Rather than arguing about 2.3% or 2.5% the MOD should decide what extra capabilities we need to defend these islands and help our allies. My suggested list is
1. Improved Iron Dome style surveillance and interception capabilities for the whole UK against incoming missiles and drones
2. Expanded drone and missile capabilities and stocks including hypersonics
3. An army of 100,000 deployable troops
4. Further destroyers, frigates and submarines to ensure we can deploy two carrier led groups, with support vessels, all built in UK yards
5. Sufficient strike aircraft for home defence, overseas bases and carriers.
How to pay?
Redirect money from Bank of England excess losses, (£15 bn a year )recovered public sector productivity ( £30 bn a year) and delaying carbon capture and storage (£19 bn)
These savings also can provide for necessary lower taxes and a modest reduction in borrowing.
February 24, 2025
Whilst itself desirable, any Iron Dome style interception capability (if it works) challenges the doctrine of mutually assured destruction that has kept the world safe from super power conflict since the 1950’s. The MOD has very much more to think about than budgets.
February 24, 2025
@Formula57 Yes, the US unilaterally withdrawing from the anti ballistic missile Treaty destabilised things. That cat is out of the bag.
An iron dome nowadays would need to protect us from hypersonic missiles, otherwise there’s no point to it. No purpose in trying to defend against nuclear ABMs: if a war has got to that stage, we are all toast.
February 24, 2025
@Wanderer – its is said that the windmills in the North Sea stop us seeing incoming let alone hypersonic missiles. It would appear from individual personal choice our MPs our Parliament have give up on the keeping us safe part of their duty. If we are attacked ‘so-what’ is their personal attitude – my ego is more important
February 24, 2025
This topic also ties in with Quantum Research. As Quantum Engineering / Technology could play a vital role in being able to detect and destroy hostile hypersonic missiles.
You can be sure that the Chinese and Russians (and Americans) are going to be really focused on this. So quantum research covers so much from the computing to energy and defence – and more (including medicine).
Lastly, scientists aren’t really that interested in AI at least compared to quantum technology. Scientists go into science for money but really to solve a problem. In this case how to turn quantum science into a practical science (a lot of this has already been demonstrated to be possible). And there’s a lot of money to be made for entrepreneurs and large corps. As well as of vital interest / concern to those in the armed forces wanting to protect our country.
February 24, 2025
With net zero being the order of the day do you really think milibrains wants defence manufacturing
In the UK. The government would rather we import ships planes tanks etc so as not to increase the carbon footprint.
They’ve already destroyed much of the steel, aluminium and chemical industries. Car manufacturers are the next followed by oil and gas installations. The plan is going ahead splendidly
February 24, 2025
Mutually assured destruction is no assurance when you have a madman threatening nuclear weapons anyway.
February 24, 2025
Agree
February 24, 2025
Nuclear weapons were never about defence ….but a seat at the big table
February 24, 2025
Johnson? Thank goodness he is not in Parliament.
February 25, 2025
No, he’ll be voted out once Ukraine holds elections, Dave. And not before time. The smart money to replace him, I believe, is Alexey Arestovich, previously regime spokesman, who’s in Britain at the moment as ambassador.
February 24, 2025
Iron Dome is about defence.
Notice how Sir John started off on Defence – not Offence. That’s key.
Yes, we do need offensive weapons, too, but in the other overall context of defending our nation.
If he’d started off discussing offensive weapons then I’d be concerned.
And of course it’s possible for any kind of military tech to be used for malevolent reasons – but you face the same issue in every generation. But a country’s leaders also have a duty to focus on how to defend our nation. That’s one of the main duties of government. And Defensive Dome is key here (at least at this point in defensive military technology).
February 24, 2025
The MOD needs to be radically reformed, numbers cut and work from home stopped. A near neighbour is nearly into his 5th year of walking the dog, gardening, coffee and gym visits, whilst…..pretending to work from home and supervising his staff, not. Enough.
There are loads of things Government could cut to live within our means and fund our military. It’s about political choices. Cut welfare and serious scrutiny on who can get it and for how long? A safety net not a way of life. Same with the Health service providing for the world, debt interest by living within the tax take. Live within tax payer means. Deport illegals within days. Any Country in receipt of aid WILL take back it’s citizens. So will France or no fishing licences. On and on if there’s a political will.
February 24, 2025
I’m sorry Sir John, perhaps it is my sense of humour or sense of cynicism, take your pick, but I simply cannot stop laughing at the ‘capabilities to defend these islands’.
It seems preposterous to me given the ease with which anyone can pitch up and be granted residence.
It also seems ludicrous to talk of defending ourselves when we don’t make anything, are heavily reliant on other nations for the basic bare bones needed to defend and sustain ourselves against anyone hostile from without.
