Page 23 - Cormorant Issue 20 2017

Implications of the Chilcot Inquiry Lt Col Gary Sawyer
I SENSE CHILCOT HAS now surpassed Clausewitz as the most repeatedly referenced name-drop in lectures on ACSC. The ‘dead-German’
cliché has been surpassed by a convenient heuristic which can be casually employed to imply that radical institutional change
is already underway in our national security structures. I certainly have a recurring sense of déjà vu every time we are shown a slide of the Defence Operating Model and the visiting speaker mentions the “signi cant implications of the Chilcot Report”. At this point, the audience tend to nod wisely and mutter something about ‘ awed decision-making’ before heading back to the syndicate room to reminisce about their experiences in Basra or nd a way to blame the Regimental system, dependent on the colour of their uniform. The full report is over 2.6 million words long in 12 volumes but fortunately, there is an Executive Summary, which all ACSC students have now read as it was on the Essential Reading list for a syndicate room discussion. I am of course being overly trite here, but there is a risk that the enormity of the report, alongside the time taken to produce it, means that the multi-layered detail of its conclusions are lost amongst a tendency to use the term Chilcot as a convenient short-hand for saying that ‘lessons have been
learnt’ from the 2003 Iraq War. The report was only published last year in July 2016, so to date the level of published academic analysis is sparse. It was reassuring to hear from Dr Roger Hutton about the extensive scrutiny being conducted by the Ministry of Defence into the report, and the wide-ranging plans to implement a number of cultural and procedural changes across the military. It is too early to conclude whether suf cient change has been implemented, or if such change is adequate to address the complex challenges of strategic decision making. Not until we emerge from the sheltered cocoon of the Cormorant Lecture Theatre and return to the real world will we able to make any observations on the existence of any strategic utopia. My concern is that the word ‘Chilcot’ becomes a lazy catch-phrase used in the past tense, where the production of the report was an end in itself in addressing the problems of the Iraq War rather than the start of a process requiring radical and enduring change.
It will certainly be incumbent on all of us as we negotiate the corridors of power in our subsequent staff jobs to ensure that the ‘challenge’ function within our decision-making processes remains robust. Of all the cultural changes to be made this seems the most dif cult to inculcate in a military society dominated
by hierarchy and rank. Procedural changes can be made, but these can easily be eroded over time by personalities and the dominating in uence of a career
“
reporting system that encourages acquiescence to
an immediate superior. From a personal perspective, one of the highlights of working in Defence is the task- orientated, can-do attitude of the staff. When applied correctly this can achieve incredible results, even
with limited resources. However, I have also seen this attitude mutate into a culture of pro igate optimism.
In its worst excesses this has staff who challenge
the likelihood of success portrayed by senior commanders as pen-pushing jobsworths who are impeding progress. Once this level of toxicity enters the relationship between commanders and staff it
is hard to undo, and the presentation of supporting ‘evidence’ can often become dismissed if it doesn’t support the commander’s grand vision. There is
a happy medium to be found here – if MacArthur
had been swayed by his staff’s concerns then the Inchon landings would never have been considered.
A balanced relationship requires trust alongside con dence in objective and factual brie ng. This should be complemented by a staff willing to go the extra mile in pursuit of the commander’s vision and where appropriate accepting risk balanced against potential rewards or losses. This is easily written down for an article, but a fundamental challenge in reality, and one that not even 2.6 million words of Chilcot can resolve with certainty. I look forward to exploring this challenge with my ACSC peers in the years to come, and hope that no one in the future has to write a DRP on “why the post Iraq generation of military leaders failed to learn the lessons from Chilcot”.
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My concern is
that the word ‘Chilcot’ becomes a
lazy catch-phrase used in the past tense... ◆◆◆