Complexity,strategy and the national interest

British strategy‐making has been subject to a sustained critique in recent years, from parliamentarians, retired members of the armed forces and scholars of strategic studies. This article examines the nature of this critique and the evolving character of strategic practice in Britain. It argues that the criticisms of British strategymaking are often misplaced, for two main reasons. First, many base their critique on a reductionist notion of unitary ‘national interest’ that fails to capture systemic patterns of complexity and contestation in the wider security environment and in Britain. Second, they underestimate or ignore the extent to which the UK strategic community is itself innovating in response to these themes, particularly since the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review. This is not to argue that considerable challenges do not remain for strategy‐making in Britain. Most notably, these include: how to translate strategic innovation in departments and elsewhere into a coherent national strategic agenda; how to do this while maintaining institutional coordination and a shared sense of strategic purpose across government (and beyond); how to sustain and consolidate institutional expertise and experience in a rapidly changing civil service and at a time of continuing public austerity; and how to articulate and legitimate security policy decisions among a general public that is both disengaged from elite strategic discourse and sceptical of the efficacy of military force. Even so, the article concludes by arguing that it is possible to see the outline of an emergent and distinctive theory of action in contemporary British strategic practice, characterized by principles of adaptivity, anticipation, self‐organisation and nascent cross‐governmentalism.     

The defence dilemma in Britain

The UK faces a pressing defence dilemma. The declaratory goals of defence policy are struggling to match the demands made by operational commitments and the financial and organizational capacities. The article examines how and why this situation has come about. While recognizing that existing calls for higher defence spending, reform of the Ministry of Defence, efficiency gains or a renewal of the so‐called military covenant between the military and society may address discrete elements of the defence dilemma in Britain, it argues that current problems derive from a series of deeper tensions in the nexus of British defence more widely defined. These include a transnationalization of strategic practice, in ways that both shape and constrain the national defence policy process; the institutional politics of defence itself, which encourage different interpretations of interest and priority in the wider strategic context; and finally the changing status of defence in the wider polity, which introduces powerful veto points into the defence policy process itself. It argues that while a series of shocks may have destabilized existing policy, prompted ad hoc organizational adaptation in the armed forces and led to incremental cost saving measures from the government, a ‘dominant crisis narrative’—in the form of a distinctive and generally agreed programme of change—has yet to emerge. The article concludes by looking forward to a future strategic defence review, highlighting the critical path dependencies and veto points which must be addressed if transformative change in British defence is to take place.     

Over‐promising and under‐delivering? Ambitions and risks in US defence strategy

Recent changes to US defence strategy, plans and forces have placed the United States at greater risk of over‐promising and under‐delivering on its global security ambitions. In 2012, the Obama administration released a new defence strategic guidance document to adapt to a shifting security environment and defence budget cuts. The guidance upholds the two long‐standing American goals of global pre‐eminence and global reach, but seeks to apply this military power by using new planning and regional concepts. It revises the Department of Defense's force planning construct, an important tool used to size US military forces, and identifies the Asia–Pacific and the greater Middle East as the two regions where the US military should focus its attention and resources. There are three major risks facing this revised US strategy: emerging security threats, the role of US allies and partners, and domestic constraints in the United States. Included in these risks are the proliferation of advanced military technologies, the US response to the rise of China, the continued prevalence of state instability and failure, the capability and commitment of NATO and other US allies, additional US budget cuts, political polarization in the United States, and interservice competition within the US military. In light of these risks, the United States faces a future in which it will continue to struggle to direct its military power towards its most important geopolitical priorities, such as rebalancing towards the Asia–Pacific, as opposed simply to respond to the many security surprises that are certain to arise. If the past is any guide, American political leaders will respond to the aforementioned risks in the worst way possible: by maintaining the current US defence strategy while slashing the resources to support it.     

Rethinking security: a critical analysis of the Strategic Defence and Security Review

In 2010 the coalition government conducted a major review of defence and security policy. This article explores the review process from a critical perspective by examining and challenging the state‐centrism of prevailing conceptions of current policy reflected in the quest to define and perform a particular ‘national role’ in contrast to a human‐centric framework focused on the UK citizen. It argues that shifting the focus of policy to the individual makes a qualitative difference to how we think about requirements for the UK's armed forces and challenges ingrained assumptions about defence and security in relation to military operations of choice and attendant expensive, expeditionary war‐fighting capabilities. In particular, it confronts the prevailing narrative that UK national security‐as‐global risk management must be met by securing the state against pervasive multidimensional risk through military force, that military power projection capabilities are a vital source of international influence and national prestige and that the exercise of UK military power constitutes a ‘force for good’ for the long‐term human security needs of citizens in both the intervened and intervening state.     

