A shopfront military?

The challenge for Labour's defence review

HMS Prince of Wales, one of the UK’s new aircraft carriers, arrives back in Portsmouth last year.

Governments launch defence reviews to find a way out of a recurring dilemma: the world is dangerous and the threats to national security severe, but money is tight. Instead of responding to this dilemma in an ad hoc way it is better to view all programmes competing for funds together in the light of likely threats. In this way, priorities can be set and funds allocated in a reasonably rational manner.

That at least is the theory but it doesn’t always work that way. Once launched reviews can cause a form of planning blight as difficult decisions wait for their completion. When the hard choices are made they don’t always work out well. The 1981 review planned cuts in the Royal Navy which if fully implemented would have made it impossible to send a task force the following year to retake the Falkland Islands. The 1990 review targeted the armoured forces soon deployed in the 1991 Gulf War. The 1998 review needed a ‘new chapter’ following the al Qaeda attacks of 9/11. The last government’s integrated review required a ‘refresh’ following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The new government’s review, announced soon after the election and fulfilling a manifesto promise, represents a departure from past reviews. The task of finding a way to navigate these challenges has been handed to three independent figures, supported by a Ministry of Defence team. They will be led by Lord George Robertson, former Labour Defence Secretary and then NATO Secretary-General. He is supported by General Sir Richard Barron, a former Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff, and a strong advocate of the modernisation of the armed forces, and Fiona Hill, a British-born Russia expert who worked on Donald Trump’s National Security Staff until she ended up as a star witness in an impeachment inquiry. A diverse collection of individuals have been added to the team, including former Conservative Defence Minister Sir Jeremy Quinn, NATO Assistant Secretary General Angus Lapsley and Jean-Christophe Gary of the Cabinet Office, who has a treasury background.

These are all serious and credible figures. Robertson is clear-eyed about the security challenges the country currently faces. But will his team be able to escape the problems that have frustrated past reviews?