by Michael Alexander and Timothy Garden
Defence seems unlikely to figure very large in the policy exchanges due to take place in the run-up to the General Election, whenever it is finally called. The very obvious reason for this is that defence, compared with education, pensions, the health service, the environment, the countryside etc., occupies a relatively humble position in the electorate’s list of priorities. The European Army (so-called), Nato, the special relationship etc serve as useful shibboleths with which to establish one’s own bona fides and undermine others’. But there is no evidence of any desire to open a serious debate about the trend of defence expenditure and about the difficult choices that loom ahead. The implications of those choices for the country’s future and for the concept of sovereignty are no less significant, albeit further down the track, than the decision over whether or not to adopt the Euro.
The Prime Minister’s speeches in Chicago (22 April 1999) and Warsaw (6 October 2000) proceeded from the assumption that, both in terms of its objectives and in terms of the means of pursuing those objectives, international security policy is decreasingly the preserve of the nation state. The interpenetration of the lives of nations and of their peoples is an ever more marked characteristic of the global village. This is true of commerce, finance, culture, the environment, food, health, crime, and so on i.e. of virtually every aspect of our existence. It is also increasingly – and unavoidably – true of standards, most obviously of human rights There is an evident feeling that, if and when fundamental behavioural norms are ignored, the international community has the right and indeed the obligation, insofar as it is practicable, to intervene . Given that interdependence is bound to grow and the communications revolution to accelerate, this public sense of mutual responsibility is also likely to intensify. Hence, in part, the references to foreign policy “with an ethical dimension”.
There is, however, a considerable reluctance in the political establishment in this country to confront the need to bring our security policy and its long term funding into line with these developments. There is at present no external, conventional, land based threat to this country or to Western Europe. Nor will there be one in the usefully foreseeable future. (The threat of asymmetric warfare, like that from missiles, raises a separate set of issues although measures to cope with either will certainly impose an additional drain on the defence budget. Missile defence, as opposed to retaliation, on a national basis makes no sense at all for European states.) Leaving aside civil contingencies, our military forces are going to be used to deal with internecine conflict in Europe (conceivable but increasingly unlikely outside the Balkans) and to meet peace making and peace keeping contingencies outside Europe. It will not be easy to persuade electorates to increase their financial support for such activities. The most that any political party is now seeking for the UK’s defence budget is to maintain present levels of expenditure in real terms i.e. to allow it to fall gradually as a percentage of GDP. There was a good deal of celebration a few months ago when the recent progression of year on year reductions in real defence expenditure was brought to a halt, at least temporarily. It will be difficult to establish even standstill as the norm. No-one is close to following the Australian example and making long term (10 year) provision for the maintenance of defence expenditure as a constant proportion (1.9%) of GDP. But the consequences of achieving no better than standstill, and still more of failing to achieve it, will be stark.
Average annual expenditure on defence, in constant money terms, is today about 8% lower than it was in 1975. (As a percentage of GDP, it has fallen from a high of 5.3% to the present figure of 2.4%) For a number of the intervening years, in the Eighties, it was as much as 30% higher, a period of sustained investment on which the Armed Forces are to an extent still living. Nonetheless in the period in 1975 – 2000, uniformed manpower has declined by 39%, naval vessels (frigates and destroyers) deployed by 38%, RAF combat squadrons by 42%, etc. The detailed explanations are complex but the basic cause is straightforward. Despite the best efforts of generations of administrators, most areas of defence costs have risen faster, in some areas much faster, than inflation. There is no reason to suppose that this is about to change.
