It has been a long wait for the annual Defence White Paper. The general election of May 1997 came right in the middle of the normal publication cycle for the Ministry of Defence. The new government rapidly confirmed its intention to conduct a full scale defence review. Although it had promised to complete the Review within 6 months of the election, it was July 1998 before the findings were published. Again, the annual White Paper was lost in the frenetic activity of the SDR. As luck would have it, the Kosovo operation managed to interfere with the 1999 White Paper. Finally, after over three and half years, Cm 4446 hit the streets just before Christmas to almost total public lack of interest.
Just a brief comparison of this document with its 1996 predecessor (Cm 3223) shows how times have changed. In 1996, 148 pages with 731 paragraphs, 5 annexes and a comprehensive index and glossary (all in small typeface) were needed to describe a fairly routine year. In 1999 the White paper runs to 58 large typeface pages (of which 10 are either blank or full page photographs), 139 paragraphs and it has no index or glossary. It is not just that there are surprisingly few words to cover the missing 3 years or to review one of the more exciting periods for action by British forces, the analysis is amazingly shallow.
The opening introduction by Geoffrey Hoon should have been an opportunity for the new Secretary of State to put his personal stamp on the work of his Department. The succession of initiatives by the Prime Minister on European Defence would have seemed to be the perfect backdrop for a piece showing the new Defence Secretary's vision for the future. Instead, his introduction does a chapter by chapter precis of what his officials have produced for him. Nowhere is there any indication that he has a personal view on defence policy. The closest that we get is his short section entitled "Beyond the Strategic Defence Review". In this he offers three issues: modernising the Civil Service; the Defence Electronic Commerce Service; and joined-up working across Government departments. These three areas may be on message, but they hardly constitute a vision.
Defence White Papers have always been as much public relations documents as cold analysis of the future defence programme. However, they are formal presentations to Parliament, and as such provide an opportunity to announce changes to assumptions and to future plans. As Michael Portillo said in his introduction to the 1996 edition: "This Statement contains a wealth of detailed information. I hope that it contributes to informed debate on the defence of our country". It would be a vain hope for its 1999 successor. The first two chapters deal with the security context. The most interesting aspect is that the title of the second chapter is "NATO and European Defence". The commitment agreed to at the Helsinki European Council, earlier in December, for a pool of 15 European deployable brigades with appropriate air and naval support is reported, and it is immediately made clear that "This is not a European Army."
The third chapter is about the front line and fills in a few dates for implementation of the SDR Joint force capabilities. The Defence Medical Services get a rather longer section than do the Royal Navy, the Army or the Royal Air Force (called Naval Forces, Ground Forces and Air Forces in this White Paper). Factual detail about equipment programmes is very sparse in this Chapter. However, we learn that the aircraft carrier assessment phase will be complete in 2003; the planned number of mine countermeasures vessels will be reduced by 3 to 22; and that the Tornado GR4 will be in service until around 2020, by which time it will have been in Service for over 40 years.
The fourth and longest chapter of the White Paper is about people in defence. This is an appraisal of what has been done, and what is planned to be done, for both military and civilian personnel. The Statement claims that the first priority was to reduce overstretch. This may be a good sound bite, but sits ill with the number of new commitments that the Government has taken on with enthusiasm. While the paper gives the figures for recent reductions in force numbers in Kosovo, the Gulf and the Falklands, it says nothing of the new commitments to East Timor, to the UN rapid deployment capability, and the implications of the new European rapid deployment force. Nor does the paper give the hard figures about recruitment and retention which would allow the reader to make a judgment. A quarter of the chapter is taken up by homosexuality and equal opportunities issues. Welcome as this attempt to drag the armed forces into the 20th Century is, I doubt that these parts will be universally welcomed either in Parliament or among the troops.
The chapter on defence support does little more than reassure the reader that all is going well in procurement, logistics, research and the defence estates management. The Defence Select committee should probe these assertions. In a newly published book on Smart Procurement (Dancing with the Dinosaur by Bill Kincaid, UK Defence Forum December 1999), the author reports "Genuine progress is relatively sparse".
When I took an MOD official to task over the lack of substance in the White Paper, he was surprised. Perhaps it is so long since the last proper Statement on the Defence Estimates that gloss and spin are seen as more important than serious analysis. The price to be paid is lack of interest by the public, and this in the end will be damaging to the armed forces and defence resourcing. At the same time as the White Paper was published, the MOD brought out its 1998/99 Departmental Performance Report. We will look at what that has to offer the reader next month.