The SDR dropped this week, with much of the commentary focussed on big-ticket items such as the, up to 12, replacement submarines for our Astute class, six new factories for weapons’ production and the reintroduction of air-launched tactical nuclear weapons to supplement the strategic deterrent, the latter itself being significantly refreshed and upgraded. The review, supposedly, will make us “battle-ready” and deter Russia from further ambitions over NATO countries and their partners.
The review was radical in that, for the first time in living memory, its purpose was not to cut the armed forces or to hollow-out fragile capabilities. The commitment to spend 2.5 percent of GDP by the midpoint of this Parliamentary period is encouraging – but that money has already been spent against known items in the Equipment Programme. It cannot be spent again on items such as F35A aircraft from which to launch new, and unfunded, tactical nuclear weapons, for example. An additional 0.5 percent of GDP sought, sometime in the next Parliament out to 2034, would take our commitment to the de facto new European norm of 3 percent of GDP. This, though, in the early years, would likely fund only the recapitalisation of missiles and ordnance passed to the Ukrainians, new factories for production and possibly part-finance a new offensive drone programme. It hardly feels strategic or game changing, welcome though these additions would be. Rather, without fully costed and funded programmes to bring the vision of SDR to the front line, it remains an aspirational shopping list rather than a serious “battle-ready” portfolio of capabilities. Put bluntly, there is nobody in Whitehall who believes that the Treasury will make the funding available to meet the SDR’s aspirations or, if miracles happen and the Treasury turns water to wine, that 3 percent of GDP would be sufficient.
This is the real conundrum and frustration with the work. The authors and MoD, together, have avoided making hard, strategic and programmatic choices. Our strategic posture is NATO first, focussed on security in Europe, pitted against a Russian enemy. But we also commit to the Pacific waters through the activities of AUKUS and a, recapitalised open water Royal Navy. Strategic missile defence for the UK is mentioned but its unaffordability as a new system seemingly accepted, so we will rely upon existing maritime assets to interdict missiles and drones fired at the UK. Providing, of course, that those assets haven’t been deployed to the Pacific and Indian oceans.
We will have an SDR when the Government’s spending review is completed and the MoD’s investment programme is published in the autumn. Until then, we have a set of unaffordable aspirations. Such things deter nobody.
