# Coalition announces Strategic Defence Spending Review: opinions?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [October 21, 2010, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870 "2010-10-21T09:14:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2010, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/1 "2010-10-21T09:14:42Z")
The long awaited Strategic Defence and Security Spending Review is [finally](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defence_and_Security_Review) published. Key highlights include:
[ul]
[li]All British personnel are to be withdrawn from Germany[/li][li]The number of tanks and heavy artillery are to be cut[/li][li]More Chinooks to be purchased[/li][li]The Nimrod project is scrapped[/li][li]Harrier fleet to be decommissioned[/li][li]HMS Ark Royal decommissioned[/li][li]Replacement of Trident delayed for four years[/li][li]Seven new nuclear Astute class submarines to be completed as planned[/li][li]Replacement aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth II to be built as planned[/li][/ul]
Opinions? It seems the Navy has come best off in the review with new submarines, a new set of larger carriers, though they lose the flagship and at least one other carrier (Ocean or Illustrious), and they still maintain the nuclear deterrant.
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### Author:  [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2010, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/2 "2010-10-21T10:24:12Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#):
>
> The long awaited Strategic Defence and Security Spending Review is [finally](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defence_and_Security_Review) published. Key highlights include:
>
> [ul]
> [li]All British personnel are to be withdrawn from Germany[/li][li]The number of tanks and heavy artillery are to be cut[/li][li]More Chinooks to be purchased[/li][li]The Nimrod project is scrapped[/li][li]Harrier fleet to be decommissioned[/li][li]HMS Ark Royal decommissioned[/li][li]Replacement of Trident delayed for four years[/li][li]Seven new nuclear Astute class submarines to be completed as planned[/li][li]Replacement aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth II to be built as planned[/li][/ul]
>
> Opinions? It seems the Navy has come best off in the review with new submarines, a new set of larger carriers, though they lose the flagship and at least one other carrier (Ocean or Illustrious), and they still maintain the nuclear deterrant.
You forgot to mention the aircraft carriers won’t have any aircraft until 2020 at least as the Harriers are being scrapped immediately.
But otherwise - we can still defend ourselves but playing the USA’s junior partner in war-crimes will be much harder.
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### Author:  [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2010, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/3 "2010-10-21T11:11:21Z")
Huh? I must have missed that. The navy will have no strike aircraft at all until 2020? When do the carriers get commissioned?
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### Author:  [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2010, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/4 "2010-10-21T11:35:56Z")
I think the carriers will be operational by 2017/18, but the JSFs we’ve ordered are due by 2020. So for two years we’ll have carriers with no aircraft to carry.
It’s an odd decision. If we can do without them for 10 years, do we really need them? Or if we do really need them, why are we doing without them for 10 years?
One of the possible consequences is that, 10 years from now we’ll have no pilots with any experience in carrier operations, or indeed take-off and landing.
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2010, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/5 "2010-10-21T11:37:02Z")
Well before then. We’ll have no means of defending outlying territories like the Falklands without going nuclear. And we won’t be able to project force without land bases in friendly territory.
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### Author:  [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2010, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/6 "2010-10-21T11:41:11Z")
[From the Telegraph](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/8072413/Defence-cuts-French-and-US-jets-to-use-British-Navy-aircraft-carriers.html):
> [@](#):
>
> The first of two new carriers will enter service in 2016, but will only be configured to carry helicopters - not jets - before being mothballed indefinitely, or sold once the second carrier enters service.
>
> However, even when the second carrier arrives, the only aircraft likely to be able to use it will be American or French, with a new Joint Strike Fighter plane not due in service until 2020.
>
> This means the Navy will not have British jets flying from its aircraft carriers for around 10 years and foreign pilots flying foreign aircraft will be vital to protecting Britain. But even they will probably not be able to fly off a British aircraft carrier until 2016 at the earliest.
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### Author:  [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2010, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/7 "2010-10-21T11:42:58Z")
Why are we building two carriers to mothball/sell one almost straight away?
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### Author:  [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2010, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/8 "2010-10-21T12:20:27Z")
I suspect it’s because it’s more difficult to get out of the contract now. Plus, there’s an interest in maintaining the ability to build major naval hardware whcih you can only do with more or less continuous employment in shipyards. Plus there’s a political calculation about not binning a lot of jobs, although that’s evidently less of a concern for this government.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2010, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/9 "2010-10-21T14:44:48Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#):
>
> Why are we building two carriers to mothball/sell one almost straight away?
In short, “they’re really expensive and we don’t need them both, because we’re not going to fight the Chinese.” Also, because the government appears to have decided that all future British wars will be fought as part of a coalition.
