Since the new Conserverative-Liberal Democratic (LibCon) coalition came to office in the United Kingdom, two discussions at governmental level have seemed to preoccupy the government. The first entailed the fulfilment of a Conservative party election pledge to seriously come to terms with what was admitted by all to be the country’s dangerous fiscal position, including extensive debt; and the second, becoming more prominent after the general election, has been the debate within the government itself over whether the country’s defence budget, now at an annual level of about £40B (US$62B), is now too much for the country to bear, and therefore requires to be cut.
David Cameron’s new government moved fast to bring forward a budget including substantial cuts in expenditure which have raised concerns as to whether it will actually induce an even deeper recession in the country. The Liberal Democrats in the coalition have not been entirely happy, but have subordinated any concerns they have to the government’s priority of reducing the extensive debt which they inherited from the Gordon Brown’s Labour administration. Yet some controversy continues as to whether the cuts will inhibit an economic recovery, or actually deepen the current recession, including what is now considered an unacceptable level of unemployment. That controversy will continue, as is done in certain European countries like Spain, Portugal and Greece more vigorously, and to some extent in France. For at the same time, observers in all those countries and in Britain, are looking somewhat jealously at how Chancellor Merkel’s coalition government in Germany has been able to induce a trend to economic recovery, led by substantial export growth.
But in the United Kingdom, it is increasing controversy over proposed defence cuts that the government is suggesting that has gained substantial strength. So much so, that the Minister of Defence, Dr Liam Fox, has been moved to publicly express his reservations over the nature and extent of the cuts in specific areas of the defence budget.
The controversy reflects a long-standing debate in the United Kingdom on the nature of Britain’s defence posture in her post-colonial existence. The coalition moved quickly to set up a National Security Council, chaired by the Prime Minister himself, and then a Strategic Defence and Security Review under the Ministry of Defence, to discuss the nation’s strategic priorities in relation to both its international circumstances and economic and diplomatic location, and the resources available to the government in the present economic situation. In spite of its release of its imperial domain, Britain today maintains the largest defence expenditure in the world after the United States and China. This position, it has been inclined to assert, is justified by its standing as the main ally of the United States in the NATO alliance, and by the nature of the country’s economic location as a major importer of commodities and major exporter of goods well beyond the western world. This latter position is said to necessitate the maintenance of open sea lanes, and the capacity to maintain a retaliatory power vis-à-vis threats to them. Secondly, the UK claims that it is necessary to possess a credible capability to be able to effectively negotiate, as an ally of the United States in particular, with those whom the NATO alliance sees as new, but unjustified pretenders to the nuclear throne, for which, at this time, read Iran.
This dual British position had, in the last decade been given an intellectual justification by then Prime Minister Tony Blair’s notion of Britain’s role in the world requiring a sufficient military strength to be able to undertake a role of what he called “liberal interventionism.” By this he meant intervention in countries, not so much on strategic global defence grounds, as the United States might claim, but on grounds of humanitarianism in the face of illiberal governments’ insistence on oppression of their own peoples or intervention in neighbouring countries. Blair was highly praised both at home and abroad for the UK’s intervention in Sierra Leone, the victim of both types of interference. And he saw himself, and therefore his country, as adding a certain moral fibre to George W Bush’s intervention against Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and then in Afghanistan, reputedly against the Taliban’s attempt to maintain its influence in that country.
But initially faced with a minor revolt in his Cabinet in the face of his commitment to the Iraq war, the deep imbroglio into which the Western allied forces, and in particular the US, got themselves, effectively diminished any domestic legitimacy that Blair had for his supportive effort, a diminution which has virtually spread to the war in Afghanistan. The position of the British Labour Party in respect of this matter of intervention was no more visibly shown up last week than when, on the platform of the Labour’s Annual Conference, former Foreign Secretary David Miliband was visibly seen to remonstrate with Party Chairman Harriet Harman for applauding criticism of the Iraq intervention by his brother, the new leader of the party.
It is no doubt, though this has not been said, in this somewhat negative domestic context about external intervention, that the coalition government feels that it can pursue some vigorous cuts in the country’s defence budget. The scale of the cuts proposed suggests a view of a diminished role for the United Kingdom in its current international defence priorities, revolving as they do around two significant sectors. The first relates to the British ability to maintain a sufficiency of nuclear submarine capability roaming the seas as a warning to others of Britannia and Europe’s insistence on maintaining a continuing international presence. And the second relates to the necessity to maintain a sufficiently substantial armed force to support the first sector.
These two elements have been the core of the Strategic Defence and Security Review and the initial outcome of the government’s decision-making; they have also been the source of contention within the coalition itself, not least the objections by the Secretary of Defence. In addition, the United States has hinted to the British that there should be caution over a too-quick reduction of its nuclear submarine capability; while at home there is concern over an over-speedy run-down of the armed forces and the country’s airlift capability, in the face of its continuing dependence on the external arena for its economic production capability. The United States sees the UK as its primary, and most operationally capable, supporter, and obviously does not believe that that country should place itself in some lesser league of powers like Canada and the Scandinavian states. And it has been felt by some within the United Kingdom itself that the government should not be over-anxious to take decisions on major reductions in defence spending, in what is deemed to be the country’s temporary economic dislocation. Defence planning, it is asserted, requires for a country like the United Kingdom, a ten year horizon, with the ability to make corrective action being limited, once decisions have been taken and implementation begun.
Those who take the view that the United Kingdom should continue to possess a substantial international capability for global military mobility, are also cautioning against taking precipitate decisions in the current situation of not only of global instability, but the transition to a rearrangement of relations among current and emerging powers. It is argued that the competition of strategic commodities, either for food, industrial manufactures or defence capabilities, is likely to get more severe, as instanced by China’s assertive efforts in Africa and the Middle East. In that context, it is felt by some in the UK, Britain as a commodity-dependent island, must maintain a capability beyond its status as a mere entity within the larger European Union, justifying its ability to be not just a credible periodic intervener, but a credible warner against intervention by others in areas which it considers strategic to its interests.
So now, on a second round of contemplation since the country’s historic withdrawal from East of Suez, the British Parliament is being called upon to line up on the issue of how much of its cloth must be cut, while it maintains a potential adequate enough to rule the waves in areas it considers strategic, not to its dominance, but its future day-to-day well-being.
