Judge warning MoD over equipment

[Bunker Mentality]

Risk aware or risk averse?

There are never enough resources to do everything we want, so decisions have to be made about priorities. In making those decisions, assessments of risk need to be made. Risks can be managed and reduced, but they can't always be eliminated. Often, however, the wisdom of accepting or rejecting a particular risk receives no attention at all from the wider public untill something goes wrong. By that time, the context in which the decision was taken to allocate resources in a particular way will have been forgotten, and the relative priorities prevailing at the time a decision was taken may have changed. The unwillingness of politicians and public alike to accept casualties in current operations is an example of this. So, a decision to prioritise, say, defensive aids for a fast-jet fleet over fire-retardent filling for transport ac fuel tanks looks very different today from when it was made n years ago. The 20/20 hindsight available to coroners and high court judges is, sadly, not available in reverse to those who have to make decisions now that will affect future capabilities.

One of the most important tools military commanders have is the ability to take calculated risks. Let us suppose that a commander chooses to use a particular aircraft in a support role during an operation, even though he knows it is carrying a number of defects. There is a war on, after all, and the commander assesses that the contribution this ac and crew could make to protecting the lives of troops on the ground, through increasing the likelihood of rapid success, outweighs the slightly increased risk to the aircrew invovled. Let us further suppose that everything goes to plan and everyone gets home safely in time for tea and medals. What have the public and the judge to say in this case?

Then look at the other alternative - the commander takes the same risk, but this time a combination of factors involving at least one of the known defects results in the loss of the aircraft and its crew. Fortunately, the work already done by this crew and others have helped set the conditions for the operation as a whole to succeed, but the tragic loss of the brave men and women on the aircraft causes outrage in the media. What have the public and the judge to say now?