. The novelty was in the incorporation of the Service Chiefs,
who under the 1984 reforms had largely been excluded from policy-
making to the extent that they had responsibility for delivering
policy objectives without the attendant financial authority. The
FMPG resolved that weakness, and linked policy, programme and
resource issues under one body. The Service Chiefs would in future
be accountable for the operating plans and budgets of their services.
Another area for ‘jointery’ was in respect of operations. The past
practice of setting up an ad hoc joint headquarters when a crisis
arose did not take into account the changed international security
environment. The solution lay in the creation of a Permanent Joint
Headquarters (PJHQ) with responsibility for conducting operations
in accordance with political and strategic direction from the MOD.
The assumption was that the PJHQ ‘will not prejudice or reduce
existing responsibilities of the Services’ operational Commanders-in-
Chief’. The assumption was also that it would make a clear distinc-
tion between the responsibilities of the MOD for policy and the
PJHQ for execution. In the process, significant staff reductions were
possible as it allowed rationalization of the three single-service
headquarters.40
Mention of the FMPG at this juncture allows for reference to the
Independent Review of the Armed Forces’ Manpower, Career and
Remuneration Structure, otherwise known as the ‘Bett Report’. This
was an inquiry into the personnel policies of the MOD that would
recommend changes that would serve the MOD and the services
well into the twenty-first century. It made over 150 recommenda-
tions to ensure that the services could ‘recruit, and retain the right
number of people of the right quality’.41 This was a report on per-
sonnel management, and its conclusions were that the services and
the MOD had to adopt new practices in the management of service
personnel within a new social, economic and political environment.
One recommendation, adopted by the MOD, was to establish a
Services’ Personnel Board at the most senior level responsible for the
strategic direction of personnel. There is now an FMPG (Service
Personnel) supported by the Services Personnel Policy Board –
arguably yet another illustration of ‘jointery’ at the top level.42
‘Jointery’ lent itself to other areas in the quest for substantial cost
saving, though in certain respects the concept also made some oper-
ational, training or structural sense in a changing defence environ-
ment. One of the latter examples was the decision to merge the
Service Staff Colleges to form a single Joint Services’ Command and
Staff College (JSCSC). Certainly, the options in the Defence Costs
Study in this respect have not materialized.43 Above the JSCSC, the
existing Higher Command and Staff Course and the Royal College
of Defence Studies, both joint in their composition and orientation,
have remained.
Training offered considerable scope for ‘jointery’ and also was
found to conform with the government’s policies on reducing the
size and cost of the public sector. If outside agencies could prove
more cost-effective in training, or if the three services could combine
their training requirements, then savings in reduced overheads, less
duplication, and fewer personnel could be achieved. For example, a
defence helicopter flying school for all three services was planned.
More controversial, perhaps, was the merging of the services’
medical provision with the closure of two of the three service hospi-
tals. A ‘joint’ hospital was retained at Haslar, near Portsmouth, and
three peacetime military district hospital units would be set up
adjoining National Health Service hospitals.
The focus of the Defence Costs Study was to find savings in logistic
support. The emphasis in the study was less on jointery, as this was
thought to be incompatible with the individual services’ need for spe-
cialist maintenance and repair on specific equipment. Nevertheless,
repair, maintenance, warehousing and storage, and postal and courier
services were open to market testing and out-sourcing. Since then,
however, the pressure for greater ‘jointery’ determined that a
mammoth joint Defence Logistics Organization, serving all three ser-
vices, has been established under a three star officer.
The (FLF) Front Line First: Defence Costs Study was estimated to
realize savings of over £750 million in the first year and further
savings in excess of that figure were expected in following years. To
that extent, the exercise achieved its primary aim. Savings however,
Martin Edmonds 169
had to be achieved without loss in front-line effectiveness. Little evi-

dence has emerged that the process has either released resources for
expansion or improvements in operational capability or that the
services are, as a result, more effective. It will take some time for the
effects of the FLF study to work their way through the defence
system; only then will the full implications of what has been done
be understood. Such an exercise, however, cannot be repeated. Short
of privatizing the armed services as a whole, there is little scope left
for further savings.
The Strategic Defence Review and ‘Smart Procurement

Initiative’
Or so it was thought in 1995/6. The FLF Defence Costs Study marked

a massive change in the way the MOD and the armed services went
about their business and its cumulative impact would take a long
time to absorb. It also introduced a major cultural change, the
effects of which on such issues as the commitment and morale of
military personnel have given cause for concern. Nevertheless, FLF
confirmed in the minds of many that defence policy was largely
‘resource driven’, with the Treasury, rather than the MOD the prin-
cipal motivating force.
The situation altered quite radically following the Conservative
defeat at the polls in 1997 and the initiation of the Labour Party’s
Strategic Defence Review on taking office. The review was innova-
tive inasmuch as it took over a year to complete, engaged a wide
range of outside bodies to contribute to the debate and extended an
open invitation to the general public to offer comment. While it
was going on, no yearly defence White Paper was published and the
government pledged to keep defence spending at the same level as
the previous administration for three years. The outcome marked a
radical change inasmuch as it clearly marked defence as being sec-
ondary to and in support of UK foreign policy. The review shifted
emphasis away from high-intensity conventional war in Europe
towards interventionary operations out-of-area and introduced an
‘ethical’ dimension into defence and foreign policy. In so doing, it
formulated approaches to ‘preventive’ and ‘defence’ diplomacy,44
and promoted an increased ‘joint’ approach to defence planning,
operations and support45 while retaining commitments to NATO
and to both deterrence and disarmament.46 Finally, the review com-

mitted the MOD to adopting a ‘Smart Procurement Initiative’ the
product of the consultants McKinsey, who had been brought in to
address the weaknesses inherent in the weapons acquisition
process.47
In a nutshell, the new administration significantly focused
defence away from past priorities and in a new direction, one much
more in keeping with the changed international security environ-
ment.48 This step-level change opened opportunities for revisiting
both the ‘people’ element in management and also the selective
application of management science. In respect of the former, the UK
armed services have experienced significant changes to personnel
policies, further emphasis on joint forces, joint training and joint
logistic support. The composition of the reserves was radically
altered and the terms and conditions of military service generally
changed to bring the armed services more in line with civilian
norms, values and employment practices. The effect of these devel-
opments on the fighting efficiency of the armed services has still to
be judged, but what is clear is that numbers have decreased and
changed practices have helped to reduce further the cost of defence.
Compared with the new management practices introduced in the
1980s and 1990s, the SDR made relatively minor changes. One,
however, is of note within the MOD: the introduction of Resource
Accounting and Budgeting (RAB), a management process that was
designed to give a more accurate picture of the out-turn of defence
assets, particularly as it also required attention to be given to capital
and facilities that in the past had been taken for granted.49
Arguably, the most significant management science development
as a consequence of the SDR was the introduction of the ‘Smart
Procurement Initiative’ (SPI). Recognizing the government’s poor
record in defence procurement, the target was to improve the acqui-
sition process and get equipment ‘faster, better, cheaper’. By encour-
aging partnership between the central customers (the MOD and the
services) and the defence manufacturers through the creation of
Integrated Project Teams (IPTs), focusing more effort at the early
stages of a weapons programme, emphasizing whole-life and not the
unit cost of equipment, and undertaking risk analysis of different
equipment options, the SDR sought to change the whole culture of
defence procurement and generate estimated savings of £2 billion
Martin Edmonds 171
over ten years. In parallel with these developments, attention was

given to encouraging private/public partnerships in weapons pro-
grammes as well as a move away from specifying service-related
equipment and towards the acquisition of ‘capabilities’. These
‘equipment capabilities’ often transcended traditional service
boundaries and focused on defence missions and where joint (and
combined) forces were thought likely to encounter any adversary.
In the four years since Labour came to power, therefore, both
‘jointery’ and ‘management’ have moved forward, virtually hand-in-
hand. The defence ‘problem’ has been redefined; the people factor
has been addressed and changes made to both structures and terms
of service; and there have been further developments in the applica-
tion of management science in both procurement and financial
control. The outstanding question is whether or not the combined
effect of these three management-related developments, coming in
the wake of radical changes in the late 1980s and 1990s, will really
have achieved the objective of ‘Modern Forces for the Modern
World’. Certainly there are a number of difficulties in all three areas
still to be resolved, but that is always the case when organizations
are going through a period of transition.
Conclusion: the implications of defence management

and jointery
Before making any judgement about the implications of ‘jointery’

and the variety of management changes that have characterized
the MOD and the armed services since the ill-fated Nott Defence
Review it is important to be reminded what defence is for and
what it demands of those who serve. ‘Defence organisation
requires that men should fight; that men can be ordered to risk,
and indeed to lose, their lives without option of lawful refusal.’50
The merit of any organizational restructuring or any injection of
management practices is that ‘those who lead should have the
necessary legal and moral authority to give such orders, and
should maintain the confidence and trust of those to whom the
orders are given’.51 The question has to be asked whether, in
pursuit of ‘value for money’, cost savings, delegated responsibility,
efficiency, market testing and ‘jointery’, these criteria have been
wholly met.
As far back as the Mountbatten/Thorneycroft reforms of the early

1960s, the concern was that the single-service identity would be lost
or seriously eroded. The introduction in the 1960s of PPBS into
defence decision-making and of civilian analyses raised the same
concern. In the mid-1960s, Secretary of State Denis Healey went to
great lengths to reassure his Chiefs of Staff that their respective
service identities were secure.52 The Thatcher years brought a new
philosophy and a new approach to the role of government and of
the cost of the public sector. This both reflected and changed the
view of society and of the relationship of the individual to it.
Furthermore, it has altered people’s perceptions and expectations.
The ‘people element’ of management theory has changed. The
defence civil servant and the military officer of today have different
views of tradition, loyalty, leadership, command and a commitment
to the policy objectives of defence and military operations. In addi-
tion, they have been affected by what Malcolm Rifkind defines as a
‘cultural change’ – change that has meant ‘less management by
committee, more individual responsibility, greater awareness of the
needs of the customer for services, and greater readiness to embrace
ideas from outside’. Subsumed under this has been the process of
involving and empowering junior staff and the introduction of
more flexible ways of working, rather than unquestioning adher-
ence to traditional procedures.53
Certainly, the defence problem is very different as Britain embarks
on the twenty-first century from that prior to 1989. Defence policy
objectives, though expressed in familiar language, are different in
both degree and kind, and the threat and the use of force in pursuit of
political objectives are perceived very differently. This alone would
dictate the need for change in structures and management. The sense
of major risk and imminent danger is no longer there. The conse-
quential danger is that those responsible for defence administration,
organization and management work on an almost permanent peace-
time basis. The proof of structural and managerial change is not what
can be achieved by way of economies in peacetime but, rather, the
performance of one’s armed forces in time of crisis or war. Economy,
‘just-in-time’ savings and value for money in the short term eliminate
redundancy, and it is redundancy that enables armed forces to be
deployed, sustained and reinforced in war.
There has, without question, been significant structural change
within Britain’s defence establishment since 1984. Much of this has
Martin Edmonds 173
been driven by management principles of output planning and the

linkage of finance, resources, operations and policy. In that process,
those responsible for the different elements have been brought
together at the centre. It has meant that the single-service ideal has
disappeared, though the creation of the FMPG with single-service
representation and financial responsibility is an important recogni-
tion of the distinctive and specialist contribution each service makes
to Britain’s defence. This will help to defuse the tensions that have
characterized relations between the services and the MOD, among
the services themselves, and between policy-makers and those who
implement it in the field.
Reduced defence budgets and government market-oriented
philosophies have combined with structural, personnel and policy
changes, giving way to the introduction of a number of manage-
ment theories and practices. The MOD has not been immune from
these and, to its credit, has embraced change, whether it liked it or
not, with some sense of purpose and energy. Many management
techniques have been introduced that have clearly had substantial
effect. What remains as a nagging doubt is whether or not the intro-
duction of these new management systems has been seen more as
an end in itself, rather than as the efficient means by which to
achieve defence objectives as laid down by the government. The
two are not necessarily compatible.
Logically, the ‘triplication’ of management resources can be abol-
ished if ‘jointery’ were taken to its extreme and all three services
were replaced with a single ‘defence’ force. The Canadian experi-
ment should warn against such a development and even though the
Canadians have restored, more or less, their three services again, its
central national defence headquarters remains in some disarray. In
the words of a former senior MOD administrator: ‘Any further
change should be analysed on the principle of its advantage for the
ultimate product in the field rather than appearances in
Whitehall.’54 Perhaps enough ‘management’ change is enough and
the time has come to consolidate what has been achieved already
over almost 20 turbulent years.
Notes
1. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1978), p. 1269.
2. MOD, Department Report, The Government’s Expenditure Plans 1995/6 to