As for those hostile within, well they’ve little to worry about our defences are well and truly down.
Electric battleships and tanks waving the rainbow flag could I suppose render our enemies weak with mirth.
February 24, 2025
Michelle,
A post which is both amusing and, in reality, rather frightening. We need a PM and governing party who recognize that a close alliance with Trump’s America is an absolute necessity. I’m not sure the UK has that at the moment.
February 24, 2025
@Michelle +1
So very true. We cant defend our shores from the criminal invasion so what does it matter about incoming missiles
February 24, 2025
You have a point. Military threats can be met by armed forces. It is the well worn, tried and tested response. But the cultural threat to Britain is different. It is not as tractable and dealing with it is very uncomfortable because it always comes down to what sort of people should the UK allow to become citizens. Politicians do not like being asked that question. There isn’t a consensus view on any aspect of it. I think one of the reasons so much is made of the threat from Putin is that it is basically one dimensional: military. The response is therefore straightforward – send for the Chief of the Defence Staff, confident that he will know what needs to be done. And talking about that is a welcome distraction from debating the effects of mass legal and illegal immigration. There is no Chief of Defence of British Society and Values to send for. Whilst we can all agree we should keep the Russians out, we cannot say that of immigrants without provoking impassioned agument and opposition, even violence, and, under Starmer’s Gang, imprisonment.
February 24, 2025
Good defense js not assured by what you spend. It is a combination of good intelligence and vision of what an enemy might deploy against you. It is also a consequence of what an enemy perceives of what may be deployed against him as a responce to any agressive gesture. It is not assured as a percentage of GDP.
From time to time we may get hints of what an enemy might deploy. The probing flights and the mysterious breaking of overseas cables are such. During the Cold War and since we were not unknown to do the same or even more effective probing. Deployable boots on the ground may be an effective dererant in many cases, Ukraine for instance should it escallate, however tomorrows war is not a rerun of any previous conflict, so intelligence and anticipation are the keys. Think Hugh Dowding and Home Chain radar as an indication of the anticipation required. Lack of such and bad politics lead to wars, appeasement being the greatest political sin.
February 24, 2025
Indeed it has to be spent wisely something the UK state sector seems totally incapable of doing be it on Defence, the NHS, universities, schools, housing, energy…
Net zero is totally incompatible with a sound economy, decent growth and a sound defence!
February 24, 2025
“one in six energy bosses think the world can achieve net-zero by 2050 – down from nearly half of executives interviewed last year”. says the Mail under the headline: “Is Ed Miliband’s net-zero dream dying?”
So are these one in six or 50% last year idiots with no understanding of energy, CO2 or power or lying virtue signallers. Is Miliband a deluded Zealot or a liar on the make or have some other agenda. He read PPE but has reasonable physics and Maths A levels so should know better!
February 24, 2025
@agricola – we have a Parliament its MP’s looking for a quiet life of ‘free-loading’ and glorified self esteem, and an absentee PM and his cabinet searching out appeasement any where they can find fellow Marxist travellers abroad
February 24, 2025
You are advocating measures that are needed to defend against the consequences of our government attempting to project power, not to defend our people against credible threats such as armed riots and inter-cultural warfare.
For example, why are we involved in Ukraine to the extent we are unless it is a political pissing contest with France/Germany.
I suggest you need to focus more on credible homeland defences such as territorial army reserves as well as regular army both with proper levels of equipment, a littoral fleet to defend our shores, policing and national & international intelligence.
February 24, 2025
+1
Any British intelligence received from a source which deviates from what we will shortly know in detail was the real fact in the Ukraine war must be sacked forthwith.
February 24, 2025
‘You are advocating measures that are needed to defend against the consequences of our government attempting to project power” – No. He kicked off discussing defensive military tech – not offensive.
February 24, 2025
A carrier exists to project power, it is not a defensive technology and in the age of satellites is simply an expensive magnet for long range missiles.
February 24, 2025
Boris Johnson in a live videoclip from the Daily Telegraph this weekend:”Let’s face it,we are waging a proxy war but we are not giving our proxies the ability to do the job….it has been cruel.We now need to give them what they need.”
I thought talk of ‘proxy war’ was supposed to be Russian disinformation.
February 24, 2025
.. and become self-sufficient for food, energy, and key manufacturing (eg metals, chemicals, electronics)
On energy how does drilling in the north sea for oil & gas benefit us if it is simply sold elsewhere by a licenced company. Taxes paid by those companies may help the government but don’t make us self sufficient in energy. We would be better off leaving it in the ground till we actually need the energy
Reply Domestic gas cones ashore by pipe for UK use. More would replace imported LNG
February 24, 2025
Dixie makes a good point. Norway suffers high electricity prices because they have to compete with what’s sold abroad via interconnectors.
