Chapter 5

The Functions, Organisation and Working Methods of a Ministry of Defence

No-one who visits or works with a number of defence ministries in different countries can fail to be struck by the very great differences between them. This is strange, since government departments the world over often show many similarities. For example, foreign ministries will generally have regional departments, and departments dealing with general issues. Likewise, finance ministries will have economic policy departments, and departments devoted to curb other ministries’ expenditure. But, defence ministries vary enormously in size, scope and organisation. Why is this?

The range of defence functions

The difference is mainly because the range of functions involved in defence is very large — larger than any other area of government — and there is a great deal of variation in the ways in which they are carried out. The following, it is suggested, are the most important defence functions:

the command and control of operational forces;

operational planning and exercises;

the peacetime recruitment, training and administration of military personnel;

intelligence analysis and sometimes collection;

formulation of defence policy;

implementation of defence policy;

equipment research and development;

equipment procurement; and

administration of the organisation itself.

As always, there is some overlap. Two questions need to be asked of each of these functions:

Should they be geographically part of the defence ministry?

More importantly, are they in any case organisationally part of the ministry?

The answers, as always, will partly depend on factors outside the control of those responsible for organisation. Some governments have decided to concentrate functions in one place to save money. Others have moved functions out of the capital city, also to save money. Small nations have often decided to co-locate all these functions; large nations have often split them. The arguments will be different in each country, and here, as in the remainder of the monograph, the concern is mainly with the options which are available, and not, in general, with making recommendations.

More than any other department of government, the ministry of defence depends for its very raison d’être on individuals who do not form part of it — the military personnel in operational units. The most important question to answer, therefore, is where the boundary falls between operational activities on the one hand and administration and training, on the other. There are two basic functions which a government expects the military, individually and collectively, to fulfil. These are:

planning and conducting operations in pursuit of national interests; and

advising on defence policy issues.

The first of these is the responsibility of the national military commander,17 the second is the responsibility of the Chief of Defence.

The national military commander (NMC), as the name implies, is the commander of the armed forces of the nation in war, and the command authority for military operations short of war, such as peacekeeping. He or she will also be responsible for the operational deployment of military units, and for exercises in peacetime. He or she will operate from a national military headquarters (NMHQ). In practice, as always, this organisation will differ from country to country. Countries which face a land threat, or which expect to conduct operations just across the border, will probably have a simple organisation of this type. Countries which face no landward threat, or whose military activities are often conducted at a distance, may have several different NMHQs, or they may improvise depending on the circumstances. The important thing, however, is that the function has to exist in some form.

The Chief of Defence (CHOD) is the professional head of the national military forces, and also the chief advisor on military affairs to the ministry of defence and the government as a whole. This is a function which is carried out in nearly all defence ministries, although it may be called something different, and even integrated into the role of the NMC. The biggest single reason for the differences in organisation between defence ministries is separation or integration of these two functions. A common pattern is to try to make the same individual and organisation do two jobs.

As has already been indicated, these two functions may be united or separated, for practical reasons, but all those involved with the formation or development of a ministry need to think through which model they want to adopt. One important factor is the potential for over-control and micro-management when the two functions are united. In the command and control of a military operation away from national territory, there are three levels of control of the forces involved:

Strategic: This refers to the overall political direction and the military policy at the highest level. This will be where ministers are involved.



Operational: At this level, strategic objectives are turned into military ones and operational directives given to the commander. This level involves the military and its civilian advisors.



Tactical: The planning and conduct of the operation itself occur on this level.

The first really takes place in the ministry of defence, while the second has to be undertaken at an operational headquarters, such as the NMHQ. It is quite important to preserve the distinction, and to avoid a situation where ministers and senior military personnel outside the command chain find it possible (and tempting) to involve themselves in operational planning itself. Clearly, ministers will want to be briefed about significant operations their armed forces might be involved in, but they should — and must — not want to involve themselves in the detail. This argues for a geographical separation of some kind between the two functions.

Beyond this, there are certain common sense ways of isolating functions which belong in a ministry of defence. The simplest differentiation is between policy and implementation, although, in practice, this is often more difficult than it sounds, and it depends to some extent also on the national organisation for defence of the country concerned. The real criterion should be political interest. To take up the example of flying training again, there are obviously some issues which attract political interest, such as:

training given to foreign students;

accidents;

low-flying; and

political pressure to accept female pilots.

