The British National Security Council is slated to meet to discuss drastic cuts to military expenditure.
Purportedly on the chopping table are several key defense projects including, among others, two aircraft carriers currently under construction as well as the replacement project for the Vanguard –class ballistic missile submarine. Some in Britain’s new coalition government are calling for overall reductions in defense spending by as much as 20%. Conveniently, a letter from Defense Secretary Fox to Prime Minister Cameron was recently leaked charging “grave consequences” in response to the proposed reductions.
Troubling so, a drastic cut in defense spending illustrates an overall decline in influence and ultimately national power for the U.K., particularly damaging the nation’s ability to punch above its weight in the international arena as in recent decades.
This may be troubling for NATO allies and other close partners of Her Majesty’s Government as well, especially as such cuts represent a potential reduction in the U.K.’s contribution toward defense burden sharing. This should be particularly true for defense planners across the Atlantic where British military capabilities are historically designed to interface with those of U.S. forces in complimentary fashion.
Moreover, the U.S. security umbrella in the North Atlantic is augmented by Britain’s nuclear deterrent. Since 1998, the whole of Britain’s nuclear arsenal continues to be deployed aboard its four operational Vanguard-class submarines. In so many words, the discussion to scrap the Vanguard’s replacement is effectively a discussion on whether or not to continue maintaining Britain’s nuclear arsenal.
Still, others contend that due to the uniqueness of the British defense industry, it has not garnished the same positive effect on the national economy as defense industries in other states, ultimately failing to spur innovation of new technologies or result in a net gain for jobs creation. Meanwhile, defense appropriators seek to fill the resultant gaps by creating “defense efficiencies” through enhanced Anglo-French military cooperation to include joint carrier operations between the two nations.
Clearly, however, the proposed drawdown is the result of the underlying weaknesses common to other developed Western economies in the wake of the Great Recession, which continue to experience slow growth, rising national debt, and an increasing burden to support the rising costs of mandated social services. The proposed cancellations are also partly a manifestation of the post-9/11 defense spending bias away from conventional warfare requirements toward building capabilities for waging counterinsurgency and conducting international stability operations.
The new coalition government is on track to publish a full-scale Strategic Defence and Security Review (sic), the first since 1998, by the end of the month. An official white paper on the subject can be found here: http://www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers/commons/lib/research/briefings/snia-05592.pdf
