A comment on the Government’s defence review

‘The entire defence review goes from a relatively ambitious and reasonable plan to modernise the armed forces into a confusing mess’

Recently Her Majesty’s Government released the Integrated Review of defence that seeks to create a military for the next decade and make Great Britain a technological superpower. This sounds all very well and good on its own, but behind the bells, whistles and catchy slogans some deeply irrational decision making has taken place.

The most obvious is to cut the British army by ten thousand men. How this will be done is not said and we should all remember that not too long ago the Government said firmly that they would not cut troop numbers. Coupled with the Government's plan to spend an extra sixteen billion pounds on the armed forces, and other plans to create a new ranger regiment, the entire defence review goes from a relatively ambitious and reasonable plan to modernise the armed forces into a confusing mess.

If numbers are being cut why is a new regiment being created, and most importantly why is the army being cut? Prime Minister Johnson says he wants to deploy more troops for longer periods of time, but how on earth would a reduced army actually manage this. Is the Prime Minister aware of how many soldiers it takes to field even a brigade, how much logistical planning needs to be done to provide those soldiers food, arms, equipment and transport? This becomes even harder when all this support is needed somewhere distant just to keep soldiers ready for combat, not to mention the logistical demands of actual combat or operations.

Sir Keir Starmer also makes a salient point about the addition of eighty more nuclear warheads- that is, why do we need them? We already have enough to end the world twice over, and of course Trident submarines can only carry so many warheads meaning that many would simply not be available in the event of a nuclear attack. And why eighty more missiles? Our deterrent works as it is and what good is spending more money on a deterrent then is necessary; especially when that money could be used on other deterrents that need the money far more.

In this regard, as in so many others, the British government has managed to prove that it has no rational process for making decisions,and instead seems to haphazardly do things based on some half-remembered reason or another. All in all, it does not inspire much hope.