Ministers will need to be briefed on all of these issues, to make judgements in certain cases and to defend their policies in parliament, and there will therefore have to be civilian and military personnel close to them who are familiar with the issues. Once the policy has been decided, however, in a properly run organisation, its implementation should be left to the air force HQ, which will organise a training programme, and the training organisation itself which will carry it out. Exactly who sits where is less important than the fact that everyone understands the issues which the ministry needs to know about. Thus, a competent system, on learning of an aircraft accident on a training mission, among others, will make sure that the basic facts are passed to the ministry, so that officials there can brief the minister, and he or she, in turn, can make a statement to the media. The media will want to know things like the name and age of the pilot, how long he or she has been in the air force and why the accident occurred. This, rather than the technical detail, is what the ministry therefore has to be briefed on.

Structure

There are many influences on the structure of a defence ministry, some of them beyond the control of those who should decide what it should be. Before going on to a more detailed examination of these influences, however, the principle of institutional integrity should be stressed. This simply means that the institution has to be structured in such a way that it assists in the achievement of its objectives. This sounds obvious — perhaps it is — but it is surprising how frequently it is ignored. Thus, the purpose of an Anglo-Saxon company is to suck wealth from the company’s operations, and deposit it in the wallets of the shareholders. In other societies, the company’s purpose may be to have the largest market share, the biggest output, or to win prestigious orders. The structure of the company should reflect these objectives. In the case of government, most people would suggest that honesty, fairness and effectiveness are the virtues which would be expected, and the structure will need to reflect this. Thus, it would be very unusual for government to imitate structures from the private sector.

There are many reasons why the principle of institutional integrity can be ignored. A frequent one is outside influence. In many parts of the world, the public service is patterned after the practices of the colonial power, so that many African, South American and Asian nations use either the British, the Spanish or the French model. Sometimes, this is appropriate — the British model works well in Australia and New Zealand, for example — but sometimes there are problems when a colonial legacy is grafted onto a society which has historically functioned in other ways. The Indian defence ministry, for example, was influenced in its early days both by the system inherited from colonial times, and by the recommendations of Lord Ismay, a former British military officer on Mountbatten’s staff.18 The system set up soon had to be changed. In South Africa, the system set up in 1909 was modelled in great detail on the then British War Office, but did not suit the rather different political climate of the country.

Some influences will operate at the level of government generally. For example, there is little point in a defence ministry operating a cabinet system (as in France) if the rest of the government does not, or vice versa. In Sweden, the defence ministry is quite small, but this follows normal practice in the country where many functions are discharged by agencies responsible to parliament. Equally, reorganisation in the public sector tends to be pervasive where it occurs; some nations cast the organisation of their public services in stone, while others chase after every trendy management theory. Indeed, the very concept of a professional, neutral, career bureaucracy may not exist in some countries. A spoils system may operate at the highest levels, or there may be a habit of bringing people from business into government, which obviously has its own dangers and difficulties.

As well as these general limitations, the main restraining factor on freedom of choice in structures will be the extent to which there is a substantial civilian cadre in the ministry. Obviously, if few civilians are employed anyway, then some of the structures that will be described below are in any case not possible. But, if few civilians are employed, even if the political will exists to have a large civilian input into policy, it is not a process which can happen overnight, as South Africa has found since 1994. It takes considerable time — years if not decades — to grow a cadre of civilian defence experts who have the confidence of the military and also of the political leadership. The three examples which follow assume that a large civilian cadre is either available or planned.

Parallel structures

This is where the defence function is divided into:

a defence HQ which deals with technical military issues; and



a defence ministry, largely staffed by civilians, which handles political and financial issues and supports the minister.

There is a degree of superficial logic to this arrangement, but it seldom works well in practice. Even if the two are located together (as in Norway, one of few where this seems to work), there will be communication problems. Two centres of power will always compete with each other, especially if they work for the same master who, in practice, must choose between their advice. The motivations of a ministry of defence and a defence HQ will be quite different, and often opposed. Moreover, if there are cases — such as India — where proposals have to go from defence HQ to the ministry of defence for approval, this gives the bureaucrats a very powerful position, which the military will resent. In general, initiatives on various subjects will most often come from the military, since it has the technical knowledge, and probably also the greater number of staff officers. The defence ministry, in such circumstances, can often do little more than object or criticise. Unless it has its own military staff, it will not be in a position to generate many ideas about operational concepts or procurement, for example, and, if it does have a military component, it will be seen by defence HQ as a threat and as competition. As a result, there will be a tendency for the two organisations to take up rigid positions, agreed to at a senior level. In such a situation, the minister will be put in the position of having to judge between the advice of his or her secretary and the CHOD or NMC time after time.

