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http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee 244 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies Núm. 9 / 2017 In the United Kingdom, because this low level of normativization, the process has traditionally been agile and responsive. It has also called for friction and inconsistencies, because it is highly based on personal judgements and relationships,25 which makes it vulnerable to breakdowns of trust between politicians and senior military officers.26 The British system maintains a typically “Huntingtonian” separation of functions between politicians and soldiers by virtue of which the former set political objectives and muster national resources, while the latter conduct military operations to achieve the objectives set at the political level. The experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan exposed the vulnerabilities of the system in different ways. For example, it evidenced the absence of a shared understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the key players,27 or the lack of sufficient political oversight over military activities a priori of tactical level, but with important strategic and political consequences. To fix these deficiencies, the British government initiated a review of the policy-making process, completed in 2015, to streamline the structure so as to make it more clear in the allocation of responsibilities, and more effective. The reviewed system is based on a strong Ministry of Defense and maintains the same “Huntingtonian” division of labor. It provides for military advice to the Prime Minister and the Government through the Chief of the Defense Staff (CDS), but has restricted military influence by withdrawing the direct participation of the Chiefs of Staff of the services in the process, replacing it with the consolidated contribution of the CDS. Additionally, the new system has created a National Security Council (NSC) modeled after the one in the United States, in which the CDS is only an ad hoc participant. Experience shows how the policy-makers tend to circumvent the process when and how they see fit. During the Blair years, for example, the PM conferred the CDS a strong role in his decision-making process, to the point that someone suggested that “an ‘executive of two’ was running the decision-making.”28 25  DE WAAL, James, Depending on the Right People. British Political-Military Relations, 2001-10, (London: Chatham House, 2013), p. 19. 26  Ibid. VI. 27  PORSTOKEN, Lord Levene of et al., Defense Reform. An Independent Report into the Structure and Management of the Ministry of Defence, (London: Ministry of Defence, 2011), p. 14. 28  ELLIOTT, Christopher L., High Command. British Military Leadership in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 172.

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