Developing a Comprehensive Approach to National Security

Dr Ann Fitz-Gerald
Director, Education & Research
Centre for Security Sector Management, Cranfield University at Shrivenham

Dr Robin Niblett
Director, Chatham House
Chair

Chatham House
Wednesday 21 February 2007

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Dr Niblett
Ann, welcome here to Chatham House, very nice to meet you. Ann is Director of
Education and Research at the Centre for Security Sector Management at Cranfield
University in Shrivenham, which is really one of the leading universities here in the
UK on defence and security themes. And it says here you hold degrees in
Commerce, International Relations, Security Studies and Defence. So, it sounds like
you have the complete mix that Chris was talking about, certainly in terms of the topic
that we have today. And particularly in terms of our discussion today, her PhD is in
the impact of national disparities with multinational military forces and the impact they
have on development programs and how these run simultaneously with peace-
support operations in post-conflict states. So she really captures that intersection, a
very difficult and interdisciplinary questions that come into post-conflict discussions of
state building that we have today. She worked as a Canadian diplomat, again

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specialising in areas of international peacekeeping. She’s published widely in her 14
years career on these issues and edited volume, From Conflict to Community: A
Combatant’s Return to Citizenship, again a challenging title. And has managed
some pretty important projects, as I think you have to do in this type of work, in terms
of on-the-ground work: a DFID-funded project looking at securing humanitarian
space and an FCO-funded project, more recently, on – and we use the words –
‘failed’ and ‘collapsed’ states.

Dr Fitz-Gerald
Well, thank you very much. I’m delighted to be here today and I was also looking at
the list of attendees and participants and delighted to see such a range of subject
areas represented, both the economics backgrounds, the political science and the
international relations and the management. I certainly straddle both divides and I
just want to say that I use the combination of those backgrounds every single day.
And it’s not to say that the IR and Poli Sci people should run out and get an MBA, but
certainly the advancement of the intellectual frontiers these days has everything to do
with the coming together of combinations of subject areas.

So, the other point that I’d like to pick up on before I start my presentation was
something that somebody said in the back about being bureaucratised and what do
we do as young graduates on the scene. I fell risk to that. In fact, I was at NATO at
the same time as Chris Donnelly was at NATO and I decided the best strategy to
take, because you do feel bureaucratised very, very quickly and you have to rate the
creed of the organisation that you’re in and everything that you do and live and
breathe. And so what I did was six-month internship stints at a number of
organisations. The problem with that was at the end of that I still hadn’t made up my
mind, so I went into the diplomatic corps where I could do it and be paid. [laughter]

Ok, I’ve been asked to speak about national security today and I’m going to take a bit
more of a bilateral perspective and focus on the UK situation and look at the extent to
which a national security culture exists here in the United Kingdom. However, in the
discussion, perhaps we can extrapolate and talk more about the implications for
international institutions and the relationship Britain has with these institutions. So I’ll
look at the centrality of national security, both as a concept and a strategic framework
that guides overall national planning.

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In this context, it might be worth starting with the definition of what is meant by
national security. In my own experience of serving such definitions and without
exhibiting any bias in favour of my Canadian home roots, I shall draw on the recent
definition used by the Canadian government, which was published in its first national
security policy. First ever. So, no, it’s not just something that’s symptomatic with the
developing world. And it might be worthwhile to say that, of course, all of you know
that Britain still doesn’t have a national security strategy, even though we’re all
deployed all the time to help the developing world partners shape their own national
security strategies. Here’s the Canadian definition: ‘National security is a
preservation of a way of life acceptable to the Canadian people and compatible with
the needs and legitimate interests of others. It includes freedom from military attack
or coercion; freedom from internal subversion; and freedom from the erosion of
political, economic and social values, which are essential to the quality of life in
Canada.’ An extract taken from John Schlesser also noted that, ‘National security is
truly the first and most important social service for a government to deliver to its
people.’

