Most strategic defence reviews – this is the ninth since the end of the Cold War in 1990 – have two major “strategic” flaws.
The first is that the world changes so fast that they are outdated almost before they are presented to the nation. Not much, to be fair, can be done about that. The second, a more puzzling and abiding failure, is that they rarely give much attention to the essential question predicating any such exercise – what, exactly, are Britain’s armed forces (and the Secret Intelligence Service) going to be asked to do in the coming years?
This is at least as important a consideration as the problem of getting defence spending up to a certain target by a certain date.
If a government chooses the wrong priorities and buys the wrong kit under a set of faulty assumptions, then it doesn’t really matter whether the Ministry of Defence determines that (for example) 2.6 or 2.7 per cent of GDP should be devoted to armaments – especially as GDP can be difficult to predict, and the definition of defence expenditure can be elasticated to include, for instance, service pensions.
Indeed, a more sensible approach might be to set a cash target for spending, irrespective of how the economy performs. After all, if Donald Trump is at liberty to ramp up the required percentage target – and he’s suggested 5 per cent as the figure – then virtually no European nation will realistically be able to achieve it. (Besides, Vladimir Putin doesn’t pay much heed to such statistics, and is more interested in how many drones an enemy possesses.)
Unfortunately, the latest defence review suffers from some of the traditional weaknesses. Just as every such document has done since the Atlantic Alliance was founded by treaty in 1949, it suggests that Nato is central to the UK’s defence.
In the words of Sir Keir Starmer: “The Nato alliance means something profound: that we will never fight alone. It is a fundamental source of our strategic strength. That’s why our defence policy will always be “Nato first.” Something that is written through this review.”
But is that even any longer true? Surely not. For diplomatic reasons, Sir Keir might not feel free to say it, but the Trump administration has made it perfectly apparent that America’s support for Nato is no longer a given. Senior colleagues of the US president, with his evident blessing, informed a gobsmacked European audience at the last Munich Security Conference that America is downgrading its commitment to the security of Europe.
Vice-president Vance even went so far as to argue that it is not Russia, under President Putin, that represents the greatest danger to the freedoms of Europeans: it is the progressive “threat from within”. Perhaps the US intelligence services no longer tell Mr Vance what’s going on inside Russia or occupied Ukraine with regard to religious worship and free speech.
At any rate, under Mr Trump, America’s relationship with Nato is more transactional, and its support cannot be counted on if that would get in the way of the rapprochement with Russia, as its abandonment of Ukraine shamefully proves.
Indeed, in this context, it is reasonable to wonder if our collaborative ties with the US on intelligence and the nuclear deterrent – the foundations of the special relationship – can also be guaranteed on their current basis. The clue that this may not be taken as read can be seen in the proposal that Britain acquire aircraft capable of delivering nuclear warheads, rather than relying entirely on the US-controlled Trident missile delivery systems.
The prime minister can’t say or do anything that might worsen Mr Trump’s attitude to America’s allies; Sir Keir is right to do everything possible to preserve that vital special security and defence relationship. Equally, though, he would be negligent if he did not contemplate the prospect of the transatlantic bond one day becoming looser.
Hence the tilt towards Europe, the formation of the Coalition of the Willing over Ukraine, and the proposed UK-EU defence pact that has emerged from the Brexit “reset”. But if there is to be a new relationship with Europe, including participation in the European Defence Agency, how does that affect the planned expansion of the British defence industry?
Nor are Britain’s wider foreign and defence policy priorities any more a decision uniquely for London. The “global Britain” role envisaged by the last Conservative government suddenly feels out of date. When asked by reporters about the Aukus (Australia-UK-US) defence pact, President Trump professed to be unaware of it.
More forcefully, the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, has told European powers that the Indo-Pacific region is America’s to protect – and that they should stick to defending their own continent.
Where that leaves the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers is an expensive question that remains moot. Will Britain join in the defence of Taiwan, and if so, now? Matters such as the security of the Falklands and other vestigial British obligations have also largely escaped the nation’s attention for decades.
The legal basis for the Diego Garcia base has been established, at a price, but is it overwhelmingly an American, rather than a British, strategic asset?
The other great defence challenge for ministers is in persuading the British public that the threats that are more or less clearly defined in the defence review are real. To many, they feel distant.
Here, the likes of Jeremy Corbyn and Nigel Farage seem to agree that, however barbaric his actions in Eastern Europe, Putin is not going to occupy the UK. The idea that the Russians, still less the Chinese, are about to invade Kent seems absurd. Yet the cyberattacks, the poisonings on British soil, political interference via social media, and the sabotage of communications cables are all very obvious assaults.
The attack on the NHS a few years ago, which left staff resorting to paper and pen, should serve as a warning of Russia’s malign intent. Sir Keir and his colleagues should be remaking the historic argument that it is not in the British national interest for the continent of Europe to be dominated by a hostile power.
That is why Britain fought the Napoleonic wars, two world wars and the Cold War. The cost of deterring Russian aggression, whatever it ends up being as a proportion of national income, will be high – but, as Ukraine also proves, the cost of fighting a war is incalculably higher.
