Courage at any price

The immediate response of the public, whose respect for the Armed Forces stands high… would be an emphatic yes. Yet pay cannot be set by attempting to price courage or a willingness to make sacrifices. Such things are, literally, priceless: valour, heroism and human life are not measured in pounds and pence. For any job wages must be set simply to recruit and to retain staff of the right quality. Setting wages therefore requires a shrewd understanding of the motivation of recruits. Soldiers do not enlist primarily for money. Challenge, excitement, training, the chance to serve: these are all more powerful reasons for joining up… The State’s failure to honour the service of soldiers is not in the modesty of pay, but the inadequacy of equipment, and the shabbiness of conditions. Our soldiers should have the best equipment available; be certain that the accommodation for their families is better than the dilapidated barracks too often available for married personnel; and know that the care they would receive were they injured would be comprehensive.

This raises the question of cost. If pay is increased above the rate of inflation, where will the money be found, what programmes must be cut and what signal does this send to public sector wage negotiators amid a worsening economic outlook? …So the government must be hardheaded in its response to General Dannatt. Over time, however, military spending will need to rise… The government cannot keep looking away from the fundamental issue of defence spending that arises from its military commitments. This country cannot will wars and decide upon interventions and then fail to provide the means to fight them successfully.

Excerpted from ‘Army pay: the wages of war’ in ‘The Times’