In The Guardian’s article ‘UK ministers turn on defence critics’ today, the political smoke and mirrors of Whitehall and the Ministry of Defence are clear.
Restating or re-announcing currently agreed troop deployment and engagement or procurement spending as part of the 2% GDP defence spend is nothing more than a ruse.
Our concerns were voiced by a speaker in a recent Lords debate on defence. “I deplore targets in this because I believe that it is only sensible to base defence spending on what the defence of the realm requires”, said the former general and chief inspector of prisons, Lord Ramsbotham.
He added: “Without having a national security strategy on which an SDSR [strategic defence and security review] can be based you have no idea when you are going into these sums whether you have what is required.”
George Osborne on the Andrew Marr show said "Every public service has to make sure it is spending its money well."
We agree.
The development of Whole Force deployment in delivering our defence needs is based on utilising the right people with the right skills at the right time to deliver strategic, proiritised, value for money outputs. If you remove or diminish the capability and capacity of any of the military or civilian components you will increase the likelihood of deployment failure and delivery costs.
Year on year civil servants within the Ministry of Defence have supported the front line delivering value for money defence outputs and savings.
We would like to be confident that our politicians, senior civil servants and military colleagues in Whitehall and the Ministry of Defence understand this and have ‘battled’ to protect the value and flexibility of delivering our defence needs through the Whole Force model.
Somehow, we doubt it. The political smoke and mirrors of Whitehall politics currently obscures the sacrificial lamb, but sacrificial victims there will be.
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