Defence Policy

სოციალურ მეცნიერებათა სკოლა

სასწავლო კურსი: თავდაცვის რესურსების მართვა

ლექტორი: გიორგი დოლიძე

ავტორი: ბაჩა ქირია

თბილისი

2023
 Introduction
Each state worldwide exists in a different geopolitical environment and
consequently has individual political, economic, social, and environmental challenges to
deal with. However, the national interests of states, as usual, coincide and generally
countries struggle for: territorial integrity, state sovereignty, welfare of citizens, peace,
security etc. Those countries might have various ways and means to fulfil the
abovementioned ends and the approaches to defend national interest vary from a country
to another according to values. Officially, states have their national interests, priorities,
values, and approaches openly declared in conceptual documents. Constitution, a
founding and the most basic document for almost every country appears to be the first in
the hierarchy, followed by national security strategy/concept, threat assessment
document, national defence/military strategy etc. Some countries like Ghana and Ethiopia
prefer to have guidance with regard to state security, and defence based on constitutions,
while more developed states use a more flexible tool – National Security
Strategy/Concept, which is long-term document but can be easily changed and
transformed unlike constitution. 1 A majority of these documents are public, while some
of them need to be classified. The national security concept as a top strategic level
document, which defines national values, interests, priorities on one hand, and threats,
risks, and challenges for state security on the other, tends to be one of the most important
for this discussion. As far as national security concept determines the main directions for
national security policy development, it consequently represents a base from which
derives the concrete strategies: national defence/military strategy, and foreign policy
strategy. The topic of this discussion too – defence policy itself is a part of national
security policy and defence policy stands for the kind of bridge between the theoretical
concept of national security and the practical execution of this policy, including C2
components. Defence is a cornerstone of national security and consequently, defence
policy includes all the ends, ways, and means for attaining the goals set by the national
defence, which is dictated by the concrete principles and aspects of national security

1
(McConville & Cleary, 2006, pp. 32-33)
policy. While discussing defence policy, it is important to mention that regardless of
being the major part of providing state security, defence policy- making as a process is not
determined with pure defence and military domains and their representatives, but it
seems to be rather comprehensive. It is a multi-faceted phenomenon, which encompasses
the integration of economic, political, financial, and legislative branch representatives,
indicating a complex and interconnected nature of the national defence providing
process.2
As defined above, defence policy is a part of a bigger national security policy and
consequently serves the implementation of national security objectives. Sometimes a
notion of defence policy is misinterpreted as theoretical and official statements of
government, when it concerns the coordination and practical execution with its nature.
At first glance, defence policy seems to be a lower, distinct level from national security
policy, but the hierarchy is so interconnected and dovetailed that policies elaborated by
the government influence each other constantly. In order to regulate and coordinate
governmental security policies, states choose different approaches: a comprehensive
approach, a whole-of-government approach, smart power, total defence etc. The first
approach is associated with the alliances like NATO, in which decision-makers analyzed
that merely military and political branches are not enough for achieving supremacy, thus
other available tools: economic, diplomatic, and socio-cultural should be used in case of
necessity. Concerning a whole of government approach, this method is also implemented
for growing efficacy and includes a governmental interagency synergy. Various agencies
of government act convergently and simultaneously to maximize all available resources to
avoid or minimize the threats menacing state security. Another, so-called smart power
approach can be considered as a kind of mix of hard and soft powers. This approach might
be also termed a “stick and carrot” method and unites a combination of political, military,
economic, diplomatic, legal, and cultural dimensions. As for total defence, it is an
approach mainly used by relatively small countries obliged to cope with bigger rivals and
besides involving a whole-of-government aspect, total defence unanimously uses military,

