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. £15 billion will go towards new warheads for the nuclear deterrent, to be carried by the new Dreadnought-class submarines; up to twelve new SSN-AUKUS attack submarines; £1.5 billion to improve service housing; £1.5 billion to build at least six munitions factories and £6 billion to procure munitions over the remainder of this parliament; and £1 billion for digital capability and a new CyberEM Command. Already that comes to £25 billion.
John Healey had said there was ‘no doubt’ that the UK will spend 3 per cent of GDP on defence by the end of the next Parliament in 2034; left exposed by Downing Street, he downgraded that to an ‘ambition’. When the Prime Minister was asked to give a firm commitment to a spending level of 3 per cent, he refused to engage in ‘performative fantasy politics’, and yet we are expected to take at face value his assurance of ‘100 per cent confidence’ that the review’s recommendations will be delivered. It will come as little surprise that unnamed Whitehall sources have claimed they are ‘unaffordable’ without 3 per cent spending.
This is not really a ‘strategic’ review at all. Was it a Freudian slip which led the BBC website to dub it the ‘defence spending review’? It is a more accurate description. The Prime Minister set out three goals for the implementation of the review: to move the UK to ‘war-fighting readiness’; to add to the strength of Nato; and to ‘innovate and accelerate innovation at a war-time pace’.
But the trouble is that all of these answer the question ‘how?’, not the more fundamental question of ‘why?’. Setting aside for a moment the affordability of all of the plans announced – new submarines, new armaments factories, new stockpiles of munitions, better housing – the SDR has not started from first principles.
What is the UK’s place and role in the world? What are our vital national interests and goals? Where do we most want and need to project force and exert influence? What capabilities do we need to achieve these goals? Are we fundamentally a maritime power which concentrates on securing trade routes, supply chains and infrastructure connections? Or do we anticipate engaging fully in a large-scale land conflict?
The last major examination of defence priorities – the 2021 Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy – identified a ‘vision for the UK in 2030’, a strategic framework of policy objectives and priorities, and an outline of the required actions to achieve them. Commissioned by Boris Johnson, it was undertaken by a team led by Professor John Bew, his Downing Street foreign policy adviser, and was a thorough, methodical strategy document. Sir Keir Starmer has produced a warmed-over, managerial bowdlerising of Vegetius’s dictum qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum: ‘If you want to deter conflict,’ the PM told the BBC, ‘then the best way to do that is to prepare for conflict.’
What the government has produced is a list of purchases and some semblance of a capability review. Restoring stockpiles of munitions and investing in manufacturing capacity is no more a strategic decision than filling a car’s petrol tank is for planning a journey. Improving service accommodation may help recruitment and retention but should be done anyway, and has no bearing on purpose. Acquiring ‘up to’ twelve new SSN-AUKUS attack submarines (a commitment which must be regarded sceptically) is not linked to our strategic posture, save an underlying assumption that Russia may attempt to disrupt undersea infrastructure.
What is the UK’s policy towards China and Indo-Pacific security? Do we intend to contribute to safeguarding maritime commerce through the Red Sea? Are we still committed to providing a war-fighting division for Nato in Europe? Starmer’s answer is that the SDR provides ‘a blueprint to make Britain safer and stronger: a battle-ready, armour-clad nation’.
The defence of the realm is not a strategy but a fundamental duty. Strategy lies in what governments seek to achieve beyond that. The SDR has not given us an answer.
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