Complex security and strategic latency: the UK Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015

Whichever party or parties form the next UK government, a Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) is expected to begin soon after the general election in May. The review might be a ‘light touch’ exercise—little more than a reaffirmation of the SDSR produced by the coalition government in 2010. It seems more likely, however, that the review will be a lengthier, more deliberate exercise and one which might even last into 2016. For those most closely engaged in the process the challenge is more complex than that confronted by their predecessors in 2010. The international security context is more confused and contradictory; the UK's financial predicament is still grave; security threats and challenges will emerge that cannot be ignored; the population's appetite for foreign military engagement appears nevertheless to be restricted; and prevailing conditions suggest that the risk‐based approach to national strategy might be proving difficult to sustain. Two key questions should be asked of the review. First, in the light of recent military experiences, what is the purpose of the United Kingdom's armed forces? Second, will SDSR 2015–16 sustain the risk‐based approach to national strategy set out in 2010, and if so how convincingly? Beginning with a review of the background against which SDSR 2015–16 will be prepared, this article examines both enduring and immediate challenges to the national strategic process in the United Kingdom and concludes by arguing for strategic latency as a conceptual device which can complement, if not reinvigorate, the risk‐based approach to national strategy and defence.     

Transatlantic triage? European and UK ‘grand strategy’ after the US rebalance to Asia

Transition in the Middle East, the ongoing effects of the global financial crisis and the United States' rebalance to Asia are key trends that will have an impact on transatlantic relations and European defence. As US priorities shift, a common European ‘grand strategy’ could encourage the development of a shared vision to help Europe order its priorities and begin to respond to the new, post‐austerity context of world politics and shrinking defence budgets. Will these changes be enough to quicken Europe's currently shrivelled strategic thinking? In any scenario, given its relative weight and role as an interlocutor with the US, the United Kingdom will remain vital to any developing European security and strategy agenda, although its broader relations with the European Union will complicate this relationship. How it proceeds will also help to define the boundaries of this nascent European security order. This article charts these key global trends, relates them to current debates in European security and strategy and maps opportunities and constraints faced by Europe and the UK in developing a grand strategy in an increasingly ‘American‐lite’ European neighbourhood.     

Global multipolarity,European security and implications for UK grand strategy: back to the future,once again

The international system is returning to multipolarity—a situation of multiple Great Powers—drawing the post‐Cold War ‘unipolar moment’ of comprehensive US political, economic and military dominance to an end. The rise of new Great Powers, namely the ‘BRICs’—Brazil, Russia, India, and most importantly, China—and the return of multipolarity at the global level in turn carries security implications for western Europe. While peaceful political relations within the European Union have attained a remarkable level of strategic, institutional and normative embeddedness, there are five factors associated with a return of Great Power competition in the wider world that may negatively impact on the western European strategic environment: the resurgence of an increasingly belligerent Russia; the erosion of the US military commitment to Europe; the risk of international military crises with the potential to embroil European states; the elevated incentive for states to acquire nuclear weapons; and the vulnerability of economically vital European sea lines and supply chains. These five factors must, in turn, be reflected in European states’ strategic behaviour. In particular, for the United Kingdom—one of western Europe's two principal military powers, and its only insular (offshore) power—the return of Great Power competition at the global level suggests that a return to offshore balancing would be a more appropriate choice than an ongoing commitment to direct military interventions of the kind that have characterized post‐2001 British strategy.     

