The unfolding political events in the Middle East have already raised serious doubts about the viability of David Cameron’s ‘slimmed down’ foreign policy with its simplistic focus on using our global embassy network to promote UK Plc. Equally, the need for a military response to the Arab spring has exposed the confusion at the Ministry of Defence over Britain’s strategic defence capability.
I last wrote here about the government’s strategic defence and security review in November. The review proposed cuts of £4.7bn over four years, equalling an overall cut to defence spending of 8 per cent over that period. But confidence in this figure seems to be fast unravelling and there is a strong suspicion that it has not been fully costed by the Ministry of Defence. No one can now confidently say how much money will have actually been taken out of the defence budget by the end of the spending review period in 2014-15.
Within a couple of months the real-world events which the government hadn’t considered during its rushed review forced the Treasury under pressure to plunge an extra £1bn into the Ministry of Defence budget to cover the costs of some operations in Libya and elsewhere. This included paying £250m for the overdue upgrade on the UK’s aging Puma helicopters, most of which went into service in 1971, and which were needed for the ongoing mission in Afghanistan.
The indecision on long-term strategy isn’t helped by the different statements coming from government ministers. Nick Clegg has suggested that ‘adjustments’ would be made where necessary to the MoD budget, yet a week later William Hague told Adam Boulton that the government was not reconsidering the big decisions on defence spending.
A chorus of experts, including Professor Malcolm Chalmers, have now warned that this stopgap from George Osborne ‘doesn’t address the medium-term funding gap. We [will] have this funding gap every year from now on for the next four years’. The current situation is storing up problems for the future; if Liam Fox can’t secure funding to maintain ongoing missions then how can our armed forces be expected to deploy to new theatres such as Libya?
In Libya, for example, the extent of the UK’s defence deployment has caused serious military strain and financial cost. For the last few weeks a Trafalgar class Royal Navy submarine has been regularly firing Tomahawk cruise missiles, and RAF Tornados have undertaken flights from RAF Marham in Norfolk which is a 3,000-mile round trip costing £200,000 per aircraft. Equally, our Typhoon jets are stationed in Italy and undertaking flights to support the no-fly zone alongside Hercules planes and two Royal Navy ships. Air-to-air tankers are needed to refuel the Tornados, and then there are AWACS, service costs, and the deployment of Special Forces.
All this costs money which the military doesn’t have, and short-sighted tactics from the Treasury and Ministry of Defence to plug the defence budget demonstrate the weakness of the founding assumptions upon which the strategic defence and security review was conducted. Notably that the UK could take a back seat on foreign policy while still maintaining its permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and as the leading military power in Europe.
If the UK is indeed serious about leading Europe on foreign and security policy then David Cameron now needs to swallow his pride agree to Jim Murphy’s calls for the defence review to be reopened. A new review should urgently examine possible long-term approaches to the UK’s strategic defence capability. It should also answer key questions about the UK’s strategic reach in theatres outside Europe and north Africa. As many observers have already pointed out, the UK’s capacity to respond to the Libyan crisis was made significantly easier because of the existing base in Cyprus, and the use of Italian bases from which to launch Tornado flights. The decision to scrap the UK’s last aircraft carrier, Ark Royal, along with the Harrier jets has been strongly criticised as limiting future long-range deployments, both in terms of cost and logistics.
The review should also propose a coherent approach to our use of alliances such as NATO and the EU. The UK has had to provide leadership politically and military on intervention in Libya, alongside France. Yet the government’s lack of clarity about the future of defence capability de facto affects our position with NATO in the future, especially if the United States makes a habit of its interesting ‘engaged, but not in charge’ approach.
Lastly, a new defence review must articulate a coherent policy for conflict prevention rather than simply relying on Cameron’s strategy of conflict avoidance. The status quo on defence and security policy – from the UK’s arms sales policy, to our reliance on so-called ‘stable’ but oppressive leaders – require a thoughtful response from the government; so far this is woefully lacking.
there must be no ‘military intervention’ ; Arab ‘spring’ as you jauntily call it (yes and others) belies the remorsefully too hard to call nature ( been there done that) the brass that we have sent wear plimsolls remember,for good reason.WE are not there ,Nato /UN is , this increases financial capacity .If war were to escalate think of refugee problem for a start,and the immigration tide turn mood is bad enough already – throughout Europe.Our carriers/jets should be held in common with Europe. Obviously intelligence on the ground is paramount at the moment so we (?) don’t bomb any more weddings.
A very balanced and trutfull analysis of the current Defence Problem. It’s odd, but every time the UK has had decent equipment, the Government scraps it, closes bases and lay people off, losing very needed experience. The Harriers are is still the only capable VTOL airframes, capable of launching from wherever under any circumstances within the smallest time-frame. Couple that to existing and PROVEN carriers, we would have been able to forestall the Misrata problem (and all other problems east and wet in the mountains), much cheaper and effective. You don’t sell your best car before you ‘ve got a new and better one. And what is down the future road, beyond our will? Britain always needs maritime projection power. It had it, so keep it until the supercarriers are ready and equiped with fixed wing aircraft. On a lighter note, if we had a WWII vintage battleship in reserve, let her bombard the forces of Kadhafi. (30 km range!) The Harriers must come back and Ark Royal too. And remember: Freedom is never free. Jan
blimey what are you Jan, an arms dealer?
Hi Jan – interesting points about scrapping hardware that works. I agree with you that Freedom isn’t Free, but we also need to have a debate about what we are willing to contribute to defence, and what we can realistically hope to achieve with the level of investment. The problem to date is that the Government is trying to convince people we are sufficiently resourcing our armed forces to achieve global reach, and we aren’t. I’m not necessarily in favour of more defence spending, just a more transparent debate. David