The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
Europe but
a major regional crisis involving our national interest, perhaps on
NATO’s
periphery
or in the Gulf.”
10.
The SDR
acknowledged that “major equipments take years to
develop”.
11.
While the SDR
identified no definitive timescales for its proposed changes, the
MOD
did publish
a series of targets in December 1998 as part of its Public Service
Agreement
for 1999 to
2002.4
Targets
included achieving a “Full Joint Rapid Reaction Forces
Capability
by October 2001” and to “achieve reductions in book value of stocks
of non-
munitions
of £2.2bn by April 2001”.
12.
The Public
Service Agreement recognised that the plans set out in the
SDR
would
“require substantial investment to improve inherited areas of
weakness
measured
against future operational needs and to fund a continuing major
equipment
modernisation
programme”. The resources necessary to achieve this would be
found
“from
making savings from rationalisation in other areas, a continuing
programme of
efficiency
improvements and smarter procurement”.
13.
Decisions
on the allocation of resources to the MOD, and within the
MOD,
were
underpinned by a set of Defence Planning Assumptions (DPAs) about
the
totality of
the commitments that the MOD would expect to meet and sustain at
any
one time
and the time needed to prepare for operations.
14.
The ability of
the UK to deploy and sustain forces on operations was determined
by
the size of
the Armed Forces and the readiness of units within the force
structure. That
is still
the case today.
15.
Decisions on
those issues and the allocation of resources to and within the
MOD
were based
on the DPAs. DPAs were developed by the MOD to convert policy
into
detailed
guidance that could be used by military planners.5
The DPAs
outlined the levels
of activity
the Armed Forces were expected to be able to undertake, and the
contexts in
which they
were expected to operate. They were (and are) used to identify and
resource
the planned
force structure, capabilities and equipment of the Armed
Forces.
16.
The SDR “set
some broad benchmarks for the scale of our planning” and said
that
the UK
should be able to:
“ – respond
to a major international crisis which might require a military
effort and
combat
operations of a similar scale and duration to the Gulf War when we
deployed
an armoured
division, 26 major warships and over 80 combat
aircraft.
“or
4
Public
Services for the Future: Modernisation, Reform,
Accountability, December
1998, Cm 4181.
5
Ministry of
Defence, Strategic
Defence Review, July
1998.
4