February 24, 2025
@dixie – I agree with the thrust of this suggestion, but not so much the earlier one.
February 24, 2025
I think our governing classes have been delinquent in all levels of defence, foreign and domestic, but is the threat of military attack by Russia as credible as the increased violence and actual invasion that is going on no doubt supported to some degree by Russia and others? The issue is there is a spectrum of threats that must be addressed not just those that need sexy hardware.
February 24, 2025
@reply – I agree we could make use of our own gas, but the oil and ICE transport is a different matter entirely considering how resistant it appears many are to anything but petrol/diesel and spending money on R&D for alternative solutions.
February 24, 2025
Well done to Sir John for this outstanding post. The excessive BoE losses should be curtailed. I had no idea so much money was being wasted.
To the shopping list I would add drones. Hundreds of thousands of drones in Ukraine have held the Russian hordes back for three years.
February 24, 2025
All the componentry comes from China at present and I doubt that would be a reliable source if we were in a situation where we’d need them for defence.
We’d need the ability to manufacture drones independent of imports which means re-introducing manufacturing of a wide range of technologies which would require viable businesses doing R&D and production which would need a strong “home” market and economy, a finance sector that had skin in our game and an education sector that hadn’t been captured by special interests.
So far it appears our governments have been focused on regulating enthusiasts who have contributed most of the technologies out of existence.
Also, we have a moat and I suggest the most effective use of drones has been to hobble the black sea fleet but those are not the sort of drones you can readily shop for
February 24, 2025
An excoriating,fact-filled opinion piece by the always well-informed David P Goldman in The Asia Times,24/2/25:”The Neo-Cons Lost Ukraine & Want to Blame it on Trump-The Discredited War Party mobilizes against Trump’s Peace Initiative”.
“From the howling in the war camp,you’d think it was the end of the world.But it’s not the end of the world.It’s just the end of them.Nothing fails like failure,and the twenty year campaign to launch regime change in Russia from Ukraine failed miserably as the Russian Federation built more weapons than the whole of NATO combined.Relentless gains hollowed out the Ukrainian army.
The war party’s only hope is to blame their failures on Trump and to spin out the conflict till it becomes a permanent state of war…….The legacy media repeats lies like the ones we heard daily during the Vietnam war.”
February 24, 2025
It’s amazing that the local police are not knocking in their door ‘disinformation’ being such a massive crime in the U.K.
Germany did not vote strongly enough, 11% of them still support the Greens. So the war will continue without the USA.
That’s the best outcome. Russia will beat the pan-European War Party and they will have nowhere to hide.
February 24, 2025
The Ukraine Army has now lost 2/3 of the ground it won in Kursk. So much for holding the Russians back.
February 24, 2025
They’ve held back russia for three years, back in the 80’s NATO was only expected to last two weeks ….interesting to note – that’s why the TA & regular army annual camp/exercise is two weeks in duration
February 25, 2025
We know from the opening of the Soviet archives post 1991 that the USSR never had any intention to attack the west.It was the west seeking to ‘contain’ Russia-contain being code for control of Russia’s resources and export channels(not necessarily land)
February 24, 2025
The sovereign industrial capacity to achieve your aims does not exist, anymore than the capacity to build 300,000 homes during this parliament. The skills and financial capacity have left the country.
February 24, 2025
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) issued a report last week, strongly in favour of the net zero sector. Their detailed analysis showed unequivocally that the net zero sector is growing three times faster than the overall UK economy, providing high-wage jobs across the country, while cutting climate changing emissions and increasing the UK’s energy security
The CBI showed that the net zero economy grew by 10% in 2024 and generated £83bn in added value. 22,000 net zero businesses employ almost a million people in full-time jobs. The average annual wage in the businesses – £43,000 – was also £5,600 higher than the national average. The report analysed the growth attributable to businesses working in renewable energy, electric vehicles, heat pumps, energy storage, green finance and waste management and recycling.
Net zero is the British industrial opportunity of the 21st century. The sector is expanding strongly, with the 10% growth in 2024 following a 9% jump in 2023.