2
(Geneva Centre for Security Governance, 2023)
civil, and international endeavours. The first three aspects directly correspond with
Clausewitz’s holy trinity: government/army/people. The government must have full
legislation from the people to act effectively and the army should be well-prepared with a
high level of combat readiness to fulfill national defence goals. Consolidated involvement
of civilians to reinforce the military effort of armed forces is a crucial part of total defence
and the safety of these civilians alongside critical infrastructure is the main objective. In
addition to internal endeavour, the followers of total defence actively work on the
international level to gain first of all diplomatic/political support and then military,
economic, and informational aid. All of the measures analyzed above under the pretext of
national security are important, though as defence is a core domain of state security,
military direction consequently represents the main area to develop in terms of defence
policy. Thus, the role of defence forces is critical for defence policy and the latter itself
encompasses the development of military forces to contribute to state security in many
ways. Nowadays, defence forces are not only determined with a war-waging against the
enemy to defend state’s territorial integrity as before but they could be used as power
enablers on the international stage. In the security domain, it is an axiom, that military
forces serve political aims and defence forces consequently can provide a state with
political leverage by their participation in international missions. Having strong, well-
trained forces with high combat capability, represents a huge backup during diplomatic
negotiations for gaining upper hand and political supremacy. With regard to the internal
level, defence forces might be used for humanitarian purposes during disasters or similar
crisis situations, and in addition to this, serving in defence forces unites the citizens of
different ethnic, religious groups under the sense of nationhood. In order to successfully
cope with national and international level objectives, that are based on a comprehensive
strategic level analysis of security ambiance, defence forces should be well-formulated
and the essential components: size, structure, mission, and deployment ought to be
envisaged and developed continuously. This phase is considered to be a crucial
component of the the bigger defence policy-making process, that involves various
stakeholders not only from defence sector but also from other agencies. The role of these
stakeholders varies and some of them are actors which are participating directly in
defence policy-making, whereas others have consultative roles. For being more precise,
the list starts from the civil servants from the different departments of the Ministry of
Defence, people who have a duty to participate in elaborating, planning and executing of
defence policy. The Ministry of Foreign affairs is another noteworthy stakeholder and
participation of defence forces in international military exercises, training courses,
international missions etc. needs to be mediated via the ministry with help of military
attachés and other functional departments. Ministry of internal affairs also finds its sphere
of interest in defence policy-making, because the duties and roles of police and defence
forces ought to be clearly divided in internal context during crisis situations, natural
catastrophes, and war. Such an approach will help parties to cooperate effectively. The
Finance Ministry is definitely another crucial actor in defence policy-making process in
the budgetary context and consultations with them about future defence expenditures are
important for MOD. Ministry of Trade and Economics is a notable stakeholder, as far as it
is involved in strategic military acquisitions from the foreign republics. In addition to
this, the ministry should be informed in time about possible defence expenditures for
analyzing the impact on country’s economy. Intelligence services as reliable sources of
necessary information have a huge role in decision-making for defence policy. Except the
central governmental agencies, regional and municipal self-governing organizations can
be also consulted to get important details about the local environment and then taking
them into account for proper full-scale policy-making. Such a comprehensive and
sensitive phenomenon as defence policy is not only determined by direct governmental
stakeholders but also indirect ones, whose participation is just consultative, but still
cannot be ignored. Those are: international allies and donor organizations, subject matter
experts, NGOs, think-tanks, civil society groups, and media. Their Presence and shared
experience during consultations make the process qualitative on one hand and on the
other, their critical reports and opinion could be used as external controlling mechanisms.
3
After designating

3
(McConville & Cleary, 2006, pp. 47-54)
the role and significance of defence policy and that of stakeholders, a process of
elaborating and executing with proper controlling mechanisms needs to be discussed.
From the very beginning, to make the overall picture more vivid, it is important to note
that defence policy elaboration and execution, especially the latter phase is an utterly
complex and tough process. Often very well-elaborated and theoretically written out
defence policy plans stay on the papers without execution. The phase of execution
appears to be difficult to fulfill due to the political complications of policy-making,
various stakeholders trying to carry their own interests, absence of controlling
mechanism, transparency etc. Additionally, the character of the security and defence
domain is so sensitive and often clandestine that even in democratic countries mere
participation in consultations becomes problematic and more or less stays a prerogative of
governmental force. The legislative process in parliament, where the concrete decisions
of defence policy must be legalized is a sheer example of active participation of
governmental and opposing sides while expressing mistrust towards each other. A rare
example of broad participation to reach consensus on defence policy is 1997 British
strategic defence review(SDR) creating process, throughout which the Defence Minister
encouraged the member of his political group to work with others. Different
governmental agencies, NGO’s, academic researchers, civil society, and even a shadow
cabinet in parliament were participating and consulting to achieve optimal result. 4 For
avoiding biased and non-optimal decisions during defence policy-making with help of
effective controlling measures and transparency, a high level of democracy is needed.
Inasmuch as legislative control is an extremely powerful mechanism that affect
transparency, accountability and budget control, even the distribution of mandates
among governmental and opposing side backs up the level of democracy. Concerning
accountability and transparency in correspondence with parliament during defence
policy-making, it is well-known that agencies and their representatives/ministers have
accountability toward parliament to explain and prove decisions made under defence
policy. As usual, those agencies and ministers have quadrennial or annual reports to

