During her first overseas trip to New York last month, Prime Minister Liz Truss announced another defence and foreign policy review, only 18 months after the last one. At first sight, the Russian invasion of the Ukraine might suggest that a re-think of the government’s approach to the geopolitical situation is necessary; however, the question remains, does the UK really need another defence review?
Past Reviews
For most of the last seventy years, there hasn’t been a standard construct for what a defence review is, or when they should take place. Regardless of what many in the military may think, defence reviews are political events, and are undertaken when the government of the day either wants one, or believes it can’t do without one.
Even though the UK was heavily committed to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, there was a 12 year gap between the first full defence review of the post-Cold War era – the 1998 Strategic Defence Review – and the next review in 2010, the Strategic Defence and Security Review. One of the outcomes of the 2010 SDSR was a commitment to hold a defence review every five years, and, to that end, the Conservative government held another SDSR in 2015.
However, in the post-Brexit turmoil, Theresa May’s government held both a National Security Capability Review and a defence-specific review, called the Modernising Defence Programme, over an 18 month period in 2017 and 2018. Finally, after the 2019 general election, the then prime minister Boris Johnson ordered another defence review, which became the 2021 Integrated Review. After a long period when reviews were actively avoided, we have entered a period where it seems the government can’t get enough of them.
What’s Changed?
The obvious answer to the ‘what’s changed?’ question is that there’s now a war of national survival being fought in Eastern Europe. And, although that cannot, and is not, being ignored by the UK government, it does not obviously change the following major objectives mandated by the 2021 Integrated Review:
- Sustaining strategic advantage through science and technology.
- Shaping the open international order of the future.
- Strengthening security and defence at home and overseas.
- Building resilience at home and overseas.
Equally importantly, few would argue that Russia does not remain the ‘most acute threat to [UK] security’, or that China is still a ‘systemic competitor’. That said, another defence review would be useful if it managed to address the 2021 Integrated Review’s fundamental lack of resource allocation and prioritisation. As Lord Ricketts, the UK’s first National Security Advisor, observed: ‘to be truly integrated, a review process needs not just to assemble a wish-list of ambitions, but to make choices among them, and then to join those up with resource decisions in one coherent whole’.
Who needs a Defence Review?
Another often unrecognised effect of holding a defence review is the impact it has on the management of Defence. The whole machinery of Defence management all but grinds to a halt, as senior officers in Whitehall and across the military commands seek to influence the review to deliver the best possible outcome for their service. Balance of investment decisions are delayed, key deadlines on major capability programmes are missed, and complex posting plots are unravelled because no-one wants to do something that may very soon be out of step with the MoD’s direction of travel.
Of course, with their eyes firmly fixed on the defence budget’s huge up-arrow, these issues are of little concern to service chiefs. They will expect this defence review to open the door to a land of plenty, and will be scrabbling to ensure its strategic narrative supports the future capability aspirations of their own environment. The Royal Navy will highlight the importance of the Indo-Pacific tilt, which augurs well for more frigates and destroyers to bolster its carrier strike groups; the army will point to the ground war lessons being re-learned in Ukraine to prop up its future soldier programme and help its argument to recapitalise its fleet of armoured fighting vehicles; and the RAF will argue for anything that strengthens its case for more fast jets.
Conclusion
Another defence review will be an unnecessary distraction for all the relevant departments in Whitehall, and will demand a vast amount of bureaucratic effort for very little gain. No-one needs another defence review. However, for everyone involved, the opportunities it presents are too good to pass up. To that end a better question is ‘who wants another defence review?’ The answer to that, of course, is everyone!
