THOUGHTS ON THE IMPERMANENCE of force must include the effects our armed forces have had on their operational theatres; the skills we need; developments in our role, the way we operate and our strategy and the need to move towards effects-based campaigning by undergoing Transformation and developing a Network Enabled Capability.

To start with the use of force. In 1775, speaking on conciliation with the US, Edmund Burke said, "The use of force alone is temporary. It may subdue for a moment but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered". This is perhaps a blinding glimpse of the obvious and you could find instances of Burke being wrong, but he does put his finger on the persistence of military effect, or lack of it. Nowadays, given that ideally diplomatic, economic, political, social or humanitarian levers must first be used when the threat of force, or force itself, may have to apply, we have to be clever, light on our feet and we have to gain asymmetric advantage. The military effect we achieve must be precise if we are not to derail the progress we have made on other strands of non-military activity.

Of course, generating the required military effect isn't new - effects-based warfare has been around forever, and gaining asymmetric advantage and multi-stranded approaches to strategy for almost as long. But developing a military contribution to a joined-up, cross-governmental approach focused on producing a desired outcome when faced with legacy systems, C2 capabilities and thinking, is anything but simple.

Some insist the world has moved on from the post cold-war era but often we are prisoners of our own experience and hostage to decisions taken in that era. Because we drag the legacy of the past behind us, we may find it difficult to tackle the revolution in military affairs or to adjust to the paradigm shift in an agile and precise way. This can leave the MoD open to accusations of equivocation, obfuscation and uncertainty before even considering policy decisions regarding engagement, confliction or exclusion, set against a background of national and international frameworks, laws and organisations. We are working hard at being joined-up but there is room for improvement and it is no wonder we end up dealing with symptoms rather than addressing the causes of conflict.

How do we go about avoiding subduing "for a moment" and removing "the necessity of subduing again"? In the past year or so, our armed forces have been involved in supportive, preventative and offensive operations and in some cases we're still there, from others we've extracted ourselves, although we may have to go back.

To try to answer my own question, I would like to cover some of what we've been up to and to provide a backdrop for some of my later comments. Some of our successes may appear ephemeral, but the value of our contribution in general has been immense. We've learned some good lessons out of operations but we've also tried hard to avoid any particular success leading to dogma - just because it worked last time, doesn't mean it will the next.

First, there is no better example of the importance of high-level strategy with direction so that troops on the ground are in the minds of their commanders and in tune with the political effect required of them, than the continuing Operation Fingal. The UK-led contribution to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan was an unprecedented accomplishment in the time it took to get up and running and an unqualified success in extremely testing and unusual circumstances. ISAF had to operate in a city where the infrastructure was destroyed and assist an administration whose institutions were rudimentary and whose authority was tenuous.

Nevertheless, ISAF made an immediate impact in Kabul and was welcomed by the people. By the time the UK handed over command of ISAF, the Loya Jirga and the election of the Transitional Authority had been completed. Another lesson we learned was that delivering a political/military solution of that nature requires ongoing leadership at the strategic level, and a higher-level headquarters formation than the number of boots on the ground normally would entail because of the political delicacy of the effect required.

Secondly, logistic reach and sustainability was vital on Operation Barras in Sierra Leone, enabling us to deploy forces rapidly into theatre from the UK, take down the West Side Boys and extract forces and hostages expeditiously. The after-effect of the application of precise force had a profound impact on west-African perceptions of UK's strategic intent in the area and re-inforced the peace process.

Thirdly, the need for robust rules of engagement was demonstrated on Operation Jacana where our Royal Marine Commandos were judicious in their return of fire because, with an eye on future peace making, they did not want not to jeopardise the successful ISAF effect and the Loya Jirga process. Incidentally, running a peace-support and a warfighting operation in the same country at the same time was something normally we would not countenance - an example of not being chained to dogma.

Fourthly, we are aware of how we can generate say, an economic effect, through military action. We can see this in the offensive maritime interdiction operations in the northern gulf being conducted by our Armilla patrol in Operation Resinate, where the coalition has all but closed down Iraqi oil smuggling over the past six months. Similarly, we can help alleviate humanitarian catastrophe under the acknowledged primacy of NGOs or provide emergency fire cover, as 19,000 of the armed forces did effectively on Operation Fresco.

