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In a recent debate in the House of Lords, former Service Chiefs savaged Gordon Brown and Des Browne the Minister for Defence, all against a background of our Forces being engaged in both Iraq and Afghanistan and suffering from equipment shortages, defence spending is therefore a headline matter. As a result, the hapless Des Browne got an Admiral to write a short report on the Royal Navy hoping to demonstrate that as the Trident replacement programme was under way, Astute Class submarines coming into service plus two new Aircraft Carriers were all going ahead, the result would be favourable and the Government could say that clearly they weren’t neglecting our Armed Forces.

Sadly, leaking information has become all too common so it was hardly a surprise when someone leaked the resulting 14 page document to the press. Over a 20 year period the Fleet has been roughly halved in numbers and as the average age of the ships is now 17 years old and regular maintenance has been cut, the effectiveness has been reduced even further. In all fairness, this process started under a Conservative Government as people looked for a “Peace Dividend” from the ending of the Cold War but never the less, there has been noticeable and increasing neglect over the past decade. This is totally odd as our forces have never been so heavily used in“war fighting” for decades thanks to “Me too Blair” and, never so underfunded thanks to “Skulker Brown” as Chancellor.

Overall although not quite for the reasons stated by some, I do believe that this Labour Government and it’s parliaments are guilty of neglecting Britain’s defence capabilities. However, I don’t excuse the other parties from blame either, all our politicians are rather cowardly when it comes to Foreign Policy matters. My complaint against all politicians is that they have not developed and explained a cogent plan with a series of objectives that both the British public and people in other countries with whom we may be allied to or, who may become adversaries in the future, can understand clearly.

A Sense of Purpose

Some centuries before the birth of Christ, a Greek said; “First see what you would do and then change yourself to achieve it.” Thousands of years later, this is still sound advice.

Starting with the post WWII retreat from Empire, first from East of Suez, then from the Middle East and Africa there have been “Defence Reviews” but the reality is that these have always been smoke screens for the inevitable cost cutting, what none of them has been about is a hard, tough enlightened“policy based upon UK self-interest”. Because I grew up in the 1950′s, I do have personal memories of both the attitudes and flavour of those times and without wanting to write a thesis on it, there were some odd undercurrents at play. Whilst the middle classes may have mourned the loss of Empire (pink bits on a map), us ordinary people were less interested in holding on to bits of the World but, were uneasy and troubled by the thought that we may be letting the people down who lived there by leaving.

What I think is certainly true was that at the “Top” in political circles, there was a collapse of self confidence and a deep sense of loss of place and purpose which led to the Wilson/Heath era. During this time came the destruction of the old class system and a bursting forth of working class talent, the start of a meritocracy, “Swinging Sixties” and eventually us joining the Common Market. However what didn’t happen was the formulation of a new vision of the UK’s place in the World and from that an affordable and appropriate Foreign Policy that the UK could pursue outside of just being part of NATO.

My intention is to think (aloud) about this “Defence Stuff” but really as just a starting point and not in isolation from the society we live in because both must be intimately related, after all, you defend a way of life as well as your physical territory. My guess is that the answer is simple, it is not just how much money you spend, it is what you spend it on that counts and whether that serves a sensible national purpose or objectives and do we know what those are ? Perhaps the key questions are: Do we know who we are, do we know where we are going, do we know how we will get there and what it will cost ?