The Transformation of the Army Reserve: the Origins, Evolution, and Impact of Future Reserves 2020 on Reserve Logistics
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The Transformation of the Army Reserve: the Origins, Evolution, and Impact of Future Reserves 2020 on Reserve Logistics Submitted by Patrick Bury to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Security, Conflict and Justice on 22 September 2016. This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature: ………………………………………………………….. 1 Abstract In July 2013 the British Government unveiled its Future Reserves 2020 (FR20) policy, which aimed to radically change the role and function of the Army Reserve by making it both more capable and more deployable. One of the policy’s central organising principles was its focus on outsourcing military logistics capability previously held in the regular army to reserve forces in order to save costs. Reserve logistics transformation was therefore deemed central to the success of FR20. This thesis examines the origins, evolution and impact of FR20 as an attempt to organisationally transform the British Army Reserve’s logistics forces. In first detailing the historical, political and conceptual origins of FR20, it argues that reserve transformations rarely succeed in the manner envisaged; that the intensely political origins of FR20 have shaped the policy during each step of its development; and that the radical change in the delivery of military logistics since 2000 which underpins FR20’s emphasis on logistics is best understood through a post-Fordist analytical framework. Examining the impact of FR20 at the reserve sub-unit level, it argues that many units will struggle to deliver the capability required of them, but in other areas, such as integration with the regulars and increased professional opportunities, FR20 is succeeding. Quantitative evidence is presented to support these arguments. It then details how reserve logistics cohesion is different from that of regular combat forces, and shows how such inherent micro-level organisational factors can influence transformation. Finally, the wider implications of FR20 as a transformative attempt are discussed. This thesis’s central argument is that the political origins of FR20 within Parliament, and the Army Reserves’ organisational nature, have undermined the policy’s ability to deliver the key military capabilities it envisaged of reserves logistics units. However, in some important cultural/normative aspects, FR20 is slowly transforming the reserves. To date, FR20 has therefore been a ‘partial transformation’. In making this argument, this study contributes to the literature on the British Army Reserves, and military logistics, cohesion and transformation. 2 Contents Chapter One: Future Reserves 2020 and Transformation ....................................................................... 5 Chapter Two: Definitions, Research Design, and Methods ................................................................. 38 Chapter Three: Balancing Budgets, Strategy and Recruitment: Previous Reserve Reforms .................. 57 Chapter Four: ‘A Finger in the Wind Thing’: FR20 and the Struggle for Organisational Survival ...... 89 Chapter Five: Post-Fordism and the Transformation of Military Logistics ........................................ 133 Chapter Six: FR20 at the Logistics Sub-Unit Level: Delivering Capability? ................................... 183 Chapter Seven: Sub-Unit Perceptions of Cohesion, Readiness and FR20 ........................................... 225 Chapter Eight: FR20 and Cohesion ...................................................................................................... 252 Chapter Nine: FR20, Transformation and Society ............................................................................... 294 Annex A: Survey Method ............................................................................................. 340 Annex B: Restricted Interview List .............................................................................. 347 Annex C: Survey .......................................................................................................... 348 Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 363 3 ‘I don’t find it hard to change, But some people seem to, And some countries seem to, And some institutions seem to, But it is particularly important.’1 Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defense, comments to media, 22 September 2002. 1 Seely, H. (2003) Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld, London: Simon and Schuster, 9. 4 Chapter One Future Reserves 2020 and Transformation On 3 July 2013 in the House of Commons, the then Defence Secretary Philip Hammond outlined perhaps the most radical transformation of the Territorial Army (TA) attempted since its inception 105 years before. Summarising the new Future Reserves 2020: Valuable and Valued (FR20) policy, Hammond announced that in order to arrest the decline of the reserves and better integrate them with the regular armed forces, the government was investing £1.8 billion over the next ten years in reserve equipment, training and re-numeration.2 £1.2 billion of this investment would focused on the TA – by far the largest of Britain’s four reserve forces – to increase both its size and military capability. The quid pro quo of this investment was that the reserves would increase their military capability, become much more closely integrated with the regulars, and deploy more often. As Hammond outlined: ‘The job that we are asking our reservists to do is changing, and the way in which we organise and train them will also have to change’3, while FR20 itself went on to state that ‘We will use our Reserve Forces to provide military capability as a matter of routine, mobilising them when appropriate’.4 Decisively for this study, FR20 placed major emphasis on outsourcing military logistics capability previously held in the regular army to an expanded and more deployable reserve logistics component. Crucially, as explored in this work, FR20 outlined significant changes to the capabilities expected of reserve logistics sub-units, stating 2 Ministry of Defence (2013) Future Reserves 2020: Valuable and Valued, (White Paper) London: HMSO. Henceforth Future Reserves 2020. 3 Hansard (2013) Statement to House of Commons on Reserve Forces, 3 July, available at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm130703/debtext/130703- 0001.htm#13070366000004 , retrieved 10 September 2016; Future Reserves 2020, 12. 4 Future Reserves 2020, 12. 5 ‘Greater reliance will be placed on the Reserves to provide routine capability… primarily in the areas of combat support (artillery and engineers), [and] combat service support (such as logistics, medical)’.5 Such a transformation foresaw the centralisation of reserve units and their incorporation into the army’s new tiered readiness structure, ‘Army2020’. This new vision articulated a step-change in the prominence of the reserve army in British defence policy and a major transformation of a force that had traditionally been a part-time militia of citizen-soldiers. The challenge was great, but with Hammond stressing the investments to be made to the reserves in numerous areas, FR20 received wide cross-party support in the House that day. The attempt to transform Britain’s reserve army from a strategic to an operational reserve had begun. This thesis examines the origins, evolution and impact of FR20 as an attempt to organisationally transform the British Army Reserve’s logistics forces. In doing so, I address three inter-related research questions: 1. What are the historical, organisational and conceptual origins of FR20? 2. What is the impact of FR20 on the reserve logistics forces it was designed to transform? 3. What does this experience of FR20 tell us about professionalism and cohesion in reserve logistics units and, more broadly, the transformation of the Army Reserve? In doing so, my central argument is that the political origins of FR20 within Parliament, and the Army Reserves’ organisational nature, have undermined the policy’s ability to deliver the key military capabilities it envisaged of reserves logistics units. However, in some important cultural/normative aspects, FR20 is slowly transforming the reserves. Thus, my overall argument is that FR20 has been, and will be, a ‘partial transformation’. It is struggling to deliver its central aim of increasing reserve logistics 5 Future Reserves 2020, 22. 6 capability in the timeline required, but conversely, it is gradually changing cultural elements of the Army Reserve. Some micro-level associative patterns, though, are likely to prove more resistant to change. In making this argument I present three original contributions to the academic literature. Firstly and primarily, I provide detailed empirical evidence of the organisational origins and evolution of FR20. In doing so, I originally and significantly contribute to the literature on the British reserves in general, and on FR20 in particular. Secondly, in order to understand FR20’s heavy focus on increasing reserve logistics capability and the policy’s impact on logistics units, I detail how Western military logistics structures and practices