The man who led the Strategic Defence Review has told MPs that the Prime Minister has still not launched the national conversation on defence and security he committed to, despite having personally accepted the recommendation and despite NATO warning of a potential armed attack on the alliance within three years.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, the former NATO Secretary-General who led the SDR, told the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy on 27 April that he had reminded the Prime Minister on a couple of occasions about his commitment but that the government had failed to act.
“Despite me reminding the Prime Minister on a couple of occasions about his commitment to it, the Government have not started this conversation,” he said, adding that he understood there had been “a conversation about a conversation recently inside the Ministry of Defence, but there are no signs of it outside it.”
Robertson described the absence of action as regrettable given the urgency of the threat picture, noting that the Prime Minister himself had said at Munich that NATO expected a potential armed attack before the end of the decade, which Robertson pointed out was now only three years away. “You would have thought that it is a matter of some urgency,” he told the committee.
The SDR, published last year, recommended the national conversation as recommendation 26, calling for “a two-year series of public outreach events across the UK, explaining current threats and future trends, the role wider society must play in the UK’s security and resilience.” Robertson told MPs the Prime Minister had accepted all the review’s recommendations, making the failure to act on this one particularly difficult to explain.
When asked what was stopping the conversation from taking place, Robertson was careful to note that as reviewers rather than ministers, the question was ultimately one for government. But he was clear about the consequences of continued delay. “It would be horrible to think that it would take an actual crisis, an actual attack on the United Kingdom, before we woke up to the kinds of threats that are facing us,” he said.
Dr Fiona Hill, who co-authored the SDR, told the committee the problem was partly one of narrative, saying the public tended to think of war only in kinetic terms while the country was already experiencing tens of thousands of cyberattacks on a daily or weekly basis, risks to critical national infrastructure and subsea cables, and the kind of economic disruption now visible from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. “It would be very easy to have most of daily life brought to a halt, but that is not being explained to the British public,” she said.
Hill said the UK had never had its equivalent of Germany’s Zeitenwende moment, the fundamental reckoning that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, noting that even the Salisbury poisonings had failed to produce one. “We had the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, which turned him into a dirty bomb spreading polonium all over London. There was the poisoning of the Skripals with enough Novichok to take out all of Salisbury. Even that did not have an effect,” she said.
Hes yet act on any thing, still dithering and delaying.
Does kicking the can down the road count as ‘acting’?
Under MOD rules yes, as its doing some thing, so he covered and not lying, much
‘Maintain a watching brief’ I think is the favoured term.
Not heard that in a few years.
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“a conversation about a conversation“ How very Yes Prime Minister. Hardly gives you confidence when if this NATO premonition comes about or even another Salisbury this PM could go down in history about as positively as Chamberlain, who in reality was arguably less culpable for following events. Has he no self awareness at all.
Chamberlain’s government actually initiated the rearming the country, something which can’t be said of this government!
Modern politicians have little interest in defence, only rhetoric.
This PM is no different, their interests lie elsewhere.
I hope the BBC picks up Lord Robertson’s comments.
As for Starmer and his speech at Munich, well, he talks tough and Grandstands with the best of them.
I hope Trump publicly ridicules him again.
And Healey is no better. Clueless a month ago at how many Escorts the RN possessed, he was subject of a nauseating MoD PR video the other day, striding purposely along, waving arms around to express “what we’ve done for Defence.”
He ommited an awful lot of what he’s cut and what he’s dithered, delayed, and the billions demanded yearly in savings yearly from the Tresuary.
Meanwhile, we have 5 Frigates left, as Iron Duke was quietly withdrawn.
Grandstand THAT, then.
