Defence #3

Tomorrow morning the Strategic Defence Review final paper will be presented to the National Security Council. The Spectator and The Guardian both cover what we can expect, and the general answer is 'not much'. From the look of what they say, the new review will be a continuation of the old; gradual reductions in manpower, machines and bases. In fairness with the ending of operations in Afghanistan (probably around 2015) much of the pressure on the defence budget(s) will be ended. Nevertheless there is still, as Richard Norton-Taylor (Guardian) argues, the undecided question - what exactly are the British Armed Forces for? The defence of the homeland? Expeditionary warfare? Both? Or simply what public opinion and the American Government tells us they should be for at any one point?

Let me offer a single point. If the impressively inefficient defence procurement procedures in this country cannot be dealt with, we should scrap Trident. In fact I'm coming increasingly around to the idea that we should scrap it anyway. The fact of the matter is that it is not independent - operationally possibly, but not productively (the rockets are made by Lockhead Martin in the United States. We've been reliant on the Americans to make the missile bits since the failure of Blue Streak in the early 1960s). Is it a deterrent? We cannot out-produce the Americans, and the Soviets had far more missiles aimed at us than we did at them. As the Wermacht showed in 1941-1943, it is substantially difficult too to do damage to a country the size of Russia. Could we damage the Chinese in a similar fashion (more to the point, who are we going to point them at?). Would anyone use them? If memory serves me correctly, James Callaghan (Prime Minister 1976-1979) admitted before his death that he would not, should the Cold War have turned Hot during his premiership. The point of a nuclear warhead is to say to a country that you cannot hurt us without us hurting you in a fashion you cannot easily, or at all recover from. Who is to say that the authors of a nuclear attack will be automatically identifiable though? The Fourth Protocol (Frederick Forsyth) postulated a cover Soviet attack on an American airbase in the UK that would not be identified, and that was written in 1984.

What concerns me is that few of these questions are being openly asked. At a time of serious government cutbacks, our defence is being substantially rearranged without our being able to track how.