1997/8, Cmnd 2801 (London: HMSO, 1995), p. 28.
3. M. Portillo, ‘Foreword’, in British Defence Doctrine, Joint Warfare
Publication (JWP) 0-01 (London: MOD, 1996).
4. Ibid., pp. 5.11–5.17.
5. J.E. Dawson, ‘An American View of Defence Management’, in L. Martin
(ed.), The Management of Defence (London: Macmillan, 1976), pp. 47–8.
6. Ibid., p. 49.
7. M. Edmonds, The Defence Equation (London: Brassey’s, 1986), Chapter 1.
8. E. Broadbent, The Military and Government (London: RUSI, 1988), pp. 20–4.
9. For details of organizational change during this period, see M.
Edmonds, ‘The Higher Organisation of Defence in the UK’, in M.
Edmonds (ed.), Central Organisations of Defence (Boulder: Westview,
1985); R. Rosecrance, Defence of the Realm (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1968); W. Snyder, The Politics of British Defence Policy
1945–1962 (London: Benn, 1964); F. Johnson, Defence by Ministry,
1944–1974 (London: Duckworth, 1980).
10. D. Smith, Defence of the Realm in the 1980s (London: Croom Helm,
1980), p. 38.
11. Ibid., p. 36.
12. There have been numerous articles and discussions of the decline in
military professionalism stimulated initially by the work of C. Moskos,
‘From Institution to Occupation: Trends in Military Organisation’,
Armed Forces and Society, vol. 4, no. 1 (Fall 1977), pp. 41–50. For a com-
prehensive discussion, see C. Downes, ‘To Be or Not to Be a Profession:
the Military Case’, Defense Analysis, vol.1, no. 3, pp. 147–72. See also G.
Harries-Jenkins, ‘The Concept of Military Professionalism’, Defense
Analysis, vol. 6 no. 2, pp. 117–30; and M. Shaw, The Post-military Society
(London: Polity Press, 1991).
13. M. Edmonds, ‘Defence Management: a View from the United
Kingdom’, in D. Bland (ed.), Issues in Defence Management (Kingston:
Queen’s University Press, 1999), pp. 33–56. Also, M. Edmonds, ‘The
Commercialisation of Defence’, Cambridge Review of International
Relations (Autumn/Winter, 1999).
14. On the ‘concept of operations’, see J. Downey, Management in the Armed
Forces: an Anatomy of the Military Profession (Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill,
1977), p. 29.
15. Lord Ismay, Memoirs of Lord Ismay (Kingswood: Windmill, 1960), pp.
74–6, 161–4, 287–8.
16. Ibid., p. 161.
17. Ibid.
18. P. Hennessy, ‘Mrs Thatcher’s Impact on Whitehall’, in B. Jones et al.,
Politics UK (London: Philip Alan, 1991), p. 470.
19. MOD, The United Kingdom Defence Programme: the Way Forward, Cmnd
8299 (London: HMSO, 1981).
20. MOD, Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1982, Cmnd 8529/1 (London:
HMSO, 1982).
Martin Edmonds 175
21. F. Cooper, ‘Ministry of Defence’, in J. Harrison and M. Gretton (eds),

Reshaping Central Government (London: Macmillan, 1987), pp. 112–15.
22. A. Smith, Management of the MOD 1983–86, Bailrigg Memorandum 15
(Lancaster, CDISS, 1996), p. 7.
23. Secretary of State for Defence, MINIS and the Development of the
Organisation of Defence (London: HMSO, March 1984).
24. MOD, Central Organisation of Defence, Cmnd 9315 (London: HMSO,
July 1995).
25. Broadbent, op. cit., p. 73.
26. R. Mottram, ‘Options for Change: Process and Prospects’, RUSI Journal
(Spring 1991), p. 26.
27. M. Stewart, ‘Future Resource Management in Defence’, RUSI Journal
(April 1993), p. 73.
28. MOD, Front Line First: Defence Costs Study (London: MOD, 1994), p. 9.
29. Ibid., p. 74.
30. C. France, ‘Managing Defence: New Approaches to Old Problems’, RUSI
Journal (April 1994), p. 15.
31. NAO, The New Management Strategy in the Ministry of Defence, HC 638
(London: HMSO, 24 August 1994), p. 3.
32. One important innovation in this period was the publication of an
annual departmental report on the Government’s Expenditure Plans for
the ensuing two years. This document provides a more useful guide to
MOD plans and performance than the annual Statement on the Defence
Estimates which focuses more on past performance and activities than
planning, budgetary and management priorities. See, for example,
MOD, Departmental Report by the MOD: the Government’s Expenditure Plans
1995/96 to 1997/98, Cmnd 2801 (London: HMSO, 1995).
33. Ibid p. 13.
34. HMG, Competing for Quality, Cmnd 1730 (London: HMSO, November
1991).
35. MOD, Departmental Report on the Government’s Expenditure Plans 1995/96
to 1997/98, Cm 2801 (London: HMSO, March 1995), Annex C, p. XI.
36. MOD, Directorate of Defence Policy, Front Line First: Defence Costs Study
(London: HMSO, 1994), p. 5.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid., p. 7.
39. See, for example, NAO, Ministry of Defence: Initiatives in Defence
Procurement, HC 189 (London: HMSO, 6 February 1991).
40. MOD, Front Line First, op. cit., pp. 15–17.
41. M. Bett, Independent Review of the Armed Forces’ Manpower, Career and
Remuneration Structures (London: HMSO, 1995), p. vii.
42. MOD, The Armed Forces and the Future: a Personnel Strategy (London:
MOD, February 1997), p. 3.
43. The options identified were between Greenwich and Camberley.
Bracknell ‘could not accommodate the new course and the site will be
sold’. By 1997, Greenwich had been vacated, Camberley’s future was
uncertain and Bracknell had been made the (temporary) home of the
first Joint Services Command and Staff Course, MOD, Front Line First,
op. cit., p. 23.
44. For example, see MOD Defence Diplomacy (London: DISN Pubs, MOD,
March 1999). Also, M. Edmonds, Defence Diplomacy and Preventive
Diplomacy: the Role of Maritime Forces, Bailrigg Memorandum no. 34
(Lancaster, CDISS, 1998).
45. See MOD, Joint Forces, Modern Battlewinning Armed Forces (London, DISN
Pubs3, MOD, March 1999).
46. MOD, Strategic Defence Review, Cm 3999 (London: HMSO, July 1998).
47. Ibid., pp 41–4.
48. MOD, Strategic Defence Review, op cit., p. 5 and pp. 7–12.
49. G. Robertson, ‘Smart Ways to Run a … Business’, RUSI Journal (June
1999), pp. 66–8.
50. J.H.F. Eberle, ‘Defence Organisation – the Future’, in Martin, op. cit.,
p. 105.
51. Ibid., p. 105.
52. D. Healey, The Time of My Life (London: Penguin, 1990), p. 261.
53. M. Rifkind, ‘Front Line First’, RUSI Journal (December 1994), p. 6.
54. Broadbent, op. cit., p. 201. Also Bland, op. cit.
9
British Defence Policy in the
Post-Cold War Era: History
Comes Full Circle?
Andrew Dorman
Introduction
Since 1989 Europe has witnessed significant change, the Soviet

Union has collapsed and the Warsaw Pact no longer exists, while
NATO has found itself involved for the first time in the actual
application of force in Yugoslavia. Further afield the end of the
Cold War has brought little respite with forces from various
European states involved in activities ranging from war in the Gulf
against Iraq through to peace support operations in a range of
activities ranging from humanitarian operations to full-scale
limited war.
While all this has been going on there has been a significant
battle over the changing security agenda. At one level the various
security organizations within Europe, the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Western
European Union (WEU), NATO and the EU, have all sought to
take charge of the security agenda. Initially the OSCE (then
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe – CSCE) was
viewed as the favourite with many, particularly in Central and
Eastern Europe, viewing NATO as a defunct organization similar to
the Warsaw Pact. However, with the WEU folding into the EU we
have been left with two dominant European security organizations
– NATO and the EU.
177
At the same time various leaders within Europe have also sought
to define the new security agenda.1 For example, while President of
the European Commission Jacques Delors concluded:
We cannot limit our horizons to the new Europe. All around us,
naked ambition, lust for power, national uprisings and under-
development are combining to create potentially dangerous situ-
ations, containing the seeds of destabilization and conflict,
aggravated by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The Community must face this challenge. If it is to be worthy
of the European ideal it must square up to the challenges of
history and shoulder its share of the political and military
responsibilities of our old nations, which have always left their
mark on history.2
More recently Britain’s current Labour government has sought to set

out an internationalist agenda. At a key speech made in Chicago,
during the celebrations of NATO’s fiftieth anniversary, Prime
Minister Tony Blair reinforced this point:
Twenty years ago we would not have been fighting in Kosovo.

The fact that we are engaged is the result of a wide range of
changes – the end of the Cold War, changing technology, the
spread of democracy. But it is bigger than that. I believe the
world has changed in a more fundamental way. Globalization
has transformed economies and our working practices. But glob-
alization is not just economic, it is also a political and security
phenomenon.3
Such sentiments have been uttered elsewhere. The increasingly reti-

cent attitude of the British government to the deployment of their
military forces outside the NATO region in the latter half of the
Cold War has given way to the commitment of significant military
forces in a variety of operations both within and outside Europe.
These have included the Gulf War and the subsequent operation to
relieve the Kurds in Northern Iraq, peace support operations in
Cambodia, humanitarian operations in Mozambique, operations
throughout the Balkans and most recently the deployment of troops
to Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.
Andrew Dorman 179
While all this has been going on there has been significant change
to Britain’s armed forces. Since 1989 they have all been reduced in
size and have begun to reorientate themselves away from their Cold
War threat-based tasking with an increased reference being made to
an expeditionary warfare capability in different forms. However,
progress has generally been slow and in Kosovo the Europeans
found themselves totally dependent upon an American decision to
use force and for the conduct of the majority of the air campaign.4
When the Americans subsequently put a limit on their own ground
deployment the Europeans struggled to put sufficient land forces
together in time to implement the peace agreement.5 This led to a
Franco-British call for a European corps level intervention capabil-
ity.6 The Joint Declaration of the British and French Governments
gave a renewed impetus to the Saint Malo Declaration and put con-
crete proposals forward, which were subsequently endorsed at the
EU’s Helsinki Summit.7
This chapter therefore seeks to examine the reality behind
Britain’s moves towards the changing nature of conflict and in par-
ticular its commitment to a European rapid reaction force. It has
been divided into three parts. Firstly, it sets out six reasons, some
new and some old, why Britain will use military force in an expedi-
tionary fashion. Secondly, it will examine the changes made to
British defence policy. Thirdly, it will draw some conclusions about
the implications this has for future British defence policy.
Six reasons for sending in the cavalry
There are six principal reasons why a British government, either

individually or as part of a coalition, will continue to resort to
deploying expeditionary forces. First, Britain is one among a
number of former colonial powers, each with a long history of using
military intervention. A history of colonization has left Britain and
France in particular with vestiges of empires which continue to
require their support while others also retain an interest in their
former colonies. A recent example of this was the deployment of
forces to Sierra Leone, initially as part of a services-led evacuation
but later in support of the fledgling democratic government.8
Second, the dependence of Europe upon other states for the
supply of essential raw materials including oil has received renewed
interest. Some academics have argued that the significant participa-

tion of a number of West European states in the Gulf War was
directly attributable to this interest.9 This led the then Western
European Union Secretary-General, Willem van Eekelen, to argue
that the movement of defence policy within Europe towards the
protection of its wider interests will result in a greater linking of
foreign and defence policy. More recently, Britain’s Strategic Defence
Review was explicitly foreign policy led.10 Britain’s dependence upon
trade will mean it will need to protect not only access to raw materi-
als for itself but also for its main trading partners.
Third, there will continue to be external political pressure for the
use of military intervention. The United States has historically called
upon Britain for joint action when its own interests have been
involved.11 Britain has also been a firm supporter of United Nations
(UN) operations, and its continued presence as one of the five per-
manent members of the Security Council has been linked to this
support. A 1993 report by the United Kingdom’s House of
Commons Select Committee on Defence concluded that:
The United Kingdom’s position in the world owes much to its

