Defence Investment Plan is a kick in the posterior to embrace risk, says security analyst
One silver lining of receiving less funding than requested in the Defence Investment Plan is that it will force the UK to be more creative, think in new ways, and move beyond previously established approaches.
That is the view of Justin Crump, a former British Army tank commander and chief executive of intelligence and risk consultancy Sibylline.
He described the funding outcome as "the kick in the posterior we needed to actually embrace risk".
He said: "Let's scrap the way we've been planning to fight, let's go in a new direction – that's the way to get more bang for our buck."
Real action
Mr Crump said the UK will move in the right direction by embracing lessons learnt from Ukraine, which means Britain will need to demonstrate its commitment to defence by "actually following up words with real actions".
"Not a plan to have capabilities in 2030, are we more dangerous tomorrow than today?" he asked.
"That's what adversaries are looking at, and that's what we need to deliver for our allies.
"No more words. No more concepts. It's a delivery of capability."
Mr Crump defines capability as usability, saying "what matters is how many tanks can you use and what can they do when you get them somewhere – tanks in a hangar in Gloucestershire that haven't moved in 20 years is not a capability."
Instead, Mr Crump says the UK's fighting power is being able to use what we have.
Cost of nuclear deterrent
The indecision over the last year has "without doubt" lost the UK some credibility, he went on, adding: "I think our role as the natural second nation within Nato is a bit more challenged amongst our closer allies."
The UK is now in the middle of the league table for Nato investment, but still has the nuclear deterrent in its arsenal.
This is "soaking up a huge amount of our budget, we possibly don't get enough credit for having that," said Mr Crump.
He highlighted that "Poland can afford a lot more than we can because they're not paying for this very expensive capability, so we've still got that in our back pockets".
Nato wants two frontline divisions
An important point that is often overlooked, is Nato's requirement for the UK to provide two ground manoeuvre divisions in the core headquarters.
"This is what it wants from us," said Mr Crump. "They want to have us on the frontline with them... not providing niche support from 30 miles or 300 miles or 3,000 miles away.
"We need to rise to that ask and we need to be creative about how we can achieve that, given the shortcomings we know we have with underinvestment and programmes not delivered yet.
"We now at least deliver what we said we'd deliver, then we'll be judged better."
Related topics
Join Our Newsletter
