The publication of the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) and then the Spending Review raise the usual questions about affordability and funding priorities. Will the hopeful recommendations set out in the SDR (a work in progress) be delivered by the expected increases in defence spending set out in the Spending Review?
Lord Roberts has probably discussed with John Healey the lessons he learned from trying to deliver the funding needed after the 1998 SDR. The Spending Review does confirm that defence spending will rise to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 and that the ambition is to hit 3% in the next Parliament. However, our Allies have even higher aspirations for defence and security. At the forthcoming NATO Summit the UK Government may well endorse a target of 3.5% for core military requirements. The SDR also commits us to meeting new NATO Capability Targets which include a NATO-wide 400% increase in air and missile defence and doubling enabling capabilities, such as logistics, supply, transportation, and medical support.
The publication of the Defence Investment Plan later this year should reveal more about how Ministers intend to meet these targets. For now, the SDR has some very ambitious goals. One of the highest priorities is the proposed Digital Targeting Web (DTW). There is a well-known tendency within MoD to try and procure the best possible equipment, something identified by the SDR. This can and sometimes does contribute to projects being over budget and delayed. Those involved in delivering the DTW will try to mitigate this tendency.
In addition, Ministers are probably re-considering which foreign companies can be seen as reliable sources of supply for the DTW and other projects such as the Secret Cloud. This could mean that potential contractors (and their associated supply chains) will need to be limited to those from the UK and perhaps a handful of close Allies and partners. This would be more costly but would ensure a critical unmonetisable benefit – “reducing security risks”. New Treasury spending guidance (published with the Spending Review) says that it “is clear that a project may still be value for money” even if the benefits are unmonetisable. This may not be new Treasury policy but its re-statement is helpful. Assessing these unmonetisable benefits and costs will attract high level attention.
Another issue highlighted is the urgent need for much more rapid adaption. Ukrainian operational units directly feedback to their suppliers’ new requirements as the war in the electromagnetic spectrum changes. This means a much faster innovation cycle, measured in weeks not months. The UK military has experienced similar procedures in its long conflict with Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan. British bomb disposal teams could very rapidly procure new technology to meet increasingly sophisticated IEDs. The SDR also highlighted the ability of Special Forces to deliver similarly rapid innovation cycles. The precedents they have set could lead to much more rapid adaption of drones and other key systems.
Despite the advantages that new technology can provide well trained and skilled personnel are still essential to operate, maintain and above all adapt it. We should also never forget that most new developments in military technology help both sides in a war. For instance, to assume that the Russians do not have at least some access to Chinese military AI would be naïve in the extreme. A fully autonomous battlefield is not just around the corner. The SDR acknowledges this view by including a quote from one of the consultative Citizens Panels
“Invest in the people … they have to understand the tech. You can build it and buy it, but they need to be able to use it”
This is why ensuring that the UK military can recruit, train and retain the right type and number of personnel will remain essential if the Government is going to deter and if necessary, defeat Russia and other potential enemies.
Government sources recently briefed the media that John Healey wants to increase the target number of regular soldiers from 72,500 to 76,000. The UK is not the only NATO country looking at these issues. Our Allies in Germany and Poland want to improve lethality but they also all have plans, some of which are funded, to substantially increase service personnel numbers. More importantly and worryingly the Russian Government is recruiting more soldiers at pace and scale. Why do some of our most important NATO allies and potential enemies think that they need a lot more service personnel, and do UK Ministers agree with them?
None of these decisions are easy, especially in the very tight fiscal circumstances the Government has inherited. Using immobilised Russian State assets as collateral to raise loans to support Ukraine remains a policy option, either unilaterally by the UK or as part of a broader European coalition. So far, the decision by the Chancellor to use the profits from those assets seems to have had no negative impact on levels of foreign investment in the UK. This could be a relatively risk-free way to deliver more funding for Ukraine and UK national security and a choice that Ministers could make in the forthcoming Budget.
The SDR, the forthcoming Defence Industrial Strategy and the Defence Investment Plan provide valuable opportunities to put in place long term policies to rebuild the UK’s defence capabilities. Since 2010 we have seen a sticking plaster approach to national security, in some ways replicating the policies of successive Tory Governments in the run up to World War Two. Unlike that period Labour is now in power and has the very challenging responsibility to reverse the hollowing out of our armed forces. Ministers have the broad support of the British public, the trade unions and most of our Allies to undertake this task. The coming months will demonstrate whether or not they have been able to overcome or avoid the obstacles in their path.
