UK military problems & policies

[Jedburgh]

SSI, 30 Jan 08: Transformating to Effects-Based Operations: Lessons from the United Kingdom Experience

This monograph has been subdivided into four parts. Section 1 undertakes a review of the evolution of British defense policy since the end of the Cold War and evaluates the degree to which it has adopted an effects-based approach. Section 2 examines the British operational experience since the end of the Cold War, including an analysis of the lessons learned and its experiences of working with allies. Section 3 analyses the UK’s capability development through its doctrine and acquisition strategies. Finally, section 4 evaluates the implications of these findings for the U.S. Army and makes a number of recommendations....

Complete 71 page paper at the link.

[William F. Owen]

This is what passes for military thought now in the UK.

I would like to make it clear that there are many good military men, in the UK and other places who utterly reject the intellectual fraud of EBO and the comprehensive approach.

Personally I find it an object of some shame to be associated with a nation that has so profoundly lost its way, in the respect of doctrine and strategy.

[davidbfpo]

I agree with Wilf's despair at this writing, albeit from a very different viewpoint. As a concerned taxpayer the author neither describes what has happened nor what is necessary. It is also slightly jarring to read the same sentence or information time after time. As for the lessons UK experience can offer the USA not very persausive.

Finally I suggest SWJ members don't bother reading it!

davidbfpo

[gh_uk]

Sadly I did not heed the sage advice above.

A very strange document. Did I miss the section on moving to EBO or had I just fallen asleep? It struck me as a rambling and quite poorly informed account of the evolution of the UK's approach to operations. The author apparently believes everything he reads.

I would not judge the standard of military thought in the UK based on this example. Though it doesn't say much about SSI's baseline for publication.

The author's bio:

http://www.umds.ac.uk/schools/sspp/d...d/adorman.html