The forthcoming Strategic Defence and Security Review was long trailed and long overdue, most of the interested parties had high hopes.
At almost every opportunity the MoD, Liam Fox and others were at great pains to stress that whilst it had to be conducted with reference to the financial situation, it would be a competent and strategy led exercise.
Some of us even naively hoped that the usual pre Defence Review past time of inter service politics would take a back seat and the services would come together, taking a holistic view of what was needed.
How naive we all were.
The SDSR is now descending into the familiar inter service briefing and spin and the intervention of George Osborne and David Cameron in the Trident funding issue is nothing but playing politics with Dr Fox whilst letting the defence of the realm play second fiddle to their games.
The SDSR is not yet published and in all reality we simply do not know, beyond the snippets that are selectively released into the wilds, what is being discussed or positions being taken.
Is it a way for the Liberal Democrats to engineer the cancellation of Trident by stealth, a means of getting rid of the troublesome and far too right wing for the Brokeback team, Liam Fox, some way of cutting off any right wing unrest, a means of driving us into more EU integration or, well, the combinations go an and on.
What it is not though, is strategic or indeed anything to do with defence and security.
Well, I hate to say “I told you so” but I did !
Having someone of ‘weight’ in the ruling party I deemed good for Defence, particularly so when that person is of a hawkish and pro-defence disposition.
You want someone who is both able, and interested, to fight the Armed Forces position as an effective advocate in Cabinet and with the Treasury.
It would be a shame if that person was broken because of the demands of the coalition, especially if the Armed Forces are damaged as a result of this fighting.
http://jedibeeftrix.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/of-con-dem-mergers-and-the-trident-replacement-%E2%80%93-are-the-two-are-linked/
I think you over-estimate the influence of the Lib-Dems. Cameron is simply not brave or radical enough to cancel Trident.
As far as being paid for out of MOD budget, I say yes of course, but the MOD budget will need to be adjusted accordingly.
The real problem with SDSR is that it had no “strategic” context from the start. Cameron, Osborne, Fox, Hague said nothing about defence prior to the election other than to blame Gordon Brown and next to nothing about foreign policy.
The naivety is in believing Labour bad – Tories good for defence. It was never that simple.
Clearly the drip, drip of speculation (for that’s what it is) is destabilizing and serves only to bring out the inter-service rivalries that have done so much damage over the decades. Putting to bed this sort of thing should be one of the SDSR’s aims.
They need to get this done and settle everybody down.
Labour and the Cons are about even when it comes to effect.
Labour tend to spend high but reflect a disregard for Defence.
Cons tend to spend lower but hold Defence as a higher priority.
“The naivety is in believing Labour bad – Tories good for defence. It was never that simple.”
Indeed, Labour are vindictive and the Tories are indifferent.
Let’s wait and see before ‘con-dem’ing the SDSR as non-strategic. Liam Fox has always come accross as thoughtful on defence matters (the what use are tanks in Helmand comment notwithstanding!) and has had a good period in opposition to have a broad outline of the sort of strategies and equipment the armed forces will need to fulfill the coalitions foreign policy needs.
He can however get extremely repetitive, I think he uses ‘this is no time for Britain to become seablind’ in every speech he makes.
One thing is clear, Fox & Hague will not suffer strategic shrinkage on their watch. Fox said in his interview in Portsmouth recently that Britain must be able to project power outside this continent.
As an avid pro-CVF supporter I was not entirely thrilled with his proviso that the carriers were ‘one way’ of doing that.Perhaps he was being diplomatic!
It is inevitable the UK will lose some capabilities, I do remain hopeful however that this will be a cost cutting exercise with a dash of strategy sprinkled on top.
agreed.
keep calm and carry on.
The SDSR (Strategic Defence Spending Review) is going to be dominated by the current Governments main objective which is to reduce the deficit and therefore the strings are going to be pulled by the Treasury. I have a horrible feeling it will end up a cut now for new kit and capabilities at a future date, much like has already been happening for the last ten years.
So the actual substance of the SDSR will be real cuts but there will also be quite alot of spin and hype about the future shape of the Armed Forces but little in the way of cash to support this vision.
We will have to wait 4-5 years for the next review to see any actual foundation put down but this will depend on whether the economy has improved and there is a willingness in the Government to open the purse strings which is not a definite, as there is little support now for this and this will not change if other ares a deemed more politically important to re-election etc.
“You want someone who is both able, and interested, to fight the Armed Forces position as an effective advocate in Cabinet and with the Treasury.”
There should be no Armed Forces’ special interest and no-one should advocate their “position”.
Politicians should serve the general public while protecting minorities and using individual in-depth knowledge of a few policy fields.
We operate a fundamentally adversial system of politics in britain, that is the way the system works.
“Politicians should serve the general public while protecting minorities and using individual in-depth knowledge of a few policy fields.”
Perhaps in proportionaly representative Germany thats true.
The Members of the House of Commons are elected by and speak for a territorialy defined area and group of people.
The MP for Crewe and Nantwich represents the electors of Crewe and Nantwich and if they dont feel he is a doing a good job it is the people of crewe and nantwich who may replace him with a better representative.
The Party System dilutes that somewhat, but thats the way the system is supposed to work.
“The Members of the House of Commons are elected by and speak for a territorialy defined area and group of people.”
They are elected to serve by their local constituents but their role and responsibility is much wider; holding the Government of the day to account in the chamber of the Commons, legislating and lobbying on behalf of citizens/causes.
As independent parliamentarians they have to balance out the various interests they represent; party, local, wider public, other causes/beliefs/interests.
Some do better than others but I wish that all MPs showed more interest in turning up to debates in the House (not just on defence).
And here you have te fundamental tension in the British system of democracy. The MP is voted in by a territorial constituency and is tasked with putting forward their views. But as one of 650+ in the House of Comons s/he has very little voice, so joins with like minded individuals into political paries. These parties then amalgamate the individual views into an median view, which most likely doesn’t encompass the views of the MPs original electors! Maybe we should just change the system to voting for a political party and their preferred “list” of MPs (with the oppurtunity to ‘vote-off’ prospective MPs you don’t like the look of!). What, me? LibDem? Naahhh!