Today the Commons defence committee published a report criticising the MOD for decisions taken in last year’s Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR). The report claims that recent defence budget reductions will leave our Armed Forces unable to execute the operations the Government sets for them post-2015.
I disagree.
It is true that the MOD is reducing numbers of service personnel across the Army, Navy and Air Force and indeed the MOD has altered the equipment programme, which led to the deletion of Nimrod and Harrier. But these tough decisions were necessary in order to address the black hole in the defence budget, as well as to set ourselves on course to advance the modern force structure we outlined in the SDSR.
Future Force 2020 will provide a flexible, adaptive posture that can respond to whatever 21st century threats may come along – from state on state conflict to the effects of climate change resulting in humanitarian crises. This force structure will allow us to continue our internationalist approach, punching above our weight as a key member of NATO and the UN Security Council; it is neither a weakening of our overall military might nor a retreat into our shell.
As Lib Dems, we have long recognised that there are times when military intervention is necessary and just. Lib Dems supported the intervention in Libya to protect innocent life, were among the first to call for evacuating casualties and civilians during the Israel-Lebanon war of 2006 and in 2000 we supported sending British troops to Sierra Leone. Situations like these may in future arise again and we will again be compelled to avert or alleviate a humanitarian disaster. We feel a moral responsibility to take part in international coalitions of the willing to try and maintain world peace and to defend our own interests in the meantime.
But we need resources to do so.
Last month Defence Secretary Liam Fox announced that spending on equipment will increase by 1% above inflation each year after 2015 – a real term increase by over £3 billion between 2015 and 2020. This is a good start, but the Treasury will need to take a hard look again at defence spending as we approach 2015. As current projections indicate, UK defence spending will increasingly fall closer to 2% of GDP by 2015 – the minimum defence spending required by NATO of its member states. And we risk falling below 2% thereafter unless real terms increases materialise.
The economic situation we find ourselves in and the defence budget deficit are staggering. Our service personnel and their equipment are being worked hard. But we are demonstrating our strong capabilities in Libya and Afghanistan, and we will ensure our Armed Forces will continue to have the support and equipment they need to carry out their missions.
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17 Comments
The “strategic” review was in fact nothing of the sort. It is not just the level of expenditure that needs to be considered, but also the type of forces that we require. The 21st century already looks much more like the 19th century than the 20th century – and that implies that we need to place far more emphasis on mobility and the ability to project power globally. That should mean cuts in the Army in favour, in particular, of the Navy. That would, of course, have been politically difficult whilst the Army is paying such a heavy blood price in Afghanistan – and so the carriers and Harriers were sacrificed instead. I call that expedient, not strategic.
You’re closing Leuchars, not only will this destroy a struggling local economy but will likely mean that a safe Lib Dem seat, that of Ming Campbell, will be lost to another party – probably the SNP, who at least look out for Scottish interests.
Are any major bases being closed in Conservative seats?
g – The closure of Leuchars is clearly as shame, but since one of the UK’s five multirole Brigades will come to Scotland and will be based at Lossiemouth, Arbroath and Leuchers and that is likely to mean mean an HQ in Leuchars + the return of both the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and 4 Scots from Germany there will be more MOD jobs in Scotland after these changes.
Oh and there is no major MOD base in the only Scottish Conservative seat.
A voice from Lothian,
I hope so. This part of the country is desperate for investment and jobs.
And I don’t think Ming’s seat will be yellow come the next election, like Osborne’s energy tax which helped destroy the Lib Dems in the NE, it seems the Coalition intend to make Scotland a two party state, SNP and Labour.
(Being pedantic, if the SNP won the seat would still be yellow!)
“As Lib Dems, we have long recognised that there are times when military intervention is necessary and just. Lib Dems supported the intervention in Libya to protect innocent life,”
I joined the party partly because it was the only major political party that opposed the neo-colonial US led adventure in Iraq. I can only feel betrayed that now the LDs are in government they choose to embark on a neo-colonial adventure in an oil-rich Middle Eastern state. Spare me the protect innocent lives guff. It’s their country, not ours…and it’s not turning out to be so easy, is it? Clue: wars never are.
@jenny – had we not intervened how many people do you think gaddafi would have killed in benghazi and the other rebel areas. You would be happy with that presumably.
