Defence review: Let the war games begin
The haggling over military assets and the future shape of British defence policy is intensifying as the November deadline for the defence review looms. Today The Times reported that the government plans to mothball all of Britain’s tanks and redirect the funds to modern technologies, such as cyber capabilities and space hardware, in a bid to revitalise the armed forces. This is just the latest in a series of leaks in recent months, which have included proposals to significantly cut Army and Royal Marine personnel.
Every such leak should be taken with a spoonful of salt, as briefings to the media by numerous branches of the armed forces have become a negotiating tool in the lead up to defence reviews. The general trend, however, is emerging. The government does plan to move away from legacy military assets and focus on innovative warfare tools.
This is an approach in line with the views on defence of chief aide Dominic Cummings. The powerful adviser – returning to work after an operation in July – has blogged approvingly of Project Maven, the US Pentagon’s artificial intelligence program, and called for a revolution in military technology. But it would be wrong to say that Downing Street is alone in calling for change. Whitehall’s defence and security establishment has long believed that Britain’s capabilities are incompatible with the requirements of the modern world.
“There’s a genuine feeling in the armed forces that more AI and data is good,” a former senior figure in national security told Reaction. “You can avoid conflict or deal with it very fast when it happens, rather than rolling out old battle tanks.”
The British Army already ranks very low internationally in tank numbers. Ethiopia has almost double the number of the UK’s fleet of 227 Challenger tanks, and Russia has around 100 times more of its own. It is the consequence of the Military of Defence’s increasing focus on tactical assets, such as Apache helicopters and heavy-lift refuelling and battlefield reconnaissance aircraft, which already play key strategic roles in NATO, and were used in the controversial 2011 Libya intervention.
Figures familiar with the Ministry of Defence’s thinking have highlighted low tank numbers as justification for scrapping them altogether and doubling-down on the assets that have been most useful to the military in recent years. “I think there is a logic there and I’m not at all surprised they’re going down that path,” a former senior Whitehall strategist said. “To me, the case is that the navy has a good future. The RAF can go anywhere. What exactly is the Army going to be doing? That is the arm of the armed forces lined up for heavy reductions because it is less useful in the modern world.”
Other sources underscored that the government does not have unlimited resources, particularly after Covid-19. A former adviser to ex-Foreign Secretary William Hague said: “The matter is that we’re not a country rich enough to support a full army, a full navy and a full airforce, and that’s even more the case with the amount we’re not putting into healthcare.”
The financial restraints are made more acute by the Prime Minister’s disinterest in defence. Boris Johnson has typically shown more enthusiasm for Britain’s soft-power abilities, repeatedly using the phrase “soft-power superpower” as Foreign Secretary, than the armed forces. He recently noted that Britain is no longer a major military power, a reality that previous prime ministers have refused to admit to.
But while Downing Street’s interests and the defence establishment’s views are aligned on the need for reform, the defence review’s proposals will likely meet staunch resistance from the Conservative backbenches.
David Davis, the former Brexit Secretary, told Reaction: “It’s a very dangerous thing to allow political fashion to determine defence strategy.” While he believes that cyber security is a problem, Davis cautioned that the unintended consequences of dramatic shifts in defence organisation could be severe. “On the intelligence front, we have often funded our actions of one form of terrorism by running down our actions on traditional defence, against the Russians,” he said. “That hasn’t worked out so well.”
Another Conservative backbencher noted, with derision: “What do they mean by ‘mothball’ – will they destroy them (tanks)? This sort of political guesswork shows that Whitehall has lost the trick on defence planning.”
Downing Street would do well to note the experiences of Margaret Thatcher, who struggled to implement a cut in army numbers in her second term despite a 144 seat majority. Today’s parliamentary party may be younger and less interested in defence, but, in the words a former government adviser, “bear in mind that a lot of the soldiers who will lose their jobs will be poor men from northern towns.”
The new defence programme will be part of the wider Integrated Review into foreign policy and general security. Its purpose is to bring to reality the promises of a post-Brexit Global Britain, but each modification will come at a cost. Today’s jostling over limited resources shows that transforming the UK’s global posture will be easier said than done.