We could do so much better in the MoD. It is underpinned by in-house fighting, nepotism and outdated thinking (partly due to Shrivenham Poly majoring on Clauswitz and Sun Tzu!).
Good post LJ.
I cannot, for the life of me, understand the dogmatic adherence at Staff College(s) to the philosophy of a dead Chinaman and a dead German. Arguably, Clauswitzean logic brought us the Great War (the final, climatic battle theory), whereas Sun Tzu speaks in riddles. A couple of years ago I did a foreign staff college and we spent 6 weeks on Clauswitz. As a result, I fully understand friction, fog of war and an overwhelming desire to commence a book-burning.
We should be able to the same we do today with substantially less - procurement, infrastructure, IT and preserving front-line activity should be our key efforts. Why do we have full-time Regulars doing training, HR/Admin, PEd when full-time Reserves would do (and can be mobilised if we really need to take them with us in Ops).
I agree, in part. However, I really don't think that the Air Force will survive with just aircrew and technicians.
If the recent stories from Akrotiri are true, some of this will be down to the thining, and thining, and thining of the support tail. My admin is now down via a defence contractor; well meaning but utterly disconnected with my mission. I have had to explain, on several occasions, that I'd really like to get hard copies of my payslips, for example. Instead they are posted to my support unit ('to save on postage') - in another continent - and told, 'well you can get them on line'. Wrong. Just try and log on to a MOD.UK website in a number of countries and the ISP blocks you. And, of course, no JPA.
I was trying to get back for a conference in the UK that was to be invoiced to another UIN. The Spt unit wouldn't/couldn't book my travel as I was not physically located 'on site' ('not in the contract, Pal' was the helpful reply). I then got in to trouble booking my own flights!
We try to inculcate the manoeuvrist concept and mission command with our people yet require ridiculous levels of oversight of minutiae -
vide 1* approval for biscuits at a meeting.
I could go on. I understand that we need to be lean and cut down on waste, but I think of what costs in my time I incur doing, in effect, other peoples' jobs. ANd then multiply it by X number of personnel in my situation, who are obliged to self-administer, in spite of a system that is to provide support.
Give our people the tools, I suppose, is the strap-line.