Sarah Ingham: Labour’s defence review must face the bald truth that our military is too small

Dr Sarah Ingham is the author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.

Britain’s defence has been fizzing with almost Trumpian Executive Orders levels of energy in the past week.

At the weekend came unconfirmed reports abouts a “home guard” to protect Britain’s critical national infrastructure, such as nuclear power stations, from attack. Perhaps the new Dad’s Army could avert incidents like the mysterious fire that shut down Heathrow in March, the cause of which has not yet been officially identified.

On Monday, a new UK-EU Security and Defence Partnership was unveiled. The jury is out on whether this is such a strategic leap. Respected think tank RUSI (Royal United Services Institute) suggests the agreement primarily concerns the architecture of future cooperation and “falls far short of the current geopolitical moment”.

The current moment includes a hostile Russia at war on Europe’s fringe for the past three years, an unstable Middle East (thanks in no small measure to Iran), and a ruthlessly self-interested China.  Last, but far from least, is Trump’s United States, overturning 80 years of Europe’s reliance on Uncle Sam for its defence and security.

Despite all this global turbulence, John Healey has been in chipper mood, delighted by the “bespoke and ambitious” new Partnership with Brussels. It could include access to the €150bn Security Action for Europe (SAFE) defence fund, benefiting Britain’s stellar defence companies.

(Alas, as a unhelpful Liberal Democrat reminded the Defence Secretary, France wants a 15 per cent limit on the UK’s access to the fund.)

As the spotlight falls on defence and security, it serves to illuminate two issues. The first is the Government’s strategically clueless handover of the Chagos Islands, also known as British Indian Ocean Territory – a policy initiated an international court’s Advisory Opinion.

The Territory includes the island of Diego Garcia, home to a historically controversial US military base. For one Defence Weekly analyst, it is “an unsinkable aircraft carrier”; for some human rights lawyers, it’s possibly the previous site of Guantanamo-style illegal detention during the War on Terror.

Is the Government’s “rule of lawyers” key to this sell out of British sovereign territory?

The Strategic Defence Review, or rather its glaring absence, is also being highlighted. Underway since July, it was promised in the Spring. Next week is June, with its long evenings, Glasto and strawberries – surely, Summer.

Labour’s last major defence policy appraisal, the 1998 Review, was also a tad leisurely, taking nine months from announcement to publication.

It was, however, seminal. Launched in the prosperous post-Cold War era, it set out how the Armed Forces would help to fulfil the Blair Government’s ambition of Britain being “a force for good in the world”. It turned out this would include intervening in Sierra Leone (good) and bombing Belgrade (sub-optimal).

In March, Sir Keir Starmer offered “boots on the ground and planes in the skies” in post-War Ukraine. Along with Washington’s disenchantment with European values, brutally set out by JD Vance at February’s Munich Security Conference, was the message that European states  must “step up in a big way to provide for their own defence”.

Amid analysis of current conflicts, partnerships and geopolitics, it is easy to overlook the human factor. Defence and security policy is delivered by soldiers in those boots on the ground, by pilots in those planes in the skies, as well as by sailors and submariners – and there are simply too few of them.

Given the urgent need for some fresh defence direction, who or what is delaying the Review? The Chancellor? The NATO leaders’ summit next month will give the US administration another chance to vent about allies’ refusal to act responsibly to ensure collective defence. Britain currently spends 2.3 per cent GDP, promising 2.5 per cent in 2027.  Too little too late. We need more now, not least to increase military’s strength.

The latest personnel numbers will be out next week. In January full-time trained strength stood at 127,026, a fall of 10,000 in three years. The key is “trained”. For example, while 73,847 soldiers were in the Army at the start of the year, only 70,752 counted as trained.

Too often the focus is on recruitment numbers, rather than the quality of recruits and, as important, retention. Last year, 12,850 joined the regular military. Although this was a healthy increase across all the service arms compared to the previous year, these joiners must be balanced against (and indeed, are outweighed by) the 14,830 leavers.

James Cartlidge, the Conservative defence spokesman, argues that why they are leaving merits in-depth study. Quite right: keeping the Forces up to strength seems like filling a bath without properly putting in the plug.

Back in 1998, Armed Forces’ numbers stood at 211,000, 110,000 of that in the Army.  The Strategic Defence Review that year was the first to focus on people. Whenever it’s finally published, hopefully this one will do the same.