Prepare to make a predatory leap — in spite of defence cuts

Retired major general Jonathan Shaw

Retired major general Jonathan Shaw has published a slim volume on the SDSR. It’s essentially a damning indictment of Whitehall’s ability to get anything done. He describes government as a polo mint: lots of departments (with limited executive capabilities) running around without proper central coordination. His expectations for SDSR 2015 are depressingly low.

Sadly he does not offer much in the way of recommendations: tweak civil service career models a bit; create a grand strategy organ. That’s unlikely to get us there.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs

In 1997 Steve Jobs re-claimed the CEO job at Apple. He promptly set about dramatically simplifying the company’s product catalogue, which was enough to keep the company afloat but not enough to make it a winner. Famed strategist Richard Rumelt interviewed him at the time:

“Steve,” I said, “this turnaround at Apple has been impressive. But everything we know about the personal-computer business says that Apple will always have a small niche position. The network externalities are just too strong to upset the de facto ‘Wintel’ standard. So what are you trying to do? What’s the longer-term strategy?”

He didn’t agree or disagree with my assessment of the market. He just smiled and said, “I am going to wait for the next big thing.”

Jobs didn’t give me a doornob-polishing answer. He didn’t say, “We’re cutting costs and we’re making alliances.” He was waiting until the right moment for that predatory leap, which for him was Pixar and then, in an even bigger way, the iPod. That very predatory approach of leaping through the window of opportunity and staying focused on those big wins — not on maintenance activities — is what distinguishes a real entrepreneurial strategy.

For better and worse, the UK has created an NHS and welfare monster that will devour government. Defence is not a vote winner, so the accepted wisdom goes, and defence spending will continue to get slashed. The government will continue to be barely competent, because it can fudge in a way the military cannot.

But at the same time, and as a consequence, the world is getting nastier. When the “next big thing” arrives in a meaningful way — be it Chinese expansionism, Russian adventurism or Middle Eastern implosion — the country will turn back to the military. The military community needs to be ready to make that predatory leap.

Here are Jonathan Shaw’s core points:

1. SDSR 2010 was a cost-cutting exercise and not a proper defence review; it was also implicitly a reversion to a naval strategy
2. The rule of law has been replaced by facts on the ground as the dominant factor in geopolitics
3. British foreign policy is suffering from a self-obsession with domestic politics
4. The military overstepped its remits in Afghanistan and Iraq due to a striking failure of the Whitehall executive mechanism
5. The reserves component of Army 2020 shows no signs of being achievable; it is conceptually flawed
6. The current org structure is not up to the task

• The UK is incapable of doing a proper SDSR because the government lacks the right culture and institutions — it has gaping holes in its executive competence (the so-called “polo mint” that lacks a core)
• The PASC report on strategic thinking in government criticised the lack of a body for grand strategy
• There is evident dissatisfaction in Parliament with government’s executive output, see e.g. Syria airstrike vote
• The government needs to replicate the military’s painful experience of “jointery”
• The civil service is talented but untrained and unqualified
• Top civil servant jobs go to those who are best at helping ministers; you can be right and irrelevant, or relevant and wrong
• Whitehall has become very short-termist, with a preference for immediate decisions rather than establishing a world view to shape judgements about the future
• 2008 cost cutting eliminated the MOD’s Directorate of Strategic Plans
• The MOD is the most capable ministry because it uniquely has both civil servants and practitioners
• The proximity of the NSC to intelligence organisations will further encourage short-term thinking

7. Prospects for SDSR 2015 are not great

• No one minister owns SDSR, which is a recipe for disaster
• The PM is hoping for a light-touch SDSR 2015

8. Recommendations

• Establish a central organ for grand strategy
• Keep top civil servants within their departments
• Cross-post civil servants into the respective executive arms of their ministries/departments
• Bring practitioners into ministries/departments

Richard Norton-Smith calls the book a “scathing attack on Whitehall, its culture and lack of lateral thinking”.