The Tory defence policy will be simple: cut, brutally

Wednesday, 13th January 2010

The British military has been horribly overstretched by the wars of the Labour years, says Max Hastings. But the Tories’ only option will be to cut further still. Hideous decisions lie ahead

Big programmes must go. Maybe some Tories cherish private hopes that, once ‘Blair’s wars’ are wound up, they will not have to send British troops to fight overseas. But, as Lord Guthrie observes, something always turns up. Unless Britain withdraws from its international role, we must possess capable armed forces, as today we scarcely do.

I remember being shocked, a year ago, meeting the RAF officer in Kandahar responsible for allocating helicopter troop-carrying resources. He said: ‘The brigadier commanding in Lashkagar wants a capability to move one company tactically once a week’ — scarcely a massive undertaking — ‘and I can’t give it to him’.

Matters have improved a little since then, but the British campaign in Afghanistan remains fundamentally under-resourced. This, when we have in the field barely a third of the number of soldiers deployed in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, and are overwhelmingly dependent on the Americans for helicopters.

The Tories talk a good game. Soldiers were impressed by William Hague and George Osborne when they visited Afghanistan last weekend. A military friend says: ‘They restored my faith in the Conservative party’s capacity to govern.’ But those dreadful numbers will not go away. The expectation is that a new government will swiftly show the door to Stirrup, identified with both poor war management and the Labour government. His most likely successor is the current head of the army, the impressively radical General Sir David Richards.

Richards wants a major overhaul of the armed forces. He said in a recent speech: ‘We cannot go back to fighting as we might have done ten years ago when tanks, fast jets, fleet escorts dominated the doctrine of the three services. Our armed forces will try with inadequate resources to be all things in all conflicts and perhaps fail to succeed properly in any. The risk is such that it’s too serious any longer to be accepted.’

The defence community is braced for change and harsh decisions. It will be a great misfortune if an incoming Tory government fails to exploit this mood quickly, ruthlessly, and constructively — which means with a determination to set strategic priorities rather merely distribute pain equitably. Neither we nor the Tories should be in any doubt that to sustain a serious army within declared spending levels requires cutting the Royal Navy and RAF to the bone.

The armed forces need and deserve budgets that permit long-term planning rather than scissors and paste expedients. If they win the election, the Tories will inherit a once-in-a-generation defence crisis. But with it comes a once-in-a-generation opportunity.