Next, the impact of information operations on Operation Bessemer, the UK contribution to Task Force Harvest in Macedonia 15 months ago, effectively shaped the battlespace. As planned, we were in and out of there in 30 days. The operation was a confidence-building measure to convince Albanians to give up arms under an amnesty to demonstrate their acquiescence to a political process. Military liaison teams provided independent verification of arms collection, gained control of the rumour machine, built confidence in the process and so prevented other forms of violence spiralling out of control. The success of the Macedonian elections owes much to that operation.

Finally an equipment lesson. Support helicopters have been a vital factor in manoeuvre and the manoeuvrist approach, enabling vertical envelopment and also re-inforcing the perception of reach, speed of reaction and reassurance to locals undecided on whether to follow a local warlord or the writ of law. The effects we can generate are not just military in nature, the lessons we are learning are about the broader aspects of the use of force in the context of a broader strategy.

Tackling the causes of conflict needs a long-term view and is multi-stranded. The military strand may be the only vital response we can make politically, even if the political end state is not militarily deliverable immediately. Problem countries and conflicts pull you in, making a containment strategy very difficult. And once in, we can expect to remain engaged. As we are seeing in Afghanistan, winning the peace takes time, considerable resources and substantial international leverage. It will be the same with any collapsing state but early engagement can make a big difference, as we are hoping to achieve through an internationally supported security and development plan in Nepal. But what skills do our armed forces need to generate the required effect and what is the future role for a regional power with global responsibilities?

One skill our armed forces require is the ability to operate in a complex environment. The UK operates within international law and the international system where the template is not entirely perfect as the coalition found with intercepting and boarding the North Korean and Cambodian flagged 'SO SUN' under the Missile Technology Control Regime, unfortunately not signed by North Korea or Yemen. The 'SO SUN' was carrying SCUD missiles to a country with a known al-Qaeda problem but the international system does provide the international community with a series of acceptable norms. For instance, the existence of the internationally sanctioned law of the sea [UNCLOS] and the right of relatively free passage is vital to the prosecution of expeditionary operations, unlike basing or overflight rights that require agreement.

But many regimes and individuals wish to break down, constrain or limit the international system to further their own interests and others wish to use it as a weapon, so the context in which our armed forces operate can be murky. This is complicated by mal-positioned borders, for instance, based on treaties between ex-colonial powers even though these are less important in a world that simultaneously is globalising and reverting to tribal, religious or ethnic groupings, giving rise to the tensions, extremism and violence that we seek to mitigate. Going to arbitration isn't always the solution. ICJ rulings are not to everyone's taste as we saw over Nigeria's reaction to the Bakassi peninsular ruling.

If we are to exert leverage and maximise the effect of our lean armed forces, we need skill at tackling the causes and the symptoms of conflict. To do that, we need the imagination to shape events. So far as it is possible, shaping events should be our national strategy where enlightened self-interest coincides with a worthwhile moral cause. Of course, discriminating between enlightened national self-interest and international altruism is difficult, particularly if other countries perceive there to be new-colonial political or economic interests involved!

So, if we wish to tackle causes of conflict by shaping events under the heading of enlightened self-interest, we will have to take risks and incur expenditure under circumstances where the UK military would not initiate anything. But if we do, we have to do it properly, as we did in Sierra Leone. At the time of our intervention there under Operation Palliser, there were cries of "why Sierra Leone"? But following the hard work on Operation Silkman, where our forces retrained the Sierra Leone army, made it democratically accountable, integrated bush fighters and supported the UN mission (UNAMSIL) in stabilising a problem country, there were successful elections in May, so our approach was vindicated. That does not mean we can say: been there, done that, because other problem countries in the region, particularly Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire, are in a parlous state. But stability in Sierra Leone, achieved by shoring up a country rather than dealing with immediate military symptoms, is vital and we must maintain the effect if we are not to go back again.

