UK SDSR 2015: Same Ends, Less Means, New Ways?

This article was external pageoriginally publishedcall_made by external pageEuropean Geostrategycall_made on 5 November 2014.

With the United Kingdom (UK) General Election only six months away, attention in Whitehall is turning to the next Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR). In the past, British defence reviews were infrequent affairs, usually forced upon governments by strategic shifts in international relations or the poor state of domestic finances. Taking its cue from the United States (US) Quadrennial Defence Review, however, the 2010 coalition government finally ditched this haphazard approach in favour of regular defence and security reviews. With the move to fixed term parliaments in the UK – another rather un-British institution – an SDSR will now be undertaken at the beginning of each five-year parliamentary term, with preparation underway at the end of the previous term.

At best, a defence review provides for a coherent narrative that justifies a nation’s choice of ends, ways and means for its security, matching scarce resources with foreign policy and territorial defence commitments. At worst, it is simply rhetorical cover for deep cuts to military capability. The 2010 SDSR fell somewhere between the two. In some ways the SDSR did take strategic decisions to settle on ends, ways and means, but not in terms of any great break with the past. Its objective was essentially to preserve the status quo – a policy that William Hague, then Foreign Secretary, described as ‘no strategic shrinkage’ in the UK’s international role.

This conclusion arose from discussions over three options presented to the coalition’s newly-formed National Security Council in 2010. Each option served as a different potential ‘baseline’ on which to build the SDSR:

• A ‘Vigilant Britain’ consisting of a minimum military commitment focused on defending national airspace and waters, but retaining the nuclear deterrent and making some small-scale contributions to interventions abroad;

• A ‘Committed Britain’, maintaining a capable blue-water navy, deep-strike air force and significant expeditionary capability – in other words a ‘full spectrum’ package and a willingness to use it (with a significant price tag attached);

• And, ‘Adaptable Britain’, a budget version of ‘Committed Britain’, designed to give the UK a fighting chance to continue to play its traditional post-war role in an uncertain world. Britain would maintain broad capabilities, but rely more on allies and take a more ‘cautious’ approach to intervention.

Those familiar with the British comedy series ‘Yes Minister’ might recognise the approach. The first option was politically untenable, the second financially impossible. The third was a politically rather appealing attempt to square the circle. Unsurprisingly, squeezed by their commitment to a foreign policy status quo and Chancellor George Osborne’s deficit reduction plan, Ministers chose the third option. To some this may seem a rather dishonourable fudge. But politicians deal in the art of the possible (as well as kicking cans down the road).

The spectre at the meagre feast was, of course, the coalition’s commitment to reduce the UK’s spiralling budget deficit. And the Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) finances were more parlous than most departments. A devastating combination of the financial crisis and years of over-optimistic budgeting led to a ‘black hole’ in external pageMOD finances estimated to be around £74 billioncall_made. Thus, there was little strategy involved in, for example, the decision to (literally) scrap the Nimrod MRA4 maritime patrol aircraft or take a ‘capability holiday’ on aircraft carriers. Indeed, beyond a preference for cutting heavy armour (which may look less prudent in 2015 than in 2010), it is difficult to trace much strategic thought in any of the decisions on capability. That is not a criticism of the MOD, so much as a recognition that in a review with ‘strong Treasury involvement’, taking salami-slices off capabilities and even sending some of them away for a ten year ‘holiday’ was the only way to cope.

Thus, while the ‘ends’ of the SDSR reflected an attempt to preserve a status quo UK role, capabilities were sacrificed as the financial means to pay for them struggled against a treacherous fiscal environment. The MOD had to find what many politicians and civil servants regarded as a comparably ‘lenient’ 8% cut over the spending review period. In its treatment of the ‘ways’ by which the UK would meet its strategic goals, however, the SDSR did break modest new ground in emphasising the role that could be played by ‘mutual dependence’ with close allies for key capabilities. This concept was reflected in the near contemporary Franco-British treaties on defence cooperation, which committed the two countries to unprecedented levels of cooperation across all facets of capability development.

What then for SDSR 2015? It can probably be safely assumed that the ‘ends’ will remain constant, and that the next British government will want, so far as is possible, to preserve its status quo role. Indeed, the word around Whitehall is that SDSR 2015 will be a ‘steady as she goes’ review, largely maintaining the adaptable posture set out in 2010. And yet there are some troubling aspects of UK grand strategy that ought not go ignored.

