MAJOR future military operations by the United Kingdom will have to be carried out in alliance with other states including France, the British government said, as it struggles to cope with an £800 billion (€916 billion) national debt.
However, the royal navy is to get a replacement for its Trident nuclear missiles and, most likely, two new aircraft carriers, defence secretary Bob Ainsworth told the House of Commons yesterday.
In a 52-page Green Paper, Mr Ainsworth outlined future major security threats, including terrorism, counter-insurgency wars, nuclear proliferation, climate change and the rising power of China. “Tough choices will lie ahead and we need to rebalance our budget to better reflect our priorities,” he told MPs. New equipment would have to be bought more cheaply than in the past, he added.
The emphasis on co-operation with France, now back in Nato, is striking, though the document hints that co-operation with other EU countries will have to be improved if security challenges are to be met. All future operations, bar emergency ones, are “likely” to be carried out “alongside allies and partners”, the document states, adding that this “would place limits on our ability to act nationally, [but] it could deliver a more effective contribution to international security”.
Last month, the Royal United Services Institute, a respected think tank, warned that the number of armed forces personnel would have to fall from today’s 175,000 to 142,000 in six year’s time if budgets are to be kept.
The UK’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has so far cost £14 billion. This year Afghanistan will cost an extra £5 billion, though this will come from extra treasury funding, rather than from the military’s core budget.
Prime minister Gordon Brown, standing by the £25 billion commitment to replace Trident in the face of Nick Clegg’s opposition, described the Liberal Democrat leader to the Commons as “a unilateralist”.
Mr Brown’s funding of the military during his time as chancellor of the exchequer is featuring more prominently as the Iraq Inquiry hears more about the difficulties facing the British army in that conflict. Former top ministry of defence official Kevin Tebbit told the inquiry yesterday that Mr Brown had imposed an “arbitrary” £1 billion cut in the defence budget months after the invasion took place, but then boosted the budget by £4 billion a year later.
The UK does not face the threat of aggression from another state, the defence secretary said, adding that conflicts “cluttered” with state and non-state players were likely to be the norm for decades.
British troops will have to be “soldiers, diplomats and aid workers”, while the need for “boots on the ground” – each soldier costs £500,000 a year to supply and train, according to the prime minister – will make it difficult for defence chiefs, who are already in a “turf battle” among themselves, to cope with treasury demands for cuts.