Deciding when to take risks leads to a third requirement; defence diplomacy that provides a directed telescope, as well as keeping abreast of routine events, bilateral relations, commanders' thinking and possible flashpoints. Assessment of risk or likely causes of conflict is enabled by the DAs, the military missions and the training teams, who allow us to get in early to draw the heat from the fire. If we are unable to shape circumstances before they worsen by tackling causes or pre-empting events, we must be in a position to react decisively.

Finally, to be effective we must maintain credible operational capability and we must be fit to fight. And when not fighting we must be able to conduct the full range of tasks we are called upon to undertake professionally and effectively. Our forces have to be fully trained, equipped, sustainable, adaptable, agile, responsive and deployable, able to operate anywhere in the spectrum of conflict with or without allies.

This is easy to say, but difficult to do and I know there are other views on how we do business. This brings me onto what our role should be. First, we aspire to be a force for good in the world, a role we are still learning but a role that can lay us open to accusations of being self-indulgent. But why be a force for good? The impression made by democratically accountable armed forces is a very powerful one, particularly if their intervention is supported by the country concerned or authorised by the UN. What we achieve is responsible engagement by example and international credibility befitting a permanent member of the Security Council. We are making a difference in the world.

I have mentioned military delivery of a democratic process by integrating hostile forces in Sierra Leone and it is worth recalling the work being done by the British Military Mission in South Africa. Apart from integrating ANC forces into the South African National Defence Force, we have offered our expertise to their peacekeeping mission in Burundi and developed their MOD. We are achieving similar effects in Kenya, helping African peacekeeping forces find African solutions to African problems in line with the G8 New Programme for African Development (NEPAD). All force-for-good stuff!

So what's in it for us? The speed of our response means we can generate early effect by operating at a higher tempo, and with higher leverage than other nations. It gives us inherent leadership of the mission in the early stages, and we have experience in setting up a framework for change, or operating as a framework nation in coalitions; it gives us regional leverage; it supports UK's international investments and gives psychological support to our eight million expatriates abroad.

We aim to be early-in, early-out but this and punching first, does not always earn us plaudits or win us friends because our effect has not been sustained and we have left it to others to carry on where we left off, or we have been accused of posturing to maintain leverage with the US and/or Europe. Early-in, early-out is our desired strategy and is what we have tried to do, as on Task Force Harvest in Macedonia, so we have to tough out any carping, decide what causes we espouse and be consistent.

Aiming to be consistent in the face of the changed strategic context should be evident in the stance we have taken against international terrorism and WMD. This stance has tied us into politico-military campaigns that will last decades because of their diffuseness. We have moved from state-sponsored violence and conventional warfare that we were trained for, to the spectre of such destructive potential vested in an individual or small group that we have to reconsider the way we do business. But we have endured this sort of change before, not just in terms of the immediacy of the threat during the cold war, but in terms of its duration. It is unlikely that we can eradicate terrorism altogether, the challenge is to eradicate it as a force for strategic effect. Much the same goes for WMD. And, apart from being durable, we should also remember that the military contribution to the global war against terrorism, WMD and drugs will keep the armed forces fully occupied for a long time. The complexity of these problems means we have to develop strong and effective linkages and coherent strategies across government.

Recent developments in our strategy reveal our effects-based approach in our SDR New-Chapter thinking where we aim to prevent terrorism emerging by deterring states from harbouring or supporting terrorists, or co-ercing them to stop doing so. We have to disrupt terrorist groups or destroy them, we have to stabilise, as on ISAF/TFH; find and strike in all environments and deter and coerce through SF/TLAM/precision weapons. We must underpin these military effects with defence diplomacy and superior knowledge backed by the capability for rapid decision and precise engagement, focused on the sensor, to decision maker to shooter information flow Ð and we need other capabilities too.

We have learned much from Exercise (SS2) and subsequent ops: we need enablers for high tempo, expeditionary ops, as well as greater reach, more deployability and sustainability. We know we can expect more small-scale ops at long range with little or no infrastructure; and we know there will be only fleeting opportunities to engage. We will need robust and effective command, control, communications and computers, intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (or C4ISTAR including UAVs), the ability to operate in all weathers and round the clock, and we have to allow for this in our resourcing and programming.

