War, debt and recession. Last month’s Strategic Defence and Security Review had to confront a unique combination of difficulties. Secretary of State Liam Fox, opening the Spectator conference on the future of defence procurement, explained the review’s aims. Proudly identifying himself as ‘a hawk on defence and on deficit reduction’ he re-stated his commitment to our front-line capability in Afghanistan. But, until 2015, the ministry will ‘rebalance our strategic direction’ (spend less money). After 2015 it ‘will be about re-growing capability’ (spending more). The MoD aims to order fewer equipment types and all new kit must be affordable, adaptable, inter-operable and exportable. Dr Fox wants to expand the defence industry’s manufacturing base. This will make it less vulnerable to a UK slowdown.
Conference chairman Andrew Neil invited Dr Fox to tell us which officials had decided to invest £3.9 billion in the delayed, overspent and now cancelled Nimrod programme. Dr Fox: ‘When you delve down and ask who authorised what decision you get a very mysterious trail that goes off into the distance.’
Sir Mark Stanhope, the First Sea Lord, gave a stout defence of Trident, and swatted away four of the most common objections to continuous at-sea deterrence. Could we base the warheads on land or in the air? No, they’d be impossible to protect effectively. Shrinking the submarine fleet wouldn’t save much, because support and infrastructure costs would not change. Reducing the patrols might encourage aggressors. Finally, the risk of switching the warheads to a Tomahawk delivery system was that they can carry both nuclear and conventional weapons so an enemy being targeted by UK Tomahawks might assume it was about to be nuked.
The MoD’s general director of strategy, Tom McKane, answered criticisms of the SDSR, rejecting the idea that it was ‘too Treasury-driven’: every defence review since the 1950s has attracted that criticism.
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