So in light of these statements, then, how a national security policy may be

developed and implemented leads directly to the notion of national or grand strategy.
This implies the need to go back to first principles and really stimulate a public
debate on what constitutes British core values and national interest. And I was
delighted that it was picked up earlier on at the back (this notion of values and
interests) because I really think that this provides the foundation for a national
security fabric, agenda, framework, strategy, whatever you want to call it. Thereafter,
it can be used to map out ways in which national tools will be employed to protect,
pursue, project and defend our national interests and core values at home and
abroad. Therefore, domestic foreign policy, which may include a state’s political
integrity and territorial sovereignty. Such tools may include a country’s armed forces,
wealth, allies, and public opinion. Some of these issues were already raised, but in
different words by Chris Donnelly.

According to Joseph Nye, in a democracy the national interests are what a majority,
after discussion and debate, decides are in the legitimate long-run shared interests,
in relation to the outside world. It’s worth remembering that the national-interests
approach to policy planning originated with British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston in
1848 when he stated that, “We have no eternal or perpetual allies. However, our
interests are eternal and perpetual. And those interests it is our duty to follow.” In

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the absence of clearly defined interests and values set out in strategic White Papers,
concepts like these are often codified in national charters or constitutions. But the
important point here is that these concepts are enduring and they should survive
political change. Based on this premise, national security postures should also
inherit a sense of longevity. It’s quite interesting to see that, you know, the national
security strategies of countries like the United States are all based on a collection of
what they call PDDs (Presidential Decision Directives), which are specific to each
administration. So in actual fact, the national security strategy changes from
administration to administration, which sort of erodes that assumption of longevity.

In the UK there is no clear definition of national interests or core values. Although

the expression of something being or not being in the UK’s national interest is
commonly used by politicians and commentators. However, in the absence of a
constitution, a construct of UK national interests can be achieved by examining
statements of foreign and defence policy goals, which incorporate statements of
fundamental values. Such a construct should not only provide clarity of purpose, but
also foster informed public discussion, as well as being an element of accountability
for public policy makers. Prime Minister Blair’s inner office continues to lead
proactively on defence and foreign affairs issues, similar to the Thatcher government.
So although national interests should be arrived at by consensus in the Cabinet and
the office of the Prime Minister, Mr Blair has slimmed down the Cabinet and
personally has a great sense of national interest. In some countries this approach
has become known as the Presidentialisation of the British system of government.
The contention being that the British Prime Minister resembles the President of the
US in his ability to take policy decisions and drive the government machinery free, or
relatively free, from the constraints of collective ministerial responsibility and other
constitutional conventions.

There is also recognition that the Ministry of Defence here in the UK is a leading
authority on national strategy and longer-term thinking. Underlined by the way in
which the Department handles such things as equipment procurement and human
resource recruitment policies. In the past, this has led to the tendency of the current
government to bypass Cabinet Committees and take advice directly from certain
offices within the Ministry of Defence. This led to the Ministry of Defence being
perceived to be more political than ever before and as more of a medium-term
thinker than the Foreign Office.

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The absence of any clear codification of UK national interests and core values has
also led to the ad-hoc use of values being used to justify interests. But as someone
by the name of Jon Coles once noted, ‘National interest should not be suppressed in
order to construct an artificial consensus or bogus unity. Influence was a means and
not an end in itself. Occasionally, it might be appropriate to accept a loss of influence
if that was the only way to protect our interests.’ This last extract from the work of
Coles serves to remind us that, to this day, the British Government has not been able
to explain what we are doing in Iraq, in any way which is easily understood by the
British public. All statements defer to the UK’s special relationship with the United
States, something which is not codified in any strategic document as being vital to
our national interests.

Before closing on the idea of national interests and core values, I would like to
underscore their further significance in a national security development exercise.
After clearly articulating what those interests and values are, it is essential to carry
out strategic environmental assessment, which enables a country to ascertain how
these interests will be defended in relation to the current external environment.
Hence the reason why the UK MoD (which in my opinion currently provides the most
strategic and visionary policy document in the British system of government) – albeit
it’s widely accepted that this document, The Strategic Defence Review, is an aging
document – felt the need to add a further chapter following the events of September
11th, in light of the changing strategic environment. However, in assessing this
strategic environment, it’s worth repeating one important aspect that was mentioned
earlier about national interests being all about what the majority of a society feels are
the shared long-running interests in relation to the outside world. That’s really
important because it has important implications about the way in which countries,
such as Ethiopia, Jamaica, Nepal see their national interests and core values relative
to what is happening in their own world. And that might be, perhaps, much, much
different to the way in which a country like the United States might see the national
interests of these countries in relation to America’s world.