The false promise of continental concert: Russia,the West and the necessary balance of power

The war in Ukraine is revelatory of a malaise in Europe's security order created by Russia's resistance to western institutions on the one hand and the western desire to maintain these institutions while partnering with Russia on the other. Absent a sense of priorities, western policy risks contributing to the erosion of Europe's security order that Russia seeks in opposition to western ambition. Europe's order is premised first and foremost on a distinctively western concert of nations—whereby Euro‐Atlantic states coordinate policy according to a common purpose layered into both NATO and the EU—that forms part of a wider balance of power between Russia and the West. Western policy should aim to strengthen the concert and clarify the balance. However, the prevalent desire to include Russia in the concert confuses matters in a major way, eroding both the underlying sense of priorities and the foundation for order. This article examines this threatening erosion and traces it to three underlying trends: political contestation with regard to the meaning of ‘restoration’ post‐1989; military instability following from the unpredictability of ‘hybrid war’; and moral equivocation on the part of the West when it comes to defending the Euro‐Atlantic security order. The article concludes that given the depth of contestation, western allies should learn to distinguish concert from balance and act on the condition that the former, a vibrant western concert, is a precondition for the latter, a manageable continental balance.     

Beyond Fashoda: Anglo‐French security cooperation in Africa since Saint‐Malo

Traditionally divided on security matters, France and Britain broke new ground when they signed the 1998 Saint‐Malo agreement, promising to collaborate on defence and security, and pledging to cooperate bilaterally and in a ‘bi‐multi’ fashion on Africa. This Anglo‐French collaboration is the focus of this article, which begins by setting out the lack of UK–French security cooperation in Africa from the colonial to the early post‐Cold War era. It then shows how there has been a degree of institutionalization of Anglo‐French relations, alongside greater cooperation in terms of ESDP missions and the training of African peacekeepers. Next, this study explains the recent evolution of UK–French security relations in terms of neo‐classical realist theory. Finally, it assesses the likelihood of closer Anglo‐French security collaboration in the future.     

Fifty shades of purple? A risk‐sharing approach to the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review

The next Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) will be held in 2015. With unfinished business from its 2010 predecessor, and with no sign that UK national strategy is about to escape the grip of austerity, the 2015 SDSR is set to be more complex and contentious than the government might have hoped. There is a possibility that the review will, yet again, see the three armed services struggle against each other to secure the largest slice of a diminishing cake. The review might also be captured by a fruitless discussion of ‘grand strategy’. SDSR 2015 must avoid both of these distractions. There are four principal concerns arising from SDSR 2010: the feasibility of the Future Force 2020 plan; various capability gaps that must be managed; inconsistencies in the national strategic planning framework; and unresolved concerns about the relationship between society, armed forces and government in the UK. In response to these concerns, the authors argue for a risk‐sharing approach to the SDSR, embracing the widest conceivable range of stakeholders in national strategy: the armed services; government departments and agencies; industry; civil society; and allies and partners. In UK military circles, inter‐service cooperation is known as ‘jointery’ and is denoted by a certain shade of purple. The effect of austerity is to constrain national strategy, just as the international security environment makes ever more demands upon it. In these circumstances, strategic options must be generated by joint collaboration, denoted by as many shades of purple as appropriate.     

The strategic culture of the European Union: a progress report

This article re‐examines the EU's character and potential as a strategic actor, setting that analysis in the context of the debate on strategic culture. The definition of strategic culture as the political and institutional confidence and processes to manage and deploy military force, coupled with external recognition of the EU as a legitimate actor in the military sphere, lends itself to a reappraisal around four core questions. First, military capabilities: establishing a European strategic culture is vital in order to rationalize the acquisition of capabilities necessary for the range of humanitarian and peacekeeping tasks envisaged. Equally, without military capabilities, all talk of a strategic culture would ring hollow. This article discusses how much closer the EU has come to acquiring those essential capabilities. Second, while the EU has gained significant experience of, albeit limited, military/policing experiences and established a growing reputation and some credibility for ad hoc action, to what extent and in what quarters have these experiences engendered a sense of reliability and legitimacy for autonomous EU action? Third, given that so far operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Balkans have depended on an integrated civil–military effort, do the policy‐making processes of the EU now ensure the appropriate level and depth of civil–military integration? Finally, considering that EU operations have been limited in time and scope, and that much of the EU's work in the Balkans has depended upon cooperation with NATO, what can be said of the evolving relationship between the EU and NATO?     

