The Defence Investment Plan published on Tuesday is written in two languages: there is the language of ambition, of commitments, billions and contested frontlines, and there is the language of deferral, of extend, explore and consider.
The ambition is the better part of it, with more than £5bn going to drones and autonomous systems, and the plan is franker than any before it about what these things run on, saying that space is the central nervous system of high-intensity warfare. Yet having named the dependency, the plan spends heavily on the limbs and hesitates over the spine, funding a force that lives or dies by our capability in orbit without fully deciding whether that capability should be ours.
The previous baseline for space ran to roughly £6.4bn over ten years, whereas the new plan commits £3.2bn over four, a materially higher annual rate and, by our analysis, the most Britain has ever put up for defence in orbit. What it buys, and who ends up controlling it, is what the plan leaves open.
The MOD will not proceed with the Skynet 6 narrowband satellite system, and will extend the ageing Skynet 5 while it weighs allied and commercial alternatives. Skynet is our sovereign satellite backbone, so this looks like a retreat, but I read it differently: it is a shift from a single exquisite, expensive programme towards proliferation and a mixed model, some systems we own, some allied, some commercial, wherever each is faster or cheaper.
Whether it was the right route to sovereign control is a fair, unsettled argument, but competition here is healthy, and the MOD should want more of it, away from the comfortable legacy primes and towards firms that move.
Of that £3.2bn, £880m goes to space control and ISR, space control being the ability to keep your satellites working while someone is trying to stop them, and it begins with knowing what is overhead, and knowing when a foreign satellite quietly shifts its orbit to slide up alongside one of yours and sit there, watching, within reach.
It ends with being able to do something about it, to defend against jamming, spoofing and lasers meant to blind a sensor, and to deny an adversary the same freedom in return, which is the difference between occupying orbit and holding it.
None of this is theoretical, because the head of UK Space Command has said British satellites are stalked and jammed weekly, and something up there follows something of ours around, and until recently the honest answer to what we do about it was watch and hope. That is what those drones and uncrewed vessels now sit on top of, and we have already watched a commercial satellite operator decide, mid-war, how much of its network a combatant was allowed to use.
It has taken too long to get here, and that uncertainty has made it harder for companies, suppliers and investors to build in the UK. There is also still a lot to resolve, including how the next Prime Minister makes the numbers work and how the UK gets to 3 per cent of GDP on defence, but for companies trying to invest, hire and build capability here, a plan in writing is a meaningful step forward.
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War /defence stuff is a hobby for me. I have no vested interestm
Thought I should say so because I get some comments on my posts that seem to assume otherwise.
War is mostly unlikely but has been treated and is being treated as an opportunity for unfair/undemocratic profiteering.
To cut a long story short it is not possible to find shareholders profits without raising taxes.
The question you should be asking is who should be paying those extra taxes?
I think there is one really big lesson from the Ukraine war that has been completely obvious and it’s overlooked by most folks because it’s nor sexy, not high tech and not even particularly expensive.
In the first 3 days of the War Ukraine had to deal with Russia applying their asymmetric warfare capabilities to the maximum possible, little green men, sympathisers, Spetznats execution squads, Airborne attacks on key infrastructure the lot.
Their society had learnt a lesson from the 2014 invasion and that was for a Society to win a war it has to be united and committed to fight that war everywhere, not just at the front line.
They had prepared their infrastructure, massively increased the size of their National Guard, trained a lot of volunteers basic combat skills and stockpiled weapons in locality’s.
That ensured they survived those 3 days !
And we have done ……..nothing ! And that is despite Salisbury, despite the attempts on the PM and despite us having a neighbour who freely allows Russians to enter their country and come straight over an open border into ours !
That’s the threat and lesson that isn’t mentioned !
Get Jim an armband and an AK47 (robust cheap and easy to use).😉
And George you can defend UKDJ HQ 😜
Gotta genuinely give people a stake in the country to win them over though….
I like where you went with this and offer encouragement…
It’s really fair to say that gen z and most millennials in the UK have recieved no material foundation from UK society that might encourage them to feel loved by their country…….why stand and fight for a society that doesn’t fight for you?!!
I’
It’s not often that Defence matters trouble the BBC but… there is story coming from Poland that should stop MPs dithering and buy stuff now. The US has tipped off Poland that Russia may intentional provoke Poland or the Baltics, to firstly pressure supporters of Ukraine and secondly to test NATO. There was always the risk that a Russia losing, or at the very best, not winning in Ukraine will act like a wounded bear
I personally think Ukraine has proven lots of things, including high tech weapons have a place and low tech artillery still makes a bang. What does it all mean though to the UK is quite uncomfortable, ironically the abandonment of Storm shadow when the Ukrainians are negotiating to manufacture more of them!
The DIP picks and chooses lessons learnt to save money when the Ukraine war only proves one thing in my opinion, war is extremely expensive, a lesson that gets forgotten at the first opportunity.
I also notice the author is falling for the expectation management, what significance has that 3% GDP number got, the challenge is to get to 3.5% by 35. The milestone of 3% should be set to 2030 but the DIP does not do that and makes it plain the current government has no intention of meeting the 3,5 commitment
Are you willing to pay more tax to fund your fear?
Are you willing to pay more tax to fund your fear?
As a skint person born to skint parents I’ve always been skint. Our society doesn’t help me with that and in fact allows the removal of humane and earth rights by wrong minded people.
On balance and after much consideration I can categorically state that MY material existence would have been more under nazi ism and id probs be a little more materially satiated under Russian governance….
I’m not alone in populating this ignored statistical relevance.