UK Defence Research Articles

Anglo-American Relations under Biden

The article analyses the key trends in the Anglo-American Special Relationship during Joseph Biden’s presidency. The U.K. and the U.S. re-launched the ideological component of the relationship by signing the New Atlantic Charter. The military-political pillar was further strengthened, as Congress authorised funding for the W93 SLBM warhead for the U.K.’s Trident II D5, the U.K. and the U.S. sent a carrier strike group to the South China Sea, and the U.S., the U.K. and Australia signed the AUKUS pact. London relied on the alliance with the U.S. in the implementation of its Global Britain strategy; it had to seek the balance between its activity in the Euro - Atlantic region and the need to show its presence in the Indo - Pacific. Nevertheless, the countries’ interests do not always coincide: Washington’s unilateral decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan without consultations with its allies, including the U.K., was a tough challenge. Moreover, brexitiers’ hopes for a trade agreement with the U.S. failed to materialise; Trump’s punitive tariffs on steel and aluminium were rolled back only to be replaced by tariff rate quotas. Besides, a weak pound resulted in a number of takeovers of UK defence companies by American firms. The U.S. sided with the EU when Britain attempted to review the Northern Ireland Protocol. Still, disagreements on political issues between the leaders did not impede the strengthening of the institutional basis of the Anglo-American Special Relationship.

Caring for the carers: an evaluation of the recovery, readjustment and reintegration programme (R3P)

IntroductionThe challenges faced by healthcare workers, not least during the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, have been extensively studied, and concerns continue to be highlighted in relation to their long-term...

America’s Election and Europe’s Choices

Europeans are thinking more about how to respond to transatlantic uncertainty and geopolitical insecurity. The outlines of a new landscape in continental relations are emerging. There is a clear commitment to a stronger ‘European pillar’ within NATO. A reset in EU–UK defence relations is under way. A new, more influential and more united European Union leadership team will boost the EU’s engagement on defence and security. The turnaround will still struggle to match the United States’ own step change in defence-industrial production, and is still frustratingly off pace for Ukraine's requirements. There is also a danger that fiscal and populist constraints will undermine the scale and tempo of European ambitions. Nevertheless, a course correction is belatedly under way.

Diamedica Draw-over Vaporiser: bench testing the UK Defence Anaesthesia System in the deployed environment

IntroductionThe Diamedica Draw-over Vaporiser 2 (DDV2) is the sevoflurane vaporiser used by the UK Defence Medical Services to provide deployed volatile general anaesthesia. The Defence Anaesthesia System employs the DDV2...

Secure app-based secondary healthcare clinical decision support to deployed forces in the UK Defence Medical Services

BackgroundModern instant messaging systems facilitate reach-back medical support for Defence Medical Services (DMS) by connecting deployed clinicians to remote specialists. The mobile app Pando (Forward Clinical, UK) has been used...

Six-minute walk test in healthy British service personnel

IntroductionThe 6 min walk test (6MWT) is a widely used, safe and effective submaximal exercise test. The primary outcome is the distance walked, but additional physiological and patient-reported metrics can...

Light-speed, contemporary war, and Australia’s national defence strategic review

In our hyperconnected contemporary world, military and civilian digital and cyber technologies rely upon uncontested and uncongested access to frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS). This reliance enables light-speed signalic connectivity, interconnectivity, operability, and interoperability of the systems and devices that perpetuate twenty-first century modes of information, remote, hybrid, and digital warfare. Informed by cultural theorist Paul Virilio’s commentaries on speed, light-speed, and war, this article examines speed as an inflection that insidiously underpins the Australian Government’s 2023 National Defence: Defence Strategy Review (DSR) (public version). This is not an exhaustive study of light-speed or the DSR. Rather, this article aims to show how speed and light-speed, used as investigatory lenses, can provide critical insights into relationships between contemporary technology, and war. To this end, the article refers to US and UK defence and government electromagnetic spectrum policy statements, interpolating them into motivations for AUKUS, and the DSR’s positioning.