First, while the UK’s status quo foreign policy aspirations are largely a consensual matter among the leaderships of the three main UK parties, the same cannot be said for the wider public debate or the increasingly vocal political fringes. The Conservative party’s acute existential turmoil over European integration and the rise of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) (arguably its first ever serious rival on the Right) are the most potent manifestations of this. Nigel Farage, the leader of UKIP wants the UK out of the EU, which he has accused of having ‘blood on its hands’ over mishandling Ukraine and ‘provoking’ Russia. EU membership and the UK’s role in the defence of Europe are pillars of British influence and security. Yet, at a time of great international flux and uncertainty, both are increasingly contested and neither is particularly well-defended in public discourse. It is not yet clear whether this represents one of the UK’s irregular crises of confidence in its place in the world, or is the beginning of a more fundamental shift in British politics.

Secondly, since the publication of the 2010 SDSR, Europe has seen Russia effectively tear up the rulebook on post-Cold War European security. While the issue is too complex to cover in any detail here, it surely begs the question as to whether the 2010 SDSR accorded sufficient status to the risk of state-on-state war and the need for credible deterrence. On the other hand, Russia’s actions suggest that the ‘adaptable posture’ is more prudent than making bets on an either/or choice of maritime or land capabilities. Given the crises to the East and South of the European Union (EU), a further question for the 2015 SDSR will be whether the UK must set more focussed regional priorities, something the 2010 SDSR avoided doing. There may not be any easy answers to these matters, but they should at least form part of public debate.

As far as the ‘means’ are concerned, many hoped at the time of SDSR 2010 that the deficit would have been cleared in time for the 2015 review, and that the MOD could move forward into the broad, sunlit uplands of a growing budget. That has not happened. According to a recent RUSI report, the MOD is now working on the assumption that it will see modest real-terms growth in its budget in the next spending review. As Malcolm Chalmers notes, given that the next government will need to continue to make deep cuts, this seems ‘ external pageover-optimisticcall_made’. Although commitments have been made by the current government to fund the department’s ten year Equipment Plan with a slight uplift in spending, questions will no doubt once more be raised about its affordability going forward, as well as the plans for the future force structures outlined in 2010. Sadly, a public debate about defence spending has yet to catch hold in the UK. It is therefore eminently plausible that the defence budget will indeed dip below the NATO 2% GDP target in the next parliament and that tough decisions about capability will be on the agenda again.

All of which points once more to ‘ways’, and more specifically to how the UK can continue to maintain a external pagebroad spectrum of capabilitiescall_madeto support its status quo role in international affairs. In a constrained budgetary outlook for at least the next five years, cooperation with close allies, particularly France, but also Europe more broadly, must surely be given a higher and more developed profile in SDSR 2015. And, given that the main parties will differ little in their approach to the ends and the means, it is perhaps here that the political complexion of the next British government will be most important to SDSR 2015.

Many observers believe that the UK has much to gain much from joining pooling initiatives such as the European Air Transport Command (EATC), and taking on a broader leadership role in European defence cooperation. This has, unfortunately, proved impossible for the increasingly Eurosceptic Conservative party (perhaps irrationally so, as in the case of EATC, it is not even an EU initiative!). The Liberal Democrats, the junior coalition partners, have effectively constrained outright Tory hostility to the EU, but the recent surge in support for UKIP suggests that an off-balance Conservative majority government would not be good news for those who support deeper European defence and security cooperation. A Labour or Lib-Lab coalition would be far more likely to embrace such an agenda, although it seems unlikely for the moment that it would get the kind of high-profile push that Tony Blair provided at St Malo in 1998.

Yet something akin to another St Malo drive may be necessary if the UK is to use defence cooperation to fill gaps between resources and commitments and thereby preserve its traditional role in European security. In coming years, resolute political leadership will be required if the UK is not to turn its back on its formidable foreign policy achievements in Europe since the Second World War. Winston Churchill once said that, “ external pagethe true measure of nations is what they can do when they are tiredcall_made”. SDSR 2015 will provide some clues as to whether the UK still has the energy to lead or is growing too tired to live up to past glories.