Farage and his Reform head bangers want to destroy it, claiming that net zero is crippling our economy (really?) Even Badenoch is now calling it a “mistake”. The message is clear; vote Reform and destroy a million well paid jobs and British leadership in the sector
Reply The net zero including recycling was 1% of GDP in these figures. The wider figure you quote is a little over 3%. Need to balance that against big losses in oil,gas ,petrochem, steel,ceramics etc
February 24, 2025
SG :
This CBI report shows just how much of our taxpayer money is being wasted on Net Zero. The CBI are naturally taking full advantage of all the subsidies on offer. NESO’s (National Energy System Operator’s) plan for “clean power” by 2030 (well, 95%) which NESO say “will involve an investment programme averaging over £40 billion annually” (main report P11). No maximum given and is likely to be an HS2 estimate. This is £10,000 per household. Furthermore the result will be an insecure energy system that will require, again according to NESO (Annex 1 P14), “customer engagement” (aka rolling blackouts) and insecure interconnector imports making up to 30% of peak demand in order to prevent a complete collapse of the grid, despite at the same time maintaining an entire gas generation system of up to 35 GW.
February 24, 2025
Did you hear of the wind farm which made £104 million from generating energy and £260 million from not generating energy.
If you are paid more to do nothing than to do something, it’s easy to ‘grow’.
February 24, 2025
And guess who is paying for saving 1% of the planet – the taxpayers and consumers through the enormous subsidies these industries are getting. I would also be very wary of the statistics these green saviours use. A lot of the “green jobs” are those already being done by dustmen
February 24, 2025
Well, I repeat that for 60 years up to 2008 we averaged 2.7% a year economic growth, but over the 16 years since 2008 the average growth rate has fallen to 1.1% a year and so we have missed out on about 28% GDP growth, and therefore increased revenues for the government as well as increased real incomes for the people.
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2025/02/20/bad-inflation-figures-confirm-stagflation/#comment-1499991
I likened it to “driving with the handbrake on” but maybe “driving away from a crash with a flat tyre” is better.
And I am hardly the first to notice this; from 4 minutes in here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gDGrXm0xFU&t=227s
Sir Jonathan Portes remarked on it, and that was a year ago.
Even Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey has noticed it:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/02/07/bailey-lays-bare-reeves-will-continue-crush-private-sector/
“The potential growth rate in the UK has been low since the financial crisis.”
But while of enormous immediate importance the global financial crisis was not the only event in 2008, was it?
Looking back now I find it difficult to believe that in the midst of that economic crisis MPs almost to the man and woman thought it would be a good idea to embark upon such a risky project for such flimsy reasons.
February 24, 2025
How is there any “British leadership” when all the goodies are imported and then operated by foreign flagged companies..
February 24, 2025
The government are spending £20bn on carbon capture. What is the ROI on that ? What benefits will accrue – either financial or otherwise ? I’ll tell you ZERO.
February 25, 2025
The Net Zero lunacy is destroying industries and jobs which employ millions of Brits either directly or in the local economy which supports them. It will be like the destruction of the coal industry 3 times over and leave a manufacturing wasteland across the country.
And it is destroying the finances of most households in the country where people can’t even afford to pay their constantly rising energy bills to pay for unreliable, intermittent energy and imported energy, let alone fund the ridiculous heat pumps and EVs the Government is trying to force on them.
I’m sure the vested interests in the CBI supports the lunacy: they’re benefiting from the transfer of wealth from “the little people” to the global corporations who are leeching off them.
February 24, 2025
A good start to defending ourselves would be to take a Trump like policy to all the illegals in this country now. Thousands of young men (mainly) about whom we know nothing other ( etc dd).
Along with closing our borders to immigration. The public have had enough of this betrayal.
reply I have often proposed a very large reduction in migration.
February 24, 2025
We need a HUGE deportation programme! MASSIVE! We require that there are NO SLAVES in the U.K. and no SLAVE MASTERS. Also no Mosques.
February 24, 2025
@reply – migration? more like illegal criminal activity that is invading these Islands. Old Albion is correct a more robust stance, defence, on the ‘illegal’ therefore ‘criminal’ would stem the flow they we could show compassion to those that really are in life threatening situations. As it stands these criminal invaders are stealing from the UK Citizen but also a safe home for others
February 24, 2025
The list of necessary equipment needed to secure a nation is incomplete. The least cost and more effective additional security would be effective border control that stops the ingress of thousands of young fighting age men from war ravaged areas of the world.
The defence of the realm was something innate, it came with the birth-right of every British citizen.
That basic tenet of citizenship has been lost and needs to be recovered. The polls tell us the modern generation below 30 years old do not feel an obligation to fight for this country.
Looking at the daily news it is not difficult to see their reasoning.
February 24, 2025
Do these young men not understand that a victorious invading army will proceed to rape their sisters, wives and girlfriends and pillage their property with no one to stop them?
February 24, 2025
No, they don’t, Dave, because they’re told by the media that it’s just ‘isolated individuals’ who carry out these attacks. And keeping the ECHR happy is far more important to our rulers than defending our country.