Relinquishing nuclear weapons: identities,networks and the British bomb

Recent analysis on the prospects for achieving a world free of nuclear weapons has tended to focus on a set of largely realist strategic security considerations. Such considerations will certainly underpin future decisions to relinquish nuclear weapons, but nuclear disarmament processes are likely to involve a more complex mix of actors, issues and interests. The article examines this complexity through a sociological lens using Britain as a case‐study, where relinquishing a nuclear capability has become a realistic option for a variety of strategic, political and economic reasons. The article examines the core ideational and organizational allies of the UK nuclear weapon ‘actor‐network’ by drawing upon social constructivist accounts of the relationship between identity and interest, and historical sociology of technology analysis of Large Technical Systems and the social construction of technology. It divides the UK actor‐network into three areas: the UK policy elite's collective identity that generates a ‘national interest’ in continued deployment of nuclear weapons; defence–industrial actors that support and operationalize these identities; and international nuclear weapons dynamics that reinforce the network. The article concludes by exploring how the interests and identities that constitute and reproduce the ‘actor‐network’ that makes nuclear armament possible might be transformed to make nuclear disarmament possible. The purpose is not to dismiss or supplant the importance of strategic security‐oriented analysis of the challenges of nuclear disarmament but to augment its understanding by dissecting some of the socio‐political complexities of nuclear disarmament processes.     

Dr Fox and the Philosopher's Stone: the alchemy of national defence in the age of austerity

The history of British defence reviews has been one of repeated disappointment: a cycle in which policy failure is followed by a period of inertia, giving way to an attempt at a new policy framework which is then misimplemented by the defence leadership. Each failed defence review therefore sows the seeds of its successor. With this in mind, in 2010 the new coalition government embarked upon an altogether more ambitious exercise: a strategy review comprising a National Security Strategy and a Strategic Defence and Security Review. This article suggests, nevertheless, not only that the 2010 strategy review looks likely to follow past performance, but also that it is coming unstuck at an unprecedented rate. This is a pity since the 2010 review had much to commend it, not least the adoption of a risk‐based approach to security and defence policy‐making. What is the explanation for this outcome? Is it that the British have, as some have suggested, lost the ability to ‘do strategy’, if ever they had it? The authors offer a more nuanced understanding of the policy process and argue that the coalition government in fact has a very clear and deliberate strategy—that of national economic recovery. Yet the coalition government cannot allow national defence and security to fail. The authors conclude with an assessment of the options open to the defence leadership as they seek to address the failing 2010 strategy review and suggest a variety of indicators which will demonstrate the intent and seriousness of the political, official and military leadership of the Ministry of Defence.     

The military covenant and the civil–military contract in Britain

Is the British civil–military contract strained to breaking point? The contemporary portrayal of British civil–military relations is bleak, with academics, politicians, the media and military charities arguing that military–societal relations are in urgent need of repair. Through assessing the extent to which the reciprocal expectations of the armed forces and the British public are realized, this article will argue that the moral contract, although under stress, is not breaking. Underlying social trends and the use of doctrinal concepts such as the military covenant have, combined with recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, altered the expectations of both sides causing tensions within military–societal relations. Yet, while the armed forces do harbour unrealized expectations of the British public who are unwilling or unable to support the use of the military in recent conflicts, neither the public nor the military is so disillusioned with the performance of the other for the relationship to be described as breaking or broken.     

The limited capacity of management to rescue UK defence policy: a review and a word of caution

Political and media attention in the UK is devoted to three interrelated aspects of defence: policy, the management of defence resources and military operations. This article argues that the 1998 Strategic Defence Review placed excessive reliance on anticipated improvements in the management of defence resources to render Labour's defence policies affordable. The field of attempted defence management improvements is surveyed and it is concluded that no final answers were generated on the key issues of the division of tasks among uniformed personnel, civil servants and the private sector, or on whether defence should be run largely on a capability basis or on single service lines. Given the demonstrated similarity between the government's concepts of the UK's role in the world in the Strategic Defence Review (1998) and the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) (2010), there is a clear danger that the SDSR also relies too much on efficiency savings. By reference to the inherent complications of defence management and to three strands of management thought (complexity management, wicked problems and principal–agent theory), the article argues that some inefficiency will always be present. It suggests that the Clausewitzian concept of friction, accepted as pertinent to the area of military operations, might also be applied to efforts to generate military capability. It concludes that defence reviews should not be based on assumptions about efficiency savings and that students of international security and defence need to pay attention to both the volume of resources going into defence and the mechanisms by which they are managed.     

