The first spark of an idea for this book was generated well over 30 years ago when I was still an extremely young pilot officer. It was the summer of 1986, a year after my graduation from the Royal Air Force College at Cranwell, and I was commanding a small supply flight at RAF Coltishall in Norfolk. Coltishall was home to a wing of Jaguar aircraft and my office overlooked the airfield’s single metalled runway, allowing me regularly to watch the Anglo-French ground attack aircraft take to the air on their seemingly never-ending training sorties. The Cold War was still the RAF’s main effort, and all three squadrons based at Coltishall were earmarked to deploy forward to mainland Europe in the event of hostilities breaking out with the Soviet Union.
The forward deployment of the Jaguars would leave the station free to be used by North American based United States Air Force or Air National Guard aircraft whose war role was to reinforce Western Europe. This concept of co-located operating bases was regularly practised, and that summer was no exception. Numbers 6 and 54(F) squadrons had been deployed to the Royal Danish Air Force Base at Tirstrup, leaving room at Coltishall for a USAF F-16 Fighting Falcon wing to exercise its reinforcement plans. As my war role was with the third Jaguar squadron – 41 Squadron – which was assigned to a photo-reconnaissance role in northern Norway, I had remained at Coltishall.
I still remember vividly the morning after the Fighting Falcons arrived. It was hot and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. The first wave of Jaguars from 41 Squadron had just taken off – a pair of two ships labouring down the runway, struggling to unstick before reaching the piano keys in the far distance. Nothing new there. Then, a couple of minutes later, a single F-16 taxied out onto the runway. The roar from its single Pratt and Whitney F110 turbofan jet engine grew louder and louder as the pilot opened the throttle wide, the aircraft tyres straining against their brakes. Then, when it seemed the noise couldn’t possibly get any louder, the pilot released his brakes. The aircraft leapt forward and hammered down the runway. It got little further than halfway before it was airborne. In an instant, the pilot retracted the undercarriage and sat the aircraft on its tail. With afterburner
Fast forward 25 years, and I had just returned from a second operational tour in Afghanistan to take over as the assistant head for logistics capability at the Ministry of Defence’s head office in Whitehall. Although my career was mainly operationally focused, with tours in the Balkans, Iraq, Haiti and North Africa, in addition to my time in Afghanistan, I had also undertaken two appointments in acquisition and support. From 1995 to 1999, as a squadron leader, I had helped to bring into service a contractor logistics support system for the Royal Navy’s new Merlin helicopter. Then, from 2001 to 2003, as a wing commander, I held the post of logistics manager in the Hercules integrated project team, responsible for all aspects of traditional and contractor supplied logistics support for the RAF’s combined fleet of over 50 Hercules C-130K and C-130J aircraft. Both appointments had taught me much about the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of military capability management, but very little about the ‘why’.
However, as the group captain responsible for the oversight of all joint logistics capability, that was surely about to change. For two years, I worked in Whitehall, where I provided the joint logistics input to no end of capability planning committees and working groups. I supported numerous force development events that considered the broadest range of global scenarios and sought to identify appropriate UK military responses to them. At the same time, with staff officers up and down the country, I helped to implement the post-2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review defence reform measures, recommended by Lord Levene in June 2011. As my time in post ended, I realized my knowledge now included the MoD’s contribution to the what and how of capability management, but I was no further forward in uncovering the overall why. Moreover, I was coming to the conclusion that understanding why the UK military has the capability that it has would require much more than the passing interest I had been prepared to invest to date.
Four months on the higher command and staff course at the beginning of 2014 rekindled my enthusiasm for academia, and, when I was posted to an uninspiring job in the Defence Equipment and Support organization the following year, the ideal opportunity presented itself. I could use the spare time I now had to unearth a credible answer to the question that had nagged at me on and off for my entire career. After seeking advice from academics at the Joint Services Command and Staff College at Shrivenham,
From the outset, it was obvious that, as a general research question, studying the totality of why the UK has the military capability that it has was way too broad. Because doctoral research is very deep, it must also be very focused. I needed to refine my research question. After several months of background reading, it became obvious that very little had been written about how decisions around military capability are made. Furthermore, all the secondary literature was concentrated on decision making at the political level. Because of this, I decided to focus my research on decision making one level down, specifically the role played by senior military officers and civil servants in the MoD and the armed forces. Having identified what my research would cover, I now had to work out the best way to get to the data. After over 30 years’ service, I knew many of the admirals, generals and air marshals who were the current decision makers in Defence. Moreover, I was confident most would be willing to be interviewed as part of my research. And so it proved. Together with an analysis of the relevant government policy documents, elite interviews became the bedrock of my data collection.
This book draws on my doctoral research to unearth the reasons why the UK has the military capability that it has. It describes the relationship between the politicians who provide the strategic direction and the military officers who translate it into armed forces, trained and equipped for the challenges of today and tomorrow. It also exposes the myriad factors that influence this relationship, from fluctuating geopolitical tensions and the economic health of the nation to the criticality of defence reviews and the often unseen interrelations between the single services. In doing so, I have tried to explain why making the right military capability choices is so challenging.
Writing this book has been an immensely rewarding experience and one I could never have achieved on my own. I am truly grateful to all the people who have helped me with my research. In particular, I must thank my two doctoral supervisors, Professor Matthew Uttley and Professor Andrew Dorman. Without them I would never have completed my thesis, and I’m convinced they still know more about my subject than I do! I am also hugely indebted to the 32 senior officers and civil servants who agreed to be interviewed as part of my research. Although they must remain anonymous, their forthright views and wisdom are the foundations on which this book is written. I must also thank Stephen Wenham and Zoe Forbes at Bristol University Press for their encouragement, advice and expertise. Along with the rest of the editorial team, they helped turn my academically rigid drafts
Finally, special thanks must go to my daughter Joanna; I don’t believe she has any idea how useful our discussions about both my research and hers were to me. But the biggest thank you is reserved for my wife Laura, without whose unwavering belief and support this book would never have been written.
Dr Andrew R. Curtis
February 2022
mail@andrewrcurtis.co.uk