I asked Ben Wallace MP, the Defence Secretary questions today about Afghanistan and the threat posed by China.
The Joint Committee on National Security Strategy concluded that “recent events in Afghanistan suggest the NSC and cross government machinery that supports its work are inadequate to the task” – so I asked him how he intended to implement its forty recommendations. And to say what role does the National Security Council currently play in term of identifying, discussing, and developing strategies specifically for defence related issues
I pressed him further to say what priorities the Ministry of Defence has in addressing the hard questions put by the NSC, including
• an intelligence failure
• an assessment and analysis failure
• a failure to marshal the vast knowledge and resources;
• group think;
• a reluctance by Ministers and/or senior officials to engage fully with the realities of information presented to them; and/or
• a failure of diplomacy to bring forward an alternative NATO coalition on the ground.