Development of the ARENA training programme for resilient performance in defense and security settings

ABSTRACT Defense and Security Personnel (DSP) often have to operate in the presence of stressful demands. Prior research has identified factors and processes associated with DSP being able to perform resiliently in demanding situations and settings. The aim of the present study was to develop a resilient performance training programme for UK defense and security operators. An intervention mapping (IM) method was used to guide the development of the programme. Typically, IM follows six sequential phases. In the present work, these phases were shaped by insights from prior research (e.g. systematic review and end user interviews), the input of a dedicated working group (N = 13) and from practitioner focus groups. During the IM process, the importance of programme flexibility was emphasized by practitioners. As such, the enAbling REsilieNt performAnce (ARENA) training programme was designed to be agile and include both face-to-face training and online learning modules. Theoretical behavior change principles, closely aligned to findings of earlier work on resilient defense and security performance, were used to underpin programme content and delivery. Future research should seek to gather data on the impact of the ARENA programme, in the targeted biological, psychological and social factors that previously been associated with resilient performances.

The DrinksRation Smartphone App for Modifying Alcohol Use Behaviors in UK Military Service Personnel at Risk of Alcohol-Related Harm: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Consumption of alcohol is synonymous with military populations, and studies have shown that serving personnel drink more than age- and sex-matched civilian populations. While ingrained in the military culture, excessive alcohol use is associated with increased rates of disciplinary issues, sickness absence, and loss of productivity, as well as contributing to a burden of acute and chronic health problems. Alcohol brief interventions can reduce alcohol use in civilian populations, but there is a paucity of evidence relating to the effectiveness of similar interventions in military populations. The DrinksRation smartphone app was designed to have a basis in behavior change technique theory and focuses on providing interactive behavioral prompts tailored to a military population. It has previously been shown to be effective in a help-seeking veteran population. The primary aim of the Military DrinksRation randomized controlled trial study is to determine whether it is similarly effective in a serving military population. We compare the effectiveness of the DrinksRation smartphone app with treatment as usual for personnel identified at risk of alcohol-related harm using the Military DrinksRation study that is a 2-arm, single-blind, 1:1 randomized controlled trial of the UK Armed Forces population. It is hypothesized that the DrinksRation app will be more efficacious at reducing alcohol consumption compared to treatment as usual. Recruitment will be predominantly from routine, periodic dental inspections all service personnel regularly undertake, supplemented by recruitment from military-targeted media messaging. The primary outcome is the change in alcohol units consumed per week between baseline and day 84, measured using the timeline follow-back method. Secondary outcome measures are a change in the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test score, a change in the quality of life assessment, and a change in drinking motivations and app usability (intervention arm only) between baseline and day 84. A final data collection at 168 days will assess the persistence of any changes over a longer duration. The study is expected to open in August 2023 and aims to enroll 728 participants to allow for a study sample size requirement of 218 per arm and a 40% attrition rate. It is expected to take up to 12 months to complete. The results will be published in 2024. The Military DrinksRation study will assess the efficacy of the smartphone app on changing alcohol use behaviors in service personnel. If a positive effect is shown, the UK Defence Medical Services would have an effective, evidence-based tool to use as part of an alcohol management clinical pathway, thereby providing better support for military personnel at risk of harm from alcohol drinking. ISRCTN Registry 42646;. https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN14977034. PRR1-10.2196/49918.

Warfare under scrutiny: British public perspectives of soldiers, and tactical behaviours in operation HERRICK

ABSTRACT The importance of civil society to the military is well documented in UK Defence and Army policy, doctrine, and concepts. Civilian and military analyses commonly focus on the policy dimensions of the relationship whereby British civil society is deemed important for the legitimacy of campaigns. This research paper draws together less-common references from across the literature about a more direct impact that societal perspectives can have on deployed land operations and extends them through new archival research. It uses the military’s experience in Helmand to propose a model of “societal operational influence.” In this model tactical behaviours across the conceptual, physical, and moral components of Task Force Helmand’s fighting power altered in response to the military’s interpretation of public opinion about soldiers, which arguably resulted in changes to its culture.

Shear speed in Arctic ice and underwater acoustic reflection

The underwater reflected sound wave under a sheet of Arctic ice contains information about the ice including thickness and mechanical properties. The ideal case of a perfectly flat ice floe floating above the water may be modeled using the OASES wavenumber integration code. A spectrogram of the acoustic response contains features related to the compressional and shear waves. The resonance associated with the shear wave speed in the ice is particularly distinctive. In the real world, the ice-water interface is not perfectly smooth. The finite element code SPECFEM2D is used to simulate the response of ice with a rough ice–water interface. It is particularly well suited to this problem since it accounts for all orders of multiple reflections. It shows the effects of fine-scale roughness on the acoustic response. Depending on the severity of the roughness, it may enhance or diminish the acoustic features related to the properties of the ice. [Work supported by the U. S. Office of Naval Research, Code 32 Grant N00014-20-1-2041 (N. Chotiros). G. Bayrakci and A. Best were funded by the UK Defence and Security Accelerator, Grant ACC2016927. The Texas Advanced Computing Center provided the high-performance computing resources.]

