Source · Select Committees · Defence Committee
Recommendation 102
102
Accepted
Defence faces stark choice: full spectrum funding or ruthless prioritisation for deterrence
Conclusion
Professor Bronk told us the choice was stark: either sufficiently resource the UK Armed Forces to allow them to have “full spectrum forces that can concurrently provide a reference force as a backbone of European NATO, while also doing expeditionary things for signalling, diplomacy and all sorts around the world” or to ruthlessly prioritise: If you specifically tasked the MoD and said, “Your primary role now is to provide a backbone of European deterrence against Russia, with credible warfighting capabilities in Europe in the next three to five years”, you would see an enormous change in the way that it plans its force structure and its planning, but you would also find a lot of objections from people … If you want to keep doing what we are currently doing and get ready for warfighting in three to five years’ time, it is probably [needs to be] closer to 3% of GDP as a ballpark figure. If you were to say, “This is now all hands on deck. We need to get the force we currently have as ready as we can, but we are prepared to pull the plug on all sorts of things and go right down to just getting ready for the big fight, as it were, and buying weapons stocks,” you could probably do it with a relatively modest uplift, but you would have to cut so much in terms of what people are used to seeing as the standard pattern of activity to do it.217
Government Response Summary
The government reaffirms its commitment to providing NATO with a full spectrum of defence capabilities, including nuclear and offensive cyber, arguing this comprehensive approach underpins both its NATO contributions and wider global hard-power projection. It highlights the dual utility of assets like aircraft carriers in fulfilling both NATO commitments and other foreign policy aims.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
Through our offer to NATO, we offer the Alliance the full spectrum of defence capabilities, including by declaring our Continuous at Sea Nuclear Deterrent to the Alliance as well as our offensive cyber capabilities through the National Cyber Force. NATO has four times as many ships and three times as many submarines as Russia. The UK is the only nuclear power dedicated to supporting NATO and is key to protecting NATO’s vital Atlantic supply lines; this is a uniquely and vitally important role in the Alliance. Re-investment in our warfighting force through the lens of its contribution principally to NATO, that force still underpins our hard-power projection in the world beyond as well. Our aircraft carriers, for example, have been both committed to NATO in the last twenty-four months as well as deployed into the Indo-Pacific to contribute to other UK foreign policy aims in that region.