defence expertise, and the level of national commitment to
defence. The maintenance of that position is at risk if the
United Kingdom does not respond to the international peace-
keeping requirement on a scale commensurate with member-
ship of the Security Council, let alone the legitimate demands
of UK public opinion.12
Fourth, the threat posed by the spread of ballistic missiles and

weapons of mass destruction encourages the use of preventive mili-
tary action. Concern has long been expressed in this area, notably
in Britain’s 1993 defence estimates.13 Less emphasis has been placed
upon the issue of national missile defence than on the option of
pre-emptive action.
Fifth, there is a growing fear from the ramifications of ethnic
unrest in the states bordering Europe. Since the end of the Cold War
turmoil in the Balkans has led the various states of Europe to deploy
a significant number of troops to Bosnia and Kosovo. Europe’s expe-
rience of World War I has left its leaders with a particular fear of
conflict escalation within the region and the area remains a source
of deep-seated rivalry.
Andrew Dorman 181
Sixth and last, internal politics have had an increasingly impor-

tant influence as foreign and domestic policy have become more
entwined. In particular, domestic public opinion coloured by the
media, has an important role to play vis-à-vis the humanitarian
element within military intervention.14 The response has been
varied. In the United Kingdom the current government has linked
this into the new internationalist agenda.
Adapting to change: British defence policy since the end

of the Cold War
Legacy of the Cold War

Although no formal security policy was articulated during the
period from 1945 to 1989 Europe, rather than the Empire, had
become the focus of British defence policy.15 Within this transfor-
mation four interlinked assumptions, revolving around maintaining
the balance of power in Europe remained consistent. These were the
hostility of the Soviet Union, the maintenance of the ‘special rela-
tionship’ with the United States, the preservation of NATO and the
creation and maintenance of an independent strategic nuclear
deterrent.16 In the background a diminishing ability to influence
decisions on the world stage remained. The underpinning of policy
by these assumptions was perhaps inevitable, given the position
with which Britain was confronted in 1945. Then, with the excep-
tion of the Soviet Union, Britain was the only large European power
to survive the war relatively intact. Germany was physically divided,
while France and Italy remained economically crippled and politi-
cally divided. It was Britain, therefore, which had to confront the
situation of a Central and Eastern Europe dominated by a Soviet
military and political presence.17
From the time of its inception the enigma of the Soviet Union
had been a consistent problem for successive British governments.
Fear of the Soviet Union began to rise even before the end of the
Second World War as the Allies sought to agree the peace.18 Events
after the war only reinforced these concerns and led the former
Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, to refer to an ‘Iron Curtain’
dividing Europe in two as early as 1946.19 This perception of the
Soviet threat increased throughout the late 1940s. In defence terms
Russia was a Euro-Asiatic land power, which relied on its immense

reserves of manpower to provide for its defence. Its historical experi-
ence of invasion, and the resulting devastation of its own lands,
contributed to its commitment to the maintenance of significant
land and air forces in Central and Eastern Europe. In contrast,
Britain’s defence had traditionally relied on naval domination of the
seas around its shores. If the Soviet Union was the most likely
enemy, the Royal Navy was of limited use against a power which
could only be confronted on land. This situation was exacerbated by
the changes that had occurred in warfare in the twentieth century.
During the First World War, German airship and bomber raids
showed that Britain was no longer immune from direct attack while
the U-boats had threatened to starve Britain out of the war.20 This
experience was repeated during the Second World War in the
German aerial offensive on Britain, particularly between 1940 and
1941, and the continuous U-boat campaign.21 Moreover, the devel-
opment of the atomic bomb finally demonstrated the potential for a
single bomber to destroy a city and fulfil the claims of the early air
power theorists.22 As a result, Britain’s defence planners found
themselves confronted with the unenviable situation in which they
were aware of Britain’s vulnerabilities and lacked the capacity to
deter the Soviet Union.
However, Britain’s management of the problem has always been
undermined by financial insecurity. The support of the United
States was paramount, as America remained the single power
capable of matching the Soviet Union. As a result, the British gov-
ernment sought to foster its relations with the United States by
advancing the idea of an Anglo-American Alliance. To achieve this
the government adopted a twin-track policy. The first track was to
organize the rest of Western Europe into a number of alliances to
counter the Soviet threat. This took some careful manoeuvring since
the principal concern of many of the newly-liberated nations in the
mid-1940s, especially France, was the fear of a resurgent Germany,
with the actions of the Soviet Union only of secondary impor-
tance.23 The first step was the 1947 Dunkirk Treaty between Britain
and France. The following year the Benelux countries joined the
Dunkirk Treaty arrangement under the Brussels Treaty. In the short
term these measures were of little military significance However
they did provide an important political signal to the United States.
Andrew Dorman 183
They indicated Western Europe’s willingness to contribute to its

own defence and reinforced the second track of British strategy. This
encouraged the US to commit itself formally to the defence of
Europe and the ongoing US involvement in Europe remained a cap-
stone of British Cold War security policy. The twin-track approach
reached fruition with the creation of NATO in 1949 and Britain’s
continued support of the North Atlantic Alliance. The cost for
Britain of this was twofold. First, it was forced formally to commit
troops to the defence of Germany from 1950 onwards in order to
show solidarity with the United States. This ultimately forced it to
accept that the world role would have less priority in British defence
policy. Second, its involvement in NATO provided a forum for
underpinning Britain’s relationship with the United States and
isolating it from its European allies.
The fourth assumption in British Cold War defence policy lay in
the creation and maintenance of an independent strategic nuclear
deterrent. The reasoning behind this was threefold. First, Britain
had been forced to abandon its French ally and withdraw its forces
from the Battle of France in 1940. This caused much ill feeling
between the two allies and both drew the same conclusion from
the experience, namely that one state could not be expected to
sacrifice itself for another.24 Thus Britain could not ultimately rely
on the US nuclear guarantee and should develop and retain its
independent nuclear deterrent. Second, the ownership of nuclear
weapons was an important part of maintaining Britain’s place in
the world and, in particular, its seat on the UN Security Council.
Finally, and less significant now, was Britain’s central role at the
start of the development of the first atomic bomb. Its exclusion
from the US bomb programme at the end of the war clearly
rankled with those involved.
As a result, one of the first significant post-war defence decisions
was made by a subcommittee of the British Cabinet, GEN 75, which
approved the construction of fissile production facilities to produce a
British atomic weapon in 1946. The Chiefs of Staff argued that ‘the
best method of defence against the atomic bomb is likely to be the
deterrent effect that the possession of the means of retaliation would
have on a potential aggressor’.25 At the same time the first British
strategic jet bomber specification was produced and issued as an oper-
ational requirement.26 These programmes fitted neatly into early
post-war defence planning which emphasized strategic bombing as

the only real counterweight to the Soviet Union’s superiority on land.
This view was reinforced after the debacle at Suez when British
and American interests clashed. According to Lawrence Freedman
the main lesson drawn by Britain from the Suez Crisis was the need
to provide a nuclear force, even at the expense of conventional
capability.27 Consequently, the 1957 Defence White Paper placed
even more emphasis on Britain’s nuclear forces.28 The improve-
ments in the special relationship that followed Suez proved fortu-
itous, as the development of the Blue Streak missile ran into
difficulties.29 The government reached the conclusion that it could
no longer afford to produce its own independent nuclear deterrent
and initially negotiated with the Americans to purchase the Skybolt
system and later Polaris. The nuclear emphasis continued through
the 1970s and 1980s, firstly through the costly Chevaline update to
Polaris, and subsequently through the decision to purchase the
Trident system from America in 1980.30 This latter decision precipi-
tated what has become known as the Nott review, which led to
significant cutbacks in Britain’s maritime capabilities.31
The other dimension to defence policy was Britain’s wider world
role. In 1945 Britain was one of the three leading world powers and
considered itself as such. This is clear from the 1948 defence esti-
mates: ‘The United Kingdom, as a member of the British
Commonwealth and a Great Power, must be prepared at all times to
fulfil her responsibility not only to the United Nations but also to
herself.’32 While not a superpower in its own right, Britain’s military
and civilian presence throughout the world, particularly within the
Empire, led many to assume that the world role would continue,
particularly given the relative inexperience of the United States in
many regions.33 The government hoped that with the European
balance of power restored, Britain could once again look beyond
Europe to preserve its wider interests. This shift in emphasis was
attempted in the 1957 defence review, which made significant
reductions in Britain’s conventional forces deployed in support of
Europe in favour of the deployment of forces East of Suez.34
However, changing patterns in trade, de-colonization, fear of the
Soviet Union and continuing financial pressure on the defence
budget resulted in Europe, once again, becoming the focus of British
foreign and defence policies with the large-scale withdrawal from
Andrew Dorman 185
the Empire.35 Even under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher this

policy remained substantially unaltered. British defence policy, epit-
omized by the Nott review of 1981, remained almost entirely
focused on Europe with only token gestures to the world role.36
Throughout the Cold War Britain’s defence policy sought to pre-
serve the special relationship with the United States and preserve
NATO as the main defensive alliance for Europe. This two-pronged
approach was underpinned by the strategic nuclear deterrent, which
allowed Britain to have a unique relationship with the United States
and gave it a predominant position amongst the European members
of NATO. Europe, therefore, remained at the core of defence policy
although the desire to focus beyond Europe remained.37 Since the
commitment of British forces to Germany, Britain’s close relationship
with America and its nuclear status gave it a high standing within
NATO’s command structure the end of the Cold War inevitably
meant that this position would be challenged, as these elements
became less important and NATO’s security agenda broadened.
Post-Cold War – the Conservative legacy

Although the end of the Cold War transformed the situation in
Europe, British defence policy took far longer to adapt to the
changed environment as British foreign policy floundered. The end
of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union left Britain
with what William Wallace described as a ‘Government which has
no clear sense of its place in the world or its foreign policy priori-
ties’.38 This position was in part due to internal conflicts within the
government, but it also reflected an ongoing concern with the
European balance of power. At a time when many argued that
defence policy would return to its position as the servant of foreign
and economic policy, in Britain foreign and economic policy
became diametrically opposed.39 The then British Foreign Secretary,
Douglas Hurd, tended to adopt the van Eekelen line:
Some problems – state-sponsored terrorism, for example, or the

proliferation of ballistic missiles – may prick our skin more than
our consciences. But, if we really want a world that is more
secure, more prosperous and more stable, then humanitarian
problems can be just as threatening and must be seen not just as
a moral issue, but as a potential security threat as well.40
However, his speech was rapidly countered by the then Secretary of

State for Defence, Malcolm Rifkind, who referred to the national
interest along more traditional lines.41 Rifkind found himself in a
very difficult position. Britain’s economic weakness and the large
public sector borrowing requirement encouraged the Treasury to
demand constant sweeping cuts in Britain’s defence budget. That
the Service Chiefs are known to have used their right of access to
the Prime Minister to ensure their views were heard confirmed
this.42 The then Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Michael Graydon, even
went so far as publicly airing this view before making a hasty retrac-
tion.43 Consequently, Malcolm Rifkind was forced to make
significant defence reductions beyond those announced in the
Options for Change exercise44 and these formed part of the Defence
Cost Studies process (DCS).45
What eventually emerged was a defence policy officially based on
three defence roles.46 Defence Role One was largely about home
defence and the defence of Britain’s dependent territories. In reality
it was almost entirely about the preservation of an independent
nuclear deterrent, support for the civilian authorities in Northern
Ireland and the defence of the Dependent Territories – where feasi-
ble. Other areas, such as the air defence of the United Kingdom
were effectively abandoned. Defence Role Two was the defence of
Europe. NATO was viewed as the key to this defence role and the
majority of resources were earmarked towards it. Finally, and of
least priority, Defence Role Three swept up the remaining missions,
in particular the out-of-area role and support for UN peacekeeping
missions.
As a result of these roles, perceptions of the importance of the
strategic nuclear deterrent remained and successive reviews left the
Trident programme virtually untouched.47 The reason was threefold,
not only has Trident been viewed by the Conservative Party as a
sacred cow,48 but it has also traditionally been used as one of
Britain’s justifications for her permanent seat on the UN Security
Council. Moreover, the political and financial cost of acquiring the
Trident system meant that the Conservative administration was
reluctant to admit that it was no longer needed. Nevertheless, all
Britain’s other nuclear capabilities were ultimately cut back with the
Trident system given the sub-strategic role. As a result the RAF’s
WE-177 free-fall nuclear bombs were decommissioned.49
Andrew Dorman 187
The majority of defence cuts therefore fell on the conventional

