Strategic Defence Review: reductions and new directions

First, the leaking on this – which has been as close to official as a leak can be, has been procedurally disgraceful. We must now dispense with this pantomime of leaks and pre-announcements of what a Minister will say and wait until we know what has actually been said.

We have already had days of well informed national media figures openly saying on news programmes what is to feature in the Strategic Defence Review and where the defence cuts are to fall.

Now we’ve got the announcement itself – with, of course be one or two veils left to drop and evidence of a few piece of misinformation just to maintain face – but now we’re in for more days of repetition where the same media figures will say exactly what they had said before the announcement and examine the same potential consequences with no sign that they are even boring themselves.

Labour Leader, Ed Miliband made a good opening joke in his response to the Prime Minister’s statement by thanking him for advance notice of his statement – in today’s papers, in yesterday’s papers, in Sunday’s papers…

Overall, the Prime Minister covered for the government retreat from the ‘knife fight in a steamed up phone box’ mounted by the MoD by saying that defence and security are so important that these areas will bear less of a budget retraction  – at 8% – than will other departments (Overall Spending Review to be made known tomorrow – 20th October 2010).

He made it clear that the UK’s defence budget will meet the NATO target of 2% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)  after the financial implications of the Strategic Defence Review come into play. He also pointed out that, after the cuts, the UK will still operate the fourth largest military budget in the world.

Here is the detail of what has just been announced.

Trident

The government is to retain but delay what the Prime Minister bravely but foolishly described as ‘the ultimate insurance policy’. It will enter the initial contractual commitment to replace Trident by the end of this year (2010); and go through the ‘main gate’ contract in 2016 – after the next general election.

• The lifecycle of the current Vanguard submarines – carrying the Trident missiles – will be extended.
• This will delay the need to build replacement submarines until 2028.
• These will have missile tubes reduced in number from 12 to 8
• They will carry fewer warheads – reduced from 48 to 40.
• The stock of Trident warheads will be reduced from 160 to fewer than 120.

This is clearly calibrated on the three rather than four Vanguard replacement submarines already announced by Gordon Brown, each carrying 40 or fewer missiles.

These measures are expected to bring savings of £1.2 billion.

Carriers

These were described as ‘the strike capability for the future’ – a neat euphemism for the fact that it will be well into the future before they are capable of full operation.

Describing the carriers in this way was also undermined by the full account the Prime Minister had just given of the RAF’s multipurpose worldwide attack and transport capability – with their Typhoon air-air and air-to-ground strike aircraft; their Joint Strike fighter aircraft, an expanded fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones), their A400 and C17 transports and their tanker aircraft.

In confirming that both carriers are to be built, the Prime Minister recited an appalling list of incompetences by the previous Government -which had left a black hole of £38 billion in the defence budget – more than its entire annual budget of £32 billion.

• The carriers as ordered are incapable of working with equipment from our major allies, the USA and France.
• The MoD had not planned procurement to allow for the simultaneous arrival of the carriers and the planes they will carry.
• They signed contracts for the carriers to be built, committing the next government to carry it through by agreeing terms which made it more expensive to cancel than to build the second carrier.
• They bought the more expensive and less capable kind of Joint Strike fighters for the carriers.

David Cameron admitted that, given the choice, the current Government would not have started on this project but that they will make the best of it.

• Both will be built.
• One will be mothballed immediately.
• The other will have catapults and wires fitted to enable its use by allied aircraft.
• The carrier version of the Joint Strike aircraft will be procured for the carrier.
• It will be 2019 before the strike aircraft will be available to the carrier.

The ageing Ark Royal aircraft carrier will be withdrawn from service immediately, as will the Harrier jump jets she carries.

Losing Ark Royal and the Harriers now and waiting nine years before the new carriers are – or one of them is – in operation and has jet fighters to carry, means that for almost a decade we are actually planned to lack a carrier-borne strike force.

This situation is underscored by the Government’s preparedness to consider mothballing HMS Illustrious, the one remaining carrier which, without Harriers, would no longer launch fixed-wing aircraft. The choice for mothballing is to be made between Illustrious and HMS Ocean, the helicopter platform assault ship. the one considered the most effective helicopter platform will remain in service as a command ship; the other will be mothballed. Although Ocean, built to commercial not military standards, has a limited lifespan, Illustrious looks the most likely candidate for mothballing.

Since the government is clearly committed to the view that our strategic defence and security require a carrier strike force, what intelligence do they have that indicates that such a threat will not materialise for almost ten years?

And Defence Secretary Liam Fox has said on the record that we may not have carrier-borne fighter jets but that our air strike capacity will not be impaired because we have all the necessary resources across the world for an air response to any need. This is exactly the RAF capacity the Prime Minister detailed in his address this afternoon (19th October 2010).

In each of these cases why do we need the carriers?

The straightforward fact is that we don’t need them but the construction contract, irresponsibly signed by the Labour government, has begun and the contractual conditions are such that it would cost more to cancel than continue. The Prime Minister admitted as much.

