In a move towards getting defence products delivered ahead of time, there follows a draft foreword for the 2008 Defence Review White Paper. If defence funding is maintained level in real terms, it will have shrunk to about 1.9% of GDP by 2008. The consequences of this will be a further significant reductions in the frontline. If this is not to become reality, British Governments will need to put more resources into defence as well as exploiting opportunities for rationalization in the EU. If they fail to do so, the draft below may be useful to whatever Government is in power.
1. The British Armed Forces are rightly seen as among Europe’s best. This Government is committed to keeping our military up to date and properly structured to meet the international challenges of today and tomorrow. The world is changing fast and we must ensure that our forces are ready to meet the new tasks as an important element of our wider security policy.
2. This Review is radical and takes on board the many lessons that we have learned in the two decades since the end of the Cold War. We are now fortunate to live in a time when a growing European Union is locking more and more of the continent into the benefits of living at peace. As EU enlargement gathers pace, in Britain we are safer than at any time in our history. Yet in the wider world there remains poverty, conflict and disease. Europe has a moral obligation to alleviate this suffering where it can. The EU has rightly for many years been the leading organisation in the provision of help to less fortunate regions of the world. It has been spending 3 times as much as the United States on international aid.
3. Successive governments have found it difficult to strike the optimum balance between the resources for the different elements of our wider security. In the distant days of the Cold War, it was sensible to focus on the high intensity warfare capabilities necessary to deter attack by the Warsaw Pact. Our membership of NATO was key to that deterrence philosophy, and it worked well. In the 1990s, we were uncertain how the world would develop and whether old enemies would rise from the ashes, or new enemies would threaten us. It was right then as we moved to peacemaking tasks that we also kept up our guard through NATO. Our predecessors were confident that maintaining a capacity for the whole range of high intensity warfare was affordable and necessary in order to insure against an uncertain future.
4. Ten years ago, the Government produced a Strategic Defence Review which was widely acclaimed among our Allies. Unfortunately as we now know, the costing assumptions for this review proved optimistic. Despite annual defence budgets rising most years in line with inflation, the costs of military personnel and equipment grew at a faster rate. This led to progressive undermanning of units, delays in ordering new equipment, and to consequent retention problems among our valuable trained people. The time has come to take a new look at how we manage our security needs. In prescient words, the SDR of 1998 said: “This requires an integrated external policy through which we can pursue our interests using all the instruments at our disposal, including diplomatic, developmental and military.”
5. By focusing our attention on the high intensity end of the military spectrum we have distorted our resource allocations. The moves towards a conflict prevention budget involving the diplomacy, development aid and military provision have been a great success, and give us confidence in the radical proposals contained in this review. Our experience in a large number of international operations over the past two decades has demonstrated that we need the United States as the senior partner in any serious warfare operation. However, trying to match the technological capability and scale of forces is no longer an option for us. We will continue to assist the United States when it is appropriate to do so, and we will continue to have many useful capabilities.
6. In undertaking this Review, we had clear aims. Britain needs to continue to be a power for good in the world. It needs to do better in meeting its development aid targets. It needs to structure its military capability so that it is appropriate for the tasks and sustainable in the longer term. We need to make military service an attractive career in which we can retain expensively trained personnel. The major resource problem has been with the cost of specialised equipment for high intensity warfare. As costs have risen, we have been able to afford fewer combat units, and the costs have risen even higher as a result. Our military need to be equipped with equipment that works, is up to date, and is interoperable with allies. We no longer need to equip them to fight a major international war in Europe.
7. This new focus on our contributions to international security in the wider world allows us to make some significant reductions at the high intensity warfare end of the spectrum. The resources freed up will be divided between improvements to the development aid budget and to the proper resourcing of smaller armed forces. We shall also undertake to keep the combined conflict prevention budget level at 2% of GDP for the next 10 years. The allocation between the elements of defence, diplomacy and development may vary from year to year according to need. The absorption of the Ministry of Defence into a new Department of Conflict Prevention within the Foreign Office will also improve efficiency.
8. Some changes will be unwelcome to those who still yearn for the imperialistic days of Britain’s armed forces. However, we are setting in place a structure that will meet the needs of a modern Britain. We will maintain our limited nuclear capability as a deterrent against attack by proliferating states. However, we no longer see a role for much of our conventional high intensity warfare capability. Our focus will be on providing rapid reaction conflict prevention and civil society rebuilding capabilities. The focus will be therefore on air transport and trained troops. We can see no need for aircraft carriers, the complex antisubmarine warfare systems, heavy artillery, main battle tanks, or large numbers of fighter and bomber aircraft.
9. We shall retain sufficient air defence capability to police the UK national airspace and provide a limited contribution to US led operations. Happily, the delivery of Eurofighter ensures that we have the most modern aircraft for this limited task. With the advent of modern precision guided weapons, Eurofighter can also act as our platform for offensive operations should they be necessary. The shortages of combat pilots make it sensible to focus on a single aircraft type for combat operations, and this is made easier with the cancellation of the aircraft carriers and their aircraft. The need for air transport remains. It is regrettable that we were unable to conclude the European A400M project, but we will continue to develop our current fleet by leasing more C17s and replacing the older portion of the C130 fleet with newer versions. Helicopter transport remains an essential capability for international operations of every kind and we will update the fleet.
11. We shall look to maintain the ethos of the individual Services in the new structure. The significant manpower reductions in both the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force make it appropriate that the Chief of Conflict Prevention (formerly CDS) post is now held by a 3 star army officer who will advise the Foreign Secretary on military matters.
12. Britain can be proud that it continues to lead the world in its commitments to international peace and stability. We have set in hand a Review which will be a model for the rest of Europe.
Air Marshal Sir Timothy Garden is Visiting Professor at the Centre for Defence Studies, and spent some years as a Central Staffs Defence Programmer in the MOD.