forces. However, as in the earlier Nott and Healey reviews50 the issue
of retaining influence within NATO remained key. With the advent
of NATO’s new Strategic Concept, a major reorganization of NATO’s
command structure was undertaken.51 This resulted in Britain’s loss
of its one major command52 and led the British government suc-
cessfully to pursue command of the new Allied Command Europe
Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) at Germany’s expense. However, there
was a significant cost to this – the commitment of two divisions and
a headquarters staff.53 Support for Europe’s other institutions, in
particular the WEU, remained more sanguine. Britain’s position
within NATO allowed it to have more influence and use its relation-
ship with the US to its advantage. However, the Conservative’s
support for Bush in the 1992 Presidential election soured Anglo-
American relations. Moreover, support for the WEU rose as the EU
expanded. This led to Britain finding itself increasingly isolated
within Western Europe.
To cover the high cost of the ARRC commitment, defence cut-
backs fell on other conventional areas. Officially, the aim was to
have ‘smaller forces, better equipped, properly trained and housed,
and well motivated. They will need to be flexible and mobile and
able to contribute both in NATO and, if necessary, elsewhere.’54
However, although ‘Options for Change’ allowed the services to get
rid a lot of their older kit, the goal of making the remaining forces
more flexible and mobile was sacrificed. A number of procurement
decisions were delayed, such as the order for new amphibious ships,
and those that were made largely reflected Cold War commitments
such as the order for Challenger 2 main battle tanks. The situation
was subsequently made worse with the Front Line First: Defence Costs
Study review, which made further reductions. These principally
focused on the support units with the result that deploying and sus-
taining forces abroad became increasingly problematic. This
reflected the need for the government to emphasize its defence cre-
dentials at minimum cost, a trend towards political tokenism that
was most evident in the announcement of the purchase of 65
Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles in 1995.55 This decision was
announced in parliament to the surprise of the services, while min-
isters quietly ignored the navy’s subsequent argument for a second,
more substantial purchase to give it a sustainable capability.
With smaller forces the Ministry of Defence was initially unwill-

ing to undertake further overseas commitments. Among its West
European allies Britain was noticeable in failing to send ground
troops to Somalia when the United States called for assistance.56 It
was also one of only two EU states to vote against sending military
forces as peacekeepers during the initial break-up of the Yugoslav
Federation. However, circumstances subsequently forced the British
government to take a more proactive role, especially once the issue
of Britain’s retention of its permanent seat on the UN Security
Council again became an issue in the mid-1990s.57 Britain subse-
quently pulled together an infantry force for the escort of humani-
tarian aid in Bosnia and when a Serb mortar attack in February 1994
led to wide-scale casualties the British deployment was increased
with elements of 24 Airmobile Brigade. After the Dayton peace
agreement Britain was involved not only heavily as part of the
ARRC commitment but also took responsibility for one of the three
sectors deploying a divisional headquarters and supporting units.
For defence policy the early years of the post-Cold War era were
traumatic. Institutional conflict and jockeying for position within
the various organizations dominated defence policy. Major cutbacks
in defence left Britain, like many of its European counterparts, with
smaller, poorly equipped forces. At the same time, the operational
tempo for these forces had increased significantly and the various
services found themselves over-stretched and in reality unable to
support their traditional military tasks.
Into the new millennium: defence under Labour

Not surprisingly the Labour front-bench team had been very critical
of the Conservative government’s handling of defence policy. In
part this was an attempt to usurp the traditional Conservative
stronghold on defence as an election issue. They argued for a
defence review based on foreign policy, highlighting the hollowness
of Britain’s defence capabilities and Britain’s isolation within
Europe.58 However, the criticism also reflected the internationalist
agenda within Labour and their concern about the role Britain
should play in the world. George Robertson’s speech at the first
Labour Party conference after the 1997 general election was far
closer to that espoused by the Foreign Office under Hurd than his
Conservative predecessor in the Ministry of Defence. As a conse-
Andrew Dorman 189
quence, the SDR aimed to ‘maintain and reinforce the present

favourable external security situation’.59 It was officially based on
the requirement:
to move from stability based on fear to stability based on the active

management of these risks, seeking to prevent conflicts rather than
suppress them. This requires an integrated external policy through
which we can pursue our interests using all the instruments at our
disposal, including diplomatic, developmental and military. We
must make sure that the Armed Forces can play as full and effective
a part in dealing with these new risks as the old.60
Initially it was thought that such a review would take about six
months and the government sought to canvass a wider range of
views than had previously been the case in defence reviews. The
result was a review that took 14 months to publish and which is still
to be fully worked out. Robertson virtually admitted this when he
stated that the SDR was only the first step in the process. The SDR
sought to address the defence requirements to 2015,61 but retained
the existing military tasks, defence roles and defence missions that
were promulgated under the previous administration.
The first obvious change to defence policy within the SDR was the
creation of an eighth defence mission – defence diplomacy.62 In part
this drew together a number of existing tasks under a new heading
but it also reflected the government’s internationalist agenda and
the desire that Britain should be a force for good in the world.
Initially defence diplomacy had a European focus, continuing the
pro-European bias of defence policy. Its links to NATO’s Partnership
for Peace Initiative and overt reference to the UK’s existing Outreach
programme made this implicit assumption.63 However, defence
diplomacy has now been broadened to stretch beyond Europe, with
the government’s contribution to the peacekeeping mission to East
Timor being only the most recent example of this.64
The SDR also drew attention to Britain’s position as a leading
member of the EU and this was linked into Britain’s membership of
NATO and the importance of the United States.65 On first appear-
ances this was an apparent reversal of previous policy reflecting a
European, rather than transatlantic, focus. However, the change is
subtler. It represented an attempt to keep a foot in both the US and
European camps. The latter encouraged by the ‘EU first’ language of

the document and the subsequent British-led initiatives on defence.
The former placated by the preservation of the close links of a EU-
led force with NATO with the US retaining a veto on the release of
NATO assets. Moreover, any initiative that seeks to shift the defence
burden from the United States to Europe inevitably has the support
of the incumbent US President. According to Blair:
in defence we have long relied on NATO for our security.

Without it and the US commitment to Europe, we would not
have been able to bring peace to Bosnia or reverse the humanitar-
ian disaster in Kosovo. We must shape European Defence policy
in a way designed to strengthen that transatlantic bond by
making NATO a more balanced partnership, and by giving the
Europeans the capacity to act whenever the United States, for its
own reasons, decides not to be involved. Only then will Europe
pull its weight in world security and share more of the burden
with the United States.66
This emphasis on giving the Europeans their own capability as a

means of reinforcing the Atlantic Alliance received a boost when the
British and French agreed that the EU ‘must have the capacity for
autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the
means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to
respond to international crises’.67 This was a significant change in
previous British policy, which had sought to preserve US involve-
ment at all costs. This initiative was followed through at the EU’s
Amsterdam summit, which sought to provide a crisis management
mechanism for the EU partners.68 The key to preserving American
goodwill was NATO’s retention of a veto over dual-hatted units
which British negotiators have been willing to concede. In reality
this concession is of little consequence if Britain’s raiding of NATO
stocks during the 1982 Falklands War is anything to go by.
However, the process seemed set for slow progress until the
Kosovo experience provided the British government with further
grounds for a renewed impetus. In Kosovo the Europeans found
themselves totally dependent upon an American decision to use
force and for the conduct of the majority of the air campaign. When
the Americans subsequently put a limit on their own ground
Andrew Dorman 191
deployment the Europeans struggled to put sufficient land forces

together in time to implement the peace agreement.69 This led to a
Franco-British call for a European corps level intervention capabil-
ity.70 The Joint Declaration of the British and French Governments
gave a renewed impetus to the Saint Malo Declaration and put con-
crete proposals forward. These were subsequently endorsed at the
EU’s Helsinki Summit:
on the basis of UK proposals, EU Member States committed

themselves to concrete goals for capability improvement. They
specified the scale of armed forces that they should be able to
deploy rapidly, with the right skills and equipment, and able to
sustain in a theatre of operations until the military job is done.
They agreed by the year 2003 they should have modernized their
armed forces so as to be able to draw from a pool of deployable
units (15 brigades) to tackle the most demanding crisis manage-
ment tasks, in operations up to corps level (up to 50,000 to
60,000 personnel, together with appropriate air and naval ele-
ments). These forces are to be militarily self-sustaining for at least
a year. The EU Member States also agreed to develop collective
capability goals in such fields as command and control and
strategic transport, to address the specific capability shortfalls
identified in the audit of European capability undertaken by the
Western European Union.71
Linked into this was the British decision to assign troops to the
headquarters of the Eurocorps. Politically this was highly symbolic,
as the previous British administration had been one of the principle
critics of the corps and had sought to block its evolution at every
opportunity. This quiet reversal of policy, therefore, represented a
shift of the UK from a confrontational position with the Franco-
German founded Eurocorps to an acceptance of its importance.
Conversely the French government agreed to English becoming the
sole working language within the corps. Following on from this it
was agreed that the Eurocorps will take over from the ARRC in
Kosovo72 with the Eurocorps reporting directly to NATO’s Supreme
Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR). This marked the first
significant step post-Helsinki towards the creation of a second rapid
reaction force within NATO run by the Europeans. Subsequently
NATO’s military staff has set the requirement for three high-level
readiness headquarters and Eurocorps is one of the six bidders for
inclusion.73 If successful, it will significantly enhance NATO’s expe-
ditionary capability74 and by implication the Eurocorps will serve as
the basis of a European capability to match NATO’s ARRC. Britain
has accepted that it will not have the European lead of this corps.
However, it will have seen off any challenge to its control of the
ARRC, which will allow it to remain closely aligned to the US,
without it appearing at all disloyal to the Eurocorps. The next step is
an open British declaration of a brigade or more to the Eurocorps as
part of the 15-brigade structure. Without such a move it is impossi-
ble to imagine that the Helsinki agreement will ever become reality,
and Britain will have left itself open to criticism from its European
partners.75 This step would most easily be achieved by offering the
Anglo-Dutch Commando Brigade, which has already been commit-
ted to WEU tasks.
By way of contrast the SDR also placed a considerable amount of
emphasis on joint capabilities within the UK services and Britain’s
ability to take unilateral action.76 To manage the remodelled expedi-
tionary forces a new Permanent Joint Task Force Headquarters
(PJHQ) was created, which is capable of overseeing simultaneous
operations. This marks a significant advance over the previous situa-
tion and, if fully implemented, will mean that more than one oper-
ation can be undertaken outside the United Kingdom without
recourse to the callout of a significant number of reserve personnel.
This will, therefore, give the government a greater degree of flexibil-
ity than it has had to date and ensure that it is not forced to choose
between NATO and EU-led operations. To support this, SDR also
contained a number of structural changes, such as the reordering of
the army’s brigades, which underpinned the declared policy. In
addition, it contained a number of procurement commitments,
such as to two large aircraft carriers and improvements to strategic
sea and airlift, which will ensure that different elements of policy
will have a more harmonious relationship.77
However, the realities of these policies remain dependent upon
the provision of the requisite support capabilities, and this is where
their continuity is brought into question. SDR highlighted the
importance of technology, particularly the ability to gather informa-
tion about an opponent and use it to maximum advantage. ISTAR
Andrew Dorman 193
and improved command and control are stressed within the SDR
document and one of the first announcements after the SDR docu-
ment was released was the decision to go ahead with the next gener-
ation of military communications satellites.78 However, the concept
of information warfare is discussed in only five lines.79 Partly this
reflects an innate conservatism that still persists within the MOD
and that opposes radical change. It also represents the desire to see
what emerges from the United States before making any financial
commitments. Nevertheless, as the United States continues to push
further ahead in command and control, communications and intel-
ligence, and long-range interdiction systems, the widening gap
between America and her allies can only serve to undermine NATO.
The Kosovo experience reinforced this conclusion and it is worth
noting the limited air contribution made by even Britain and France
– Europe’s leading military powers.80
There are further clouds on the horizon. In the future Britain is
increasingly likely to be presented with the choice of purchasing
limited amounts of equipment in order to allow its armed forces to
remain compatible with the United States or to build equipment in
conjunction with its European partners. This situation is further con-
fused by the industrial implications of such decisions. For example,
there was much prevarication over strategic lift aircraft and the new
air-to-air missile for the Royal Air Force. Each decision was viewed as
an indication of the MOD’s bias towards either Europe or the US. For
example, the airlift decision – to buy the Airbus A400M – emphasized
the government’s commitment to Europe and European defence
industry. This ran contrary to the air force’s preferred option, the C-
17.81 The BVRAAM (Beyond Visual Range Air-to-air Missile) decision
had similar implications with France and Germany putting pressure
on Tony Blair to intervene and ensure that the Matra BAe Dynamics
missile was ordered rather than the rival US product.82 This time the
RAF’s preference was for the European option and it got its way. To
placate the US an interim purchase of AMRAAMs (Advanced Medium
Range Air-to-air Missiles) was announced.83
Conclusion
The Labour government has clearly taken a number of important

