Cash-Strapped Forces May Need More Funds ; Letters

Summary

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Towards the end of October, the Government will announce how it intends to cut overall expenditure (the Comprehensive Spending Review) and the outcome of its Strategic Defence and Securities Review (SDSR). The MoD has already been advised by the Treasury that its budget will be cut by between ten per cent and 20 per cent. But after 12 years of Labour starving the defence budget, such that its capital equipment programme on defence projects was under-funded by many billions of pounds, what happens if SDSR advises the Government that in order to defend the UK and its overseas interests, we need to strengthen our defences by increasing the defence budget? There is little prospect that Dr Fox (Defence Secretary) will be demanding more money when George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has insisted on substantial cutbacks. Readers will be aware that the only departments whose budgets will be ring-fenced in future are overseas aid and health. In or about April 2009, Mr Osborne decided that defence should no longer be ring-fenced against spending cuts. So much for Mr Cameron putting defence as his first priority.

Accordingly, SDSR is a nonsense before it is even published. To cut defence spending at a time when the international situation is becoming increasingly insecure (Israel/Palestine, Israel/Iran, Iran/ Gulf, North Korea/ South Korea, China/Japan, Argentina/UK, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia/ Arctic mineral wealth, piracy and international terrorism, to name just a few), shows the naivety of Messrs Cameron, Clegg and Osborne. Dr Fox has been handed a highly toxic poisoned chalice. He will be appalled at the defence programmes he will be forced to axe. And, last Thursday, a letter in which Dr Fox set out his concerns, addressed to the Prime Minister, was leaked to the press.

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Cash-Strapped Forces May Need More Funds ; Letters

In May, the Cabinet appointed a National Security Council (NSC). However, as it has been stuffed full of...

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