February 24, 2025
At one time, voting for which party was best for the country seemed the normal choice. Now, if many people are unwilling to defend the country, they will more likely vote for whatever suits themselves, such as money or benefits, whatever outcome that may cause.
February 24, 2025
You mean an iron dome of immigration defence. I agree. But this shouldn’t be in competition with iron dome military defence. We need both. Also, we need a cultural revolution in this country. Where politicians persuade those in the churches, arts, media and education to help make our people more responsible, less dependant on state, more work ethic, stronger family values and mental (and physical) health etc in general. This is the UK’s biggest Achilles Heal (and the West in general) – a collapse in traditional / Conservative / practical / pragmatic values that is like the foundation of our country.
February 25, 2025
You have it completely backwards, politicians are not the ethical, cultural, commercial or scientific leadership you seem to think they are or should be while religion, the arts and media have in the past held the politicians to account or acted as a relief valve.
The values you would like to see already exist at a family and some community levels despite the machinations of politicians who it seems are out to destroy that fabric, the current mobsters in power especially.
February 24, 2025
Precisely. The % game is ridiculous. We’re not dividing a cake. We’re stopping it from being stolen.
February 24, 2025
@Sir Joe Soap +1
February 24, 2025
I agree, lets just get on with it.
February 24, 2025
Good plan now we need a government to deliver it
I see the current government is so lacking in expertise they are employing 8 members of staff from the old narcissistic Blair government
February 24, 2025
There is this article by a Conservative MP in the Daily Telegraph:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/24/britain-can-only-rearm-if-we-are-to-rewire-our-economy/
“Britain can only rearm if we are prepared to rewire our economy”
which claims that in order to rearm we need to “reindustrialise”, but we would not need to “reindustrialise” to increase our defences if successive governments had not decided that we should “deindustrialise” to decrease our emissions of carbon dioxide, setting a good example for other countries like China to follow.
And how well that virtue signalling has worked since 2008 when 641 MPs voted for the Climate Change Act and only 5 voted against it:
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/chn/china/carbon-co2-emissions
I also notice that the Tories are having second thoughts about their 2019 toughening of the UK target:
https://www.politico.eu/article/tories-uk-kemi-badenoch-conservative-opposition-net-carbon-zero-emissions-andrew-bowie/
“The 2050 goal “leaves us economically worse off,” Conservative energy chief Andrew Bowie said.”
February 25, 2025
It would have been far better if the Not-a-Conservative-Party had engaged what passed for brains in the first place and had scrapped the Net Zero SCAM. But Treason May wanted “a legacy” and Johnson had a new lefty, Eco-wifelet to please, so brainpower didn’t come into it.
February 25, 2025
+1 though the governments have been de-industrialising since before the climate mind virus took hold.
February 24, 2025
6. A defence system capable of defending our vast areas of North Sea wind turbines and undersea cables against air and underwater drones. Needed by 2030 when wind and solar are intended to be our main sources of electrical energy.
February 24, 2025
Do you propose buying hypersonics from Russia JR, or waiting for the USA to develop them?
February 24, 2025
You are funny Lynn. I don’t know where you’re getting your info from but it seems not from what the US press is publishing.
nationalinterest.org 13/01/2022 ‘These are the ten hypersonic missiles that Americ is building’
transatlantictoday.com 03/11/2022 ‘Does the US military have hypersonic missiles?’
edition.cnn.com 21/03/2024 ‘US tests hypersonic missile in Pacific as it aims to keep up with China and Russia’
popularmechanics.com 13/03/2024 ‘America’s secret hypersonic weapon is about to stun the Pacific’
And …
nationalinterest.org 06/02/2021 ‘America may have found the secret to killing hypersonic missiles’
February 25, 2025
or the Houthis,even!
February 24, 2025
Rather than delay Carbon capture and storage, let’s cancel it completely. Carbon dioxide alone is not the driver of climate change. Ask any climate scientist. And even CO2 is a driver, the amount captured would be insignificant and the cost exorbitant.
February 24, 2025
It’s all pretty simple when you look at it like that – what do we need for the UK to have an effective war machine?
This is all a matter of priorities – Do we want a country with no industry, excessive debt and moral in the gutter due to politicians being out of touch, or do we want to be an effective force for good, strong enough to stand up to international bullying and perverted socialist dogma?
Three areas of massive abuse of taxpayers money were identified there, but there are so many more areas where our money is literally poured down a nearby drain. UKAID for a start. We should be a seriously wealthy country.
This labour government has undermined everything worthwhile about this country, so they will never be the positive answer. Sir JR, your country needs you! Please keep up these logical analysis – labour won’t listen, but it will add to the pressure against them. It is clear you have the knowledge to attack them with sensible ideas. If you were PM I would sleep soundly at night.