Parallel hierarchies

This is where the defence function is divided into:

a defence HQ which is only responsible for the implementation of policy; and



a defence ministry in which there are separate military and civilian organisations, arranged by functional area.

For this system to work well, it is important that the responsibilities of each military and civilian division should be clearly distinguished from one another to avoid competing hierarchies, second-guessing, and competition. There will be a number of military divisions, reporting ultimately to the CHOD, and a number of civilian divisions reporting to the secretary, dealing with different aspects of the same subject. In practice, the system will be more flexible than it appears. For example, the CHOD may well ask for advice on the handling of some political or bureaucratic issue: this would sensibly come from civilians. In any event, however, what is most important is the working practices which the organisation as a whole uses. There has to be constant contact between the military and civilian staffs, and it should be a fundamental principle of the ministry’s operations that there is a single source of advice to ministers, reflecting both the military and civilian views. The importance of this cannot be over-emphasised. No matter how violently the civilians and the military may argue at the lower levels, they need to sort out a position between them which they can jointly put to ministers.

Consider, for example, a study into a national contribution to a United Nations peacekeeping deployment. The overall co-ordination will probably fall to the CHOD, but part of the work will have to be done by civilian staffs. A possible distribution of work would be:

The military works with the NMHQ to draw up a list of available forces and puts together an outline package.



The military looks at the practicality of transporting the forces where they are needed, and supporting them.



Civilians and the military instruct embassies abroad to try to discover what other troop contributors are doing.



Intelligence staffs do a rapid assessment of the situation in the country.



Civilian and service personnel staffs look at issues of welfare, leave, special pay and so forth.



Civilians liaise with the foreign ministry (which will want the largest possible force), and the finance ministry (which will want the smallest).



Civilians consider the wider public relations and political aspects of the operation.



Civilians consider the financial aspects of the operation.

The final presentation to ministers will be led by the CHOD, but he or she will be supported by civilian colleagues.

An integrated hierarchy

This is where the defence function is divided into:

a defence HQ which is responsible only for the implementation of policy; and



a defence ministry in which there are mixed military and civilian organisations, arranged by functional area.

This is the most advanced form of organisation of a defence ministry, and probably the most efficient. But, it does require civilians and military officers to be content to work for each other, which is a little beyond where most bureaucracies would be prepared to go. It should be noted that there is no need for a 50/50 split, or any other kind of prescriptive limitation. In each case, the test should be whether a given job can be done more effectively by a civilian or by a member of the military. In some cases — such as operational planning — most or all of the personnel will be military. In others — such as those responsible for civilian personnel — the opposite will apply. An integrated structure is one which takes the principle of civilians and the military working together as far as it can sensibly be taken. There will need to be special arrangements to ensure that each has a reporting line to a senior officer of the same background, and also to make it clear that civilians cannot give military orders, and that, for their part, they are not under military discipline.

An integrated defence staff

Whichever of the above models is chosen, there will be a need for military staff divisions in each service to provide advice on policy and to plan and conduct operations. It was already shown that the military seldom functions as a single bloc, and that it can be extremely difficult for civilians to get collective, objective military advice, since all institutional and personal characteristics of the military will tend to put obstacles in the way.

Yet, in practice, governments do need integrated military advice, and there are basically three ways in which they can get it:

a chiefs of staff committee with a pro forma chairperson;

a chief of defence with a small co-ordinating staff; or

a chief of defence with an integrated defence staff.

The first is the traditional method, still in use in many countries. It relies on consensus, and the chairperson — who may be selected by rotation — will have little personal influence. His or her major role will be to represent the chiefs’ views to the political leadership, and to try to find consensus. Inevitably, interservice co-ordination will be poor, and the services are likely to have separate and overlapping equipment programmes. This can be less of a problem when a service is so large that it dwarfs the others, but the system seldom operates well.

The second is a developed version of the first. Here, the CHOD will have a staff of his or her own which does more than arrange meetings. He or she will be charged to look actively for consensus, and will probably be asked to brief the political leadership directly on policy issues. His or her staff will be primarily co-ordinators across the services, on such issues as remuneration and conditions of service, military advice on security policy issues, and similar subjects, where there is a reasonable chance of getting a productive consensus. But, the individual services will largely control their own size and shape, and their own equipment programmes.

