Page 42 - The Cormorant 2018

What RAF100 means to me Wing Commander Julian Parks
THE CENTENARY OF THE formation of the RAF provides an opportunity to consider the people of the RAF, past and present, and in particular is a time to remember those who have served, especially those who are no longer with us. As we reflect on our past and look
forward to the future, I still find the achievements and sacrifices of those who served in World War II particularly humbling. As the World War 2 generation diminishes in number, the nature and scale of its achievements remain at the core of our Services’ history and ethos and, as the RAF enters its 2nd century, the efforts and achievements of this generation in particular stand as a shining example to all of us entrusted with the RAF’s future.
PAGE 40
A Civil Servant’s View Mr David McKay
THE 2017/18 ADVANCED COMMAND and Staff Course contained one international and 9 MoD Civil Servants, each with a wide variety of
backgrounds and experience. Not being in uniform, we naturally stood out, even before the repeated urging of the
Course Director and the Commandant to be aware of the ten Civil Servants and make us feel welcome! This briefly led to a mythical like status and a need to ‘touch a Civil Servant’, which was probably not what our seniors had in mind. Nevertheless we were indeed made to feel welcome and the stage was set for a rewarding year.
A question worth addressing is: ‘why would a Civil Servant do this course?’ To which I believe
the answer should be: ‘why don’t more?’ With
the exception of Operational Level Planning, Civil
Servants are heavily involved in all subject areas
and will benefit from everything that is taught on
this course. It seems impossible not to mention
Clausewitz at least once in writing this article, and the “ well-known maxim that war is an extension of politics
and – as Mrs Clausewitz noted when she published ...war is an his works – it is to politics that war must return. If this extension of is the case, then those charged with writing policy politics... ◆◆◆ and advising political Ministers need to understand
how that policy is developed, and potential strategies
for carrying it out.
The term ‘joint’ should include the civilian element
as well as the three Services. This course teaches officers to work in a joint environment, understand each other’s Service, in addition to interaction with the civil service and wider Government Departments. It explains how policy is made, capabilities chosen, and provides a welcome opportunity to think and
reflect on the business of Defence. Civil Servants who reach senior levels within the MoD, or even those at the Band C1/B (OF4/5) level working in a joint staff branch need to do this too, and yet while the military are trained to be staff officers, the Civil Service appear to be expected to learn this by osmosis.
There are those who doubt the value of sending 150 UK military officers and 9 civilians away for a year to think; engage with other services and nationalities; and learn how Defence in the round operates in
the context of wider Government. In 2009 the then Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, delivered a lecture at the Royal United Services Institute arguing that the UK had lost the “institutional capacity for, and culture of strategic thought”. This is a civilian as well as a military problem. One of the core Civil Service competencies is ‘Seeing the Bigger Picture.’ For me, there is no better way of doing so than attending the Advanced Command and Staff Course.