We Need to Talk about Defence

Based on a distinguished 35-year career in the RAF as an Air Commodore, Andrew R. Curtis highlights what is wrong with the way defence is managed today, and presents evidence-based proposals to fix it.

Defence is failing to deliver. From the ability of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to develop defence policy, to the single service’s - Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force (RAF) - ability to acquire and maintain military capability, and undertake military operations. This is not a new problem; indeed, ever since the creation of the MoD in 1964, there have been tensions between the department of state and the armed forces over allocations of responsibility, authority and accountability.

Concerned with political oversight; the allocation of responsibility, authority, and accountability; administration of people; organisational structures; and policies and processes, Curtis compellingly demonstrates the critical need to reform the management of Defence for the UK’s armed forces to fight and win in the future.

Dr Andrew R Curtis OBE is a Retired Air Commodore in the Royal Air Force, where he served for 35 years, an Independent Defence and Security Researcher and an Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute. With a PhD from King’s College London, he is the author of Understanding UK Military Capability (2022) and blogs regularly on www.onukdefence.co.uk.