article

The Ministry of Defence (MOD, pronounced "em-o-dee") is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and the headquarters of the British Armed Forces.

The principle objective of the MOD is to defend the United Kingdom and its interests.Ministry of Defence website, accessed 23 April 2006. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War the MOD does not foresee any short-term conventional military threat; rather, it has identified weapons of mass destruction, international terrorism, and failed and failing states as the overriding threats to the UK's interests. The MOD also manages day to day running of the armed forces, contingency planning and defence procurement.

Defence policy

The 1998 Strategic Defence Review and the 2003 Delivering Security in a Changing World White Paper outlined the following posture for the British Armed Forces:
  • The ability to support three simultaneous small- to medium-scale operations, with at least one as an enduring peace-keeping mission (e.g. Kosovo). These forces must be capable of representing the UK as lead nation in any coalition operations.
  • The ability, at longer notice, to deploy forces in a large-scale operation while running a concurrent small-scale operation.

Senior officials

Ministers

The current ministers at the MOD (since May 2006) are:

Permanent Secretaries

The Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Defence (generally known as the Permanent Secretary) is the senior civil servant at the MOD. The Permanent Secretary (since November 2005) is Bill Jeffrey. The Second Permanent Secretary is Ian Andrews. Peter Spencer is Chief of Defence Procurement. Roy Anderson does the science bit.

Chiefs of the Defence Staff

The current Chief of the Defence Staff, the professional head of the British Armed Forces, is Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup. He succeeded General Sir Michael Walker, on 28 April 2006. General Sir Timothy Granville-Chapman has been Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff since 2005.

Departmental Agencies

1 reporting to the Minister of State (Armed Forces).
2 reporting to the Parliamentary Secretary (Minister for Defence Procurement)
3 reporting to the Parliamentary Secretary (Minister for Veterans)

Origins

During the 1920s and 1930s, British civil servants and politicians, looking back at the performance of the state during World War I, concluded that there was a need for greater co-ordination between the three Services that made up the armed forces of the United Kingdom—the British Army, the Royal Navy, and the Royal Air Force. The formation of a united ministry of defence was rejected by Prime Minister David Lloyd George's coalition government in 1921; but the Chiefs of Staff Committee was formed in 1923, for the purposes of inter-Service co-ordination. As rearmament became a concern during the 1930s, Stanley Baldwin created the position of Minister for Coordination of Defence. Lord Chatfield held the post until the fall of Nevillle Chamberlain's government, in 1940; but his success was limited by his lack of control over the existing Service departments and his limited political influence.

Winston Churchill, on forming his government in 1940, created the office of Minister of Defence to exercise ministerial control over the Chiefs of Staff Committee and to co-ordinate defence matters. The post was held by the Prime Minister of the day until Clement Attlee's government introduced the Ministry of Defence Act of 1946. The new ministry was headed by a Minister of Defence who possessed a seat in the Cabinet. The three existing service Ministers—the Secretary of State for War, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Secretary of State for Air—remained in direct operational control of their respective services, but ceased to attend Cabinet. The Ministry of Defence made steady gains in power and control over the armed forces during the 1940s and 1950s, culminating in the announcement of the abolition of the three Service departments on 4 March 1963.

In 1964, the Ministry of Defence absorbed the operations of the Admiralty, the War Office, and the Air Ministry.

Property portfolio

The Ministry of Defence is one of the United Kingdom's largest landowners, with hundreds of sites across the country, including military training grounds, ranges, storage and distribution centres, barracks, military-family accommodation and administrative buildings, etc. These are largely managed by the Defence Estates agency. A 2005 National Audit Office report values the MOD's estate at £15,300,000,000 and puts the area covered at 2,400 square kilometres (927 square miles) (or just under 1% of UK's land area). This figure has been much reduced since the Second World War and continues to diminish through rationalisation of bases, etc. Of this, a third is classified as "built"; two thirds are "rural" (mostly training areas that are whose natural environments have been little altered). The National Audit Office also estimates annual expenditure on the defence estate at £1,300,000,000.

Henry VIII's wine cellar at the Palace of Whitehall, built in 1514–1516, is in the basement of the Ministry of Defence headquarters (commonly known as "Main Building") in Whitehall, and is used for entertainment. The entire structure was moved a short distance in 1949

Footnotes

References

  • Chester, D. N and Willson, F. M. G. The Organisation of British Central Government 1914–1964: Chapters VI and X (2nd edition). London: George Allen & Unwin, 1968.

External links

Defence ministries | Departments of the United Kingdom Government | Military of the United Kingdom | Westminster

国防省 (イギリス) | Forsvarsministeriet (Storbritannia)

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)".

Home Page • arts • business • computers • games • health • hospitals • home • kids & teens • news • physicians • recreation• reference • regional • science • shopping • society • sports • world