by Charlie Edwards | Oct 3, 2008 | UK
As news of Hutton’s new role as Defence Secretary travels across Politics Home, Twitter and email a few quick thoughts:
Next week John Hutton will face his first test as Defence Secretary when he walks down Whitehall to Parliament for a debate on Defence in the World. Given his new brief, politicians from across the floor may be gentle in their questions and speeches. Some people may even advise him that he should stay away and let Bob Ainsworth do the job. But this would be bad idea.
The MoD is not in a great place right now, morale is low, there is no strategic direction and people are exhausted. Unlike Browne, Hutton has to show commitment right from the start. On Sunday, having spoken to senior officials he should board a plane and visit Iraq and Afghanistan. There he should listen to senior commanders, FCO and DFID personnel, get up to speed with what’s happening on the ground and give a short pep talk to the troops before coming home. When the debate comes around next week he should enter the chamber and let it be known there are three things he cares about in his new brief – people, people, people.
Back in Main Building things won’t be so easy. There are three key things he will need to focus on. First: Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As has been reported in the French press – not all is well in Helmand – and while the people on the ground are the one’s who will stabilise the situation, getting a grip on Whitehall is as just as important.
Second: Strategy – Main Building is rudderless, that said there is hope in the shape of a new Director of Strategy, and a new head of policy & planning is also on the way. Coupled to this political consensus on a strategic review is close to reaching a tipping point – all parties publicly and privately now agree that a a review must happen, but when? With limited time until a General Election it may not be in the best interests politically and organisationally to kick a big review off now, instead it would be better to prepare the ground work. Laying the foundations is crucial and should never be underestimated. It may be a thankless task but Hutton will get kudos for doing it.
Third: Strategic Communications. Forget we are staring into an economic abyss for a moment and the other important issue the British Government is dealing with today are the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the fragile peace in Iraq and general instability in East Africa and elsewhere. And yet no one is entirely sure what we are doing and why these places are important. For reasons best known to the MoD senior commanders and officials don’t seem to be able to get their message out – this may be down to personal, bureaucratic and organisational interests but this needs to be corrected in days not weeks – the British public need to know what their armed forces are doing abroad and how it connects to issues like terrorism at home. Newspaper features on our men and women [insert country/ operation here] isn’t a sustainable policy. If Hutton is feeling bold he should copy No.10 and the FCO and overhaul the entire of MoD’s communications – website and all.
And what about procurement? This may prove, in time, to be Hutton’s Achilles heel. His constituency is home to a major defence contractor (BAE Systems) so it may be advisable to steer clear of procurement issues to begin with. He will have enough on his plate with savings that still need to be found, projects and platforms given the chop – a bit more transparency around the MoD budget wouldn’t go a miss either (but perhaps save this for another day). He should learn from US SecDef Bob Gates who has been weaving a completely new approach in the Pentagon and set the context and narrative first before doing anything major on procurement. After all – the question that has been buzzing around Main Building for the last couple of years is relatively straight forward: what is defence for?
by Alex Evans | Aug 8, 2008 | Economics and development, UK
Jim Pickard at the FT’s excellent Westminster blog has been wondering whether David Miliband really has the common touch. “Will the public warm,” he wonders, “to the former policy wonk who – despite shedding the previous Mr Logic image – is still best known as an intellectual?”
In seeking to answer that question, he turns to Gideon Rachman’s profile of Miliband from earlier this year. “Here,” he proffers, “is one extract:”
“Amartya Sen is a brilliant man,” remarks Miliband. “I think his argument that there is a fusion tradition – a liberal tradition that is concerned with social justice – is right. And I admire his work on capabilities, and on freedom as capability.”
Hmm: is that really all that nerdy? It’s not as if Miliband is the only Cabinet member who’s into Sen: so are Gordon Brown, Douglas Alexander, and Hilary Benn (who quoted his views on freedom at length in his preface to DFID’s third White Paper). David Cameron turned out to be a fan too, when he made his first big speech on development back in 2006.
Here’s a profile of Sen from back in 2000 by Meghnad Desai in case you haven’t made the acquaintance of this excellent writer; his book Development as Freedom can’t be recommended highly enough.
by Daniel Korski | Jul 18, 2008 | Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, UK
A new draft study is about to be presented to the British Prime Minister, which will suggest ways to improve what’s now being called “civilian effects” i.e. what can be achieved in places like Iraq in support of the armed forces, but with non-military means.
