If a government wishes to neglect national defence, it is wise to do so when not fighting a war. Contrary to popular myth, Margaret Thatcher imposed brutal cash constraints on Britain's armed forces. When the first Gulf war broke out in 1990, it proved necessary to cannibalise the entire armoured inventory of the Rhine army to deploy a single weak division for Kuwait's recapture.
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It is foolish to idealise British defence policy-making at any period of modern history. Governments faced with the remorseless demands of health, education and welfare cut military budgets as much as they dare. Gordon Brown, prime minister, might argue that, while defence spending has fallen as a proportion of gross domestic product from 2.8 per cent in 1998 to 2.5 per cent today, this is still greater than the UK peacetime average over the past 150 years.
But this is not peacetime. Britain is committed to fighting in Afghanistan. While no generals ever possess all the resources they want, it is hard to dispute the army's claim that lack of means on the ground, especially helicopters and aircrew, grievously handicaps its ability to do its part in Nato operations. If the armed forces today commanded the same GDP share as when Labour took office in 1997, they would have another £4bn ($6.5bn, €4.7bn) to spend.
Every soldier knows that politics, rather than war-fighting, will determine the ultimate fate of Afghanistan. But, especially when the British army is troubled by a sense of failure in southern Iraq "“ the US perception, at least "“ its commanders passionately want to be seen to achieve limited security objectives in Helmand.
Perhaps the best way of expressing British under-resourcing is to compare the 20 per cent of overall US defence spending committed to active operations with our own 12.5 per cent. This is an approximation, but it is indisputable that the British in Helmand rely heavily on the Americans for helicopter lift, air support and now also troop reinforcements.
Meanwhile, back at home, the government has announced the first stage of an overdue defence review. There is a gaping hole in the current budget "“ at least £1.4bn "“ made worse by the fact that creative accountancy in the Ministry of Defence has pushed back many bills to 2010. Whoever rules Britain after the next general election will inherit a stack of yellowing, unpaid invoices.
The Tories say they will not increase overall spending on the armed forces. Thus, something big must be sacrificed, to square the numbers. The familiar expedient of "salami-slicing"� will not suffice. If Britain is to do anything properly in the defence arena, it must abandon pretensions to do everything.
The most obvious candidate for the axe is the upgrading of the Trident nuclear deterrent. Labour has explicitly postponed debate on this option, which might save £20bn, until after the election. The case for relinquishing the deterrent rests upon its alleged incredibility. No one seriously anticipates Britain embarking upon a head-to-head nuclear confrontation with Russia or China. Trident represents a counter to a potential threat from a lesser state.
Yet most strategists believe that if such an attack came, it would most likely be from a bomb detonated in a container covertly delivered to a British target, rather than launched from a ballistic missile of which the origin would be instantly identifiable. It would be hard to determine an appropriate objective for retaliation.
Exponents of maintaining Trident and a successor rely overwhelmingly upon traditional arguments about the deterrent as a statement of Britain's place in the world, its claims upon a seat at the top table. It would be foolish to dismiss this argument, not least because it may well prevail. But it begs the insistent question: can Britain afford such a gesture in our newly straitened circumstances, and at the expense of other, much more utilisable, elements of national security?
The other big-ticket items are the Royal Navy's two aircraft-carriers, and the US-built F-35 aircraft to fly off them. Argument persists about their real cost but it will certainly not be less than £20bn. Few strategists doubt the principled desirability of the carriers, to support overseas expeditionary warfare. But once again, the question looms: are they affordable?
So desperate is the navy for the ships, that sailors are privately ready to sacrifice the F-35 purchase and use the carriers to operate helicopters and a putative maritime version of the RAF's Typhoon. This is by no means an unlikely outcome for political and industrial reasons, though it would be a poor strategic compromise. What the navy really needs, in the new world, is a substantially larger number of cheap and cheerful floating helicopter platforms. But, given the advanced procurement state of expensive and sophisticated ships already ordered, it will be hard to reconfigure the dwindling fleet.
The RAF's large Typhoon Eurofighter purchase is an embarrassment. The cost of training aircrew and maintaining aircraft operationally is such that it is likely a good many of these planes will be mothballed on completion. Britain needs battlefield air support but few interceptor fighters. The growing ascendancy of unmanned drones for battlefield surveillance and fire support shows the way ahead. In a rational world, Britain would strengthen its drone, helicopter and air transport capability. But whether or not this is done, we are stuck with the Typhoons. More than a decade ago, in Britain's anxiety to lock the Germans into the project, contracts were drawn with a rigour that now ensnares us. It is deemed more costly to withdraw from Eurofighter than to persist with it.
Most strategists on both sides of the Atlantic believe Britain's wisest course would be to strengthen its army. A generation ago the buzzword was "capability"� "“ the extraordinary destruction that modern technology enables small numbers of men to unleash. Recent experience, however, shows that the utility of raw firepower has been overstated.
In war-fighting and peace-keeping, what matters is how many boots can be deployed on the ground. Iraq and Afghanistan suggest that even the 632,000-man US army is too small to achieve its present and plausible future aims. British strength of 98,000 is certainly inadequate, if our principal strategic purpose remains that of convincing the US of the UK's status as a credible fighting partner. An increase to 115,000 is deemed operationally desirable and politically "“ under a Tory government at least "“ narrowly credible.
People are the most expensive single element of every defence budget, accounting for 38.8 per cent of British spending. More soldiers must mean cuts elsewhere. But a realistic option exists, of making the British army a formidable 21st century fighting force with appropriate air support, if the political will is there to impose severe pain on the other services.
One of the difficulties overhanging the defence review is a lack of high-quality intellectual input within the Ministry of Defence, once exemplified by such civil servants as Sir Michael Quinlan and Sir Frank Cooper. Today there are grievous institutional weaknesses at the MoD, which militate against force and clarity of thinking.
Given expectations that a Conservative government will rule next year, in the armed forces there are fears that David Cameron, the party's leader, does not regard defence as a priority and that the Tory parliamentary defence team is weak. The ruling Labour party has failed to provide political leadership, as distinct from mere faltering management, at the MoD. This is what will be wanted from Mr Cameron's people.
The current situation, close to crisis, poses big difficulties for a new government, but also a once-in-a-generation opportunity. The defence community is in no doubt that decisive choices are needed. More fudge, a continuation of the wearily familiar doctrine of distributing pain equitably between the three services, would represent a failure that might not cost votes, but will deserve obloquy.
The writer is an FT contributing editor
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Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
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