DEFENCE & FUTURE OVERSEAS PARTNERSHIPS

Over the course of the last half-century defence spending has attracted and been a hot issue of contention. This has been brought to the fore in recent times, through government rounds of budget and expenditure reductions. Most notably, the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review and the cuts to overall manning levels to the armed services have brought the issue into sharp focus. Critics argue this has seriously skewed our defence posture and capability towards mammoth (and massively expensive) commitments such as upgrading and maintaining Trident and the development of new aircraft carriers.

Last month, former US defence secretary, Robert Gates, asserted that defence cuts in Britain have left the UK unable to be a ‘full partner’ in future military operations with the United States. As a result of defence cuts, Mr Gates believes that the UK no longer has ‘full-spectrum capabilities’. This, he says, will affect the UK’s ability to be a full partner and will change the dynamics of how operations are conducted in the future. His comments came in the wake of remarks by General Sir Nicholas Houghton, the Chief of the Defence Staff, who said that manpower is increasingly being perceived as an ‘overhead’ and that Britain’s defence capabilities have been ‘hollowed out’.

It is right that these cuts have been questioned in the UK. The concerns over the knock-on direct and indirect effects on local economies, and the dangers of global military over-stretch, have been well aired. At the same time, however, many have long queried the need for such a large and over-bloated defence budget, particularly when our appetite for overseas engagements in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts has greatly diminished.

The world has changed, too. Britain is certainly not the global power she once was. There is perhaps room for debate on the reasons for this relative decline, but some truths are incontrovertible. The growing focus of global power and wealth from West to East, the profound change in the nature and structure of armed conflict and the threats that we face to our national security are all factors that must enter the equation if we are to explain and account for how the world has changed and how, as a consequence, our influence has declined. Our reduced military capabilities reflect in large part the need to bear down and address our massive budget deficit and public debt. Such considerations have, as Gates himself stated, also forced spending reductions in the US.

But what is also true is that Britain is less committed in performing the role of being an acquiescent subordinate to the United States in international affairs. Widespread disquiet has also stemmed from the ubiquitous relationship that US intelligence has with Britain’s intelligence services and the close links that have existed between America’s National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain’s communications and listening posts at GCHQ in Cheltenham. In light of these considerations, it is only right and proper that the UK’s military relationship with the US be subject to re-examination.

Public ambivalence is not likely to stop there, either. It should also lead in due course to a more searching examination of Britain’s future commitment to Trident and what justifications there are in keeping a nuclear deterrent. Particularly so, given the changing political landscape in the UK and the very real prospect of Scotland (where Trident and the nuclear deterrent is housed against its will) becoming an independent nation. The referendum for Scottish independence is to be held this year in September.

It may be tempting to compare our defence capacity with what the country was able to sustain in the past and no-doubt some will rue Britain’s reduced capabilities. But the fact remains that the world has changed and with it the shifting balance of global power. It is to the future, not the past, which we should now look in how our overseas partnerships are formed. Britain’s defence arrangements will become a reflection of these changed requirements.