Defence Review

Amidst all the detail of the defence review I think it's important to remind ourselves of a few key facts. The most important is that, for all those on the right claiming that these cuts are 'a joke', Britain will still have the fourth largest defence budget in the world following this review. Not only that, but spending levels will be well above the NATO baseline of 2 per cent of GDP and the cut of 8 per cent in real terms still amounts to a cash increase over the next four years. 

Is this a spending review or a defence review?

The question of whether or not this is a spending review masquerading as a defence review is a false one. You cannot conduct a defence review without taking into account what you can afford. That is obvious and unavoidable. What Labour are alleging is thus that what the defence review does is not to find an appropriate balance, but to put the spending issue first and defence second. For example this is, according to Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy, what leads the government to take decisions that leave us without any aircraft for our carriers for ten years.

Is this review short-term or long-term?

The carrier decision plays into a larger debate about the nature of the review: is it short-term or long-term? Cameron was unequivocal. It was a long-term review. And because of the state of our finances, that leaves the government having to make a strategic gamble. Leaving the new carriers without aircraft and decommissioning the Ark Royal (our current carrier) immediately leaves a gap in defence. The government has obviously determined that our ability to respond to the threats the country faces over the short term - the next 5-10 years - is not likely to be reduced. 

What are the threats Britain faces?

That is because they anticipate focussing their effort and money into intelligence, diplomacy, international aid programmes, counter-terrorism and the like. These are the first four of the eight areas laid out on pp11-12 of the Strategic Defence and Security Review. They also fit in more broadly with the direction our foreign policy is taking under William Hague. His speeches have all discussed the need for Britain to remain an active player in the world, something which Cameron reiterated today. It was not surprising to see more money given to counter cyber-terrorism, given how much coverage this has had in the press recently. 

When it comes to using our armed forces, it was telling that there will be no cuts to special forces outfits like the SAS. Aside from the unaffected current levels of commitment in Afghanistan it's pretty clear that the government is planning to make the army smaller once we pull out. 

What does this mean for the future?

The government announced that the Defence Review will be conducted every five years. While this is a welcome innovation, it is partly because the government want to delay making key decisions until the next parliament. Hence the postponement of a decision on Trident (which also saves £700 million). The future is not bleak for the armed forces though. There will still be money for new projects once the economy is back on its feet, and given how shockingly wasteful the MoD has been/is it can't really be surprised that it has lost a few things. 

Continuous Nuclear Deterrent

Is the ability to launch a strike against any target at any time the same thing as having a nuclear deterrent? No, it is not.

Currently, we have one Trident submarine on patrol somewhere in the world at all times. It is the expensive basis for our nuclear deterrent at the moment. But it needn't be. We could just as easily have periods where there were no subs out at sea and continue to have an effective deterrent. We wouldn't be able to strike any target at any time but, providing our subs' movements remained secret, our enemies would never know at what time we had subs at sea or at home. Furthermore, one submarine would always be ready to put to sea, so that at times of increased risk our deterrent would retain its ability to strike any target at any time.

This might seem flawed, and it is certainly open to the accusation that our opponents would simply wait until our subs were at port and then launch a nuclear attack. While that has some merit from a theoretical perspective, realistically it has none. At most there is a very slight risk of nuclear attack on the UK. And even then, the threat is from a small scale dirty bomb not some Cold War-era missile. Faced with this terrorist nuclear threat Trident would be of precisely no use anyway, as we'd have no-one to fire the thing at.

If you then consider that a British government is supremely unlikely to ever actually launch a nuclear strike - given that it's a wholly unethical thing to do and could escalate conflict into all-out nuclear war - then cutting back on the ability to launch at any target at any time is a very sensible, practical cost-cutting measure. It also has the benefit of signalling to the world that we are not a nuclear threat - it's not hard to feel uneasy when a country you don't trust has this capacity, and not everyone trusts us - while maintaining our nuclear deterrent and our 'prestige' as a nuclear power.

In the end, we wouldn't really be sunk if our enemies discovered our subs were all in port, because we'd always retain the ability to quickly put to sea. Most importantly, by not scrapping Trident outright and instead scaling it back slightly we can retain our nuclear capabilities so that if a new Cold War emerges we can rapidly return to a permanent any-target-any-time deterrent. The funds freed would also allow Liam Fox and the MoD to focus on the type of threat we face now, which is not nuclear but low-tech, low-intensity conflict in places like Afghanistan.