This Strategic Defence Review has been a long time coming. Back when he was still shadow defence secretary, John Healey had promised a ‘strategic defence and security review’ as far back as May 2022. The process was then launched eleven days after the Labour government took office last July. There had been reviews in 2010, 2015, 2021 and 2023, but this one was different, as it would be conducted not by serving Whitehall mandarins but by external reviewers.
The team was led by former Labour defence secretary and Nato secretary general Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, who had overseen the 1998 Strategic Defence Review. The other reviewers were General Sir Richard Barrons, former commander of Joint Forces Command; and County Durham-born Dr Fiona Hill, a Russia expert who had worked as an intelligence analyst in the United States, latterly as a senior director on the National Security Council.
The defence of the realm is not a strategy but a fundamental duty
So how does this ‘root and branch review of UK defence’ intend to ‘make Britain secure at home and strong abroad for decades to come’? Does it fulfil the Prime Minister’s promise to rebuild the armed forces and provide ‘the capabilities needed to ensure the UK’s resilience for the long term’?
Eye-catching spending has been placed front and centre of the review.
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