February 24, 2025
Routinely regarding a specific % of GDP as being the right level for our defence is irrational. The risks of attacks need regular assessment to guide how much money we need to spend to raise our capability into safety.
February 24, 2025
I also believe that a substantial part of the £200 billion handed to quangos and charities could be saved, especially in the arts sector. Maintain the national art collections and orchestras and let the experimental video performance artists support themselves by selling their art to the general public (they won’t be able to). There is a mass of useless research, particularly social sciences, which needs defunding. Read some of Charlotte Gill’s posts to read about public waste. The Spectator has also started a column to feature similar stories.
I would heartedly recommend Jon Moynihan’s book “Return to Growth” which details countless billions of savings by central government.
February 24, 2025
Also being careful given today’s situation in Germany and our I want to suck up to the EU absentee PM – “Mr Merz, 69, leader of the centre-Right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), suggested the continent may have to “quickly” establish an “independent European defence capability”.
The last thing the UK wants is an involvement in a EU Defence pact as it would be run by unelected unaccountable bureaucrats. As history has shown that sort of deal is run by Germany and France and the UK contributes with no say and has to offer its resources men and equipment to be the canon fodder of others.
The UK needs it own stand alone resilient, self-reliant defence.
But we have an anti UK PM and Government that will fight the people so as to be able to bow down to uninterested in the UK powers elsewhere
February 24, 2025
From the Telegraph
“Matthew Savill, the director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, suggested that while Germany already benefits from the nuclear capabilities the UK provides via Nato, “they might be looking for bilateral assurances in the event the US undermines Nato”.
Defence sources indicated that the UK would help Germany with nuclear defence”
February 25, 2025
What is suggested as the quid pro quo for the UK in the bilateral deal?
Reply No payments to Mauritius. Tariff free access to US market. End of need to fund Ukraine war.
February 25, 2025
@reply – Apologies I wasn’t clear enough – what direct benefits to the UK from a bilateral deal with Germany? I agree there would be direct benefits from the measures you describe above.
Frankly any deals with European neighbours should be bilaterals with individual countries not with EU or the wannabe Napoleon/Jupiter
February 24, 2025
Europe is facing a future conflict without the umbrella provided by the USA.
In this scenario, Putin will not hesitate to use tactical Nukes, of which he has many.
The UK and Europe cannot afford large enough armies to defeat Putin in a conventional battle, so the only way is to build our own battlefield tactical Nukes to add an extra layer of deterrents as they will be the equivalent of 20-50 extra divisions.
France and The UK easily have the technology to develop a small nuclear warhead for the Storm Shadow air launched missile. This would not be too expensive either : the two countries each only need about 100 weapons to provide an adequate deterrent.
The only other point I would disagree with is for us to build an entire new fleet of destroyers and frigates in the UK. Yes, they are desperately needed, but even the US is looking at building new warships in Taiwan and South Korea. The construction time would be dramatically reduced as would the cost. More bang for our bucks and we could shave a crucial five years off of the delivery date.
February 25, 2025
I see in the Times today, Macron is already offering a French Nuclear Shield for Europe. Well he would, wouldn’t he ?
I somehow doubt that countries like Poland and Germany would want to trust their entire defense in the face of an attack by Putin to the decisions of just one mercurial character whose grip on power is tenuous at best.
Tactical Nukes under the control of both the UK and France would make them feel far more secure.
Whether they will be prepared to contribute towards paying for it is another matter !
February 24, 2025
Great article
February 24, 2025
Agreed in the main, though let’s please not forget appropriate investment in GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 (SIS). Scrapping the Chagos deal would save considerable amounts too.
February 24, 2025
Advanced nations will have been researching and perfecting over many years their most extreme and effective means of attack for defence in thorough secrecy. Many of those will be way beyond what most humans can imagine, with intended use only as a last resort.
Such devices might be focused on the minds of key target individuals, selected and activated by gene type, beyond reach of detection; or anything else. ‘Advanced weapons’ leaking into the public domain of awareness are probably decades old. Any weapon’s power and effectiveness are known only after the event.
In comparison, Iron Domes seem more like a helmet in defence against stone age clubs.
February 25, 2025
.. why spend trillions on missiles to attack a target when you could use a guest worker/invader travel agent to smuggle in a suitcase nuke, or designer virus.
February 24, 2025
It has always be stupid to specify defence spending in terms of inputs (2% GDP) rather than the outputs we want to achieve. We could increase spending to 3% and it would mean nothing if the extra was all spent on DEI bureaucrats. Even if it were spent on things like new warships it would mean nothing due to the MoD’s catastrophically bad procurement and project management abilities – they’d never get built.
February 24, 2025
How many military staff (not reservists) could be deployed now?
