“This is a Russian spy ship used for gathering intelligence and mapping the UK’s critical underwater infrastructure.”
Last week, Defence Secretary John Healey could not have been clearer about why the Royal Navy was tracking the Yantar as the Kaliningrad-built vessel sailed through the English Channel. The Rules of Engagement were changed to allow the Navy’s ships to sail far closer to their target.
The previous day the former chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) warned that Russia thinks “that they are at war with us and we do not think we are at war with them.” Sir Alex Younger was giving evidence to the Defence Select Committee as part of its investigation into the Grey Zone, that uneasy area between peace and war.
In September, Younger’s successor Richard Moore and CIA director Bill Burns wrote in the Financial Times that the international world order “is under threat in a way we haven’t seen since the Cold War.” They argued the rise of China is the principal intelligence and geopolitical challenge of the 21st century”. In addition, Russia is waging a “reckless campaign of sabotage across Europe”. This is highlighted by a spate of cable-cutting across the Baltic Sea in recent months.
The Starmer government seems intensely relaxed about this steady ratcheting up of international tension. Its unnecessary Defence Review, which should force the government into some choices about the level of investment in Britain’s security, is not set to report until the Spring – whenever that is.
Echoing around the Ministry of Defence Main Building is the sound of can-kicking. Despite being led by the distinguished former Labour Defence Secretary and NATO Secretary-General Lord (George) Robertson, the new Review will be the third in five years. How much has the defence and security landscape changed since March 2023 when the Sunak government updated the 2021 Integrated Review?
In its manifesto, Labour matched the Conservative pledge to increase annual spending on defence to (a measly) 2.5 per cent GDP. Despite state-on-state conflict in Europe, an unstable Middle East and grey zone disruption, earlier this week the media reported that even this small rise for Britain’s Armed Forces might not be delivered until 2032.
Perhaps far more intimidating for the government than the Yantar (“amber” in Russian) is the often orange-hued 47th President of the United States. Giving a masterclass in the exercise of power and purpose since his inauguration, Donald Trump’s focus has been on the US homeland – with a side order of Greenland.
Before long the President’s gaze, like the Eye of Sauron, will fall on NATO. While he probably won’t rescind US membership of the alliance, he will expect NATO members to stop freeloading off the American taxpayer and start paying more for their own security: 5 per cent GDP has been mentioned. Opening gambit? Full and final offer?
A buying-some-time Defence Review. The co-option of policies already set in motion by Conservative ministers (e.g. buying back 36,000 military homes from Annington). Paying Beijing-friendly Mauritius billions to hand them the Chagos Islands. Defence needs more than defer, retread and strategic incoherence from No.10.
About to be re-heated is extending the law in relation to the Armed Forces Covenant. The affable Defence Secretary should simply ensure its overarching principle – the nation’s support in exchange for military service – is upheld. This means delivering welfare policies affecting Armed Forces personnel, their families and veterans: these can include housing, children’s education and healthcare. Alas, that delivery often relies on an imperfect public sector: NHS Trusts, GP surgeries and local authorities.
The government’s laudable talk of support for the Armed Forces community is at odds with its actions. Labour’s ideological imposition of VAT on school fees has hit Forces’ families. With US military personnel exempt from the spiteful levy, what message of support does the government think it is sending to Britain’s troops?
The unhappy history of the Northern Ireland Troubles is chronicled in statistics compiled by Ulster University’s CAIN archive. The number of shootings, bombings, incendiary attacks and kilograms of explosives are all there, along with the tally of deaths and injuries, whether of civilians, Police officers or soldiers.
The 2023 Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act aimed to introduce a statute of limitations as well as halting the “vexatious prosecutions” of former soldiers, argued Boris Johnson. In repealing the Act, the Starmer government might well end up paying compensation to Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams, a former client of Attorney General Lord Hermer KC. Will hounding veterans in connection with events 50 years ago encourage recruitment and retention in Britain’s chronically undermanned Armed Forces?
The Bank of England is alert to geopolitical risks, as the Treasury Committee heard on Wednesday. Defence spending is among the “structural headwinds” facing the public finances, said Governor Andrew Bailey.
At RUSI’s Land Warfare Conference in July, the Army’s Chief, General Sir Roly Walker said the Army should double its lethality by 2027 and triple it by 2030, not least because of the urgency of the geopolitical threat from the “axis of upheaval”.
The government’s current mixed messages and delaying tactics are at odds with the troubling global security picture that many are painting. In the defence context, this suggests it’s at sea – unlike Britain’s fault-prone aircraft carriers
