Tight finances and a changing role in the world: what prospects for the strategic defence review?

The Paul Richards Column

If you think the Cabinet is a crucible of intrigue and schemes, it is nothing compared to the bosses of Britain’s armed services. The service chiefs make ministers look like amateurs when it comes to spinning and plotting. Like the permanent secretaries running government departments, the men in charge of the army, navy and air force got there by more than just being good at their jobs. They are also masters at politics.

Since Bob Ainsworth announced the second strategic defence review since Labour was elected in 1997, the lobbying has begun in earnest. The First Sea Lord, the Chief of the General Staff and the Chief of the Air Staff have each spoken up for their respective services, sometimes in public, often behind the scenes. They make the case for their services through conviction as well as self-interest; each believes Britain’s security depends on the army, or navy or air force. But the coming strategic defence review will require more than severe cuts to the armed forces. It will need a re-evaluation of who we are and our place in the world in the coming century.

Previous reviews have always presaged cuts. The Options for Change review conducted by the Tories in 1990, following the end of the Cold War, saw total numbers in the armed services cut to 255,000, a reduction of nearly one fifth. Many regiments lost whole battalions, including the Grenadier and Coldstream Guards. The British presence in Germany was halved. This was the period covered in defence minister Alan Clark’s Diaries. Clark became so frustrated with defence secretary Tom King (“what a fool and how objectionable”) that he wrote his own review and gave it directly to Margaret Thatcher.

In 1994, the Tories cut defence spending again with the Front Line First programme, with a further 5% reduction in numbers, and the closure of many military depots, two hospitals, and bases including the navy base on Portland, and RAF Laarbruch in Germany.

The 2003 white paper Delivering Security in a Changing World was preceded by a review under George Robertson, and restructured the army, cut regiments, scrapped several frigates, destroyers and mine-hunters, and reduced the RAF by 7,000. The reductions were justified by the idea of a network enabled capability (NEC), using better information systems to create ‘smarter’ use of resources.

So what are the options for a post-election defence review?

It will be driven by the twin factors of money and necessity. Professor Malcolm Chalmers in a recent paper for the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) suggests a significant reduction of between 10 and 15% in defence spending between 2010 and 2016. Chalmers makes the point that defence cuts should not be seen through the prism of rivalry between services, as the fiercest battles for resources will be within them. He concludes “a moment of choice for British defence decision-makers, as significant for its foreign policy as the decision to withdraw from East of Suez in the 1960s, is fast approaching.” So any review will be tempered by the harsh realities of a Britain much poorer than before.

The planners will then be driven by our future defence needs. It is almost unimaginable that Britain will need to defend itself against attack and invasion by a foreign power, which for a thousand years has been the main point of the army and navy. Nor will Britain need to fight small-scale post-colonial conflicts as it has for much of the previous sixty years. The lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan might also put into question the degree to which Britain can be a major player in armed interventions into failed states or states which sponsor terrorism.

Then there are the big ticket items. The RAF is buying over 200 Eurofighter Typhoons for £20 billion (the orginal estimate given to the House of Commons was £7 billion). The Eurofighter Typhoon, built by a consortium including BAE Systems, was commissioned in 1985, when the Russian tanks were poised to rumble over the plains of West Germany. Britain currently has five guarding the Falkland Islands. When the rest are delivered, it is likely there won’t be the pilots and crews to fly them, so they’ll be mothballed before they’ve been flown.

The Navy has ordered two super-carriers, with 150 US-built F-35 jets, at a cost of £20 billion. They are being built in four UK dockyards including Rosyth, and will sustain 10,000 dockyard jobs. Yet despite their prestige and symbolism, are they the best answer to piracy, rapid deployment to emergencies, or other tasks likely in the twenty-first century?

Max Hastings, in an article in the Spectator a couple of weeks ago, made the point that a serious review would, in effect, abolish the Royal Air Force (RAF). It would be absorbed into the army (from whence it came during WW1) and form part of an integrated service. He makes the point that few politicians would have the courage to announce what Herman Goering failed to do in 1940.

More controversial is Trident. In 2007 Tony Blair announced in Parliament that Britain would renew its Vanguard submarines and update the Trident nuclear missile systems. For the first time since the 1980s, Britain’s nuclear defence will be the subject of a fierce national debate during the defence review. Former defence secretaries Rifkind, Portillo and Denis Healey have raised questions about its strategic value. The Conservative opposition is split on cancelling Trident’s replacement. Osborne wants the cash. Cameron seems agnostic. It would be a supreme irony, and reinforcement of the ‘Nixon in China’ principle, if a future Conservative Government scrapped Trident after a Labour Government had ordered its renewal.

What of the bases? From Germany to Cyprus, to the Falklands to Northern Ireland, there are sound military reasons for maintaining bases abroad, as well as emotional and sentimental reasons. The army would claim that its bases in Germany allow first-rate tank training. A reduction in forces in the Falklands could provoke a second invasion (and this time Britain wouldn’t have the ships to send a task-force). Cyprus provides an important staging point for the middle-east (and some decent beaches for soldiers on leave). Yet Britain has left Hong Kong, Singapore, Aden and various other remnants of Empire in recent years. Surely a further reduction in overseas bases is likely?

It seems like a long time since we talked about the ‘peace dividend’ that would flow into the schools and hospitals after the end of the Cold War. In its 1992 manifesto Labour proposed a ‘defence diversification agency’ to turn swords into ploughshares. A future government will struggle to match our commitments with our resources. The strategic defence review is going to be painful.