Complaints from the military about the role of DfiD, especially in southern Afghanistan, have grown louder over the last few months. The Times’s Anthony Lloyd claimed soldiers in Musa Quala said of the Provincial Reconstruction Team:
They wouldn’t know how to pour p*** from a boot if the instructions were on the heel,” one soldier remarked. “That’s the PRT.”
The study will seek to deal with this kind of criticism. But it will be the umpteenth such study about how the UK “does conflict” if you include the capability reviews, the CRI study, DfiD’s work on conflict, various internal reviews etc. And while the PM has defied many in taking up the “stabilisation issue”, where he could have focused on more traditional development matters exclusively, change is not happening quickly enough.
The question being debated in No. 10 now, as part of the study, is whether to create a civilian reserve corps like the U.S ; or to use the chance to steel David Cameron’s idea of a JFK-style Peace Corps for kids. Part of the problem is that since the PM announced the establishment of a force of 1,000 civilians including police, members of the emergency services and judges – ready to be deployed to conflict zones around the world – as part of his National Security Strategy, nothing much has happened.
Both the Reserve and the Youth Corps are needed, but mixing the two concepts is a seriously bad, bad idea. Instead, the PM should be bold and go for three things:
- The Youth Corps
- A U.S-style Civilian Reserve
- Back a European Civilian Reserve into which the UK could plug
The latter would encourage other European allies to build their capabilities. If there is over-lap between the three, great. But if not, don’t force it. It would take away from each one.
by Daniel Korski | Jul 7, 2008 | Off topic
The privatization of diplomacy is nothing new. Large lobbying firms function in many respects like diplomatic services. Hill and Knowlton, for example, represent Republika Srpska, a province in Bosnia, in ways that a traditional diplomatic service might do – by arranging visits by key officials, lobbying for Republika Srpska’s views with other diplomats etc.
In the non-for-profit world, Independent Diplomat is an organisation set up by former British diplomat Carne Ross to work for those polities that may not be recognized internationally or have the wherewithal to conduct their own diplomacy.
Even governmental diplomacy has privatized elements of its operation, for example IT, visa services or language training. In their 2007 report on the FCO, Alex and David suggest opening up all recruitment in the FCO to outsiders. Chatting to the FCO’s head of HR, I know that the FCO is trying to show greater appreciation of personnel who have spent time outside the diplomatic service, for example in think-tanks or private companies.
But why not take a step further? Why not privatize a whole embassy? That’s right, tender a contract for a company or consortium to run, say, the British embassy in Mongolia for two years, including consular, press, political reporting and diplomatic representation. Let’s see if the private sector can run it more efficiently and cheaper than the government. At the end, ask the NAO for an evaluation after three years. In fact, ask NAO to compare the “private” embassy and a government-run one.
Naturally, the FCO would have to stipulate in the contract a whole series of conditions, including the qualifications of the ambassador, experience and security clearance of staff etc.
But this is nothing new. DfiD outsources an entire department – CHAsE OT, the department’s humanitarian operations coordination team – to a private company, Crown Agents, which to all intents and purposes acts like any other department inside DfiD. In the tender process, DfiD evaluates bids in part on who will lead CHAsE OT department. As it happens, most CHAsE OT heads have had governmental experience. In other words, the requirement for HMA Ulan Bator may be former ambassadorial experience.
What would the advantages be? To start off, to earn a profit a private company may ensure tighter budget control, try to import IT solutions from its other businesses, use up-to-date management techniques etc. etc. Perhaps it will not produce anything better or cheaper, but why not try it. Come on David Miliband and Peter Ricketts, I dare you.
by Alex Evans | Jun 30, 2008 | Africa, Economics and development
Someone’s leaked a copy of the draft G8 communique to the FT (or, more specifically, to their Berlin correspondent – presumably no prizes for guessing which government the leak came from, then). According to Hugh Williamson, the draft
…shows leaders will commit to fulfilling “our commitments on [development aid] made at Gleneagles” – but fails to cite the target of $25bn annually by 2010.
He continues:
In a further retreat, the G8 is set to abandon its Gleneagles promise to provide universal access to Aids treatment and prevention by 2010. The pledge has been a benchmark around which health campaigners and others have been organising their work, especially in Africa. The draft says the G8 will continue “working towards the goal of universal access to HIV/Aids prevention, treatment care” but it does not mention the 2010 deadline.
Oh dear – although it’s been obvious for a while that the G8 was sliding way, way off track for universal treatment by 2010. In the background, there’s the unpalatable fact that Africa’s still off track for all of the MDGs, in spite of all the talk of Calls to Action and so forth.
