© FT Montage/Getty

Tanks equipped with laser guns, a UK space command shooting rockets into orbit and a renaissance for British maritime power: Boris Johnson’s surprise spending boost for the armed forces brims with bold ambitions across land, sea and air.

“For decades, British governments have trimmed and cheese-pared our defence budget,” the prime minister told MPs as he set out his plan, adding that he refused “to take up the scalpel again”. But even as defence chiefs welcomed the £16.5bn extra investment over the next four years — and pursue new forays into cyber warfare, artificial intelligence and space — the direction of military strategy is still unclear. 

The immediate question is how quickly the UK can advance into the future while holding on to older capabilities. Mr Johnson’s promise to support the UK’s economic recovery from coronavirus with an increase in domestic shipbuilding — including eight Type 26, five Type 31 frigates and fleet solid support ships — appears at odds with his desire for a more digital military.

It has already spent £6.4bn on two new aircraft carriers that will dominate the Navy’s operations for at least the next decade.

Line chart showing UK defence expenditure compared with other public spending priorities

“What worries me about all this is that we are still investing in a lot of the old heavy metal while talking about transforming into technological warfare,” said Michael Clarke, former director-general of the Royal United Services Institute think-tank. “This is the sort of stuff the MoD was looking at buying 10 years ago.”

Defence chiefs have been unusually blunt about the need to look beyond traditional platforms to bring the services up to date. General Patrick Sanders, head of Strategic Command, admitted last month that Britain was not yet geared up for modern warfare. “If you were to characterise . . . the armed forces we have today, you would describe them as joint and fit for industrial age warfare but not yet integrated and fit for information age warfare,” he told a defence conference.

Some have suggested that real advances can only be made by ruthlessly ditching outdated technology that cannot be “networked” into a digital system connecting military assets to each other. Alex Burton, a retired rear admiral and former commander of UK Maritime Forces, has suggested the Royal Navy needs to consider jettisoning inshore and offshore patrol vessels, which are unlikely to be able to fit into this network within the next five years.

However, neither Mr Johnson nor defence secretary Ben Wallace would reveal on Thursday what older capabilities might be sacrificed to help pay for the new. This is particularly important if the MoD is to use the Treasury’s new cash to invest in modern technology such as drones, autonomous ships and space assets rather than merely filling the £13bn black hole in its existing 10-year equipment budget. The department, which has been criticised by parliament’s spending watchdog for being “locked into short-term thinking” and “wasting taxpayer’s money”, is now under pressure to do better.

Stacked bar showing MOD equipment and support budget, 2019-2029

“There will be a tendency, because this settlement is so generous, for each of the services to think they can get all their funding priorities through,” warned Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director-general of RUSI. “There’s a real risk that tough decisions on what should be cut will be deferred . . .[but] because this is a significant increase . . . at a time of wider austerity, the MoD needs to show that it is even more committed to cutting waste and ensuring maximum value.”

The service most likely to suffer the burden of cuts is the army. While Mr Johnson promised a new fighter jet system for the Royal Air Force and pledged to “deploy more of our naval assets in the world’s most important regions”, he said only that the UK would “reshape” its army for digital warfare.

Defence officials said the army has repeatedly failed to come up with a sufficiently bold and inspiring proposal for Downing Street’s integrated defence and security review, which was meant to be published next week but has been delayed as a result of the protracted discussions on spending and is now not expected until the new year. Army officials have been told to go back and redraft their submission.

Military officials said this perceived weakness makes cuts in personnel numbers and a cancellation of expected upgrades in armoured vehicles such as Warrior and Challenger more likely. The RAF will oversee new drones and manage the future space command, while the Royal Navy will receive a boost next year when the first of its two aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth, will be deployed to East Asia.

Grouped symbol chart showing decline in western Europe combat battalion numbers

“The allure of the Navy is that you can be [near a conflict zone], with an aircraft carrier gleaming just over the horizon, without needing to get involved,” said Francis Tusa, editor of Defence Analysis. “The problem with the army is that you have to be physically there, on the ground. Sending a sleek grey hull to ports around the world is easier than deploying soldiers.”

Experts agree that in the short term, the MoD will have to restrain its spending while it waits for a clearer direction on programmes from the integrated review. The prime minister is expected to use the strategy, likely to be unveiled in January, as an opportunity to set out his wider diplomatic agenda at the end of the Brexit transition period, which expires on December 31, while looking ahead to Britain’s role hosting the UN climate change summit (COP 26).

“The litmus test will be whether the MoD now starts signing off on new programmes such as buying Chinook [helicopters] from the US which have no benefit to UK industry,” said Mr Tusa. “Expenditures like this would show that the department is going off on a drunken late-night spending spree to fund its wish list, rather than thinking about recovering its deficit.”

This piece has been amended to correct a statement from Alex Burton regarding which ships should be considered for retirement by the Royal Navy.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024. All rights reserved.
Reuse this content (opens in new window) CommentsJump to comments section

Follow the topics in this article

Comments