Strategic Defence Review signals change, but without troops, nukes or funds, it's just words
The much-expected and vaunted Strategic Defence Review finally hit the streets and may well be radical enough to make the difference in Britain's defence posture, so desperately needed as the Russian hordes are once again marching west.
All talk about drones and the electromagnetic spectrum are all well and good lessons learnt from the war in Ukraine, but so also is the nuclear dimension – or rather lack of it – from Ukraine and her European allies, that might make the difference, most especially in the short term.
This looks like a very detailed and well put together review, which has probably indicated the military capabilities we must have to present a credible conventional deterrence in the future.
However, most of these capabilities are years in the future and even to a non-financial expert the funds intended to deliver them look rather short.
From an Army perspective, there is little to cheer, with no real commitment to increase numbers of soldiers or armoured vehicles.
The Ukraine war, which is the main driver for the review, shows us that mass of well-trained soldiers with the right amount of kit is essential on the battlefields of today and tomorrow.
Some estimates suggest the British Army would last four to six weeks in a Ukraine-type war.
The review does, however, detail that there will be investment and restructuring of the Army Reserve, which is most welcome, especially by the Army, which will most benefit from this around-100,000 contingent.
Even the idea to give school-leavers a taste of Army life, following the popular and successful Australian model, is radical and may be more valuable to the state and the individual than a gap year, "finding" themselves in the Antipodes.
Westminster and Whitehall now at least have realised publicly that the Kremlin is a gangster organisation ruled by an autocratic tyrant who has no regard for the world order or the rules of war.
Vladimir Putin, already an indicted war criminal on one count with many others waiting in the wings, has threatened Ukraine and the UK with nuclear attack almost weekly over the last three years.
Putin and his aides know they can chuck nuclear threats around because of the Budapest Treaty and because they know the UK would not use a strategic nuclear weapon, which would undoubtedly cause Armageddon in response to Russia firing a tactical nuclear weapon at Ukraine.
Hence, the hint that the SDR gives off a change in nuclear capability to return to having a tactical nuclear capability is likely to secure these isles far more than a million drones or electronic wizardry.
We have collectively so overspent the peace dividend over the last 20 years that this almost root and branch review is essential and will take time to come to fruition, but is meaningless without sufficient funds to realise its full ambition.
But much closer to home, I wonder if the New Model Army has the capability to conduct audacious operations like the SBU's [Security Service of Ukraine] to destroy Russian strategic military assets thousands of miles deep in Russia.
We had the Special Operations Executive in the Second World War, but there is no mention in the SDR of an expansion of UK Special Forces and the Special Intelligence Service, who you might expect to work deep behind enemy lines as the SOE did to such strategic impact.
The UK's SDR announcement may deter future Russian aggression in five years' time, but that will be little use if we must join battle with Putin sooner, if we allow Ukraine to fall to Moscow, which is only the starting point of the Russian leader's desire to reinstate Soviet Union-era western borders.
Retired Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon is a former commander of the UK Chemical Biological Radiological & Nuclear Defence Regiment.
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