It certainly seems a short-sighted view, especially given that the second ship has already been paid for.
It looks as though selling the second carrier is an unlikely option, and reading between the lines, it wouldn’t happen at least until the 2015 Review.
Most curious of all is the fact that the government won’t buy any of the STOVL F-35s, and instead will buy the conventional C variant. Essentially, most of the British investment and R&D will go to waste, since only the US Marines will operate the B variant.
> [@](#):
>
> Decisions on defence equipment require judgements on what our Armed Forces will need 20 to 30 years from now. That is particularly true for large warships like carriers and the fast jets that fly off them. The previous Administration ordered two new carriers three times the size of our existing ones. It planned to equip them from a combat air fleet of around 150 fifth generation Joint Strike Fighters. **This £20 billion programme was crowding out other important investment in the Armed Forces.**
>
> The National Security Council has therefore looked hard at the strategic, industrial and financial aspects of this programme, and has taken a number of difficult but necessary decisions to achieve by the 2020s an adaptable and effective carrier-strike capability in balance with the rest of the Armed Force structure. The key conclusions are:
>
> • There is a strategic requirement for a future carrier-strike capability. The Invincible-class carriers were designed principally to meet Cold War threats on the high seas, with short-range jets providing air defence for a naval task group, without the ability to interoperate aircraft with our key allies and whose primary mission was anti-submarine warfare. A Queen Elizabeth-class carrier, operating the most modern combat jets, will give the UK the ability to project military power more than 700 nautical miles over land as well as sea, from anywhere in the world. Both the US and France, for example, have used this freedom of manoeuvre to deliver combat airpower in Afghanistan from secure carrier bases in the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean. This capability will give the UK long term political flexibility to act without depending, at times of regional tension, on agreement from other countries to use of their bases for any mission we want to undertake. It will also give us in-built military flexibility to adapt our approach over the 50 years of the carrier’s working life. In particular, it provides options for a coercive response to crises, as a complement or alternative to ground engagements. It contributes to an overall Force Structure geared towards helping deter or contain threats from relatively well-equipped regional powers, as well as dealing with insurgencies and non-state actors in failing states.
>
> • **We will need to operate only one aircraft carrier. We cannot now foresee circumstances in which the UK would require the scale of strike capability previously planned**. We are unlikely to face adversaries in large-scale air combat. We are far more likely to engage in precision operations, which may need to overcome sophisticated air defence capabilities. The single carrier will therefore routinely have 12 fast jets embarked for operations while retaining the capacity to deploy up to the 36 previously planned, providing combat and intelligence capability much greater than the existing Harriers. It will be able to carry a wide range of helicopters, including up to 12 Chinook or Merlin transports and eight Apache attack helicopters. The precise mix of aircraft will depend on the mission, allowing the carrier to support a broad range of operations including landing a Royal Marines Commando Group, or a Special Forces Squadron conducting a counterterrorism strike, assisting with humanitarian crises or the evacuation of UK nationals.
>
> • A single carrier needs to be fully effective. As currently designed, the Queen Elizabeth will not be fully interoperable with key allies, since their naval jets could not land on it. Pursuit of closer partnership is a core strategic principle for the Strategic Defence and Security Review because it is clear that the UK will in most circumstances act militarily as part of a wider coalition. We will therefore install catapult and arrestor gear. This will delay the in-service date of the new carrier from 2016 to around 2020. But it will allow greater interoperability with US and French carriers and naval jets. It provides the basis for developing joint Maritime Task Groups in the future. This should both ensure continuous carrier-strike availability, and reduce the overall carrier protection requirements on the rest of the fleet, releasing ships for other naval tasks such as protection of key sea-lanes, or conducting counter- piracy and narcotics operations.
>
> • **The strike needs to be made more capable. Installing the catapult and arrestor will allow the UK to acquire the carrier-variant of Joint Strike Fighter ready to deploy on the converted carrier instead of the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) variant**. This version of the jet has a longer range and greater payload: this, not large numbers of aircraft, is the critical requirement for precision strike operations in the future. The UK plans to operate a single model of JSF, instead of different land and naval variants. Overall, the carrier-variant of the JSF will be cheaper, reducing through-life costs by around 25%.
>
> • The current, limited carrier-strike capability will be retired. We must face up to the difficult choices put off by the last Government. Over the next five years combat air support to operations in Afghanistan must be the over-riding priority: the Harrier fleet would not be able to provide this and sustain a carrier-strike role at the same time. Even after 2015, short-range Harriers – whether operating from HMS Illustrious or HMS Queen Elizabeth – would provide only a very limited coercive capability. We judge it unlikely that this would be sufficiently useful in the latter half of the decade to be a cost-effective use of defence resources.