In tackling the causes we cannot ignore dealing with symptoms at home, so we have freshened up thinking on MACA. We contribute to the Civil Contingencies Secretariat and other cross-government co-ordination. We have re-assessed the role of reserve forces and developed strategies and tactics to deal with rogue aircraft and shipping, but we have to translate other strands of thinking into our practical capabilities. Two major areas, Transformation and development of a network-enabled capability, will help us develop faster.

You could think of Transformation in terms of the evolution of joint operations that initially aimed to deconflict naval, military and air forces as components in a joint plan. Transformation means fully integrated operations and battlespace against a background of complex new threats such as international terrorism and WMD. It is based on strengthening joint operations and organisations, evaluating new concepts of operation and developing innovative solutions to operational problems and equipping forces for future integrated operations by capitalising on robust scientific and technological development and procurement.

Apart from the US that sets the pace, this is not just for the UK. Allies, especially NATO, have to develop readily available forces instead of in-reserve forces, and require far closer co-operation and higher levels of interoperability through common education, doctrine, training and equipment. Simple deconfliction in space and time will not be enough, military forces have to be closely integrated to synchronise effects.

As well as being the way to fight at operational level, integrated joint operations are our asymmetric advantage, so we should use our ability to synchronise effect, our reach, our C41STAR and our precision capability as a matter of course. I understand the difficulty of achieving this across the alliance, I expect Transformation to advance at different rates and even in different directions in NATO. Fighting in close coalitions previously involved putting liaison teams or officers into parallel headquarters to ease the information flow and to clarify commander's intent. In future this will be less important than the ability to link C2, share data and ease information flow through supporting technology and command procedure, if we are to meet compressed timelines required for synchronising effect and integrating operations. The way we exercise C2 and enable it through information will be crucial.

Crucial to effects-based campaigning, the network enabled capability will link sensors, decision makers and weapons systems so information may be translated into synchronised military effect. In this way we enhance our military capability by allowing existing and planned systems to work together better, enabling improved exploitation of information that gets us inside an enemy's decision action cycle by operating at a higher tempo. The network enabled capability shares the tenets of the US network-centric warfare concept that places the network at the centre of the capability and fits with our aim to provide a coherent network.

The network enabled capability will enable us to sense through multiple diverse sensors, understand by building a shared perception and awareness of the battlespace, develop intent through a dynamic distributed decision-making process and synchronise effects through co-ordination of all forms of effect to achieve a shared objective. High tempo operations will result.

Also, we have to consider future foreign and security policy carefully to ensure military capabilities remain balanced and that we can cope with a range of threats. Against this aspiration resources are limited, despite an extra £3.5bn for defence over the 5R02 period. We may have to concentrate on small-scale expeditionary operations, we will need forces with reach that can be rapidly deployed, sustained and that pack a punch. The future carrier and joint strike fighter (JSF) are examples of this capability, and so is the future rapid effects system (FRES). We need to watch, analyse, think decisively, deploy quickly, get in early, achieve the effect required. recover and reconstitute. This fits the British way of warfare, it keeps us focused on alliances and multinational engagement and it suits our free-booting heritage!

We are also examining how to introduce effects-based planning into MoD's policy planning process. We recognise that the focus of our capabilities must change, particularly as the effects we seek to achieve might not be deliverable by some of our platforms. Our configuration and posture has to change. We may need fewer platforms and greater investment in enablers and precision weapons.

If we wish to maximise our asymmetric capability and to fight cleverly, we've got to get the right kit and the right people properly trained. There is a seam of gold running through our people that I will not have changed, a seam made up of the sort of verities that have always been part of our people's character and makes them the best, makes them win: physical and mental robustness, an ability to handle fear and danger, the importance of leadership, the need to depend on colleagues for survival and a willingness to do things that are contrary to every natural instinct because of a blinding commitment to others. While on this higher plane, having started with Burke, perhaps I should end with one of his well-used quotes as a warning to us all, "It is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to triumph".