Sources of military change: Emulation, politics, and concept development in UK defence

Judging by its doctrinal publications, the UK Defence establishment stands poised to begin a process of unprecedented change. The language of ‘multi-domain’ thinking is prominent within this discourse and is identified as being a key vehicle via which UK Defence will deliver upon its programme of reform. This article seeks to offer an initial evaluation of these claims and to assess them in light of the burgeoning literatures on Western defence ‘transformation’ and military innovation that have emerged since the early 2000s. We argue that ‘multi-domain’ thinking reflects a form of ‘cosmetic’ emulation by the British Defence establishment and that its appearance within UK doctrine has been driven more by internal politics than by a clearly thought-through adoption of a new form of military practice.

Institutional challenges in agile adoption: Evidence from a public sector IT project

Agile is emerging as a promising approach in governments, with the potential to significantly enhance project management when implemented effectively. Despite its potential merits, it has not yet become a mainstream approach in government IT projects, primarily due to the incongruence between Agile practices and conventional methods of project funding, governance, and management. In order to contribute to our understanding of Agile in public sector practice, this study examines an extensive IT program in the UK defense sector which adopted Agile. We applied institutional logics as a theoretical lens to understand the complex dynamics within this environment, investigating the change mechanisms and the enduring tensions and conflicts. Our analysis of interview data revealed the key change mechanisms “mission collaborator” and “one team culture”. Unresolved tensions in our case setting encompass public value versus cost, project approval, policy, governance, and culture.

‘Build the golf course first’ – an organisational and strategic management perspective on UK defence reviews

ABSTRACT UK defence reviews have generated a flourishing academic debate for the past one-and-a-half decades. Still, the scholarship has hardly applied organisation and strategic management concepts regarding these reviews and therefore omits relevant insights to understand the outcomes arising from these important strategic documents. This article proposes the organisation and strategic management scholarship can contribute significantly to explaining the dynamics of strategy-making and implementation of the UK’s previous and forthcoming defence reviews. The avoidance of budgetary losses and maintenance of corporate autonomy by any formal organisation – including the UK Ministry of Defence – are particularly powerful concepts for explaining the dynamics of strategy-making and implementation. These concepts are critical for understanding how the UK defence budget is actually spent and how its defence reviews are developed and implemented.

The 2022 monkeypox outbreak: A UK military perspective.

With the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and now monkeypox, the UK Defence Medical Services have been required to provide rapid advice in the management of patients with airborne high consequence infectious diseases (A-HCID). The Defence Public Health Network (DPHN) cadre, consisting of closely aligned uniformed and civilian public health specialists have worked at pace to provide evidence-based recommendations on the clinical management, public health response and policy for monkeypox, with military medicine and pathology clinicians (primarily infectious disease physicians and medical microbiologists). Military environments can be complicated and nuanced requiring specialist input and advice to non-specialists as well as unit commanders both in the UK and overseas. DPHN and military infection clinicians have close links with the UK National Health Service (NHS) and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), allowing for a dynamic two-way relationship that encompasses patient management, public health response, research and development of both UK military and national guidelines. This is further demonstrated with the Royal Air Force (RAF) Air Transport Isolator (ATI) capability, provided by Defence to support the UK Government and UKHSA. Military infectious disease clinicians are also embedded within NHS A-HCID units. In this manuscript we provide examples of the close interdisciplinary working of the DPHN and Defence clinicians in managing military monkeypox patients, co-ordinating the public health response, advising the Command and developing monkeypox policy for Defence through cross-government partnership. We also highlight the co-operation between civilian and military medical authorities in managing the current outbreak.

Probity or performance? 150 years of public expenditure reform, UK Defence 1850-2000