@jenny barnes
LDs are not against interventionism for the sake of it, Paddy Ashdown was a big advocate of intervention in Kosovo, I believe. The party as a whole is against it when there is not a good reason for it. In Iraq, there wasn’t. In Libya, there was, even though there were good reasons not to do it as well.
“This force structure will allow us to continue our internationalist approach, punching above our weight as a key member of NATO and the UN Security Council”
Never mind phrases like “punching above our weight”, what the SDSR needs to deliver is sovereign and strategic power projection, a facility that allows us to play a necessary role in the enforcement the of legal norms of international relations.
If we get both carriers fitted with cats-n-traps, and return to the ambition of deploying 3Cdo and 16AAB as brigades formations then the SDSR will have been worth it.
http://jedibeeftrix.wordpress.com/2011/03/12/the-us-discovers-strategic-raiding-%e2%80%93-plays-catchup-with-britain/
@Simon you keep playing the guilt trip card. You could say the same about Iraq, that we would be “happy” if Saddam Hussein were still in power. What morally superior rubbish! What happened after Hussein fell was actually worse for the Iraqis. Violence increased and people fled the country on a scale not seen when Hussein was in power. Today Iran has been enhanced as a regional force, the last thing anyone wanted.
Getting rid of the dictator is not the only thing that happens is the point to be made here and mistakes get made when the policymakers do not understand what they are doing. The recent assassination in Libya shows that we do not really understand the opposition in Libya as much as we ought to, and like with Iraq the succession to the new regime does not seem to be properly considered.
@geoffrey – you may recall that within an hour of the UN vote French planes attacked Gaddafi’s tanks outside benghazi. had they not done so they would have entered that city and Gaddafi’s forces would have killed hundereds if not thousands of people.
If you think that would be better than the current situation then you are wrong.
Just like Iraq. I’m not disputing that Saddam was an unpleasant dictator; equally so with Gadaffi. And so is mugabe and assad, and many another. It’s not our business to go round policing the world, and you have to wonder at the motivations as to why the government decide to intervene in state A and not state B. Random? or could it possibly be anything to do with oil?
@ Geoffrey Payne – “What morally superior rubbish! What happened after Hussein fell was actually worse for the Iraqis.”
That appears to be a very easy judgement for to render, to write off other peoples freedom, but I do have to ask if you have been granted any real experience of what that kind of life is like?
I suspect not.
I have lived in a dictatorship, and one that was deemed a benign dictatorship to boot, and I can tell you that the experience has given me a very pointed perspective on the freedom from arbitrary interference by a government subject to no accountability for its actions, and disinterested in representing the desires of its people.
When you can tell me that you grew up in a country where a good friend of your fathers was murdered by the government for disagreeing with its education policy, where the body was dumped on his wife’s doorstep in a tobacco-sack, and her told if she made a fuss her young children would never receive an education, then i will take you seriously.
There is nothing inherently immoral in the ambition to remain a Great Power as we have an interest in promoting an international rules based system where laws and norms are adhered to. Responsibility to Protect, a ‘norm’ now quite accepted in International Relations is a case in point. Britain’s position on the Security Council is in part justified by the strategic bargain with friends and allies that we will work to achieve collective security in the widest sense. Thus do we need a force structure that provides an expeditionary capability in addition to meeting the basic and local requirements of collective and national defence.
I am happy to have the wisdom of Iraq or Libya examined on their merits, but i have little tolerance for those who happy to write off the freedom of others, particularly so when they seem to have no appreciation of the value of the freedom they themselves enjoy!
@jedibeeftrix The point is that in Iraq the people had even less freedom once Hussein was overthrown, and the same might happen in Libya.
There is no desire on my part to write off anyone’s freedom. However at the same time the West in limited in trying to impose freedom on a country from the outside. I would argue that the best way the West can defend freedom is not to sell arms to despots like Gadaffi in the first place. How interesting to note that when the Arab Spring started, David Cameron just happened to be at a Middle East “Trade Fair”.
There are lots of people in the world who are suffering from a lack of freedom. I suspect we could strike a bigger blow to freedom by spending money on helping the starving people in the Horn of Africa rather than stoking up a civil war in Libya.
** for** freedom rather than to freedom!
if we are going to discuss the merits, or lack thereof, of our behaviour towards iraq over the last 50 years fair enough. 🙂
@ nick –
Can i say that it is a pleasure to read about defence and foreign policy on LDV, and i would be happy to see more of it.
Thank you.