Tory government should be manoeuvrist government
Daniel Korski 1:28pm
The greatest challenge facing a new government may be that Britain’s national security institutions are not fit for purpose. They were built for a different era and focused on a set of now obselete threats. Notwithstanding a few exceptions, like the Cuban Missile Crisis, the threats during the Cold War were slow-moving and predictable. Even in the immediate Cold War period, threats were nasty, but rarely novel.
Now, however, Britain faces all manner of fast-moving, asymmetric threats. Terrorists and insurgents can get inside our decision-making loop. In Helmand, the Taliban stage attacks around their media strategy, not the other way around as we do it. Countries like Russia and China can bring a range of assets to bear, many of which are not even governmental. Just think of the way in which deniable attacks were launched against Estonia’s IT infrastructure following a spat with the Moscow government.
The public and the media, meanwhile, struggle to understand that in the modern era there is a limit to safety - even though responding to the consequences of crises will have to involve ordinary people in a way not seen since the Blitz.
Five major problems hamper Britain’s response: 1) the bandwidth of decision-makers is limited while the range of threats have expanded; 2) the speed with which government operates remains the same as it was years ago; 3) a belief in the Civil Service that they, not outsiders, have all the expertise required; 4) fear of mistakes discourages delegation; and 5) the government’s limited assets, compared to those of the Russian or Chinese governments, narrows the range of response. Russia can use Gazprom and million-dollar kickbacks. China employs more than 300,000 pro-government spammers. The British government, meanwhile, has to make the most of their expenditure DAC-able, in compliance with the OECD criteria for overseas aid.
The answer to this is NOT going back to some stylised, romanticised period of government that nobody except Lords Wilson, Turnbull and Butler seem to remember. Nor will the problem be solved by handing the red ministerial boxes from Labour to the Tories. If you believe that and supported Barack Obama’s campaign, you must be wondering why the world has not turned into sweetness and light.
So what to do? Space does not permit me to add more. Instead I want to suggest the principle that ought to govern a new system: the manoeuvrist doctrine. That is, having a strong centre of government, through a National Security Committee, but allowing far greater delegation to Ministers, and having fewer government officials, more of whom should be politically-appointed and all of whom should be trained and given resources to deliver their tasks more flexibly. Work should also go into developing the government’s ability to respond more asymmetrically – on the battlefield and in competition with China and Russia. Perhaps a blue-ribbon panel can look into this?
The bottom-line: sticking with the model of security governance we have now, a structurally weak but politically-dominant centre that micromanages set of departments, does not work.
Previous
Peter From Maidstone
November 27th, 2009 1:39pm Report this commentThere is plenty of space Daniel, so do add away.
Naomi Muse
November 27th, 2009 1:48pm Report this commentPlease elaborate, Daniel.
Mark Pack
November 27th, 2009 1:52pm Report this commentSo, "the bandwidth of decision-makers is limited". Perhaps an extra problem to add to the list then is the love of jargon amongst pundits!
The Bellman
November 27th, 2009 2:00pm Report this commentI'd settle for Good government. The type that doesn't need cute tages co-opted from half-understood military theory.
Michael Booth
November 27th, 2009 2:06pm Report this commentMmmmmmmmmm this is the sort of argument which justifies surveillance and anti-terrorist-legislation-creep...
Austin Barry
November 27th, 2009 2:25pm Report this comment"Five major problems hamper Britain’s response.."
No, six: a spineless and crooked ruling elite every decision of which must be politically correct and not likely to upset our more agitated communities or offend the EU's supine edicts on human rights.
London Calling
November 27th, 2009 2:33pm Report this comment‘The greatest challenge facing a new government may be that Britain’s national security institutions are not fit for purpose’
Can I add to that list Hospitals, Prisons, Education and Housing?
Must we wait for bridges to collapse as they did in Cockermouth before we rebuild them? The decay is evident all around us and the challenges to any new government is
Humongous, but not impossible to remedy.
