Editorial Note

By Bill Kincaid
11 Jun 2008

RDS Summer 2008

In this edition we focus on four main topics – C4ISTAR, through-life capability management (TLCM), the defence industry and various aspects of acquisition, including aircraft costs. Thus, it is rather different from most of our past issues, which have tended to be dominated by platforms. Platforms, though still hugely important and often photogenic, are no longer the centre of the defence universe as they used to be in Cold War days. Now, it’s the systems that go in them or that support them from outside that are the critical pieces that enable platforms to project power effectively. And perhaps as important, the cost-effectiveness of these platforms is critical in these days of the overheated defence budget, so the defence industry and other acquisition issues take a more prominent place than they did a couple of decades ago.

By all accounts TLCM is the key concern in the UK MoD this year. It is the right idea, but there is some confusion about exactly what it needs to do and how it should do it. It needs to get this right for, without its successful implementation, the whole defence acquisition change programme could be sunk. Neither industry nor the Armed Forces would be winners in that event. Both Jon Brittain, the Director of Capability Improvement in the UK MoD, and Ron Finlayson, the co-chair of the TLCM subgroup of the National Defence Industries Council, describe the implementation work, while the RUSI Acquisition Focus identifies three big issues that must be resolved if implementation is to be successfully achieved.

Aircraft costs have been the subject of heated debate for many years. In UK two subjects have dominated discussion of development of the Joint Strike Fighter ( JSF) – technology transfer and cost. It seems that Lord Drayson put the former to bed last year, but cost (as with its fellow capability component, the future aircraft carrier) has not, so readers should welcome the article on JSF costs from an Australian perspective.

Agility and increased pace of acquisition have at last been recognised as important and this edition looks at the lessons that defence can learn from the motorsport industry and vice versa, and the fast-track delivery of the Bushmaster armoured vehicle to Dutch troops in Afghanistan. Other acquisition articles are by Les Gregory, who outlines why defence is a special case, and Phil Judkins who exposes relevant lessons from the past. But, perhaps the heart of this edition lies in the C4ISTAR section. This section is eclectic covering many aspects of network-enabled capability (NEC) – increased vigour in UK’s MoD, shared situational awareness, the integration of submarines, use of legacy systems and a service oriented approach to delivering it – as well as international interoperability, and communications – spectrum management and HF in Sweden.

The main problem with C4ISTAR seems to be the pace at which technology generations appear and the rather lesser speed of acquisition decision-making and processes. A ‘big bang’ approach is too slow, but the effective knitting together of different systems procured separately is fraught with difficulties. The answer would seem to lie in three actions – cutting the acquisition cycle time by at least half, open standards, and extensive use of experimentation and rigorous testing. None of these on its own will be enough, but active pursuit of all three just might.

The last major topic is the defence industry. We look at defence industries in Europe, Israel and Turkey, while exploring the future from a UK, European and global prospect. We also consider what Version 2 of the UK’s Defence Industrial Strategy should do, although we will be coming back to this in a future issue. The ‘contention’ section examines the relationship between operational research and military judgement, which are at best uneasy bedfellows.

Last, but certainly not least, our interviews cover two important defence subjects. The Polish Chief of the General Staff gives us an insight into the issues confronting a new member of NATO – one which is often held up as a model – including equipment priorities, interoperability and expeditionary operations. But the key issue would seem to be the full professionalisation of the Polish Armed Forces – how far will recruiting and retention be a major problem? Our acquisition interview is with Lieutenant General Figgures, the UK’s head of equipment capability – but he is also the Senior Responsible Owner of NEC, so his views are fully complementary to the whole C4ISTAR section.

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