steps to try and re-establish Britain at the centre of Europe and as a
close ally of the United States. British defence policy has pursued
this twin-track approach with some success and Britain has cur-
rently managed to restore its level of influence in Europe and with
the United States to that achieved during the bleakest days of the
Cold War. This is quite an achievement given the state of Britain’s
relations with both Europe and America that the government inher-
ited. At the same time the government has taken a number of steps
in the development of an expeditionary capability. In capability
terms the SDR has sought to give the British government three
options. First, one involving the use of force in conjunction with its
European partners as mentioned above. Second, to undertake inde-
pendent action – presumably in support of dependent territories or
as lead nation for a Commonwealth type operation. Third, to act in
cooperation with the United States outside NATO in operations
such as Desert Fox. These fit neatly into the requirements to placate
both the Europeans and Americans while reserving the option of
independent action in order to preserve Britain’s wider interests –
such as retention of a Permanent Seat on the UN Security Council.
However, the ability of Britain to continue this policy remains
questionable in the longer term. There are difficult choices ahead,
which could easily send this particular train off the rails. First, refer-
ence has already been made to the diversity in technological capa-
bilities between the various members of NATO. In essence there are
three tiers: the United States is on its own at the top (tier 1); the
next tier down includes the major military states of Western Europe
of which Britain is the leading member (tier 2); below this lie the
smaller West European states and some of the new NATO members
(tier 3). The Kosovo experience has indicated the problems of tiers 1
and 2 remaining compatible. There is a significant danger of Britain
being forced to choose between tiers 1 and 3. Second, the defence-
industrial dimension looks as though it will force the government to
choose in favour of Europe. This is probably the area in which the
first crack will appear. Moves towards a greater European defence
capability will reinforce the trend towards a deepening of the
European political relationship and Britain’s divisions with its
European partners on other issues, such as the single currency, may
sour its defence relationship with Europe while the trend towards
European defence-industrial consolidation may drive a schism
between the UK and USA. Maintaining a policy balanced berween
Andrew Dorman 195
Europe and the USA will therefore revolve around the government’s
ability to paper over the cracks as they appear, but the ultimate
success of such a policy seems doomed from the outset. As a result
Britain is likely to be left with a fudged expeditionary capability,
which is half myth and half reality.
Notes
1. See S. Duke, The Elusive Quest for European Security: from EDC to CFSP
(London: Macmillan, 2000).
2. J. Delors, ‘European Integration and Security’, Survival, vol. 33, no. 2
(March/April 1991), p. 100.
3. T. Blair, ‘Doctrine of the International Community’, speech made to
the Economic Club of Chicago, Hilton Hotel, Chicago, 22 April 1999
(http://www.fco.gov.uk/news/speechtext.asp?2316).
4. See House of Commons Defence Committee, Fourteenth Report: Lessons
of Kosovo, Report and Proceedings, HC.347, session 1999–2000 (London:
HMSO, 2000).
5. Lord Robertson, ‘European Defence: the Way Ahead’, speech to Royal
Institute of International Affairs, 7 October 1999.
6. Joint Declaration of the British and French Governments on European Defence,
Anglo-French Summit, London, 25 November 1999; ‘Moving Forward
European Defence’, MOD Press Release, no. 421/99, 25 November 1999.
7. Statement on the Estimates, 1999 (www.mod.uk/policy/wp99), para.17
(London: HMSO, 1999).
8. M. Evans, ‘British Officer Takes Over in Sierra Leone’, The Times,
2 November 2000, p. 20.
9. For a fuller examination of this argument see J. Roberts, ‘Oil, the
Military and the Gulf War of 1991’, RUSI Journal (Spring 1991),
pp. 11–16. In contrast D. Hiro, Desert Shield to Desert Storm: the Second
Gulf War (London: HarperCollins, 1992), emphasizes the level of
Kuwaiti overseas investment. K.R. Timmerman, The Death Lobby: How
the West Armed Iraq (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1991) argues that it
was to do with the West’s over-arming of Iraq and the imbalance
created in the balance of power in the region.
10. The Strategic Defence Review, Cm. 3,999 (London: HMSO, 1998), p. 2.
11. In the deployment to the Gulf and Somalia the West European coun-
tries were the first to follow the US in announcing the deployment of
their forces.
12. House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Fourth Report: United
Kingdom Peacekeeping and Intervention Forces: Report together with
the proceedings of the Committee relating to the report, minutes of evi-
dence and memoranda’, House of Common Papers no. 188, session
1992–93 (London: HMSO, 1993), p. xxvi. (Bold in the original.)
13. Statement on the Defence Estimates 1993 – Defending Our Future, Cm. 2270
(London: HMSO, 1993), p. 10.
14. The role of the media in influencing public opinion has been clearly
evident in Britain with the recent airlift of wounded from Bosnia.
Operation Irma, the British aerial evacuation of a number of seriously
wounded individuals from Bosnia was due largely to the media focus on
the plight of one child.
15. Lord Carrington, Reflect on Things Past: the Memoirs of Lord Carrington
(Glasgow: William Collins, 1988), p. 218.
16. S. Croft and P. Williams, ‘The United Kingdom’, in R. Cowen Karp (ed.),
Security with Nuclear Weapons? Different Perspectives on National Security
(Oxford: Oxford University Press/ SIPRI, 1991), p. 147.
17. See P. Cornish, British Military Planning for the Defence of Germany, 1945–50
(London: Macmillan, 1996); C. Bluth, Britain, Germany and Western
Nuclear Strategy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 10–30.
18. See W. Churchill, The Second World War Volume VI: Triumph and Tragedy
(London: Penguin, 1974), pp. 495–507.
19. J. Baylis, Anglo-American Defence Relations, 1939–84: the Special
Relationship (London: Macmillan, 1984), p. 34.
20. C.M. White, The Gotha Summer: the German Daytime Air Raids on
England, May–August 1917 (London: Robert Hale, 1986); J. Terraine,
Business in Great Waters: the U-boat Wars, 1916–45 (London: Leo
Cooper, 1989); D. Robinson, The Zeppelin in Combat: a History of the
Naval Airship Division, 1912–18 (Henley-on-Thames: G.T. Foulis and
Co., 1971), pp. 95–138, 204–33, 262–83.
21. E.R. Hooton, Eagle in Flames: the Fall of the Luftwaffe (London: Arms and
Armour Press, 1997), pp. 13–76. See also Terraine, op. cit.
22. P.S. Meilinger, ‘Proselytiser and Prophet: Alexander P. de Seversky and
American Airpower’, in J. Gooch (ed.), Airpower: Theory and Practice
(London: Frank Cass, 1995), pp. 22–3 and A.G.B. Vallance, The Air
Weapon: Doctrines of Air Power Strategy and Operational Art (London:
Macmillan, 1995), p. 16.
23. M. Dockrill, British Defence since 1945 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), p. 32.
24. See W.S. Churchill, The Second World War Book III: their Finest Hour, the
Fall of France, May–August 1940 (London: Cassell, 1949).
25. Quoted in H. Wynn, RAF Nuclear Deterrent Forces (London: HMSO,
1994), p. 13.
26. Ibid., p. 44.
27. L. Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons (London: Macmillan,
1980), p. 5.
28. Defence: Outline of Future Policy, Cm. 124 (London: HMSO, 1957).
29. Wynn, op. cit., p. 397.
30. F. Roberts, 60 Years of Nuclear History: Britain’s Hidden Agenda (Chalbury:
Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1999), pp. 153–4.
31. The United Kingdom Defence Programme: the Way Forward, Cmnd. 8,288
(London: HMSO, 1981), p. 6; A. Dorman, ‘John Nott and the Royal
Andrew Dorman 197
Navy: the 1981 Defence Review Revisited’, Journal of Contemporary

British History, Summer 2001.
32. Statement Relating to Defence, 1948, Cm. 7,327 (London: HMSO, 1948),
reprinted in H.G. Thursfield (ed.), Brassey’s Naval Annual (London:
William Clowes, 1948), p. 528.
33. C. Ponting, Breach of Power: Labour in Power, 1964–70 (London: Hamish
Hamilton, 1989), pp. 41–2.
34. See Defence: Outline of Future Policy, op.cit.
35. J. Pickering, Britain’s Withdrawal from East of Suez: the Politics of
Retrenchment (London: Macmillan, 1998).
36. The United Kingdom Defence Programme: the Way Forward, Cmnd. 8,288
(London: HMSO, 1981), p. 6; A. Brunner and I. Aitken, ‘Thatcher
Heading for Battles over Gulf Force’, Guardian, 2 March 1981.
37. Ibid; See also M. Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (London:
HarperCollins, 1993), p. 162.
38. W. Wallace, ‘Britain’s Search for a New Role in the World’, Observer,
15 August 1993.
39. W. van Eekelen, ‘WEU on the Way Back to Brussels’, speech given at
Chatham House, 22 September 1992.
40. D. Hurd, ‘Foreign Policy and International Security’, RUSI Journal
(December 1992), p. 2.
41. M. Rifkind, ‘Peacekeeping or Peacemaking? Implications and Prospects’,
RUSI Journal (April 1993), pp. 1–6.
42. C. Brown, ‘Chief of Staff Protest to Major over Cuts’, Independent,
30 October 1993.
43. D. Barrie, ‘Nuclear Conflicts’, Flight International, 27 October–2
November 1993, p. 18.
44. T. King, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol.177, sixth series,
session 1989-90, 23 July–19 October 1990, Statement to the House,
25 July 1990, cols. 468–86.
45. Front Line First: Defence Cost Study (London: HMSO, 1994). See also D.
White, ‘Strategy Outlined for Blitz on Defence Costs’, Financial Times,
6 July 1993; and C. Bellamy and C. Brown, ‘Rifkind Squeezes Budget as
Peace Dividend Falls Short’, Independent, 8 July 1994.
46. Defending Our Future: Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1993, Cm.
2,270 (London: HMSO, 1993), p. 7.
47. The recent announcement of cuts in Trident warhead numbers
appear to have more to do with the problems at the Aldermaston
plant than a desire for arms control. D. Fairhall, ‘Aldermaston Plant
Delay a Factor in Decision to Scale Down Warheads’, Guardian,
16 November 1993.
48. P. Calvocoressi, ‘Deterrence, the Costs, the Issues, the Choices’, Sunday
49. Barrie, op. cit., p.18.
50. The United Kingdom Defence Programme, op.cit.; and Statement on the
Defence Estimates, 1968, Cm. 3,540 (London: HMSO, 1968).
51. Agreed at the NATO Heads of State and Government meeting in Rome,
7–8 November 1991, NATO Press Communiqué S-1 (91) 85, 7
November 1991.
52. Statement on the Defence Estimates 1993, op. cit., p. 10.
53. B. George, and N. Ryan, ‘Options for Change: a Political Critique’, in
Brassey’s Defence Yearbook (London: Brassey’s, 1993), p. 44.
54. Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1991: Britain’s Defence for the 1990s,
Cm. 1,559, (London: HMSO, 1991), p. 6.
55. Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1996, Cmnd. 3,223 (London: HMSO,
1996), p. 57.
56. House of Commons Select Committee on Defence, ‘Fourth Report:
United Kingdom Peacekeeping and Intervention Forces: Report
Together with the Proceedings of the Committee Relating to the Report,
Minutes of Evidence and Memoranda’, House of Commons Paper no. 188,
Session 1992–93 (London: HMSO, 1993), p. xxiii.
57. Ibid., p. v.
58. Ministry of Defence Press Release 055/97, 28 May 1997.
59. The Strategic Defence Review, op. cit., p. 8.
60. Ibid., p. 5
61. Ibid., p. 6.
62. Ibid., pp. 14–15.
63. Ibid., p. 15.
64. ‘Defence Diplomacy: Good Things Come in Threes’, MOD Press Release
No. 367/99, 18 October 1999.
65. Ibid., p. 6.
66. T. Blair, speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, London, 22 November 1999.
67. Joint Declaration issued at the British-French Summit, Saint Malo,
France, 3–4 December 1998.
68. J. Lodge and V. Flynn, ‘The CFSP after Amsterdam: the Policy Planning
and Early Warning Unit’, International Relations, vol. 14, no. 1 (April
1998), pp. 7–21.
69. Robertson, ‘European Defence’, op. cit.
70. ‘Joint Declaration of the British and French Governments on European
Defence’, Anglo-French Summit, London, 25 November 1999; and
‘Moving Forward’, op. cit.
71. Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1999, para. 17.
72. L. Hill, ‘New European Task Force Takes on First Task in Kosovo’,
Defense News, vol. 15, no. 7 (21 February 2000), p. 4.
73. L. Hill, ‘NATO Offer for High-alert HQs is Oversubscribed’, Jane’s
Defence Weekly, vol. 34, no. 17 (25 October 2000), p. 12.
74. Ibid.
75. M. Evans, ‘Britain Will Control its EU Troops Says Hoon’, The Times,
20 November 2000.
76. See paragraph 4 of Secretary of State for Defence’s introduction to the
SDR. The Strategic Defence Review, op. cit., p. 2. For a list of the enhance-
ments to joint capabilities see G. Robertson, ‘Robertson’s Review:
Andrew Dorman 199
Modern Forces for the World’, Ministry of Defence Press Release 172/98,
8 July 1998, pp. 2–3.
77. Ibid., pp. 24, 26–7 and 29.
78. Ministry of Defence Press Release no. 213/98, 12 August 1998.
79. The Strategic Defence Review, op. cit., p. 21.
80. See House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Fourteenth Report:
Lessons of Kosovo, Report and Proceedings’, op. cit.
81. P. Beaver, ‘UK MOD Instructed to Re-examine RAF’s Future Airlift
Requirement’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 22 December 1999, p. 3; and
N. Cook, ‘Endgame Nears for UK RAF’s New Transporter’, Jane’s
Defence Weekly, 26 January 2000, p. 29.
82. M. Oliver, ‘Blair in £900m Missile Row’, Observer, 27 February 2000,
Business Section, p. 1.
83. ‘Major RAF Equipment Order Announced’, (www.raf.mod.uk/history/
00arch.html#eqpt), 16 May 2000.
10
The Economics of Joint Forces
Keith Hartley
Introduction: the need for critical evaluation
The 1998 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) confirmed the increasing