>
> This new carrier-strike policy is consistent with the Strategic Defence and Security Review’s overall approach of holding defence capabilities at different levels of readiness appropriate to the strategic context. It makes strategic sense to focus on developing a more effective and appropriate carrier-strike capability to deal with the uncertain evolution in type and scale of potential threats from various states in the next decade and beyond. To provide further insurance against unpredictable changes in that strategic environment, our current plan is to hold one of the two new carriers at extended readiness. That leaves open options to rotate them, to ensure a continuous UK carrier-strike capability; or to re-generate more quickly a two-carrier strike capability. Alternatively, we might sell one of the carriers, relying on cooperation with a close ally to provide continuous carrier-strike capability. The next strategic defence and security review in 2015 will provide an opportunity to review these options as the future strategic environment develops. Retaining this flexibility of choice is at the core of the Government’s adaptable approach.
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### Author:  [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2010, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/10 "2010-10-21T14:47:56Z")
Although the Harriers are (as I hear it) incredibly expensive to operate, I love them and will be sorry to see them go. I was hoping someone would develop a cost effective model to utilize
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2010, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/11 "2010-10-21T14:51:43Z")
They did. It’s called the F-35B, and it was just axed. 😛
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### Author:  [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2010, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/12 "2010-10-21T17:40:52Z")
The write up I saw says it reduces Britain’s maximum possible army commitment to any overseas endeavour to 30,000. We had 45,000 in the Iraq invasion (or was that Gulf War 1? Not sure).
I’m wondering how many of the Tories would have voted for something like this under a Labour government. Certainly many would have been decrying it as selling the British military out.
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### Author:  [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/13 "2010-10-21T19:12:18Z")
Given that carriers are incredibly vulnerable in the modern naval conflict environment, and that the future of air power project and air superiority are smaller, lighter, longer range and duration UAVs, the investment in fall sized aircraft carriers is obtuse from a functional standpoint. The existing through deck cruiser platforms were really intended for convoy overflight protection and anti-submarine warfare rather than power project, a weakness that became apparent during the Falkland Island conflict.
Stranger
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2010, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/14 "2010-10-21T22:51:33Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#):
>
> Given that carriers are incredibly vulnerable in the modern naval conflict environment, and that the future of air power project and air superiority are smaller, lighter, longer range and duration UAVs, the investment in fall sized aircraft carriers is obtuse from a functional standpoint.
Yes, aircraft carriers are vulnerable, but you need a platform from which your aircraft - manned or unmanned - can operate where you don’t have a friendly country in range.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2010, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/15 "2010-10-22T05:30:11Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#):
>
> Given that carriers are incredibly vulnerable in the modern naval conflict environment, and that the future of air power project and air superiority are smaller, lighter, longer range and duration UAVs, the investment in fall sized aircraft carriers is obtuse from a functional standpoint. The existing through deck cruiser platforms were really intended for convoy overflight protection and anti-submarine warfare rather than power project, a weakness that became apparent during the Falkland Island conflict.
>
> Stranger
The existing through deck cruiser platforms were being retired already. The carriers which saw action in the Falklands were Invincible and Hermes; Hermes was sold to India a couple of years after the Falklands War, and Invincible has more or less been mothballed since 2005.
It’s true that the QE class is also optimized for ASW, but the last 15 years of development have been undertaken knowing that the Royal Navy’s ASW mission is all but over.
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### Author:  [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2010, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/16 "2010-10-22T07:32:20Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#):
>
> Huh? I must have missed that. The navy will have no strike aircraft at all until 2020? When do the carriers get commissioned?
If they need them yesterday ,there is supposed to be an offer on the table to lease F18 hornets from the USN.
Declan
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2010, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/17 "2010-10-22T10:08:47Z")
I suspect the decision to withdraw from Germany will be revoked. You want to be the US’s junior partner, you need a jump off point.
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### Author:  [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2010, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/18 "2010-10-22T11:01:14Z")
From a strictly pride point of view, I see this apparent decline of British power quite annoying.
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### Author:  [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2010, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/19 "2010-10-22T11:51:54Z")
I mourn the decline of British Naval ship naming.
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### Author:  [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2010, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coalition-announces-strategic-defence-spending-review-opinions/557870/20 "2010-10-22T12:00:01Z")
Yeah, HMS Queen Elizabeth II is the lamest name for a RN ship ever.
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