The first duty of government is to protect its citizens. It is hard to believe our current government sees this as its priority when this week it emerged that cuts at the Ministry of Defence could lead to troop numbers falling to just 50,000. This is the lowest level of troops since the 1770s, when Britain lost the American war of independence.
Figures from Malcolm Chalmers at the Royal United Service Institute make worrying reading at a time of such international uncertainty. Since 2010 a lack of MoD funding has seen reductions to the service and civilian personnel of 17 per cent and 28 per cent respectively. These reductions came at a time of ‘exceptional pay restraint’ and with significant challenges around the corner.
Chalmers sets out two possible scenarios, an optimistic and a pessimistic forecast for the next parliament. Over the next four years the personnel budget would have to increase by 10 per cent to maintain 2015-16 numbers. The optimistic scenario would see a reduction to 130,000 service personnel by 2019. Under the pessimistic scenario the number of regular personnel across the three forces could drop to 103,000 leaving an army of just 50,000.
While this is a distressing picture overall, these figures represent job losses and insecurity for thousands of individuals who signed up to risk their lives protecting their country.
It is also a long way from David Cameron’s commitment at the 2014 Nato Wales summit in Newport to maintain our Nato obligation to spend two per cent of GDP on defence. On current assumptions by 2015-16 it will have dropped to 1.95 per cent. The government are only able to claim they meet the obligation by adding war pensions to the figure and then rounding up.
The promise to spend two per cent of our GDP is an important one. It demonstrates our commitment to keeping the British public safe, it reinforces the principle of solidarity among our Nato allies and it sends a signal to the rest of the world that we take our international obligation to maintain a safer world seriously. It is the height of hypocrisy for ministers to lecture our allies on the importance of this commitment when they fail to meet it themselves.
Part of the reason for this deterioration of our forces is two botched reviews conducted in 2010. The national security strategy and strategic defence and security review were conducted at breakneck speed to justify large cuts across government. The changing threats our country has faced since the end of the cold war, such as international terrorism and cyber-attacks, make a robust security strategy essential to keeping the country safe. Despite their names, neither review set out the strategic approach necessary to meet these threats head on.
Lack of strategy leads to disconnected decision making. Flip-flopping on the aircraft carriers without any aircraft has pushed the price to £6.2bn. Delaying the decision on renewing Trident will add £1.4bn to the cost. Last month the National Audit Office criticised the MoD for wasting two and a half years and £33m after scrapping their undeliverable GoCo proposal for purchasing defence equipment and support.
The public administration committee, chaired by former Tory shadow defence secretary Bernard Jenkin, examined this issue back in 2010 and concluded ‘the answer we received to the question, “Who does UK Grand Strategy?” is: no one’. Government will need to learn take a strategic view of defence policy, whilst there are still staff left at the MoD to do so.
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Rowan Ree is a member of Progress. He tweets @RowanRee
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