Tories and Labour have been totally hopeless over the last quarter century with defence equipment issues. Fed up seeing both the main political parties blamey each other for the situation we are in with defence, they are both to blame. ‘Guilty as charged.’ Just talking about the RN escorts I remember looking at the list of Destroyers and Frigates between the time of 2008 through to 2010 – Still had around 26 Escorts in total at that time. But when I looked at the details of the out of service dates for each ship and then spent some time searching the web, there was absolutely nothing when it came to new Frigate orders or even any sign of future orders, new at that moment there was going to be potentially huge problems for the Royal Navy in the future, so frustrating. Talking to My Uncle recently who proudly served in the Royal Navy for over 20 years said.. ‘They need to get their bloody finger out and start to do something pronto to rebuild capabilities, will take some years to bring back the right balance to our armed forces’. And of course he is absolutely right, but will our current government or generally the House of Commons get to grips and start to sort the current problems in question, I struggle to believe that. I so hope I’m wrong though.
“Around 40” at Front Line First review in 95. Euphenism that reductions coming.
35 at SDSR 97, reduced to 32 with 3 T22 batch 2 withdrawn.
31 shortly after, as another B2 T22, I want to say either Sheffield or London, was added to the cut list.
This one’s always stayed with me, as I remember the 1SL making the excuses that 32 to 31 made no difference.
25 for 2004s New Chapter of the SDR, as 3 T23 needlessly cut, and the future T45s reduced to 8, while the 11 strong T42 force was rapidly diminishing.
25 became 23 around 2008 as the vowed 8 T45 became 6, as the idiot Ainsworth ran defence while having another job in Cabinet, Defence was seen as THAT important by Gordon Brown.
At the same time, the excuse is T26 will be sped up!!!!! Here we are….almost 20 years later….
23 then went to 19 as the damned Tories cut the 4 B3 T22s, and delayed the GCS T26 programme.
13 T23 and 6 T45.
Note how the 13 new frigates now only reach the new low benchmark, a common MoD HMG trick.
And here we are, Frigate force has fallen apsrt, literally.
What really annoys me is that HMG make no noises at all about a B2 T31 order, or any acknowledgment that YES, 19 is still too few and we intend to expand the fleet once T26 and T31 are completed.
Why?
They Grandstand about the mythical 12 SSN A by which time many of us here will be dead, they’re so far in the future.
I loathe them. Both.
Yes, agree Daniele. All very grim.. All I can hope is that by the later 2030’s the RN can at least be moving back towards that figure of 19. They do need to order extra ships though, 3 or 5 type 31’s batch 2 would be my suggestion, and of course order them soon which would mean a follow on when the current type 31’s are finished during the early 2030’s. That would bring the total back to over 20 Destroyers and Frigates by the end of the next decade.. But of course I know it is unlikely they will order extra Type 31’s anytime soon, just my own opinion. Possible even some type of more capable River class batch 3 vessel to replace the older River Class batch ones that will be retired not too far into the distance, need to raise the numbers somehow. All will take time though, and the longer our politicians dither and fail to make decisions, well, excuse the pun – But our governments are quite literally playing Russian roulette with this county’s future safety and security.
Just add to my comments, agree about the 12 SNN. Doubt they will build all 12, if the RN could have 8 to 10 and more availability would be a big step up..
They won’t build any at this rate. They’ll be out office before the first one is ordered.
Is almost as though the country is actually ran by the civil service rather than the parties and they simply hang up different coloured curtains every few years..
Reform won’t be any better. They have only committed to 2.5%. They will have the same economic challenges as any other party that comes to office.
Very much so mate.
I thought they had a target of 3% but no time scale? That figure is more like it but then Starmer is committed to 3.5 by 2035.
The economic challenges remain.
I also thought Farage made a promise of 50k more for the Army? I think that’s a mistake as I agree with you on what our military priorities should be, i.e. nucs and space, then Navy and RAF, only then Army.
Evening Chris.
I don’t recall, I know the Lib Dems mentioned Army numbers, as did Kemi Badenoch. Both easy throw away statements for a politician who knows nothing.
