When ‘Hope’ becomes a strategy

“It is more important to make correct decisions at the political and strategic level than it is at the operational or tactical level. Mistakes in operations and tactics can be corrected [admittedly at a cost]. But political and strategic mistakes live forever.”

Millett and Murray “Lessons of War” The National Interest (Winter 1988)

It is hard to write a defence review. An almost impossible task. Of the 15 reviews that the UK has undertaken since 1997, only one has been useful and earned admiration. There never have been any quick foxes, efficiencies, easy answers, or simple formulae to build a coherent and useful national security strategy. A worthy one cannot be simplified into a tweet, an Op-ed, a PowerPoint quad chart, a set of bullets, a 5-minute speech, or a two-hour meeting. In fact, it takes time, hard labour, serious intellectual rigour, a study of adversaries, of allies and of oneself. It takes a deep understanding of the foundational concepts of military and national security phrases like deterrence, containment, competition, resilience, and combat. The reality of the ‘now’ needs to be hedged against the ideas of ‘tomorrow’; technology, rationality, equilibrium, strategic shock and surprise, grand trends, and unpredictability are more than shorthand: each deserving of their own investment of time and resource. So, have the British people been well served by the 2025 defence review?

There is much to like and admire in the SDR of 2025: a focus on resilience and defensive means against a Russia that is defined as a clear and present danger; an acknowledgement of the scale of the deficit being faced in deterring enemies; a plan to build out industrial capacity through long term ambition and contracts; a long overdue appreciation of the threat environment that chimes with what many expert analysts have been saying for a more than two decades; a clear prioritisation of forces and geography to be defended; and a little honesty with the public from the Secretary of State for Defence. The document nods in all the right directions without prescribing any useful solutions: those will be the job of the MoD to deliver. And another load of headquarters (‘cos the UK military like to think it does HQs well – whether they deliver is less compelling). Sure, it is not financially viable under current spending commitments even with the optimism bias of the MoD, but then so was the 1998 SDR that George Robertson wrote and which has been so admired for a quarter of a Century. This should be a point on which politicians hold the government to account over but should not detract from the aspirations, the requirements, or the obligations.

Expectations were high for this review. The ‘independent’ team of authors clearly had history and agendas; Robertson had delivered a much-admired review more than 25 years ago, heavily skewed towards an idea of what the future would look like [much of which was highly accurate], and devising a balanced set of responses; Barrons was into technology and transformation before it became a soundbite for just about anyone, but also with the managerial experience in defence that understood how different it was from business, alongside a wealth of military experience in high level command; and Hill was the alliances specialist, trying to bring a sense of reality to British notions of ‘special relationships’, deterrence, and Trump. Certainly, an admirable group of people, admittedly not balanced, and skewed towards a corporate vision of the future shared across Whitehall, if not by adversaries or Allies. The external contributions are said to have numbered in the thousands (although only a small number were read by a human, the rest were processed by an AI system that – amusingly and without irony – made the key recommendation to invest more in AI). Early drafts (completed after just over 5 months of work) were reviewed by defence chiefs and lightly tested by external examiners from an august panel of experts. Given that this most of this group was also involved with previous iterations of British defence policy, not much needed changing as a result of their interventions. It was only when the draft review was submitted to the government that the horse trading began. A further 5 months of revisions, amendments, and changes went on behind closed doors as well as – one suspects – the addition of the latest fads in buzzwords and already-announced alliance agreements, spending decisions, and defence contracts.

One might be forgiven for being cynical about the result. Yet the polished product is the output of strategic thinking that will resonate well with the British people and across Whitehall. Only one part of it might just concern Moscow too (the potential purchase and fielding of tactical nuclear weapons delivered by F35A jets), but for the most part this will not be seen as transformative by Allies or adversaries. One cannot imagine Putin in Moscow, Xi in China, Salami of the IRGC, or even Abdul Malik Badruddin Al-Houthi (Abu Jibril) reading it with anything but distain in their minds. In fact, one cannot imagine any of them or their senior staff reading it at all. If they did, they might conclude that Britain will remain a soft target for at least another 15 years, possibly longer. Neither is the Trump White House, Macron’s team in the Elise Palace, nor Mark Rutte in NATO HQ in Brussels likely to view it as a change to the British idea of what it needs to do. Allies are only too aware that Britain loudly berates others whilst deluding itself into only funding the threats it feels it can afford.

But that might just be the point: this review is to provide a sop to the British people, to defend little England and its commercial interests. It aims to be the start of a ‘national conversation about defence’, albeit one that the current group of politicians seem unable to talk about in a way that makes it relatable or accessible to the electorate. On the other side of the road, the MoD, it seems, is keen to continue to be perceived as the thin-blue/red/grey line, that defends the British people (something it is incapable of doing, nor prioritises resources for in its own planning, training, or spending), provided that action only takes place far from the UK under the umbrella of American military supremacy. Even if fully funded, the announcements of 12 SSNs, 24 frigates, F35A plus tactical nuclear weapons, GCAP, 6 new arms factories, and an Army of 76,000 won’t change that: nor will bets being placed on AI, drones, and autonomy. The British military (and their political masters it seems) have drunk the koolaid of their own doctrine and post-Cold War preconceptions, and are now punch drunk on the unsubstantiated promises of unicorn start-ups, and snake-oil salesmen. One needs only look at the fudge made of non-decisions over Integrated Air and Missile Defence to understand the distain that the reviewers and government hold about public safety. And the review tilts at windmills in (failing to) discuss anything meaningful about Overseas Territories or Crown Dependencies: sure it’s in bold font regularly, but there is a notable absence of actions or activity to provide people there with an iota of the “defend, protect, or enhance[d] resilience” that MoD is tasked to provide (unless you live in a sovereign base area).

Even if one accepts these views, and considers (as the author does) that the thinking behind the review is sound (as it was in 2014), what happened during the transition to the final piece? One cannot escape the fact that the reviewers had an impossible task. If set the question ‘What will it take to defend and protect the UK’, a set of concepts and capabilities emerges; one that either starts with a blank sheet of paper, or with the current force design. In either case resilience, industrial security, technology, innovation, adaptation and survivability would receive disproportionate emphasis as a result. It would be fascinating to understand what the answer to that question would have been. In fact, that’s the only question that really should have been commissioned by an ‘independent’ review. But that was not the challenge that the review team was set. Their question was ‘What would it take to protect the UK with a spending ceiling of 2.5% (of GDP) from 2026, and 3% from 2035?’ The best the reviewers could manage was a series of recommendations that prayed for no conflict within 15 years (at least). This flies against everything military leaders, analysts, alliance partners, researchers, and experts are saying.

Hope is not a strategy, but it is the one that this government has chosen. It is probably not what the reviewers wanted but it is their reality too. So, chapeau to Robertson, Barrons, and Hill. Yet those with an interest in defending the UK, Overseas Territories, Crown Dependencies, British interests, and in maintaining a free society, will be left deflated and depressed by a government that thinks it has a preordained right to succeed against adversaries who take war seriously. This review – evidence by the somewhat ridiculous rhetoric over its announcement – shows all too well the government are not intellectually engaged with the gravitas of the risks we face, nor the realities of what adversaries are willing to do – and when.

So, Hope it is then.