Are they under the same DEI hiring criteria that TFL, NHS, Teaching etc are under? How does their diversity hiring measure up? The Telegraph said the top sectors for hiring DEI positions are: Teaching, HR & Recruitment, Social work, Healthcare & Nursing. The military didn’t seem to be in the list.
February 24, 2025
You are right and wrong! Right, because what you say is eminently sensible, and a serious government would be doing it. But let’s not forget the Conservatives have run down our defence budget for the last 14 years!
Wrong because this Labour Government is never going to be serious about the defence of the UK!
You are right that a % figure is nonsense and that an intelligent threat assessment should be made to guide our defence spending, and if this means 5% of 7% or 10% of our budget is needed, then that is what should be allocated. But will it be spent sensibility by Labour, not a chance? Controlling Immigration is the first requirement, and dumping Net Zero is the second. It would be nice if Sakara Gold did some basic research, which would help her to realise Net Zero is absolute nonsense.
February 24, 2025
I would add improving cyber capabilities to the list (defensive and offensive), they may well already be quite good but I would still want them clearly stated as important
February 24, 2025
It certainly looks good, SJR, but without a price list it’s just a wish list.
February 24, 2025
Re – your list of how to pay. Government is not good at prioritising spend. It just wants to spend more.
February 24, 2025
O/T or possibly not:
DoGE claimed to have already found $55 bn of waste (doge.gov ‘Savings’ 17/02/2025).
bloomberg.com 19/02/2025 ‘DoGE says it’s saved $55 bn; data show much less’,
nytimes.com ‘DoGE’s only public ledger is riddled with mistakes’,
wsj.com ‘DoGE claims it has saved billions. See where’.
Sir John originally announced his last talk as ‘How to take £50 bn off UK spending – a UK DoGE’, then slightly differently ‘The missing £30 bn’. Today he quotes £64 bn.
I hope that, contrary to Musk’s ‘efforts’, (and as said by some distinguished US people about Elon’s), this whole thing is not only DoGEshit.
February 24, 2025
Swearing Hefner. DOGE really has you in the ropes. They have scrapped the funding of over 80 billion UDS – they expect to save a Trillion. They will start giving proportionate tax reductions and the whole taxpayer base will be enlisted to the DOGE.
How the EU will squeak and squark and flip their wings!
But the difference between the English system – democracy and capitalism in the USA and the old European politics of the EU (and the U.K. unless we can sack the whole rancid political class forthwith) will be displayed for all to see – again.
February 24, 2025
Play the cynic if you wish hefner, but where is your proof that good savings are not being made.
February 25, 2025
Rory Stewart is crying buckets because his wife’s Turquoise Mountain “charity” which was using USA funding to lecture Afghan peasant women about post-modernist “art” ( etc ed) has had its funding pulled.
I wonder what similar nonsense our “Aid” is funding and which could immediately be scrapped if we have a Government with a DOGE?
February 24, 2025
It is logical to start with what is needed and then work out how to build it and pay for it. However, as some bright spark once said, “I don’t care who optimises the solution so long as I set the constraints.” The constraint here is that almost all politicians can think of many things that will attract votes if money is spent on them and defence is way down the list. They aim for the minimum. A factor in this disposition is the alarm at a constant stream of major defence equipment projects running disastrously late and over budget. Cameron sought to reduce defence spending to the then risible level of Germany, perhaps at the time the lowest % of GDP in Europe. The reason NATO has a guideline set as a % of GDP is that it sets a bar so those above it can put pressure on those below it to increase spending. It makes no military sense at all. But politicians tend to debate expenditure in terms of each department’s slice of the budget and to compare their country with others likewise. Most know little about defence as a subject. The 2% guideline was originally agreed in 2006 following the collapse of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact in the hope of gaining a ‘peace dividend’, ie. transferring money from defence budgets to other things, especially welfare, and to enable countries to be compared. The 2% guideline was made a formal commitment in 2014 following the Russian annexation of Crimea. Cameron fudged it by adding retired pay to the calculation in order to meet the commitment.
What NATO really relies on to obtain needed capabilities is each country building the capabilities it needs as an independent country, and then filling in any capability gaps with NATO projects, particularly communications and infrastructure, and ensuring interoperability.
February 24, 2025
The carrier strike group is a Pacific war concept which has not been put to the test of a war against a peer adversary since then. It may well prove too vulnerable to missile and drone attack or as Mr Putin commented of our own carrier, a “large convenient target”.
He might well comment that a carrier strike group represents a convenient assemblage of targets in one location also.
BAe systems also needs to be broken up. There is no synergy between ship building and plane making. It’s a large conglomerate that does not give value for money.