Security is paramount and all possibilities
of terrorist actions at home should be continuously reviewed and updated. I hope this is currently is the case, however considering human trafficking into Britain we also have to be constantly on our guard and observant to those who wish us harm as well as protecting key target sites and understanding a terrorist mindset
If politicians want to restore public confidence then all of the above have to be addressed first. Rebuild, Restore, Renew. Otherwise no one in Westminster will be fit for purpose and chaos will reign happily.
Swiss Bob
November 27th, 2009 2:37pm Report this comment"Britain faces all manner of fast-moving, asymmetric threats."
And Copenhagen could be said to be one of them, but all is silence at the Speccie.
Unlike the American Spectator (any relation?) which is filing lawsuits against NASA and GISS.
Odd that.
Biggestaspidistra
November 27th, 2009 2:44pm Report this commentWe'll get onto it right away. I have a box of blue ribbons somewhere.
When you say "Britain faces all manner of fast-moving, asymmetric threats" is that anything to do with the Frieze Art Fair?
Disorganised1
November 27th, 2009 2:57pm Report this commentSpace, I am reasonably sure, is infinite, though reader's patience is not, so please elaborate further.
Are you suggesting we should build even more of a surveillance state, or that we should concentrate everything on a mobile rapid reaction force, or something else entirely ?
Rhoda Klapp
November 27th, 2009 3:26pm Report this commentDear Daniel, remember when you posted that you would give a bottle of the Spectator's best champagne to the best comment giving thre threats to the country's security, and pretty much all of us gave the same foam-flecked nutcase answers of immigration, islamism and the EU, and you didn't respond at all and nobody seems to have got any champagne 'cos we were all naughty?
Well, the answers are still the same.
Keith D
November 27th, 2009 3:39pm Report this commentAustin Barry is correct with his addition of a sixth problem. The current government represents a clear,present and verifiable danger to the UK.How many of our new electorate were vetted for terrorist links or criminal behaviour I wonder? In a world with porous borders it must be hard enough policing those without worrying about an internal fifth column. To highlight Russia and China is accurate although there is no reason to assume they wish to destroy us as do the terrorists.Indeed with both countries suffering a terrorism problem of thier own I would hope that ,pragmatically ,information exchange already takes place. It would be naive to assume that we will see the end of fundamentalism in my lifetime although if the shoots of youthful hope seen in Iran were to spread throughout the middle east and finally take hold there may yet be hope.
Andy Carpark
November 27th, 2009 4:02pm Report this commentTwo and a half cheers, Mr Korski, for thinking out of the red ministerial box. To gainsay that procedures must be in place to face the assymetric challenges we face at this time would be inappropriate and, some would say, unacceptable. But what to do? We cannot roll out the Chinese variant for the simple reason that there are too many Chinese. And when the chips are down, how can we really know who is 'in the loop'? Space may not allow you to say more but - remember! - fate does not always congeal until the end. Once you have read the runes, you may decide that it is, after all, a game of two halves, you don't get owt for nowt and there's none so blind as them that can't see.
That picture of David Cameron again ... He may look inscrutable but it is down you, Daniel, to tell us what he is being inscrutable ABOUT! So … what's it to be, Daniel? Deal or no deal?
Go on. Take your time.
Hysteria
November 27th, 2009 4:20pm Report this commentInteresting Daniel - although I support Rhoda's comment as well.
But to your point - I seem to recall a comment to the effect the British Empire was run by three civil servants, granny and a dog. (I may have got the detail wrong but you get the drift)
And of course back then, we were not blessed by teh interwebz - so by definition decision making was pushed down to lower level people, acting within a broadd philosophical frame of reference (in the moderb vernacular, the "vision" thing was settled, so folks in the colonies could just get on with it)
I think there is a parallel here for the UK - establish the broad principles, and encourage a lot more localism.
Vulture
November 27th, 2009 4:44pm Report this commentAnother pic of Dave thoughtfully clutching his chin ( or is he concealing the fact he doesn't have one?)
