Does the mod deserve special treatment in the midst of a pandemic? | thearticle

The Prime Minister has overruled the Chancellor of the Exchequer on defence. After weeks of arm-wrestling, Downing Street is forcing the Treasury to allow military spending to rise by an

additional £16 billion over the rest of this Parliament. This is on top of the annual increment of 0.5 per cent promised in the Tory manifesto, so that the total increase over four years

will be £24 billion. No other department has been singled out like the Ministry of Defence; the rest must content themselves with a one year settlement only. “I have taken this decision in

the teeth of the pandemic,” Boris Johnson declared, “because the defence of the realm must come first.” Fine words — but what will this money, the largest sustained rise since the Cold War

ended, be spent on? The MoD is notorious for living beyond its means, for procurement disasters and extravagant projects which then have to be cancelled. The Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth

class aircraft carriers and Dreadnought submarines, the RAF’s F-35 and Tempest aircraft, the Army’s next generation of tanks: all these and other defence programmes are ruinously expensive.

With Covid-19 by no means under control and the budget deficit already ballooning, how can Downing Street justify making an exception for the MoD? The answer is that the world has changed.

New fronts have opened up and the UK is more vulnerable to attack than at any time in history. The main focus of expenditure over the next four years will, we are told, be on the

establishment of new branches of defence: a National Cyber Force, an Artificial Intelligence Agency and a Space Command. This will be the biggest shakeup for at least 30 years, but the

catastrophic consequences of the pandemic have forced the Prime Minister to acknowledge both the fragility of our digital economy and the gravity of the threats to which we are exposed. The

transformation of British defence capabilities is long overdue and marks a decisive break with the long period of retrenchment that has lasted since the 1990s. In many ways, this shift in

priorities resembles the early years of the Cold War, when Britain was forced to adapt to a nuclear age while simultaneously withdrawing from imperial commitments “east of Suez”. The new

agencies should attract the kind of talent that Britain possesses in abundance, thanks to our world-class universities and entrepreneurial business culture. The impressive response of

scientists at Porton Down to the Russian chemical attack on Salisbury was a reminder that the UK is still widely respected in such fields. “In the end the PM got it,” one MoD official was

quoted as saying. “Britain needs to step up post-Brexit.” While other European countries are also worried about defence against cyber attacks, new types of drones and missile assaults on

communications satellites, the EU has been slow to adapt to a more dangerous environment. Defence budgets have been sacrificed to maintain lavish social programmes and despite the reality

check of the Trump era, reliance on the US is still Europe’s default position. Of the major Continental powers, only France seems serious about security, but its focus for the moment is on

terrorism. By contrast, the Government’s decision to make a reality of “global Britain” by protecting ourselves against states who wish us harm means that the incoming Biden administration

will want to work closely with us. The US is already stepping up its defence against potential threats, especially those emanating from China. The re-establishment of the First Fleet to

assist the Seventh Fleet in policing the Pacific and Indian Oceans will address the conventional threat from Beijing. But the Pentagon and other US agencies have also woken up to the

multiple threats to the West in space and cyberspace, not to mention biological warfare in the wake of the pandemic. The much-heralded integrated review of defence and foreign policy is due

to be published in January. This week’s decision by Boris Johnson to put our money where his mouth is may be derided on the Left as Churchillian posturing. But one of Churchill’s greatest

gifts was his ability to harness the latest technologies for the defence of the realm. He was not only our greatest statesman, but our most notable scientific innovator on land, at sea and

in the air. On nuclear weapons, Winston was decades ahead of the game. Needless to say, our present Prime Minister is no Churchill, but he could do worse than to take lessons from the master

on the value of foresight in defence. As the Scouts’ motto has it: Be Prepared.   A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an

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