The fact that Western donors often come to the assistance of those countries
undertaking national security reviews and defence reform programs (and this is the
kind of thing I sometimes do in the developing world) often results in an element of
external foreign policy interests influencing the way in which the recipient countries
articulate their national security priority areas. The recent assistance provided to
Jamaica as a result of the trilateral effort of Canada, the United States and the UK,

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served as a vivid example of this when the Jamaican government reported that the
War on Terror served as its leading national security threat. Those familiar with the
security situation in Jamaica will know only too well that the primary security threat in
Jamaica has more to do with gang warfare, a breakdown in the rule of law and
internal security issues, rather than al-Qeada.

Also interesting to observe recent events in the Horn of Africa, which is currently
home to the largest US Special Forces presence outside of Iraq. I went with a team
to investigate the sort of things that were being deployed from Djibouti (which is
where the base is) and found out examples of symmic activities, which they were
being labelled as, as including, you know, vaccinating cattle in exchange for having
access to a certain area for a number of weeks. Although, those vaccinations usually
amounted to one quick vaccination and then they were never to be seen again. Now
we all know, for vaccinations to be effective you need to keep going back. My
children are on their fourth set at the moment.

Another example was near the area of Somaliland-Ethiopia and Somalia proper. The
forces sealed off the border area and they said, “Well we’ll build a school and
playground here, but we just need to temporarily seal off this border for awhile to ask
people questions on both sides.” Now, people familiar with that area know that it’s a
very nomadic area, borders mean nothing to people, the openness of borders is very
important for survival. And so, my conclusion…I walked away thinking these symmic
activities and this effort in the region is opening more and enabling space for
terrorism to flourish, rather than closing it down, just because of a lot of the
resentment that was being built.

In my opinion also, the bigger concern here in the UK has something to do with…with
something that’s being popularised as joined-up government. Which is something
I’m sure you’ve all heard of in the classroom. Where security-related departments
come together more proactively and structurally to encourage more comprehensive
efforts to support policy planning and program implementation. As a result of this
merging of interests, the UK Government now works with a large number of joined-up
strategies, which become funded under two central pools of resources. One of which
is called the Global Conflict Prevention pool and the other is called the African
Conflict Prevention pool, which reflects the scope that the British Government’s
programs and interests in Africa.

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Although this joined-up government concept has promoted a great sharing of
information and dialogue at the national capital level, there’s still many disconnects in
the process, due to a lack of strategic ownership and strategic oversight of joined-up
government. And when I say joined-up government of security-related departments,
I mean DFID, I mean the Home Office, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of
Defence. Many of the joined-up strategies – and one example is the Security Sector
Reform Strategy, which is a joined-up strategy – do not become informed by anything
that clearly articulates how a joined-up strategy should support the higher-level
strategic goals. So there’s no umbrella hanging over these program-level strategies
that are usefully informing them and connecting the activities to strategic-level policy.
Cabinet Office really needs to take ownership here, but it hasn’t. As a result, and
following a number of surveys that I’ve carried out on joined-up strategies, it
becomes clear that many of these documents lack strategic focus, they become an
aggregate of ongoing projects and programs…all of which get tipped on their head
and called something along the lines of a strategy. The only thing that currently sits
above these joined-up strategies are what’s called PSA targets (Public Service
Agreement targets), which include such things as – under the Conflict Prevention
category – ‘eradicating world poverty by 50% in 2015.’ And I would contend that
these objectives are far too grand and organic to be used in any meaningful way to
shape joined-up security-related strategies.

Another significant issue is the fact that each of these security-related departments
all abide by their own departmental strategic mantras or tribal loyalties. One example
of this came from a meeting that I sat in on last year, which included the three main
departments: the MoD, DFID and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where the
Ministry of Defence proposed a program to be run in Poland, the Czech Republic and
Hungary that was all in the spirit of PFP and NATO, enhancing interoperability,
tapped into the UN objectives as well. And it was vetoed by DFID because it had
nothing to do with poverty eradication, which is the big strategic mantra that they live
under.

