John Healey is currently war-gaming a major conflict to ‘stress-test’ supplies of ammunition. (Image: PA)
We’re told that Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) is currently war-gaming a major conflict to “stress-test” supplies of ammunition and other materiel in a war time scenario.
Delighted to hear it. The exercise, due to run the length of this week, is being held at the Defence Academy, Shrivenham (oh, of fond memory!) and for the first time apparently will include representatives of Britain’s defence industry alongside the usual crew of military planners and assorted hangers-on.
UK Defence Secretary John Healey explained that the exercise was designed to ensure that both government and industry are “capable of innovation at wartime speed”.
Well, good luck with than one, in the short to medium timeframe at least. The so-called “peace dividend” that came with the end of the Cold War led to a rapid shrinking in defence capabilities as governments slashed military budgets and prioritised other things.
Now with a revanchist and war raging in , plus the Middle East looking like it might bubble over yet again, Britain is playing catch up along with many other European nations.
In common with many of those other countries, the UK has donated generously to Zelensky’s Ukrainian armed forces, to the extent that the cupboard is perilously close to being bare. And to refill it we have to start up long lost skills, like the manufacturing of gun barrels, all over again.
To be fair to Healey he has inherited this mess from the previous governments, politicians, and senior military leaders who now look as if they fell asleep on the job. Getting back to where we were will be a long, hard slog.
The other noteworthy event of military interest this week was the appearance before the House of Commons Select Defence Committee of Lord George Robertson and General Sir Richard Barrons of the government-sponsored Strategic Defence Review (SDR) team.
The third member of the triumvirate, Dr Fiona Hill, was otherwise engaged in the USA, presumably post-Thanksgiving.
Predictably, Robertson batted away the questions of Committee members with consummate ease – he has been here many times before – while Barrons looked bored to tears and wishing he was elsewhere.
However, a few items of interest emerged.
Robertson was quick to point out that their review was independent of government (although I think quasi-independent would be more accurate; he is a Labour politician after all) and that his team would not be responsible for implementing its eventual recommendations.
He also stressed that they were operating within the budgetary target of 2.5% of GDP which the Labour administration has pledged to spend on defence and some undefined point in the future, and that it won’t necessarily seek to fill any capability gaps.
These are both major constraints on his team. The GDP limit suggests that this review, like so many others before it, is actually Treasury and not defence-of-the-nation led. This is, I believe, a fatal flaw and reflects the government’s unwillingness or inability to get to grips with the actualité of defence matters.
As for current capability gaps which have arisen from years of underfunding, some have estimated that it would take at least and additional £50 billion – more or less another entire annual defence budget – to be allocated straight away to sort them out.
It would seem that there’s a fat chance of this ever happening. It’s pretty clear to all credible commentators, therefore, that the Labour government is struggling with defence and not sure how it will tackle the problems. The SDR may have bought it some breathing space, but come Spring next year all the sacred cows will come home to roost.
As I have said many times before, you can’t do national defence properly on the cheap, and yet it looks like that’s exactly what ’s administration is looking to do.
The Labour government already has the whiff of a one-term administration, though, and it may be it won’t be around long enough to implement the SDR’s recommendations.
Lt Col Stuart Crawford is a political and defence commentator and former Army officer. Sign up for his podcasts and newsletters at