Welcome to the Ministry of Defence, Secretary of State. I am not sure if you have been in the Main Building before, but if you had had a little longer at the Foreign Office we would have got you over for one of our regular joint meetings. I expect you are a little surprised by the state of the building, but don't worry we have a very good, although somewhat expensive, project in hand to bring it up to a reasonable standard. After several years of delay, we live in hopes that it will now happen. I shall leave the operational and manning problems to CDS, but I would first like to alert you to a number of difficult issues that are on the horizon.
You will know that the Prime Minister has adopted the cause of European Defence with great enthusiasm. We have worked hard to provide him with initiatives at St Malo, Washington, Bremen, Köln, and most recently for our joint summit with the Italians. We have achieved much to convince our European partners that we are serious. However, the Prime Minister is anxious that we move on from good words to some form of concrete action which will improve European defence capability. Here I fear we will find it more difficult.
You will also know how well received within the armed forces, and more widely in the country and internationally, was your predecessor's Strategic Defence Review. Happily no one seems to have noticed that it was predicated on an Atlantic foreign policy rather than a European one. Of course carrying out the planning exercise is considerably simpler than the actual implementation. I can report that we are making very good progress, but, not surprisingly in such an adventurous plan, we have had the odd difficulty. Smart procurement was an area of particular interest to your predecessor, and I am sure we will manage to make it work in due course. Some of our financial assumptions are however proving a trifle optimistic, which is unfortunate given the other pressures on the defence programme. We shall of course brief you for the coming battles with the Treasury.
You will find this a fascinating department to run. It inevitably generates a number of personnel issues which appeal to the popular press. They can always find human interest stories to titillate their readers. At any given time, you can expect to have field questions on our treatment of homosexuals, on bullying, and on racism. We are assumed to be the centre of all conspiracies whether it is UFOs, helicopter accidents, Gulf War syndrome or early work at Porton Down. Many of our procedures have still to be brought into line with EU standards. Courts-Martial and 16 year old soldiers are two such problem areas. We will provide you with an easy reference guide to cover the most lurid.
Of course the recent operation in Kosovo has given us much valuable experience, and happily your predecessor has issued a paper on the lessons learned at a time when no-one was too interested. At the Ministerial level, we have unfortunately lost all but one of our battle hardened veterans, and the FCO have fared no better. Now let me hand over to CDS , who will be ready to tell you why our contribution to the air campaign appears so small, and how short we are of weapons.
Secretary of State may I add my warm greetings to you both personally and on behalf of the men and women of every ethnic and religious group of all three Services. Given your somewhat limited experience of the military, I hope you will take the opportunity to get out and about to see what the troops are doing. You will be surprised how much is going on. We are of course hopeful that your colleague Mr Mandelson will solve the Northern Ireland problem to give us some relief, but for the moment we must plan on maintaining troops there. Bosnia and Kosovo take up a sizable amount of effort, and you may have forgotten (most people have) that the RAF is still dropping bombs regularly on Iraq. Despite the excellent relations with Argentina, we still have to man the defences in the Falklands, and the Royal Navy continues to help in the drug war in the Caribbean. I am afraid our contribution to the East Timor operation had to be relatively small given that we had totally run out of ideas for finding yet more people. Of course we were delighted that the Foreign Secretary showed such confidence in our forces that he felt able to offer such a large number to the United Nations for future operations.
Manpower numbers are of course a great worry. Your predecessor was good enough to add another 5000 to the army numbers during the defence review. Unfortunately, we have more people leaving than we can recruit which makes it difficult to even hold a steady state, let alone increase the force size. You will hear from some that the answer is to increase the TA. You should be aware that we are trying to make more use of the TA, and that this may prove difficult. Calling up the TA is being represented in some quarters as an act of desperation, and we have yet to see how good the response is. You may have noticed some critical correspondence from TA members in the press.
Equipment issues are always towards the top of the tray. You will be surprised to see how much of our total weapon stocks (particularly cruise missiles and precision weapons) we used in Kosovo. My fellow Chiefs will be pressing for early replacements of upgraded weapons in greater numbers. Most of their favourite things are produced in the USA, which of course does not help in our quest for greater European co-operation. While on that topic, you have of course my complete support in looking for ways to enhance European defence capability. I have no doubt that only minor changes will be needed within the UK just as long as the rest of Europe does it our way.
I shall of course provide you with a complete list of current operations, priority procurement issues, and manpower measures that are urgently needed. We have every confidence that you will be able to fight successfully to secure the much needed increase in resources for Defence.