February 25, 2025
The US carriers have stayed well clear of the Houthis range of operations.And the Iranians have just launched the world’s first mass drone carrier.
February 24, 2025
My neighbour is in the reserves and I think secondary school children should be enlisted to learn about defence of the realm which might encourage them to appreciate the country they live in. If they were given training it would help them get outdoor training and be a healthy option for them. They might see it as fun but they will appreciate it later on in life, especially if we do have another war close up.
February 25, 2025
Enrolling school children had been done in the past: Hitler Jugend. A lot of outdoor training and a healthy option ‘fuer die Kindersoldaten’.
February 25, 2025
Many secondary schools have CCF sections already, I was a member in the late 60’s-early 70s and agree with the benefits you suggest.
February 24, 2025
For the past two decades+ under Blaire & Cameron, the strategic defence reviews have forced on ‘soft-power’ including –
Diplomacy (supporting UN, EU & NATO)
International aid (buying support & favour) and
Partnership (buying foreign equipment ie nuclear weapons, fast jet, vehicles, support vessel build, uniforms & training)
Soft-power is cheaper than hard-power (ie increasing the size of army), and while our government proclaim the increase in % spend, their policy of soft-power is still supreme
February 24, 2025
Boris Johnson has said some very intelligent comments about Trump and Ukraine.
1) Blaming Ukraine for war is ‘Orwellian.’
BUT
2) The the UK had to pay a price for the US supporting it in WW2 A) Allowing American armed forces into UK and other British territory B) Paying the US back in money in which it didn’t stop doing until 2006 – 60 years after end of the war. C) And that being part of the West and close relationship with the USA is way better for Ukraine than being part of an impoverished, vassal-state of an old foe: Russia.
February 24, 2025
The problem though is Russia is ruthless and non-defeated.
In the WW2 case, the USA helped defeat and bring down Nazi Germany.
But Putin is undefeated. And he will want a high price for Ukraine. Which if he gets, he will then go off, rebuild his armed forces bigger and better, including subtle forms of soft terrorism on the West’ infrastructure (in every sense – subtly trying to disrupt our way of life and economy and trying to make us feel on edge and insecure all the time) and then come back for more war in Europe.
So Boris has a point. But only presenting one side of the argument of the dangers of such a ‘deal’ with Russia.
February 24, 2025
Putin signed 3 peace treaties with Ukraine. Ukraine broke them.
Putin proposed security Treaties with Europe and with the USA when the USA withdrew from the Nuclear Treaty. No response from the aggressive west.
Putin does not have to mess up the west’s intelligence or computerisation, nobody does it better than the west itself. We feel on edge and insecure because the police arrive at the door if you say anything that the Government – itself obviously very insecure – is afraid of. Germany is as bad.
I am a lot more terrified of the local Constabulary than I am of the Russian Federation. They threatened to arrest me for sending an invoice to one of my defaulting tenants, who found receiving the bill distressing and felt ‘harassed’.
February 25, 2025
I totally get what you’re saying.
However, Russia does become a problem when it can affect the UK’s economy by subtle terrorism to our infrastructure in general – including the possibility of war in the future after Putin rebuilds and greatly improves his armed forces, including with hypersonic missiles and drones. Therefore we become a sitting duck to Putin both in terms of our economy and security. Not forgetting he is a Machiavellian, psychopathic despot who will do anything to stay in power as well as having a cruel streak in him that enjoys causing misery to others (and we’ve seen the likes of him many times before in history).
February 24, 2025
We had lease-lend. There was a cost. We paid what we contracted to pay. Did you not know?
Anybody who knows anything admits that Russia was ‘provoked’. You and Boris should listen to Jeffrey Sacks talking at the EU – and he an ex-Democrat.
Ukraine is required to be neutral. What is so difficult about that? Switzerland and even Ireland managed it.
I saw Boris – at least he pronounced ‘Kiev’ correctly and of course he had his big empty suitcase with him.
February 24, 2025
Boris Johnson – what does he count for? There’s a new sheriff in town now.
February 25, 2025
What rubbish you write.impoverished?old foe?-Ukraine has only existed as a state since 1991.You clearly know nothing of the history of East Europe.
The same Boris who suggests there is a case for Ukraine to have nukes?-I’d be much more comfortable with Iran having them
February 24, 2025
I whole-heartedly agree. Better yet, scratch item 3 and spend the money saved on things that the Poles Germans Balts and Finns would like to have but can’t afford because they’re unavoidably on the front-line and really do need to have big armies – satellites; strategic intelligence; electronic warfare; combat search and rescue; anti-submarine warfare and defence of sub-sea infrastructure.
February 24, 2025
“built in UK yards” from foreign made steel…