James Schneider is in the ‘Statesman writing on Defence. This article is published with a tag line of, “Military insiders are trying to bully the government into dependency on an erratic United States”. I comment on the his arguments, and look at views expressed by other military commentators as to the sense of the UK’s US centric procurement policies and look at Kaldor and Cooper’s paper arguing that social resilience is a defence policy too.
Schneider argues correctly, but not with originality, that expenditure targets are not a strategy. A strategy must consider purpose, weapons and their source. He points out that George Robertson, a recent critic of the financial targets, is connected to and a long time supporter of the US Military Industrial complex. While Defence Secretary, he established the now bi-partisan position that the UK would develop an expeditionary capability designed to work in the context of “allies” i.e. a US led NATO. Robertson then went on to serve as NATO’s General Secretary. His criticisms of the Labour Government’s defence policies and appetite to fund them is repeated in an article in the Spectator written by John Foreman, who was formerly Britain’s defence attaché in Moscow and before that, Britain’s defence attaché in Kyiv.
The problem is that under Trump, the US is clearly an unreliable ally to the UK & Europe.
This opinion is the major assumption in Kaldor & Cooper’s paper, Organised Irresponsibility, where they argue that the Strategic Defence Review, is based on the assumption that NATO is the cornerstone of UK defence policy and that it double down on using the US as its major supplier focusing on expensive weapon systems which have been shown to be extremely vulnerable in Ukraine.
Does the reliance in US weapons systems and infrastructure jeopardise the UK’s defence capability. Schneider questions the availability of both the F35s, used on the aircraft carriers and for European operations and that of the nuclear deterrent. Further evidence is obliquely provided by Perun, an open source intelligence commentator, in a video entitled, “Arming Europe Without US Weapons?“, where he suggests in his imaginary European military, by their omission, that the UK’s exquisite weapons are all too US dependent.
Kaldor and Cooper make two additional arguments. The first that the SDR’s arguments and the government adoption of buying more US weapons limits European Co-operation, and they sub-title their conclusion, “Welfare is Resilience”.
I was reminded at a seminar yesterday, that some defence thinkers are trying to prepare the UK for the view that modern wars are between societies and that everyone needs to contribute. The SDR recognises, and observing Ukraine’s resistance, shows that, yet again, modern wars are likely to be conducted by the whole of society. Additionally, the new cold war is conducted in the grey zone, to which the best defence is a well informed and committed society.
A country at the end of fourteen years of austerity, with a corrupt media, and a public social wage commitment the lowest in Europe is not going to support enhanced defence expenditure at the expense of increased wages and diminishing social security. The second part of Robertson’s statement is that the welfare bill is too high and that It needs to be cut in order to fund defence; this was days before we discover that the HMG undershot its borrowing projections by £700m.
The UK can’t have an impoverished people and a well funded military, even if the current weapons procurement proposals made sense. A defence policy/strategy needs to be about purpose, then weapons and their cost. The country also needs that its population thinks its worth defending.
Social justice & equality are defence projects too. …