The final option has a CHOD at the head of an integrated defence staff (perhaps including civilians), which provides collective advice on military aspects of policy, planning, resource management and equipment (ie the individual services do not give advice directly). However, it is very important that the defence staff should not become just another layer between the service departments or service headquarters, and the political level. This adds nothing. Rather, it should take over certain defence functions, which will henceforth only be done collectively, on a multiservice basis. Examples include:

the military input into defence policy;

the size and shape of each of the services;

the defence programme;

major equipment projects;

operational planning;

intelligence; and

logistics and personnel policy.

The single service staffs, or HQs, do not, of course, lose all of their functions. They remain responsible for, among others:

the efficiency and operational readiness of the services;

the implementation of centrally decided policy;

the management of issues which affect only one service;

most recruiting and training issues; and

the generation of lower level operational requirements.

How should an integrated defence staff be structured? There are a number of options, but the main point is to distinguish between functions which necessarily involve more than one service, and functions which are single service, but of interest to all. For example, arms control is an issue which affects everyone, so its military aspects would probably be handled within a military defence policy department, which would be staffed by officers drawn from every service. But, the air force equipment programme is of interest to everyone as well, partly because of connections to other programmes, but partly also because the resources that the air force wants, need to be balanced with the resources needed by others. A reasonable compromise would be to have the department staffed by air force officers, but for it to report to the CHOD, rather than the chief of the air force. Of course, there will have to be a separate division responsible for pulling together and enforcing a collective military view on equipment priorities: it cannot just be a process of seeking consensus. The CHOD will then be able to present a military view of where overall programme priorities should lie.

In practice, this will not be easy. All institutional and personal forces will tend to work against it. A naval officer, after all, joined to do the best for his or her service, not for the air force, no matter how conscientious he or she may be. And everyone has to please the superior officer who writes his or her progress report.19 There will therefore be a tendency by the services not to post their best people into a central defence staff, and to try and control them while they are there. There are a number of things which can be done in an attempt to tackle these problems:

It should be clear that the defence staff is where the decisions are taken, so that there is an incentive to post the best people there.



Service in the defence staff should be a prerequisite for promotion to higher ranks.



A large civilian presence in the defence staff can help to give it a corporate identity, since the loyalty of civilians is generally much more portable than that of the military.

All these functions are not exclusively civilian, but they are all functions where civilians will play the dominant role. Often, however, they will make use of military advice. An example of this interaction may be useful.

The finance minister writes to the defence minister urging that the squadron of C-130 transport aircraft should be disbanded, and that the capability should be provided instead from leased civil aircraft. He argues that significant savings will result. Handling this correspondence is obviously a function of a government department, rather than any other function the ministry may perform, so the overall handling falls to the civilians. They will, in any case, know how to draft a reply from the minister and their use of language and tactics will be effective in fighting battles between departments. The military will be approached for a view on the operational consequences of such a suggestion, and will advise on things such as, for example, the availability of civil aircraft which can land on improvised runways, and the difficulty in supporting them far from home. The civilians, meanwhile, will produce a counterargument on the financial points. A senior civilian official will convert this into a draft for the minister, which the military will be invited to consider. If the draft is inaccurate, the military will seek to correct it, although it will ultimately give way to the civilians on issues of style and structure. The draft will then be submitted to the minister as the collective advice of the department.

In principle, this process is no more complex than in many other government departments. Thus, the health ministry will have medical advisors, the transport ministry will have engineers, and so forth. Administrative public officials who perform secretariat functions will deal with them much as their colleagues in the defence ministry deal with the military officers there. Although there are practical differences in the defence area, both of type and degree, it is helpful to bear this essential similarity of principle in mind.

In particular, it should be clear to all that the secretary is the head of the department and, therefore, has a position of authority over the military staff working for him or her. (The CHOD, of course, has other, separate functions). If a military officer is posted to the ministry, he or she is, for this time, a servant of the government, the minister and the secretary. While he or she will continue to come under the military chain of command for remuneration and administration, for other purposes, he or she is a temporary public official. Thus, if such an officer is accused of a security breach or a corrupt act, the secretary (rather than the CHOD) would investigate, because the officer is working in a department of government. (If the breach was only one of military law, or had occurred some time before when he or she was a field commander, then it might be an issue which the chain of command should consider).