importance of joint forces and the need to extend the joint
approach throughout defence, embracing the front line, command
structures and support areas. The SDR claimed that ‘Success in
modern warfare depends on joint teamwork. Battles and wars are
won by maritime, ground and air forces operating effectively
together in support of shared military objectives.’1 A further official
statement stressed that:
The concept of using Joint Forces with the three arms of the
Services operating together, is today more and more important as
the traditional distinctions between maritime, land and air oper-
ations have been removed. The Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air
Force rely on each other and combined they provide a greater
punch than possible as separate elements. By increasing ‘jointery’
we are not proposing to amalgamate the three Services into a
single amorphous defence force. There is great value in the sepa-
rate identities and distinct characteristics of the Navy, Army and
Air Force … because the needs of the modern battlefield still
require the specialist skills and ethos of each Service.2
The various arguments for jointery appear persuasive but such

impressions need to be evaluated more carefully and critically.
While there is a general absence of economics literature on jointery,
201
economists would approach the subject by focusing initially on the

defence economics problem and the need for difficult choices in a
world of uncertainty. Typically, the economist’s task is to identify
the range of choices together with the myths, emotion and special
pleading in the case for jointery and to subject these claims to eco-
nomic analysis, empirical testing and critical evaluation.3 A starting
point requires an outline of the main features of United Kingdom
(UK) joint forces.
The stylized facts of UK joint forces
Joint operations are not a new concept, but previously they were
implemented on an ad hoc basis during crisis or war. Future UK
defence policy and planning will be based on joint forces.4 Before the
SDR, there were some joint force initiatives, namely, a permanent
Joint Headquarters, a Joint Rapid Deployment Force (JRDF) and a
Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC). The SDR extended
the joint approach to create Joint Rapid Reaction Forces (JRRF), a
Chief of Joint Operations, Joint Force 2000, a Joint Helicopter
Command (JHC) and various other joint units. Table 10.1 lists the UK
joint forces and units and their features.
The official literature claims two major arguments for jointery.
First, the armed forces together provide a greater capability than the
sum of their individual parts; and second, joint solutions offer
efficiency savings through rationalization and the elimination of
wasteful duplication. Nonetheless, continued emphasis is placed on
the need to retain the individuality and separate identity of the
three services and their specialist skills, ethos, loyalty and commit-
ment. For example, one option considered by SDR was to transfer all
battlefield helicopters to a single service but the MOD concluded ‘as
with merger of the Services, we believe that any advantages would
be outweighed by the damaging impact it would have on ethos,
morale and operational effectiveness’.5 In contrast, both the army
and RAF had maintained separate air defence capabilities using dif-
ferent variants of the Rapier missile. Each used their own operating
procedures, command and control systems, maintenance support
chains and training organizations. This has been ‘operationally
inflexible and wasteful’.6 The new Joint Ground Based Air Defence
will ‘have a properly integrated and flexible low level air defence
Keith Hartley 203
Table 10.1 Joint Forces, UK
Organization Features
Joint Rapid Reaction A pool of some 20 warships, 4 ground force

Forces brigades, about 110 combat aircraft and over
160 other aircraft (replacing the JRDF)
Chief of Joint Top level budget holder for JRRF and for
Operations training of this Force.
Joint Force 2000 A single force combining the RN’s Sea
Harriers and the RAF Harriers to operate
from land bases or carriers. Plans to replace
all Harriers with a common aircraft type.
Joint Helicopter The Command will bring together, under a
Command single joint organization, the battlefield
helicopters of all three services.
Joint Ground Based Brings together the low-level air
Air Defence defence capabilities of the army and
RAF regiment.
Joint Nuclear, Chemical A new joint army and RAF
and Biological Defence NCB regiment to be formed
Joint Forces Logistic Part of Joint HQ to
Component Headquarters coordinate all joint logistics support.
Chief of Defence Logistics To replace the three single service
logistics organizations with a single
integrated organization
Defence Logistics DLO will include 14 Defence Agencies.
Organization
Joint Service Signal Bringing together of the army and RAF’s
Units communications support units.
Joint Doctrine and For developing joint doctrine and
Concepts Centre future joint vision for UK armed forces.
Source: Ministry of Defence, UK Defence Statistics 2000, DASA (London: HMSO, 2000).
coverage, as well as achieving greater efficiency, particularly in

Rapier training and support’.7 Despite the emphasis on more joint-
ery, the official position continues to emphasize the strengths of the
single services: ‘we are not proposing to amalgamate the three
Services into a single amorphous defence force’.8 These arguments
for jointery need to be assessed critically, including the claims made
about the continued benefits of three services, which include spe-

cialist skills, ethos, morale and commitment.
The defence economics problem
The defence economics problem arises because the armed forces

have unlimited demands for new equipment, more personnel and
improved bases, but the resources available for defence spending are
limited. This problem has been accentuated by falling defence
budgets and rising equipment costs. Typically, equipment costs
have been rising at about 10 per cent per annum in real terms,
leading to forecasts of a one tank army, a single ship navy and
Starship Enterprise for the air force! With a limited defence budget,
rising unit costs mean smaller numbers of new equipment for the
armed forces. Inevitably, the twin pressures of falling budgets and
rising unit costs mean that difficult defence choices cannot be
avoided: something has to go and the question is what goes?
There are three broad sets of choices for defence policy-makers
and governments. First, a further major defence review of the UK’s
commitments, such as a Strategic Defence Review II which might re-
examine the UK’s worldwide role; its commitment to provide a
complete range of modern air, land and sea forces; and the size of
UK forces in Germany. Second, the ‘fudge it’ option or a defence
review by stealth, which encompasses reductions in training, delays
in new equipment programmes and running-on old equipment.
Third, improvements in efficiency leading to higher productivity,
such as ‘Smart Procurement’ and the public/private partnership ini-
tiatives. Efficiency improvements might mean that it is possible to
achieve the same level of defence ‘output’ at a lower cost, or a
higher level of capability from the same expenditure. In this
context, Joint Forces offer efficiency improvements by maximizing
defence capability from a limited budget and/or providing cost
savings through rationalization, less duplication and economies
from shared training and logistical support activities.
The UK defence budget provides only limited information on the
costs of Joint Forces. Table 10.2 shows the main budget headings for
the UK defence budget in 2000/2001. Joint forces have a specific
budget of about £5.2 billion accounting for some 23 per cent of
total defence expenditure (Chief of Joint Operations and Chief of
Keith Hartley 205
Table 10.2 UK Defence Budget, 2000/2001
Budget Area Expenditure: £ million
Commander-in-Chief Fleet 1105

General Officer Commanding (Northern Ireland) 545
Commander-in-Chief Land Command 3166
Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief RAF
Strike Command 1609
Chief of Joint Operations 335
Chief of Defence Logistics 4854
2nd Sea Lord/Commander-in-Chief Naval
Home Command 588
Adjutant General (Personnel and Training
Command) 1261
Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief RAF Personnel
and Training Command 618
2nd Permanent Under Secretary of State Centre 2069
Defence Procurement Agency operating costs
and nuclear warhead/fissile material programme 635
Defence Systems Procurement 5617
Major Customers’ Research Budgets 435
Total 22 820
Defence Logistics) compared with the single services with a budget

of £8.9 billion which accounted for almost 40 per cent of the total.
However, this is a misleading comparison since the costs of the Joint
Rapid Reaction Forces are borne by the individual services. For illus-
tration, if each of the services contributes 20 per cent of its force to
the Joint Rapid Reaction Force, the cost of the joint force would be
some £1.8 billion giving a total cost of jointery of at least £7 billion
in 2000/2001 (that is, including the £5.2 billion for joint operations
and logistics).
Some further insights into the UK’s joint units is provided by
employment data for service and civilian personnel. Table 10.3
Table 10.3 Employment in Joint Units, 2000
Unit Service Personnel Civilian Personnel

(000s) (000s)
Chief of Joint Operations 4.6 0.3

Defence Logistics Organization 8.4 30.3
Joint Helicopter Command 10.8 0.5
Total Joint Units 23.8 31.1
shows employment data for the Chief of Joint Operations, Defence

Logistics and the Joint Helicopter Command. The three joint units
in Table 10.3 employed some 55 000 military and civilian person-
nel, representing about 18 per cent of total military and civilian per-
sonnel employed by the MOD in 2000. Once again, these are only
part of the UK’s joint forces, but the data in Table 10.3 are the only
published statistics on joint units: they reinforce the point about
the lack of data in this increasingly important aspect of UK defence
policy. The lack of published data means that parliament, voters
and taxpayers do not have the statistical information needed for
sensible public debates about the UK’s joint forces.
The efficiency of joint forces: lessons from the private

sector
Armed forces are monopoly organizations relying on rule-based

decision-making so resembling command economies. In contrast,
the typical Western economy prefers competition in private markets
to state monopolies and prefers capitalism to central planning.
Questions then arise as to whether the private sector provides any
lessons for the armed forces and jointery?
Employment contracts provide efficiency incentives. In the
private sector, employers have limited legal rights over their labour
force. Private sector employment contracts specify the terms on
which buyers and sellers agree to market trading, which chiefly
encompasses such items as wages, hours of work, fringe benefits,
conditions of employment, including health and safety, trade union
representation, strikes, and the notice required for quits and firing.
Keith Hartley 207
In contrast, military employment contracts have some distinctive

