Napoleonic Government

An institutional level of right wing politics, part 1

In a previous piece, I spoke about the three hierarchical levels of military strategy, and the need to reform government to create clearer distinctions between levels and get Ministers back to thinking about the strategic level.

A subscriber, who works in the military, agreed. After reading that last piece, he wrote to me with an example of how much better the military is at ensuring commanders' focus remains on relevant issues by

Military staffs they can be incredibly effective. I was the media officer in an operational headquarters. The commander read the news almost as much as I did but I was able to provide deeper analysis on various aspects because I had the time to dedicate to it. He also had a policy advisor, a legal advisor, and an intelligence team feeding him information. The staff was run day-to-day by a chief of staff, with a deputy chief of staff in charge of the many logistical components. The commander had a military assistant to run his diary and support him with his various military duties and a personal assistant to bring cups of tea, his glasses, and drive him everywhere meant that he could devote himself fully to making informed decisions and leading the many troops under his command. By comparison, commanders in the days before the staff system was developed in the Napoleonic Wars had to do almost everything themselves, as Marlborough did, with perhaps one or two close advisers. It seems madness that we have the latter, more primitive, option for our national leaders, especially when you consider how utterly bloated our state has become.

Sadly, it seems our Government is still run along lines closer to Napoleonic militaries than modern - Northcote–Trevelyan, of course, was commissioned in 1853, and remains the bedrock of the ‘modern’ Civil Service.

However, even though it’s clear that better stratification of the three strategic levels of command would improve government, there is still a problem with the framework.

Focusing exclusively on the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war overlooks the critical role of military institutions that develop and prepare units for the battlefield. In a piece called ‘The Institutional Level of War’ for Strategy Bridge in 2016, Daniel Sukman argued that the success of operations like Desert Storm stems largely from the military’s performance at the institutional level of war in the lead-up to the conflict.

While success during a conflict is often measured by defeating the enemy, much of the credit belongs to those who shaped the foundation for victory; as he argues, “credit for military success belongs to those who authored Field Manual 100-5, Air Force Manual 1-1, and developed the Air-Land Battle Concept as much as it does to those who executed it.”

However, Sukman’s argument is a little more complex than it first appears. The success of the physical battle rests neither solely on the initial concept’s authors nor on those who implemented it but, instead, with the institutions that continually refined and embedded the concepts into the military. These institutions bear specific responsibilities, such as developing warfighting concepts, doctrine, and weapons systems. They also oversee the education and training of service members, from basic training to advanced professional development at war colleges. When I first read it, this struck me as a useful concept to introduce & apply to right-wing politics.

When wars occur, the needs of operational forces shape institutional practices. However, in future wars, operational planners will rely on capabilities conceived and developed years—or even decades—earlier.

If the operational art focuses on drawing arrows on a map, then an institutional art is required to ensure that the people at the “pointy end” of those arrows are equipped, trained, and ready to succeed. Leaders in institutional art and science must not only anticipate future adversaries but also predict the capabilities those adversaries may employ. Sukman defines the institutional art as “the creative thinking used to design force capabilities and structure for employment in global operations.”

During peacetime, militaries and the defence industry don’t cease to exist – they continually prepare for the next conflict. Creating an institutional level of war effectively guides peacetime activity to desired policy ends. The Conservatives are, for the first time in 14 years, on a peace-footing - in that the demands of office are not driving operational priorities or institutional practices, as they do in military branches during wartime.

That means we – and the British right more generally – need to think about the lessons learned from the last 14 years, and think about how to overcome the problems that defeated us last time. Alongside that, as I mentioned in my last article, one of main problems was that the decks of ministers were being swamped by lower level decisions, rather than cleared for important issues, and that we need massive increases to the size of Ministerial teams and to put more effort and thought into the talent pipeline.

Applying the institutional level of warfare to right-wing politics could provide a lot of the answers we need to, as Sukam put it, ‘shape the foundation for victory.’ Creating an institutional level of right-wing politics that works on similar lines to that of the military – one that works ‘to ensure that the people at the “pointy end” of those arrows are equipped, trained, and ready to succeed.’