Looking forward 15 or so years, the consequences of the arithmetic seem inescapable. Given the optimistic assumption that defence spending can be sustained at its present level in real terms and granted that the annual average GDP growth rate is about 3%, defence expenditure in 2015 will be around 1.5% of GDP. Military manpower will have fallen by perhaps 40,000 to a figure in the region of 170,000 men (still divided, presumably, between three services), and front-line capability to perhaps half its present level. There can be little chance, for instance, that the carriers envisaged in the Strategic Defence Review will ever be built. Future tasks of any gravity e.g. those involving joint operations with the Americans, are certain to require a hi-tech capability, manpower and an ability to sustain a significant military presence for a substantial period. Mere shrinkage, even if accompanied by technological enhancement, is no answer. At some point in the process of retrenchment, therefore, a critical point will be reached beyond which the pretence that the UK is capable of deploying and sustaining balanced, independent expeditionary forces will have to be abandoned. The Kosovo experience suggested that this point may not lie all that far in the future. It will be (or has been) reached by many of our European allies well before the UK gets there. Public willingness to fund the defence budget is liable to decline precipitately if the delivered capability is too far out of line with the claims made for it and on it. (Stresses between the constituent parts of the UK may create a further problem in relation to public support for a purely national effort.)
Still more efficiency savings will no doubt be made along the way, through smart procurement and the like. But such savings will be offset by unexpected setbacks, equipment delays and overruns. There is almost certainly only one way to maintain a credible defence capability in the European region over the longer term on a basis of level defence spending in real terms. That is to progressively integrate the UK effort with that of other similarly placed nations i.e. our Nato allies in Europe.
Integration is clearly capable of delivering meaningful savings. It is the main reason why the US defence dollar buys so much more than its European equivalent. It may be integration of existing capabilities to give efficiency savings in management and manpower costs of every kind. It may be integration of future capabilities to give savings in procurement and development costs – as well as permitting the acquisition of systems that could not otherwise be afforded (including, perhaps, carriers). It may be integration through pooling some capabilities or even role specialisation. The significant point is that integration (or pooling), while by no means unprecedented c.f. Nato’s AWACS system, is something altogether different in kind from, and more demanding than, multinational co-operation. European militaries will have to be prepared to eliminate their duplicated and redundant facilities
The statement that European defence integration offers the only rational approach to our defence dilemmas is not a statement about political feasibility. Nor is it a statement about political priorities. It is a statement about arithmetical realities. The EU is at present a very long way indeed from the sort of political consensus that would permit across the board integration of the kind implied by references to a “European army”. But there is no group of nations (certainly not the US) other than our EU partners with which integration on a basis approaching equality is even conceivable for the UK. Moreover, given a decision that integration would have to be considered, there are a number of areas (for example air to air refuelling, tactical and strategic air lift, reconnaissance and CSAR) where worthwhile experiments could be conducted without irreversible decisions being called for in the short term.
But it would be wrong to go down such a path without proper debate. Politicians and electorates, in the UK and in every other European country, face a historic choice. On the one hand they can pursue defence and security policies along broadly the present lines and face a more or less rapid degradation of even their present ability to use military force in defence of their interests; to operate alongside US forces; and to influence US decision-making. On the other hand, they can begin what will assuredly be a long and tortuous march towards the integration of their military capabilities with those of their European partners. This option will enable them to maintain a credible military capability while postponing the need for real increases in defence expenditure for, perhaps, a generation. Through peer pressure and the acceptance of binding international obligations, it will create an incentive to maintain defence efforts that is at present largely lacking. It will give the US, ever more inclined to go its own way, the prospect of a genuinely useful, albeit more independent, partner. It will be working with rather than against the grain of international developments generally. But it will also involve public controversy, notably about sovereignty, occasional disagreement with the US and, if carried any distance, an at present rather improbable evolution in Europe’s political culture. It will be seen by many as inimical to Nato although in fact it offers the only plausible route to the preservation of the Alliance as a vital vehicle for transatlantic co-operation.
In other words, defence integration raises hugely difficult dilemmas. But tackling them cannot be postponed for much longer. Failure to face up to them will also be a decision. They are the sort of issues that our politicians ought to be discussing publicly rather than worrying about privately.