features resembling contracts of slavery. Individuals serve for a
specified period which has to be completed during which they are
subject to military law and discipline; they cannot strike for higher
pay during their contract; they can be ordered to serve in a variety
of locations, sometimes with little notice and without family
support; and their duties can result in injuries and death. The dura-
tion of military employment contracts creates a challenge for the
armed forces since long-term contracts and guaranteed employment
make it more difficult to ensure that military personnel continue to
provide efficient effort levels.
Private firms offer incentive payments to managers and workers
whereby they reward efficiency improvements and innovation:
entrepreneurs and top managers share in profits whilst other man-
agers and workers might receive performance-related pay. In pri-
vately-owned firms, the pursuit of profits leads to the continuous
search for opportunities to reduce and economize on costs. Such
economies might be achieved by creating new forms of industrial
organization and by mergers with other firms. Pressure to econo-
mize on costs comes from rival firms and from the capital market
with its threats of takeover and bankruptcy and the possibility of
job losses for managers and workers. In a competitive private enter-
prise economy, firms will not remain static: they will be subject to
continuous change as they search for new markets, new products,
new methods of production and new forms of industrial organiza-
tion. They will, for instance, make continuous decisions regarding
the mix of outside suppliers and work undertaken ‘in-house’: the
‘make or buy’ decision. In this form, the private enterprise model
has implications for jointery.
In private enterprise economies, the search for profits and the
desire to economize on costs determines the form and extent of
jointery, including the efficient size of an organization together
with its degree of specialization and diversification. Mergers are the
private sector equivalent of jointery and they involve both benefits
and costs. The benefits of mergers include lower costs from rational-
ization, from achieving economies of scale due to a larger output
and from economies of scope from producing two or more activities
in one firm, like military and civil aircraft. Further benefits might
include technical progress as the merger results in a larger firm able
to undertake costly research and development. But mergers also

involve costs through the creation of monopoly power resulting in
higher prices, monopoly profits, a lack of innovation and
inefficiency – epitomized by managers pursuing a quiet life, ‘con-
suming’ luxury offices and chauffeur-driven cars.
There are three types of mergers, namely, horizontal, vertical and
conglomerate. Horizontal mergers involve firms at the same stage of
production, say, two tank producing companies or two warship
builders. Examples from the armed forces might include mergers
between infantry regiments or between artillery regiments or
between vehicle repair units. Other examples include the formation
of Joint Force 2000 (RAF and Royal Navy Harriers which will eventu-
ally be replaced by a common aircraft type), the Defence Logistics
Organization and Joint Ground Based Air Defence. Vertical mergers
involve firms at different stages in the production process, say, a
tank company acquiring a steel-making plant. For the armed forces,
possible examples include an infantry regiment merging with a
vehicle repair unit, or with a logistics unit, or with an air transport
squadron, or assuming responsibility for the recruitment and train-
ing of its soldiers. The Joint Helicopter Command resembles a verti-
cal merger in that it combines attack, commando and support
helicopter units. Conglomerate mergers involve diversified firms
with a variety of unrelated products and services, for instance,
defence companies acquiring motor car, insurance, construction
and hotel businesses. Relevant examples for the armed forces
include Joint Rapid Reaction Forces and the ‘ultimate’ solution of
merging all three separate services into a single defence force (a con-
glomerate firm or the ‘purple’ solution).
The private sector model of industrial organization and mergers
would result in jointery being determined by market forces. Military
units and bases would be regarded as firms with military comman-
ders as entrepreneurs and managers: they would be required to
combine their forces of equipment, personnel, bases and facilities to
produce a defence output at minimum cost. In this model, com-
manders would be able to select the most efficient ‘mix’ of work
undertaken ‘in-house’ and ‘bought-in’ from outside contractors.
Similarly, unit commanders would be allowed to determine the
most efficient size of their units and the most efficient scope of their
operations, including the possibility of mergers and takeovers. For
Keith Hartley 209
example, in the army, this approach would allow unit commanders

to question whether the traditional regiment is the best form of
organization and its most efficient size. Army commanders would be
able to determine whether it would be more cost-effective to merge
with other similar units (such as horizontal mergers between
infantry units to form larger units), or with different army units
(such as vertical mergers between infantry, artillery, tank and trans-
port units), or with units in other services (such as conglomerate
mergers with an infantry unit merging with air force strike and
transport squadrons). However, application of the private sector
model requires that military commanders and their personnel need
incentives to behave efficiently and seek lower-cost solutions.
Competition, the capital market and profits provide the incentive
mechanisms in the private sector and these features are absent in
the armed forces and elsewhere in the public sector.
For military commanders, the equivalent of private sector profits
would be the introduction of performance-related pay.
Commanders would be given fixed budgets with monetary rewards
for economizing; and genuine entrepreneurship would allow com-
manders to change their ‘mix’ of inputs, so that they would have
the freedom to allocate their budgets between different combina-
tions of personnel, equipment and facilities, including training areas
where they might replace large land training areas with simulators.
In addition to fixed budgets, military commanders would also need
to be given realistic output targets against which their performance
can be assessed and rewarded or punished. Here, there are at least
two problems. First, unlike the private sector, the armed forces
operate as a set of non-competing organizations: indeed, the exis-
tence of three services encourages collusion and the allocation of
the defence budget on the principle of ‘buggins turn’. Second, expe-
rience with output targets and performance indicators shows that
they can produce unexpected and undesirable results. People can
adjust and play games.
A critique: the economics and politics of jointery
Economic models have been applied to political markets, compris-

ing political parties, governments, bureaucracies and other interest
groups. Such models can be used to analyse the military-political-

industrial complex which includes the armed forces, the Ministry of
Defence, vote-sensitive politicians, especially from constituencies
which contain large military bases or defence plants, together with
defence contractors as interest groups of scientists, managers and
workers. All these groups have budgetary and income interests in
influencing defence policy and defence budgets in their favour and
this will affect the way in which they present information to gov-
ernments. For example, acting as budget-maximizers, bureaucracies,
defence ministries and armed forces have every incentive to over-
estimate the threat and underestimate the costs of their preferred
policies. Examples include exaggerating the enemy’s missile threat;
focusing on regional instabilities and on the need to support every
United Nations peacekeeping and humanitarian mission; identify-
ing the ‘gaps’ in military capability shown by operations such as the
Gulf conflict and Kosovo; and the need for new equipment to meet
the requirements of new missions.9 As a result, economic models of
bureaucracy predict that to obtain funds, the armed forces will ‘play
any games’, including jointery. In doing so, the services will be
selective in their use of language to support their case. For example,
single-service forces are claimed to have benefits in terms of special-
ist skills, ethos and morale, while a single defence force is rejected as
‘amorphous’.10 It would be interesting to inquire why a single
defence force could not achieve a distinct identity with the same
ethos, morale and specialist skills and why such criticisms appar-
ently do not apply to joint units.
Joint operations will be supported by the services if they are the
only means of obtaining funds in an era of tight defence budgets.
Jointery can be presented as a means of ‘maximizing military capa-
bility’ and of achieving efficiency savings from ‘rationalization and
coordination, so freeing up resources for other defence priorities’.
These are attractive aims, but they cannot be assessed without infor-
mation on the magnitudes involved, like the size of efficiency
savings. Also, jointery creates opportunities for all three services to
combine and collude to influence government policy in their
favour. They can point to the need for Joint Rapid Reaction Forces
enabling the UK to be a major participant in international opera-
tions such as the European Rapid Reaction Force, as well as being
able to use such a joint force for United Nations peacekeeping and
Keith Hartley 211
crisis management missions (including missions which are attractive

to vote-sensitive governments). Jointery can also be used to justify
and support major single-service equipment programmes which
might not be approved on a single-service basis. Examples include
strategic transport aircraft and combined RAF and Royal Navy
support for the Joint Strike Fighter aircraft and the associated air-
craft carriers for the navy.
To economists, jointery resembles a cartel and monopoly situ-
ation. Here, successful capitalist economies prefer private markets
rather than state ownership and central planning, and competition
is preferred to monopoly. Applying these principles to the armed
forces and jointery suggests the scope for inter-service competition.
Civilians in the form of defence ministers, civil servants and
politicians are at an information disadvantage compared with the
expertise embodied in admirals, air marshals, generals and their spe-
cialist staffs. Competition and rivalry between the armed forces
offers civilian defence managers at least three benefits.11 First, inter-
service competition generates vital information. For example, the
RAF might divulge far more information than the Royal Navy about
the vulnerability of the navy’s new aircraft carriers; similarly, the
army will be more likely than the RAF to reveal the vulnerability of
the RAF’s Eurofighters to surface-to-air missiles. Second, inter-service
competition gives civilian defence managers some bargaining power
in confronting senior military officers when seeking to control
defence policy: it allows them to ‘play one service against another
when particular policies are preferred’.12 For example, if the RAF is
reluctant to support a United Nation’s (UN) mission, the navy
might offer to undertake the task. Third, inter-service competition
provides an incentive for innovation. The prospect of increased or
reduced funding provides each of the services with an incentive to
offer new ideas and novel methods of providing defence capability.
If, for instance, governments and the electorate support British
involvement in UN peacekeeping missions and are prepared to fund
such missions, the armed forces might respond with a variety of
novel proposals for providing such capability, including joint forces
(for example, the use of unmanned air vehicles to avoid casualties to
UK personnel).
There is a major barrier to inter-service competition resulting from
the fact that competitors do not like competition while govern-
ments and politicians usually dislike making the ‘difficult and

painful’ choices required by the competitive process, namely that
they have to choose a ‘winner’. Rather than compete, the armed
forces prefer to collude and work together for mutual benefit, allo-
cating budgets on the principle of ‘buggins turn’: this year, the RAF
will receive its Eurofighters; next year, it is the army’s turn to receive
its new armoured fighting vehicles, after which the navy will receive
its new aircraft carriers and the Joint Strike Fighter. The armed
forces are likely to oppose competition by pointing to the ‘costs and
wastes of competitive duplication’ and by emphasizing the apparent
benefits and successes of joint operations. However, jointery creates
a cartel and facilitates collusion. Significantly, cartels, collusion and
anti-competitive agreements among private firms are subject to leg-
islation in the form of UK competition policy which aims to protect
the ‘public interest’. Collusion between the armed forces is most
likely when difficult choices do not have to be made. But collusion
will cease when one of the armed forces recognizes that its vital
interests are threatened by further budget cuts and the need for
more reductions in its front-line strength. In this context, Sapolsky
has concluded that ‘There is no better spur to candor, error correc-
tion, and creativity in defense planning than a very tight budget
and a few smart rivals competing for budget share.’13
There is a further limitation of inter-service competition, namely,
it is a competition restricted to the established armed forces. In con-
trast, private sector competition allows new entrants and these
provide a further competitive stimulus to firms established in the
market. For the armed forces, innovation has to be promoted by the
existing services, there being no opportunity for a new armed force
to enter the market. This means that any new revolutionary weapon
has to be promoted by one of the services as was the case with the
introduction of aircraft and the tank in World War I or nuclear
forces after 1945. Some new technologies might increase inter-
service competition: for example, the army and the RAF might
compete over the ownership of unmanned air vehicles. But, in other
instances, new technology might be a threat to traditional force
structures so that ‘established interest groups’ will oppose innova-
tion which will make them ‘worse off’.
Nor is competition necessarily attractive to governments and
politicians. Competition requires governments to select a winner and
Keith Hartley 213
as a result, there will be losers. A ‘winner takes all’ competition for a

new major equipment project means that government will be subject
to lobbying by defence contractors, with further pressures from vote-
conscious politicians preferring to share the contract between a
number of bidders (and hence a number of constituencies). Similar
problems are likely from inter-service competition, especially where
the possible losers might be traditional army regiments with long his-
tories and strong support from retired generals and from the local
community. As a result, governments might avoid the difficult
choices required by competition, preferring instead a ‘quiet life’ with
the costs of such behaviour being borne by taxpayers. After all, unlike
entrepreneurs, government ministers do not share in any efficiency
savings which their policies might achieve.
More fundamental questions arise about the appropriate balance
between joint and single-service forces and the point at which a
single defence force becomes worthwhile. For some tasks, the use of
specialist single-service forces will be most efficient and cost-effec-
tive, while joint forces will more efficiently undertake other tasks.
The parallel in private enterprise economies is the distinction
between single-product firms, which obtain economies of scale and
learning from specialization, and multi-product firms, which
achieve economies of scope from the range of their activities.
Currently, official policy simply refers to the need for ‘the specialist
skills and ethos of each Service, and individual units depend for
their fighting capability on the training, discipline and ethos gener-
ated by their parent Service’.14 This suggests that the armed forces
will determine the appropriate mix of joint and single services and
that it will be extremely difficult for government ministers and civil
servants to question such judgements by the services.
One solution to this information problem might be to introduce a
policy rule requiring rivalry whereby the armed forces and private
industry would be allowed to compete to offer innovative solutions
to joint activities. Private firms would be invited to bid for economi-
cal jointery, seeking out cost savings across the armed forces and
not only within each service. Such competitive bidding would
extend from front-line units to support areas, including all aspects
of military and civilian personnel policies. For example, there might
be potential cost savings from joint recruitment and training; or the
navy might find it difficult to attract married women returners, but
such trained naval personnel might be a valuable resource willing to

