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With the current state of the Public Finances, it is obvious that all Government Departments will come under very heavy pressure to reduce their spending and historically, Defence has always been seen as a ‘soft target’ for politicians, let us hope not, this time around. Just like at the end of the Cold War, people looked for a “Peace Dividend”, there really never is one because “If you want peace then, you must prepare for war” and that is still true to this day.

The real questions must hinge around defining accurately what our “Defence Posture” should be and why. This approach must be stuck to and regardless of the current economic problems because too often in the past, a cash figure seems to have been struck first and then our Armed Forces ‘squeezed’ to fit it which is obviously, the wrong way round.

What Are the Domestic Political Influences ?

Whilst a good thing to have a “Professional Military”, the big drawback with not having some form of conscription is simply that the Military is no longer fully integrated into British Society and the whole situation is made worse by the high volume immigration we have allowed over many decades. In fact, in order to create a common unity of national purpose, one could argue that some form of conscription should be introduced on the grounds of “Social Policy” alone.

Whether young men from Bradford or more recent immigrants could be totally trusted with firearms is a question but a form of “National Service” that extended beyond the purely military, might go a long way to instilling concepts of discipline, duty, and service to society in the individuals that took part. Whilst Wooten Basset shows one side of the public’s view of the Military, Islamic protesters show another, people who do not feel part of of being “British”. Reconnecting people directly to the military is, I would suggest, a ‘must’.

Politicians have always been keen for reasons of “Keeping high skill jobs in the UK” and in order to keep civilian unemployment down, to authorize major “capital projects” regardless of the military value, the two large Aircraft Carriers being a case in point along with the Typhoon (Euro Fighter). This defence review should concentrate on the “Military Value” first and last and be prepared to invest more into the software (Troops), than the hardware (Big Capital Projects).

The other major influence lies in cost cutting and especially when sacred cows like Health and Education, despite all the “words of ring fencing”, are also going to have to take budget reductions. Politicians would be scared of going easy on the Defence Budget when having to slice and dice the Health and Education Budgets, as they will.

The External Political Influences

These really come in various shapes, sizes and time-frames whereby what is true today, may not be tomorrow, Afghanistan being a classic case in point. Left to ourselves, one suspects that we would pull out fairly quickly but instead, we will wait on the USA to decide the timing simply because us supporting the US as a ‘reliable ally’ is a key Foreign Policy objective and when we look towards Europe, it is easy to see why.

Part of the problem with most European countries is that having sheltered so long under the American Umbrella, they don’t spend enough on Defence and certainly don’t have the ‘political will’ to fight and especially, “Out of Area” engagements. Plato said; “Only the dead have seen an end to war…” and he was right but both the general public and most European politicians are in the same mental state over defence as they were towards all the cheap money sloshing around the financial system because of a big expansion in World Trade on the back of cheap Chinese labour. They believed the “Good Times” would last forever and they didn’t, it is odds on that peace won’t last forever either and the UK needs to factor that in too.

So a Likely Shape

The UK cannot match US Defence spending nor should it even try. Neither should we attempt a “Global Presence” for the UK, that was definitely yesteryear not, today and in this context, the two Aircraft Carriers on order plus their over priced American built aircraft, are not really feasible we need a more numerous if less sophisticated Navy. We need a deep water Navy but, we also need a more ships at sea than we have today.

Our area of operations should be the North and South Atlantic, from Norway down to the Falkland Islands. Apart from defending our own shores, we need the ability to keep the “Atlantic Bridge” fully open at all times.

The RAF has the Typhoon Fighter for air defence but their future concentration should be on “Lift” and flying UAVs – Unmanned Ariel Vehicles. Whilst building advanced manned aircraft may no longer be a task possible for the UK to do alone, I am sure that we can develop UAVs and their weapons and guidance systems. Such a weapons system could be launched from both land and sea, in the latter case from smaller aircraft carriers designed to be mass produced in times of emergency, the UAVs themselves would be ‘piloted’ from the UK and provide a 24/7 – 365 capability.

The Army needs to be expanded in terms of Infantry, Special Forces, Intelligence Gathering and Cyber warfare. If suitable UAVs can be designed, apart from improved Personnel Carriers, the main battle tank concept could probably be phased out, like the old fashioned “Battleship” it has probably had its day.

Unfortunately, the Trident replacement will have to go ahead, for now there seems to be little choice given the number of idiotic States wanting to develop a ‘Nuke’ capability.