Just for a change, can you show him clutching his ass to make sure its still there?
Verity
November 27th, 2009 4:58pm Report this commentVulture, you took the words right off my keyboard. I don't want any more trickily lit pics of Dave trying to look like a man of strong convictions on my monitor.
Herbert Thornton
November 27th, 2009 5:08pm Report this commentSo, we need a new system governed by the principle of the "manoeuvrist doctrine", eh?
That sounds alarmingly like George Brown's very own modus operandi.
Or perhaps is it founded on the old saying that even a worm will turn?
Daniel may even be thinking that David Cameron should learn to wriggle even more than he does already.
The idea that government needs to be less centralised is sadly reminiscent of local councils declaring their areas to be "terrorism free zones". Imagine how effective it will when the same local councils declare their areas to be "terrorism free zones".
No wonder that a great many people are quietly thinking that the best manoeuvre of all is to vote for the BNP.
Marcher Baron
November 27th, 2009 5:17pm Report this commentNo mention of the fifth column, protecting it by political correctness and not knowing who's arrived in the country, then? Shame because they pose one of the biggest threats to security outside the government itself. It's still true that those who give up freedom for security risk losing both.
Simon too
November 27th, 2009 5:24pm Report this commentWhat has a picture of a confused Cameron to do with this article? Does he appear as an everyman figure for its readers?
Francis Miller
November 27th, 2009 8:05pm Report this comment"Manoeuvrist" and "terrorists and insurgents can get inside our decision-making loop" - both suggest that Daniel Korski is familiar with the ideas of Col John Boyd, one of the US's foremost strategic thinkers of the 20th century.
That's interesting as very few British people seem to have heard of him.
Verity
November 28th, 2009 2:52am Report this commentFrancis Miller - enlighten us, if you please, sir.
Boyd is overrated
November 28th, 2009 3:15am Report this commentBit bizarre to read this buzzword bingo when in the real world the military has gone awful quiet about everything being 'Manoeuvrist' (seeing as how a bunch of 3rd World Islamists are running rings round the awesome fighting power of NATO) and Effects Based Operations have been canned following Israel's poor showing on Op Cast Lead in 2006. Much safer to pluck a few random quotes from Sun Tzu. Cameron needs a damn sight more than some cereal box philosophy to get my vote. He dissembled over Lisbon. For that he lost my vote.
Herbert Thornton
November 28th, 2009 3:22am Report this commentCol. John Boyd may well believe (rightly) that the key to victory is being able to create situations where you can make appropriate decisions more quickly than your opponent, but it is hardly a new concept. In the American Civil War, General Nathan Bedford Forrest had the same belief, and became famous for his successful use of speed and manoeuverability.
But Daniel has missed the point. He seems to espouse a vague notion that it is enough merely to 'delegate' decisions to "ordinary people"and that all else that we need will follow. That, it seems to me, is a great mistake. Good results cannot possibly follow unless such delegation is made to the right people.
In my earlier post I pointed out that victory cannot possibly come from delegating decisions to local councils if those local councils have no more imagination or sense than to pass resolutions - e.g. declaring that their particular areas are "zones" where general niceness of some sort prevails. How, for example, will a resolution that their area is dedicated to the virtues of multiculturalism prevent terrorists from blowing up a hospital or school or worse?
I certainly cannot imagine that David Cameron - or anyone he might be in favour appointing - is likely to have anything like the necessary character, abilities or determination of a General Forrest. Similar qualities are more likely to be found among members of the BNP.
On a broader scale than just that of Britain - i.e. looking at western Europe as a whole - I have the foreboding that if Islam is allowed to continue to expand at it's present rate, victory will be enjoyed by the side that is able - and above all, willing - to manoeuvre so that it can very quickly effect the co-ordinated detonation of the overwhelmingly greater number of nuclear bombs.
Verity
November 28th, 2009 3:44am Report this commentSimon Too - "Cameron always looks weak."
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