The Challenge of Defending Britain

by Michael Clarke

An analysis that takes the complexity of British defence policy apart to view its anatomy and show how policy is made in this area. British defence policy is in a phase of great transition as the country confronts its Brexit future and also as world politics becomes more threatening and potentially unstable. This book uses the most up to date information to examine in a concise and readable way all the elements that go to make up Britain's defence policy as it goes through the most significant transition since the end of the Cold War in 1991.

By analyzing the costs of defence, the equipment issues, the personnel, the technical and intelligence back-up for it, and the strategies to employ military forces, this book offers a brief but rich guide to understanding an area of policy that many people find baffling.

112 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Please see: Michael Clarke


Michael Clarke is a British academic who specialises in defence studies.
Professor Clarke was Director-General of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) from 2007 to 2015 when he retired from that role. Until 2001 he was Deputy Vice-Principal and Director for Research Development at King’s College London, where he remains a Visiting Professor of Defence Studies. From 1990 to 2001 he was the founding Director of the Centre for Defence Studies at King’s. He was appointed Professor in 1995. He is now a Fellow of King’s College London and of the Universities of Aberystwyth and of Exeter, where he is also Associate Director of the Strategic Studies Institute.

He has previously taught at the Universities of Aberystwyth, Manchester and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and also at the University of New Brunswick and the Open University. He has been a Guest Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington DC, and a Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) in London.

He has been a specialist adviser to the House of Commons Defence Committee since 1997, having served previously with the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee 1995-6, and the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Bribery in 2009. In 2004 he was appointed as the UK’s member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. In 2009 he was appointed to the Prime Minister’s National Security Forum and in 2010 to the Chief of Defence Staff’s Strategic Advisory Group. He also served on the Strategic Advisory Panel on Defence for UK Trade and Industry and in 2014 was Chairman of the Defence Communications Advisory panel for the Ministry of Defence.

In March 2014 he was appointed by the Deputy Prime Minister to chair an Independent Surveillance Review at RUSI which reported in 2015. That report, A Democratic Licence to Operate: The Report of the Independent Surveillance Review, was published as part of the public discussion around the Investigatory Powers Bill, due to be enacted into law by December 2016.

In January 2016 he was appointed a specialist adviser to the Joint National Committee on Security Strategy for the period of the current Parliament.


source: Royal United Services Institute

Reviews

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 2 out of 5]

my vibes on this one is that oh all our old policies were so-so, and didn't age well, and let's look at all these untested and unproven technologies with all the latest hyped and not-so hyped boogeymen of the the now.

with a robot under every bed
and 90% of every critic of policy must be a Russian stooge
other amazing topics not seen in any other book

at least he looks at more efficient forces, and what he thinks his dream political priorities and agendas are with all his unaffordable military forces, to be what he thinks will be the effective lean and mean strike forever of cybernetic werewolf battallions of the future, with all the push button certainty he can throw at us!

i guess i'm too much of a realist
who likes the tried and true methods
and i'm skeptical of the

new-roboticist movement
or the cyber-technological futurists
or the new political subversion paranoia game of certain fools
or the international terrorism hysteria that looks at minor issues in certain situations and suddently think they need to be in the national interest because they can't be handled unless 'we act NOW on a war footing'

it's a pretty pedestrian book of
out with the old - in the with new

and i've been highly criticical of some of his analysis and opinions in the media and elsewhere outside of this book


.........

Book Description
A concise explanation of all the elements that make up current British defence policy as it goes through a major transition to confront the technological and political challenges Britain faces in the coming decade.

Back Cover
Clarke demystifies British defence policy, and invites and encourages the reader to interrogate the role of defence as Britain responds to the challenges of navigating Brexit Britain through the increasingly dangerous waters of world politics.

It has never been more important to understand defence policy. Brexit Britain sets the country on a new path, requiring fresh international partnerships and reinvigorating some old ones. Yet world politics is in a more dangerous state than at any time since the height of the Cold War. As the country confronts its future challenges, British defence policy will be key. Readjusting from a quarter-century of expeditionary operations, peace-support and nation-building, the military now faces the prospect of war-fighting in an age of robotics, cyber-technologies, international terrorism and political subversion.

Clarke sets these challenges within the basic principles of defence policy: sufficient funding, enough of the right equipment, properly trained people, the technological glue to hold it all together and – not least – a credible politico-military strategy to use military force properly. This book sheds valuable light on how and why governments make the decisions they do, and equips the reader with the tools to make their own judgements about British defence policy as it emerges for the future.