4
(McConville & Cleary, 2006, pp. 35-37)
present in front of the members during the session and as a document too. As for assuring
transparency, proper committees of parliament in developed countries make
investigations about possible violations and exceeding from governmental agencies and
incumbents. The notions of accountability and transparency in terms of defence policy-
making are much broader and not only determined with legislative control.
Accountability as a phenomenon differs from responsibility and means that policy
makers should explain and prove argumentatively their deeds and decisions. It exists in
two forms: Ex-post facto accountability and Ex-ante accountability. The former indicates
that public officials are accountable in front of the law in the end and there are different
sanctioning and monitoring mechanisms. Independent agencies of monitoring as audit
which is focused on revealing problems and flaws of policy-making process contribute
noteworthily. The final stage of Ex post facto accountability is elections, with help of
which people can change a government for ineffective policy. The latter, ex ante
accountability envisages integration of other actors in policy-making process. The first
form is consulting and making decisions on defence policy by accepting partial interests
while working side by side with other governmental agencies. Another one is
deliberation and consultations with opposition in the legislative branch for instance and
the phenomenon of shadow cabinet in the British parliament is a vivid example. The
third form is conducting referenda, in which people will be enabled to participate in
policy-making. The subject of transparency might be also divided into domestic and
international. Civil society, media, and other interest groups help to provide domestic
component, whereas reports and assessments of international allies and donors can be
considered external part.5

5
(McConville & Cleary, 2006, pp. 59-68)
 Conclusion
Overall, to sum up the topic in some words, it can be noted that defence policy is a
process and a result at the same time, that serves national security providing. Defence as a
core part of security is mainly based on the military domain, consequently on defence
forces. Defence policy per se derives from the challenges and objectives of the country on
the way of national interest accomplishment and all of these interests, priorities,
objectives and values are described in national and organizational level conceptual
documents. Defence policy has two phases – theoretical elaboration and practical
execution, out of which the second phase is always very difficult and quite often
theoretically perfectly elaborated defence policies stay non-realized.The main reasons are
a huge number of stakeholders firstly and lack of effective controlling mechanisms and
transparency secondly. Those stakeholders, controllers and transparency providers as well
are representatives of various other agencies than the Ministry of Defence,
correspondingly defence policy-making is a comprehensive and tough process among
governmental agencies, non-governmental actors, people, international allies, donors,
civil society, and media.
References:

1. Geneva Centre for Security Governance. (2023, 01 30). Retrieved from dcaf:
https://securitysectorintegrity.com/defence-management/defence-policy/

2. McConville, T., & Cleary, L. R. (2006). Managing Defence in a Democracy. NewYork:

Routledge.

3. Ministry of Defence of Georgia. (2023, 01 30). Ministry of Defence of Georgia.

Retrieved from MOD.GOV.GE: https://mod.gov.ge/en/page/70/national-security-
concept-of-georgia

4. Ministry of Defence of Georgia. (2023, 01 30). Ministry of Defence of Georgia.

Retrieved from MOD.GOV.GE: https://mod.gov.ge/en/page/73/strategic-defence-
review

5. Ministry of Defence of Georgia. (2023, 01 30). Ministry of Defence of Georgia.

Retrieved from MOD.GOV.GE:
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://mod.gov.ge/uploads/
2018/pdf/NMS-ENG.pdf