By Sir Timothy Garden
The Labour Party conference was overshadowed and curtailed because of the terror attacks on the United States. The only speech that received full coverage was the call by the Prime Minister to take on all the world's problems. Tony Blair's speech is reproduced in full on The Source web site, but gives little idea how the UK is to provide the necessary capabilities to lead such a campaign. It might be expected that the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, in his speech to conference would fill in some of the practical detail. In his address, which is long on rhetoric and short on fact, he included a brief section, which should start alarm bells ringing in the MOD:
"When we conducted our Strategic Defence Review - we said we wanted Britain's Armed Forces to become a force for good in the world. The civil servants in the Ministry of Defence and the men and women of our Armed Forces deserve our praise for delivering on that promise in full. That same Review successfully set out to modernise Britain's defence forces to meet the threats we faced at the end of the Cold War. We have learned to deal with an international environment that is less certain and less predictable. Our forces are now ready to respond rapidly and flexibly to any emerging crisis. But the attack on the United States has brought home to us - with brutal clarity - the question of whether we are doing enough to cope with the full force of the new threats we face.
The changes we have made since the Defence Review have given us Armed Forces far more able to deal with these kinds of asymmetric threats. But it is clear that we must build on what we have already achieved. As a result of the attacks on the United States, we will be looking again at how we organise our defence. This will not be a new Strategic Defence Review – but an opportunity - if necessary - to rebalance our existing efforts. We must have: the right concepts, the right levels of forces, and the right capabilities to meet the additional challenges we face from international terrorism conducted on this scale."
The word that should send a shiver down the spine of the Chiefs of Staff is "rebalance". A number of commentators, including the writer, have argued that the resources for implementing the 1998 Strategic Defence Review were already too little. Defence inflation has taken its toll. Since the end of the Cold War, the UK has needed a major review of defence commitments and expenditure every 3 years, and another one is now due. To defuse the political problems with cuts in the armed forces, it is best to use a strategic context as a rationale. Thus Tom King's 1991 review could be put as a necessary exercise after the end of the Cold War. Malcolm Rifkind was able to use the decline in any external threat to the UK for his 1995 cuts. George Robertson reduced the frontline while showing that he was producing deployable forces more suited to current operations. Geoff Hoon has now announced that the world has changed again, and a new chapter will be added to Robertson's 1998 Review.
It is very unlikely, despite all the brave words about new threats of asymmetric warfare, that significant extra money will be found for defence. The early indications appear to suggest that enhancements to the Special Forces will be a priority. These have a number of advantages in any rebalancing process. Special Forces are relatively cheap. The degree of enhancement will be difficult for outsiders to assess. The scope for increase in numbers is very limited. If at the same time some of the expensive high intensity conflict capabilities can be scaled down, there will be a possibility of bringing the defence budget back into balance for perhaps another 3 years. Areas at risk will include the remaining main battle tanks, and perhaps the size or timing of the Eurofighter order. The shortage of pilots will be an additional pressure on reducing aircraft numbers. Some more of the Tornado F3s might be early casualties. Despite the landlocked nature of Afghanistan, the profile of the US aircraft carriers will do much to preserve the UK carrier programme. In any case the savings at this stage would be relatively limited.
If the economic outlook becomes much more difficult, it may be that the pressures on the defence budget will be even more severe. The armed forces feel they have good support from the Prime Minister, but Gordon Brown may be looking forward to helping to "rebalance" the defence budget.