Reform I thought was 2.5% very similar to others. Very easy for any party to commit to a % they know they are unlikely to ever be held to account for.
Yes, always niche enablers, RN, RAF first for me, though I still want the Army bigger to at least be able to use the formations it has, so missing CS CSS.
Or, more logically, air, space, army, navy.
Conyrol of the air remains key to any military operation we undertake. Without it, our land and navsl forces are very vulnerable. RAF has far too few combat aircraft, tiny numbers of key equipments like Wedgetail, Rivet Joint, Poseidon. And still no GBAD.
Army equipment is in a pretty woeful state, with next to no field artillery greater than 105mm, a raft of old and near obsolete vehicles, a shortage of CSS units due to endless cutbacks but above all, it is now far too small.in numbers and being able to field just 4.5 combat manoeuvre brigades is hopeless – NATO expects is to field two combat Divisions which would require 6 heavy (armoured or mechanised) brigades, plus maintain a capability.to provide quick reaction forces for other theatres like 16 Air Assault Bde Grp. or 7 Light ”Mechanised’ Bde Grp
We are miles off where we need to be to provide even a token land force we need to build the force level back up to.80,000 or 90,000 (or one day in the future to the Lib Dems 100,000).
Next to these priorities, the navy’s role is now primarily ASW in the North Atlantic. Russia does not pose any serious naval threat to ENATO, other than its fairly small fleet of active submarines. Sure the RN is short of escorts and arguably needs more hunter-killer subs (preferably SSKs). The days of the UK maintaining large out-of-area naval forces are pretty much over, the nation can’t any more afford to be a world policeman. If we can get a CSG and some more capable patrol frigates doing out-of’area role, in conjunction.with other ENATO naval nations, that is the max we can afford to aim for. The days of having 30+ escorts are beyond us now. No ENATO navy has more than 20, though Italy is aiming for 22 in the future.
The RN needs to scale down its ambitions to confirm with the NATO area priority set out in the SDSR, we can no longer afford to have a world-class fleet ruling the oceans, these days are past now.
Nobody expects the RN to be ruling the waves.
The problem is that we are, much more than most nations, entirely reliant on global supply chains to maintain the standard of living British people have come to expect and demand. That means we need to be able to apply influence- not control -over the key straits. Think how much more influence we would have over the Iran situation if our navy was in the state it will be c.2033, able to put together a CSG of carrier, T26, T31 and T45 plus auxiliaries. The same logic applies to the world economy catastrophe that would be a China-Taiwan conflict; losing naval presence means losing any seat at the table whatsoever.
As for ASW practically the entire Russian warfighting force is now in its SSN fleet, which in the Northern Fleet consists of approximately 13 SSNs and SSGNs, plus 3-4 special purpose submarines like the Belgorod designed specifically for interfering with subsea infrastructure and which also carry the Poseidon nuclear-armed torpedo. Numerically speaking that outmatches the ENATO SSN fleet and as presumably the Russians would initiate any conflict they would be able to get as many subs to sea as possible. Investment in Atlantic Bastion is therefore needed to counter that threat, while Atlantic Shield and Strike are required to support NATO’s Northern flank against the concentration of Russian strategic targets and missile-launching forces in the high north.
NATO army forces in the East are now largely independent of Britain. Yes we have responsibility for Estonia and some key enablers but numerically we are a drop in the ocean, when our real expertise (and the direct benefit to Britain) lies in the maritime and air domains. Britain holding large land forces are a relic of WW2 and the Empire, we don’t need them as an island nation any more and although our commitment to NATO helps us hard-headed self interest says it shouldn’t be a national priority.
I suppose the difference with Reform is they are willing to cut things that the other parties are not willing to cut such as foreign aid, welfare payments to non-citizens and hotel/HMO costs for illegal immigrants. Together they come to many billions of pounds that Reform have to do as they wish but the other parties won’t touch.