We have one immediate query: why cannot one carrier be put up for sale now, pre-completion, allowing a purchaser to finish it to fit its own operational and strategic purposes?

Frigates

Without giving any detail of numbers, dates or specific capabilities, the Prime Minsiter said that a new programme of frigate building would be commissioned, leaving the Royal Navy better equipped to counter sea-borne drug trafficking and piracy.

Four of the current frigate fleet will be decommissioned.

RAF bases – Tornados, Nimrods and Typhoons

The big news for Moray – which we announced in an immediate newsflash – is that the Tornados, crucial for operations in Afghanistan, are to be retained and modernised (good news for Lossiemouth); but the Nimrods – described as having already cost £3 billion, running 200% over budget and being 8 years late – are being cancelled today (bad news for Kinloss).

Will Richard Branson step up with a plan to use Kinloss instead of Lossiemouth as the base for his space tourism enterprise?

RAF Leuchars is off the hook with confirmation that the Typhoons are part of the country’s strategic future defence.

Update 18.00 19th October 2010: It is already being said that the reprieved Tornados at Lossiemouth may be moved south to co-locate the entire Tornado force at a single airbase there – RAF Marham in Norfolk. We did note that the Prime Minister used the plural when he spoke of the possibility of returning BAOR service families being based at ‘former RAF bases’.

St the same time, we find it hard to believe that, politically, the government – with hearts and minds to win in Scotland, wold countenance inflicting the economic impact on one single remote local authority area of closing both of its major RAF bases.

Special Services, Cyber warfare and Intelligence

Without putting figures on all of this, the substance of the strategic future the Prime Minister envisages for the UK is clearly leaning toward the importance of special forces and unconventional strategies. The relatively modest sum of £500,000 is to be spent on developing a ‘national cyber programme’ and there is to be ‘continuing investment’ in intelligence and border security.

Support for forces in Afghanistan

The Prime Minister gave an absolute assurance that there be no cut whatsoever in support for the armed services comitted in Afghanistan.

He made it known that this will not come out of the Defence Budget but will be covered direct from the Treasury Special Reserve.

Army equipment

The army were described as overstretched, with tanks located in Germany and the troops in Afghanistan left vulnerable to Informal Explosive Devices (IEDs) by having to use landrovers designed for conditions in Northern Ireland.

Th e army will lose 40% of its tank capacity but is to be given better protective land vehicles – Warthogs;more unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones);  and, at last, sufficient helicopter capacity. – 12 Chinooks.

Service personnel numbers

Overall the armed services are to lose 17,000 service jobs and 25,000 civilian jobs.

The specific breakdown of the service job losses follows below.

Army personnel numbers

The British Army on the Rhine (BAOR) is to be brought home at long last  – half by 2015 and the rest by 2030. Discussions are to be held with the servicefolk concerned on the possibility of their being based at what will then be former RAF bases in Kinloss and possibly also Lossiemouth in Moray.

2 Division HQ in Edinburgh is to be closed.

The army is to lose around 7,000 personnel, coming down to a force of 95,500 by 2015.

It will be able to deliver a brigade-strength force anywhere in the world and sustain it indefinitely.

It will be able to deliver a force of 30,000 for a short -term, ‘one-shot’ six month operation. This is a 33% reduction in capacity from the invasion of Iraq seven years ago when the UK delivered a force of over 43,000.

Navy personnel numbers

The Royal Navy is to lose 5,000 jobs, coming down to a force of 30,000 by 2015.

It will have the seven contracted nuclear powered Astute hunter-killer submarines, considered vital for intelligence gathering; the six Type 45 destroyers, the last of which, Duncan, was launched at Govan just over a week ago, on 11th October 2010; and an unspecified number of frigates under a new building programme.

RAF personnel numbers

The RAF will also lose 5,000 jobs, coming down to a force of 33,000 by 2015.

It will have a worldwide attack and transport capacity, although fewer Joint Strike aircraft are to be ordered.

Reserve forces

There is to be a review of the use of reserve forces, chaired by General Houghton.

Aid to fragile states

The UK is to double its investment in aid to fragile states as strategy focuses on prevention of the sort of conflict that can destabilise a region and draw in to military involvement countries like the UK.

By 2015, the UK will spend one third of the budget of the Department for International Aid on conflict prevention.

The future shape and direction of the MoD

The Prime Minister was unequivocal that the MoD is over-staffed and inefficient. He underlined its serious deficiencies in procurement management and said that it is to become leaner and smarter.

While the MoD budget will still allow growth next year it will drop by 8% over four years and the MoD is to become ‘commercially more hardheaded’.:

• It is to cut its estate.
• It is to dispose of surplus assets.
• It is to develop industry contracts.
• It is to reduce its overheads and lose 25,000 staff by 2015,

Along with the return of BAOR, these measures are calculated to save £4.7 billion within the period to 2015.

Note: The full Defence Strategy and Security Review can be downloaded here from the Parliament website.