By IRNA,
London : Britain’s new coalition government must address the most basic question affecting the Defence Review and the country’s position in the world, according to the UK’s oldest military think-tank.
“How much is the nation prepared to pay for defence?” the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) asks in a new working paper, timed to coincide with a defence review being immediately launched by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government.
Britain is at a ‘tipping point’ and seriously needs to consider future military capabilities and position in the world by addressing the central question: will defence spending be increased in real terms’, it said.
“The UK is currently the fourth biggest defence spender in the world but the ninth largest economy. In other words, the country pays more for defence than its world economic standing justifies,” the report found.
It suggested that the dilemma turns on the retention of world status in that “if the taxpayer is unprepared to fund defence at current levels (2.3 per cent GDP), Britain will be unable to prevent its dwindling international influence.”
“The UK could make moderate defence cuts or even slash defence spending to the NATO European average of 1.65 per cent. Either way, large cuts could be made if Britain abandoned its predilection for perceived world influence,” RUSI posed.
Last month, the institute carried out a survey of the country’s defence and security community that found that the majority believe the UK needs a ‘radical reassessment’ of the position it wants to play, and is able to play, in world politics.
The working paper, entitled ‘The Defence Review: A path from political consensus to military capabilities’, warned that current operations in Afghanistan constrain radical thinking on Britain’s national military strategy.
According to a copy obtained by IRNA, it also highlights questions about scale and balance of key military capabilities for the future, which will be ‘limited by affordability’.
A corollary of agreement, the report suggested, is that the new government must be prepared to pay for the kind of defence capability Britain needs to ensure its place in the world. But it warned that so far there has been “no clear commitment to outlining exactly how the desired British defence posture will be funded and supported.”
According to the paper, the urgent need to address the economic situation and the ongoing war in Afghanistan present the new government with a hard strategic choice between only equipping the military to conduct similar future operations or a maritime expeditionary strategy which would confirm the case for aircraft carriers and equip fewer, more specialist, agile land units. “The options will ultimately be determined by affordability and the priorities of the new coalition government,” it said.
RUSI was founded in 1831 and has become one of the country’s foremost independent think-tank for defence and security.