Knowing your branches from your roots

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One of the new UK Government’s first acts has been to set up a comprehensive defence review, billed as a ‘root and branch’ review. A periodic look at what the UK’s defence needs are and how they might best be met is never a bad idea, but this one doesn’t look as open-minded as the billing suggests. According to the BBC, “The review will be overseen by Defence Secretary John Healey and headed by former Nato Secretary General Lord Robertson along with former US presidential advisor Fiona Hill and former Joint Force Commander Gen Sir Richard Barrons”.

None of these strike me as being particularly open-minded about possible alternative approaches. They all seem to already *know* what the risks are and what needs to be done about them, leaving me wondering what exactly a process taking the best part of twelve months is going to do, other than add a few details. As Starmer said in announcing the review, “We will make sure our hollowed out armed forces are bolstered and respected, that defence spending is responsibly increased” – meaning that the outcome is already largely determined, and it will involve a significant diversion of scarce resources into additional military expenditure. The only question is how that expenditure is divvied up between personnel, tanks, planes and ships.

In essence, it’s about responding to the risks they have identified by threatening those perceived to pose them. But a truly ‘root and branch’ review would also be asking about the causes of those risks and what might be done through negotiation and diplomacy to reduce them. The possibility that a military build-up might actually increase risk rather than reduce it is not one which any of those involved seem particularly disposed to consider. Starmer may be named after one of Labour’s pacifist giants, but he doesn’t share much, if anything, of the man’s philosophy.