The foreign aid budget has already been cut and given to defence. As Labour are now very much finding out. Saying one thing in opposition and actually delivering once in government are two very different things. Reform are a populist party pushing populist topics. I can well understand the frustrations with Labour & the Conservatives. But Reform isn’t the answer either. Just like Trump isn’t the answer in America. More division, and looking inwards does not solve the bigger issues we face.
Politicians are interested in everything the public is interested in.
Show me a British politician in history who ever wanted to raise defence spending, Churchill was the worst when he was chancellor.
Yet Britain was a world power at that time, and remaind so, so the comparison isn’t valid to me.
Our forces are so diminished and continue to be reduced, with so little action displayed by the leaders of this country, then no wonder so many subscribe to John’s Fabian belief, it’s like it’s all by design, managed decline to put Britain in it’s place for more important issues to take hold.
We may have been a world power under Churchill’s time as chancellor but we spent less on defence as a % of our economy than we do today and the world was a much more dangerous place back then. We had global commitments which we neglected to the extreme and we didn’t even have the back stop that we have today with nuclear weapons providing the ultimate defence or being part of histories strongest ever alliance.
I’m afraid the history of Britain is doing the bare minimum on defence spending then massively borrowing and ramping up at the start of a war generally after loosing the initial series of engagements. On average over 300 years Britain has spent around 2.5% of GDP on defence, it didn’t matter if we were a democracy, monarchy, empire or nation state. The Cold War was an arbitration in terms of spending however even though we were spending more arguably we didn’t spend enough as the threat for the Soviet Union was massive. Much worse than anything today.
And people still act surprised when the US slams NATO about not taking defence seriously.
Its like they might be on the money or something
Actually you’re wrong, no one in Europe/nato seems to care what the US thinks anymore.
They just had a big summit yesterday and the US wasn’t there.
Said it before about him and other politicians, the present bunch are Fabian communists with one aim. Sadly I have reached a conclusion that only a massive and direct attack on the UK will galvanize politicos into the real world as the rest of us see it. Will it happen?
Imagine no power for millions for a long period, no food on shop shelves. Imagine as in the Wilson days, Intel services and Armed Forces feel the country is on that slope to Bedlam. Proxy war can be directed at us by hostile states without much effort.
This man, his friends in the Lawyers Cabal are not interested in the UK, its defence, or its people. When clowns are elected ( think Bojo ) you get what you ask for. Politicians talk the talk, only one, in 1982 walked the walk.
Not in 1982, but in the immediate years after, when she increased the proportion of spend on Defence. It’s not about her sending the taskforce, it’s about paying for it. Blair sent troops to war on a peacetime budget.
She may not have served, but she was the last PM who was an adult during WW2. I sometimes wonder if that’s why later PMs have been so blinkered.
by GDP it was back at 4.7% which was the same level it was in 1979, by 1989 it was 4%
What’s a Fabian communist?
Is that like a conservative NAZI?
😀
National convention 🤦
Spoken like a true politician lord Robertson 😀
Just say we’d need to cut the triple loch and be done with it.
Rest assured that our steadfast government takes this matter very seriously and are working day and night to look at the possibility in the future of forming a committee to discuss the conversation within a conversation – it will all be there in black and white in the inevitable enquiry (post 2029)
I like your username.
Starmer says UK defence budget will rise by 2030 ,knowing he’ll be long gone before then ( hopefully ) and the defence budget will be another parliament problem.
Or the next Government will inherit a pledge and a NATO requirement to increase defence spend to 3.5% of GDP, infrastructure spend to 1.5% and Security spend to 0.1%. The opposition parties can all make their various pledges on defence just now, but the next Government will actually have to deliver. If the rest of ENAT0 is hitting.the 3.5% target and we are dithering about at 2.something, there will be a lot of incoming fire from NATO, Euro allies, the USA, the public and of course the indignant opposition. The next Chsncellor will need to be a bit of a magician to pull off the necessary funding.