serve in local army and RAF units (an opportunity requiring a joint
approach). For front-line forces, private firms would bid for manage-
ment contracts which combined various military units;15 and in the
support areas, private firms would be invited to seek out cost-saving
joint solutions. The distinguishing feature of competition is its
ability to discover opportunities for cost savings and for innovation.
Conclusion: future possibilities and challenges
Challenges and future possibilities for jointery can be grouped

around two themes:
1. The challenge of creating an incentive system to promote jointery where

it can be shown to be worthwhile. Three examples of incentives can
be suggested. First, the introduction of employment contracts
similar to those in the private sector which place senior armed
forces personnel at risk by providing rewards for good perfor-
mance and penalties for poor performance. Such contracts
require the application of performance indicators for joint units,
recognizing that these indicators can give unexpected and unde-
sirable results. Second, joint units need their own budgets
embracing the acquisition of personnel and equipment, with
appropriate efficiency incentives. Third, the UK armed forces
market might be opened up to competition by allowing other
NATO armed forces to compete and offer joint force solutions.
Similarly, there are real opportunities for international jointery at
both the European and NATO levels.
2. One service or three? Further ‘downsizing’ will raise the inevitable
question about the point at which a single defence force – a joint
defence force – might be preferable to three single services. What,
if any, is the minimum critical mass for a separate single service?
UK policy uses language which suggests that this minimum criti-
cal mass has not yet been reached: ‘we are not proposing to amal-
gamate the three Services into an amorphous defence force’.16
In assessing the future of jointery, UK defence policy-makers will

have to consider selecting the most efficient ‘mix’ of joint and
single-service forces from the available defence budget: current
Keith Hartley 215
policy is based on a case-by-case ad hoc approach. Jointery will

involve both gainers and losers. Gains will be reflected in lower
costs and greater military capability. However, if jointery is the mili-
tary equivalent of monopoly, cartels and collusive tendering, then
the losers will include UK taxpayers and citizens who are less well
protected.
Notes
1. Ministry of Defence (MOD), The Strategic Defence Review: Supporting
Essays (London: HMSO, 1998), section 8–1.
2. Ministry of Defence, Joint Forces: Modern Battlewinning Armed Forces
(London: Ministry of Defence, 1999), pp. 1–2.
3. K. Hartley, ‘Jointery – Just Another Panacea? An Economist’s View’,
Defence Analysis, vol. 14, no. 1 (1998), pp. 79–86.
4. See, MOD, The Strategic Defence Review, op. cit. and MOD, Joint Forces,
op. cit..
5. MOD, The Strategic Defence Review, op. cit., section 8–7.
6. Ibid., section 8–7.
7. Ibid., section 8–8.
8. MOD, Joint Forces, op. cit., p. 2.
9. T. Sandler and K. Hartley, The Political Economy of NATO (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999).
11. H.M. Sapolsky, ‘The Interservice Competition Solution’, Breakthroughs,
vol. 5, no. 1 (Spring 1996), pp. 1–3.
12. Ibid., p. 1.
13. Ibid., p. 3.
15. A role similar to that played by managers in the National Health
Service.
Index
Afghanistan 50, 61, 69, 81, 100, El Salvador 3

102, 104, 178 European Union 4, 5, 94, 177,
Africa 55, 58–9 187–92
Air expeditionary wings 49 Expeditionary warfare 10, 179
Al-Qaida 69
Albania 22, 31 Falklands/Malvinas 62, 159,
Algeria 56–7, 69 190
Argentina 62 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 4,
Asymmetric warfare 7, 15–43 7, 15–16, 18, 95, 104, 116, 177
Australia 55 Former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia 22, 28, 31, 32
Balkans 3, 5, 47, 178 France 56, 58, 179, 182, 191
Bosnia 6, 17, 20, 97–8, 100, 104–5, Front Line First: Defence Costs Study
108, 116, 131, 180, 188 165, 166, 168–9, 186–7
BR1806 131 Future Strategic Context for Defence
British Army 11, 50, 201 85
Bulgaria 22
Germany 22, 99, 181, 183, 185,
Cambodia 3, 178 191, 204
Central Africa 5 Greece 22
Central America 58 Grenada 61
Central Asia 47, 57 Guam 49
Chechnya 81, 95, 104 Gulf 2–3, 6, 8, 17, 24, 47, 59,
Chemical weapons 36 61–4, 66–7, 81, 91, 93, 96, 99,
China 47, 55, 59, 95 104–5, 108, 113–15, 118, 162,
Cold War 1, 2, 4, 9–11, 16, 47–8, 177–8, 180, 210
51, 54, 58, 60, 92–6, 101, 116–17,
119, 130, 134, 136–7, 159, 162, Haiti 17
178–81, 183, 185, 194 Humanitarian roles 3
Cole, USS 45, 106 Hungary 22, 36, 37
Complex emergencies 8
Cruise Missile 50, 131, 187 India 59
Cuba 51, 61 Indonesia 17, 56
Cyber war 48 Information warfare 120–1
Iran 59, 61, 66, 138
Dar es Salaam 47 Iraq 2, 17, 20, 23, 50, 58, 61–3, 81,
Diego Garcia 49 94, 96, 102, 104–5, 114, 139,
177–8
East Asia 4, 47, 55 Israel 62, 64, 79, 83, 115
East Timor 6 Italy 22
217
218 Index
Japan 4, 55, 78, 99 Nuclear, Biological and Chemical

Joint Doctrine and Concepts 15, 37, 62, 63
Centre 203
Joint Force 2000 131, 203, 208 Options for Change 162, 186–7
Joint Helicopter Command 202, Organization for Security and
206, 208 Cooperation in Europe 177
Joint Services Command and Staff Osama bin Laden 100
College 1, 10, 168, 202–3
Joint Rapid Reaction Forces 10, Panama 61
130, 202–3, 205, 208, 210 Peace dividend 4
Joint Vision 2020 24 Peacekeeping 3, 17, 95, 97–8, 107,
Jointery 10, 11 116, 186, 211
Permanent Joint Headquarters 10,
Kosovo 4, 6, 16–21, 27–39, 49, 53, 167, 192
60, 80, 83, 91, 93–4, 96–7, Persian Gulf 5, 45, 47, 57
99–100, 102, 104–6, 108, 124, Peru 57, 68
179–80, 190, 210 Post-heroic warfare 3
Kurth, J. 5 Provisional IRA 69
Kuwait 2, 17, 58, 63, 95, 114 Public/Private Partnership 142
Lebanon 3, 61–2, 68, 79, 83, 104 Quadrennial Defense Review 24, 39
Latin America 47, 51, 55–7, 59
Libya 61, 66, 101 Revolution in Military Affairs 3,
8–9, 111–28, 132, 136, 145
Mexico 57 Revolution in Political Affairs 9, 113
Middle East 3, 45, 47–8, 56 Royal Air Force 11, 35, 112, 131–2,
Ministry of Defence 11, 73–5, 81, 186, 193, 201–2, 211–12, 214
140–3, 151–2, 154, 157, 159, Royal Navy 11, 50, 112, 130, 159,
160–1, 163–7, 169–71, 173, 188, 182, 201, 211
193, 202, 206 Russia 35, 47, 81, 95, 116, 137
Mozambique 3, 178
Saudi Arabia 58, 64, 67
Nairobi 47 Sierra Leone 6, 17, 124, 178–9
National Missile Defense 52 Smart Acquisition 142, 145
New World (Dis)order 2, 5 Somalia 17, 20, 49, 77, 104, 116
North Africa 56 South Africa 3
North Atlantic Treaty Organization South America 58
4, 5, 9–10, 15–16, 18–19, 21–3, South Asia 55
27–39, 50, 52–3, 60–1, 80, 84, Southeast Asia 3, 55
94–5, 97–8, 101–2, 104–6, 108, Soviet Union 2, 4, 6, 58, 99, 102,
116, 123, 132, 135–7, 145, 159, 104, 177, 181–2, 184–5
162, 169, 177–8, 181, 183, Spain 101
185–7, 189–92, 194, 214 Sri Lanka 68
North Korea 47, 61, 66 Strategic Defence Review 9, 24,
Northern Ireland 3, 94 124, 129–32, 143–5, 170, 180,
Nott Review 130, 159, 185, 187 189, 192–4, 201–2, 204
Index 219
Sudan 50, 100 US Marine Corps 50, 68, 77

Suez 184 US Navy 50
Syria 62 USA 3, 4, 8, 10, 15, 17, 22–4, 45–8,
50, 53, 61–4, 67, 77, 93, 95, 99,
Taliban 69 102, 104–5, 112, 114–16, 122–4,
Terrorism 53 132–3, 135–7, 143, 145, 156, 159,
Transcaucasia 3 179–83, 185, 187–90, 193–5
United Kingdom 6, 8–9, 16, 37, Vietnam 61, 81, 96–7, 99, 102,
62, 69, 78, 81, 96, 101, 105, 104, 114–16
111–49, 155, 160, 204, 210–12,
214–15 Warsaw Pact 10, 94, 116, 177
United Nations 7, 15, 18, 60, 74, Western European Union 177,
79, 94, 102, 106, 114, 116, 177, 180, 187
180, 186, 188, 194, 210–11 World Bank 74, 78
US Air Force 49, 52, 67 World Trade Center 69
US Army 51, 66, 119 World Trade Organization 59

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The Changing Face of

List of Tables vii

Notes on the Contributors ix

1 Military Power in a Multipolar World

2 The Dimensions of Asymmetric Warfare

3 Limitations on Joint Warfare: the Impact of the

4 Reconciling Humanitarianism and Reality:

5 Western Strategy in the New Era: the

6 Britain and the Revolution in Military Affairs

7 Equipping Britain’s Armed Forces: Continuity and

8 Defence Management and the Impact of ‘Jointery’

9 British Defence Policy in the Post-Cold War

10 The Economics of Joint Forces

10.1 Joint Forces, UK 203

10.2 UK Defence Budget, 2000/2001 205

10.3 Employment in Joint Units, 2000 206

Wyn Q. Bowen is Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department, Joint

Andrew Dorman is Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department,

Martin Edmonds is Professor and Director of the Centre for

Lawrence Freedman is Professor of War Studies, Department of

Keith Hartley is Professor at the Centre for Defence Economics,

Alice Hills is Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department, Joint

Paul Rogers is Professor of Peace Studies, Department of Peace

Philip Sabin is Professor of Strategic Studies, Department of War

Mike Smith is Lecturer, Department of War Studies, King’s College,

Matthew Uttley is Senior Lecturer in the Defence Studies

AAA Anti-aircraft artillery

JSCSC Joint Services Command and Staff College

SFOR NATO’s stabilization force in Kosovo

The intention of this volume is to examine critically the contours of

of the Balkans and Transcaucasia, which necessitated the interven-

a multipolar world; emerging threats; the challenges in the military

Changing defence roles

Since 1989, the collapse of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe and

large-scale offensive in Central Europe.20 Cold War certainties in

power. He also demonstrates that there are a number of strategies

The technological dimension

One consequence of the role that American technological superior-

group of countries. Lawrence Freedman analyses the RMA in the

Reconfiguring national armed forces: defence

The post-Cold War transition in the international security milieu

their use in expeditionary warfare in its various guises through

signifies a reverse order of [Cold War] priorities; it connotes the

In practical terms, in the United Kingdom, jointery has been

Professor Martin Edmonds addresses the issue of defence manage-

The contemporary orthodoxy concerning jointery is that: Those

Professor Keith Hartley critically evaluates this assumption in the

than applied to those activities that affect the core organizational

This volume addresses a range of key issues in what is a dynamic

8. See M. Clarke, ‘Constraints on UK World Power Projection and Foreign

The concept of asymmetry can also be applied to other areas

Asymmetry 1: imbalance of interests

(US) have diminished radically. The resultant strategic environment

the Milosevic regime in Belgrade, then, included the vital interests

Asymmetry 2: political, legal and ethical constraints

The manner in which a government or regime approaches armed

proportionality and the non-targeting of civilians. Obviously, the

(Serbia and Montenegro) were dominated by FRY President

Asymmetry 3: asymmetric strategies and techniques

world. Moreover, this gap continued to grow in the decade follow-

that the appeal to adversaries of ‘asymmetric approaches’ would

Asymmetric approaches and techniques can be implemented at all

casualties and collateral damage. Potential gains are likely to be cal-