We need better coherency in terms of foreign policy objectives, development goals

and our defence strategy, and in clarifying the connections between homeland
security and overseas security objectives. And this latter part of the sentence is
particularly important for a multicultural environment, where domestic policy for some
can be interpreted as foreign policy to others and vice versa.

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As an international development agency, DFID must live up to the obligations it signs
up to in the International Development Act. The most important of which being that it
should represent the interests of the wider multilateral community, including the
interests of organisations like RSIC, the British Red Cross, United Nations
Development Program, etc. (tapping into the international institutions.) As a result,
the strategic White Papers – if you look at the strategic papers coming out of DFID –
they echo the content of multilateral declarations and agreements, such as the
Millennium Development Goals, the Global Compact, etc. and then they shape their
own objectives around these multilateral agenda. Their programs are not derived
from national goals; DFID has a DFID agenda. Outside missions abroad, DFID
offices don’t even fly Union Jack. The significant autonomy wielded by globally
active international development partners, like DFID, sometimes implies that joined-
up government at the operational level is not always within DFID’s interests.

And one good example of this is the British army in Basra and in Iraq in general.
More towards the beginning of the conflict, it wasn’t really in DFID’s interests…It was
more in DFID’s interests to have some blue water between itself and the rest of
government because it was there primarily to represent the interests of the wider
multilateral community. Because the British army was a faction to the conflict it was
in their interests to keep a bit of a distance. Without going into the raft of current
problems and pressures faced by the Home Office, my own opinion of its place in
joined-up government is comparable to that of a poor relative: It is a partner which is
often left out of joined-up Committee meetings or is certainly the last to be invited.
This is not good news, considering the current calls to split the Home Office into two
separate departments, one possibly evolving into a National Security Department by
2008.

The operational disconnects of joined-up government arise largely because the

separate departments still lack the corporate incentive they require to be truly joined
up. Everything is shaped by separate corporate approaches because there is no
presence of a strong corporate centre. Thus, departmental sovereignty persists and
is reflected in the budget planning process. And we need to be clear on where
joined-up government starts and where it finishes – and really it should extend from
Downing Street right down to the in-country missions.

So are we being truly strategic in our approach to national security? I would contend
that we are not and that we are being driven by a tide of global, regional and national

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agendas, constantly reacting and making policy on the hoof and being driven by the
much stronger planning machinery in DFID and the Ministry of Defence. In some
respects it could be argued that the Foreign Office has been reduced to a useful
networking department for HMG when it should be leading on foreign policy and the
associated security goals.

Also, are we making the cost of security transparent? And this should really be a
political no-brainer because the political opposition will and has already picked up on
it. If you think about the number of troops that are currently working in Iraq and
Afghanistan, this is non-productive labour. And the military always hates me saying
this, but it’s true; it’s non-productive labour and we need to know the economic
implications of that, much of which is already hitting the United States’ economy.

Another question for discussion is this: Are we engaging the right stakeholders? We
need to bear in mind that security is a common denominator through all the Cabinet-
level functions of government. The security strands range from the more human
security issues, such as social welfare and economic security, to harder state
security issues, including homeland security provisions, defence and the work of the
security services. Nevertheless, both sides of the equation are mutually inclusive
and mutually reinforcing and must come together according to higher strategic
security efforts. Thus, in stimulating a public debate on national security, we need to
engage the economic and anthropologic communities as well as the traditional
security communities, such as the police and the military.

I will close by saying that this area is all about management, the strategic
conceptualisation and delivery of national security and, in short, the management of
security as a public good, which needs to be transparent and justified on the back of
a national security strategy.

Thank you.

Dr Niblett
Thank you Ann…We’ve been trying to develop this agenda as we go through the
day…Ann, I thought very interesting presentation because challenging this notion of,
‘What is this idea of national interest and what is national security? How is it being
defined today?’ We tend to define it looking out, other people define it very differently
when they’re sitting inside it and sitting inside the results of our particular actions.

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And unfortunately, certainly Ann, I take away from your presentation, that the efforts
that have been taken to date to try to create a more comprehensive approach to
dealing with this very complicated range of challenges that Paul described have not
succeeded. I think that’s the only way I can read it from your comments about
joined-up government and the continuing dominance of interdepartmental or
institutional predilections and habits.

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