PurposeThis paper analyses public sector accounting and organisation reforms, focusing on the departments in charge of defence, military procurement and war between 1850 and 2000 in Britain. Over this period, three parliamentary acts, resulting from a power struggle between the Treasury and Parliament, produced the shift between two institutional logics: probity (spending properly) and performance (spending well). The purpose of this paper is to describe how the acts produced a shift between two institutional logics.Design/methodology/approachThe authors adopt Quattrone’s (2015) procedural notion of institutional logics and the consequent concept of “unfolding rationality”. Using documents from the National Archives, the authors analyse three reforms: The Exchequer and Audit Departments Act 1866 (towards probity), The Exchequer and Audit Departments Act 1921 (towards performance) and the National Audit Office Act of 1983 (towards performance and probity).FindingsFor a long time, the actors narrated in this story argued and acted as if probity and performance were incompatible. The two are now treated as compatible and equally important. Before that, the “incompatibility” was a rhetorical, or “procedural”, device. The authors argue that a procedural rather than substantive notion of institutional logics is more suitable to explain the trajectory that was the result of constant negotiation among actors.Practical implicationsThe study might contribute to the understanding of the increase in national defence-spending at continental level and the call for a common European Union (EU) military procurement strategy that followed the invasion of Ukraine. The war could produce changes in what is a traditional tension between two logics: sovereignty or efficiency.Originality/valueThe originality of this paper stands in highlighting the link between the institutional logic of public-administration accounting and military history. This link emerges also thanks to a very long time-horizon. Additionally, from a theoretical viewpoint, the authors have put Quattrone’s approach to the test in a context very different from the original one (the Jesuit order).

Defence procurement in perspective: what the history of the aircraft industry can tell us about UK defence procurement

ABSTRACT Defence procurement in the UK has drawn a large degree of political and academic attention due to large-scale projects regularly being delayed and costing significantly more than the original estimate. The focus on contemporary defence procurement, however, suffers from one major drawback: a lack of historical contexualistation. This article redresses this imbalance between the focus on contemporary defence procurement and the problems faced purchasing military equipment in the past. The defence industry most representative of the contemporary procurement environment is the British aircraft industry in the inter-war period. This was an industry that was not publicly owned and presented dynamics that are comparable to today. This article explores the problems associated with twenty-first century defence procurement through this historical lens, demonstrating that many of the problems faced, and solutions proposed are not necessarily as new or innovative as has been claimed.

“First gain the victory and then make the best use of it you can”: The Royal Navy in the Aftermath of the Falklands War

Abstract This article examines the Royal Navy (rn) in the aftermath of the Falklands War of 1982, focussing on the long-standing disparity between commitments and resources in UK defence planning. Two central arguments are developed. First, it is argued that the 1981 defence review failed to address the disparity between UK commitments with resources. Second, despite victory in the Falklands War, the UK naval lobby failed to reverse the long-term decline in the size of the rn although, in the long-term, the 1982 war reinforced the case for enhancing rn maritime aviation capabilities. This article presents a case of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the rn seeking, and failing, to resolve an insoluble problem. This analysis of UK naval policy demonstrates that British defence planning remains torn between a maritime strategy and a continental commitment to the present day.

New Perspectives on the Falklands War

Abstract Marking the fortieth anniversary of the Falklands War, this special issue brings together new research, and opens avenues for further investigation, on the armed conflict between the United Kingdom and Argentina over sovereignty of the Falkland Islands that stretched between April and June 1982. Across four articles, it explores the broad themes of combatant experience, conflict memory, international relations and policy, from an interdisciplinary investigation of the conflict landscape to an examination of cinematic portrayals of Falklands veterans, and from the application of the lens of the global Cold War to an appraisal of the impact of the conflict on UK defence policy. The special issue also includes a previously unpublished naval memoir of the war, highlighting the continued emergence of new sources that makes the Falklands War a potentially highly productive area of study.

Facilitating public procurement of innovation in the UK defence and health sectors: Innovation intermediaries as institutional entrepreneurs

This paper investigates how innovation intermediaries promote institutional change to facilitate public procurement of innovation (PPI). Several of the PPI implementation challenges reported in prior research originate in the institutional architecture underpinning demand articulation, and innovation procurement and adoption processes. We conceptualise innovation intermediaries as institutional entrepreneurs who seek to create new institutions or adjust existing ones to support PPI implementation. We report the results of two case studies of intermediaries facilitating PPI in the UK defence and health sectors, respectively. We contribute to PPI intermediation literature by showing that intermediaries address prevalent institutional failures through four types of institutional entrepreneurship activities: boundary spanning; advocacy; design of change; and capacity building. We elucidate, in particular, the role of individuals within intermediaries, as agents who learn about failures and adapt their institutional work over time. In doing so, these managers go beyond the remit and goals of the organisations they represent. The findings add to our understanding of how intermediaries support demand articulation for PPI by showing that their institutional work is also aimed at designing generic methods and processes to improve what is asked for, and how. We furthermore reveal conditions influencing the effectiveness of intermediaries' efforts to realise institutional change, thereby extending research on institutional entrepreneurship in PPI settings.