Book excerpt: The Defence White Paper (Cm 6041-I,II, ISBN 0101604122) published in December 2003 discussed the implications of international security issues (such as the threat of international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction) for strategic defence priorities, and detailed a revised set of 18 military tasks to underpin future policy planning for the UKs armed forces. Following on from this document, this White Paper sets out the Governments five-year plan for force structure and organisational changes to deliver the revised capability requirements, with an emphasis on using technology to secure maximum military effect from the forces available. This is in order to continue the process of modernisation to provide flexible and adaptable armed forces and to achieve efficiency savings of £2.8 billion by 2007-08, as identified in the Governments 2004 Spending Review. Measures include phased reductions of 1,500 in navy and 7,500 in air force manpower, with an expected army manpower level of 102,000 by 2008; with investment in several major technology systems to support the Network Enabled Capability (NEC) programme.