Military Identities,Conventional Capability and the Politics of NATO Standardisation at the Beginning of the Second Cold War, 1970–1980

This paper uses equipment standardisation as a lens for examining power relationships and the importance of military identity in framing the development of NATO conventional capability. In the face of the Warsaw Pact's overwhelming military capacity the logic of standardisation was compelling. Standardising equipment and making military forces interoperable reduced logistics overlap, increased the tempo of operations and allowed partners to optimise manufacturing capacity. Applied carefully, standardisation would help NATO mount a successful conventional defence of Western Europe, a crucial aspect of the Alliance's flexible response strategy. In this paper, we apply Actor Network Theory to standardisation discussions thereby revealing the incoherence and volatility of NATO's collective strategic thinking and the vast networks of countervailing interests on which this is based.     

Australia's ‘special strategic relationship’ with Japan: another ‘China choice’?

In July 2014, Australia's new Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, and his Japanese counterpart, Shinzō Abe, elevated the status of bilateral ties to a ‘special strategic relationship'. Both sides also agreed on intensifying their defence technology cooperation, including in the submarine space. As well, Prime Minister Abbott called Australia a ‘strong ally’ of Japan. Yet, the prospect of a further strengthening of Australia–Japan defence relations has led to criticism by Australian strategic commentators. In particular, critics argue that closer strategic relations with Japan could damage Australia's ties with a rising China. In a worst-case scenario, Australia might even become ‘entrapped’ in a Sino-Japanese conflict. However, this argues that a closer defence relationship is in Australia's strategic interests in the face of China's increasing challenge to the rules-based order in the region. China's uncompromising position in the South China Sea and its more assertive behaviour have led to a greater congruence of threat and risk assessment between Australia and Japan. Indeed, Australia and Japan are increasingly facing a security dilemma vis-à-vis China, albeit to varying degrees. Therefore, for Australia, promoting Japan's ‘security normalisation’ contributes to regional stability. As well, the article points out that closer strategic ties with Japan do not automatically come at the expense of Sino-Australia relations. China's leverage to ‘punish’ Australia for unwanted strategic behaviour is limited, and concerns about ‘entrapment’ in a Sino-Japanese war are exaggerated. However, the more China exerts coercive diplomacy, the closer Australia–Japan defence relations are likely to become.     

Multi‐scalar Labour Agency in Global Production Networks: Contestation and Crisis in the South African Fruit Sector

Integration into global production networks poses significant challenges, and also opens up opportunities, for labour agency. Governance by lead firms affects working conditions and can drive precarious employment; this interacts with and can constrain national labour legislation covering labour rights. The global production networks (GPN) approach facilitates examination of commercial value chains, their interaction with institutionally and societally embedded labour markets, and potential leverage points for labour contestation transcending local, national and global scales. This informs analysis of commercial/societal articulations as contested processes opening space for multi‐scalar labour agency within global production networks. This article examines how tensions between global commercial and societally embedded dimensions of global production networks drive precarious work, and seeks to understand the implications for emergent forms of multi‐scalar community‐based labour agency. These questions are explored through an examination of labour casualization and contestation in South African fruit production in 2012–13, using the GPN approach. The authors find that multi‐scalar channels of labour agency leveraging both global commercial and government actors can enable reworking by unorganized community‐based labour to bargain for better pay and conditions, but if the underlying global commercial logic is to be challenged, more systemic strategies are required.     

Britain,the United Arab Emirates and the defence of the Gulf revisited

This article investigates the deepening of the UK's security and defence arrangements with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In recent years there has been a flurry of diplomatic activity indicating far closer engagement between London and Abu Dhabi. Rather than being an innovative initiative of the Cameron government, the interaction has deeper roots, with this article uncovering the importance of the relatively unknown Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) of 1996, signed by the Major government. Furthermore, the UK‐UAE defence relationship is shown to have endured beyond the infamous UK withdrawal from ‘east of Suez’ in 1971. The current engagement is, however, more intense and potentially far‐reaching than it had been in recent decades, with the defence sector being placed at the forefront of UK efforts to bolster the relationship with the oil‐rich Gulf emirate. Using official statements from London and Abu Dhabi, this article suggests that the UK‐UAE relationship has always remained intact, although it lost focus following the end of the Major government until the refocusing on the Gulf by the Cameron government. The article concludes with an assessment of the expectations of the UAE, and the strategic drivers underpinning UK policy.