UK Slashes Defense Spending

[wiggin]

I should probably spell it 'defence' for this thread, though.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11570593

Defence review: Cameron unveils armed forces cuts

Harrier jump jets, the Navy's flagship HMS Ark Royal and planned Nimrod spy planes are to be axed and 42,000 MoD and armed forces jobs cut by 2015.

Unveiling the strategic defence review, PM David Cameron said defence spending would fall by 8% over four years.

The RAF and navy will lose 5,000 jobs each, the Army 7,000 and the Ministry of Defence 25,000 civilian staff.

Axing the Harrier and Ark Royal means no planes will be able to fly from British aircraft carriers until 2019.
Continue reading the main story

Mr Cameron opened his Commons' statement by denying the review was simply a "cost saving exercise", saying it was a "step change in the way we protect this country's security interests".

He said Britain would still meet Nato's target of spending 2% of GDP on defence and would continue to have the fourth largest military in the world and "punch above its weight in the world".

But he said the country had to be "more thoughtful, more strategic and more co-ordinated in the way we advance our interests and protect our national security".

There would be no cuts to support for troops in Afghanistan - which is funded separately from the Treasury's special reserve, the prime minister stressed in his statement.
Kinloss doubts

But he said he wanted the Ministry of Defence to become more commercially "hard headed" and said it would face "significant challenges" as a result of cuts.

He outlined savings of £4.7bn at the department - including a reduction in civilian staff by 25,000 by 2015. The department will also sell off "unnecessary assets", renegotiate contracts and cut overheads.

He confirmed HMS Ark Royal will be decommissioned four years early and the UK's Harrier jump jets will be axed. Two new aircraft carriers will be built but one would be placed on "extended readiness".

The decision to axe the replacement Nimrod MRA4 reconnaissance planes - a project Mr Cameron said had cost more than £3bn and was more than eight years late - puts the future of RAF Kinloss, which employs 1,500 people, in doubt. The future of nearby RAF Lossiemouth remains uncertain.

Mr Cameron acknowledged there would be changes but said some RAF bases were "likely to be required by the Army, as forces return from Germany".

A "large well-equipped" Army would remain - that would amount to 95,500 personnel by 2015 - 7,000 fewer than today, Mr Cameron said.

Tanks would be cut by 40% and heavy artillery 35% - but there would be 12 more Chinooks and communications equipment and more money for unmanned planes, he said.

He also said naval manpower would fall to 30,000 by 2015 and the total number of frigates and destroyers would drop from 23 to 19 by 2020.
'Missed opportunity'

But he said the government would procure a fleet of hunter killer Astute class submarines, complete production of six Type 45 destroyers and and start a programme to develop "less expensive, more flexible, modern frigates".

Mr Cameron also vowed to push ahead with replacing Britain's Trident nuclear missile system but said their replacement would be scaled back, with the number of warheads per boat cut from 48 to 40, as part of a £750m package of savings.

The life of the current Trident submarines would also be extended, with the final spending decision on their replacement delayed until 2016 - after the next general election.

Labour leader Ed Miliband said the review was a "missed opportunity".

He told MPs: "It is a spending review dressed up as a defence review, it has been chaotically conducted, it has been hastily prepared and it is simply not credible as a strategic blueprint for our future defence needs."

BBC defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt said the decision to decommission the Ark Royal immediately and axe the UK's force of Harrier jump jets meant that, until at least 2019, no planes would be able to fly from the new aircraft carriers.

Shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy described the arrangement as "peculiar" and "driven by finance".

He told the BBC: "What's the purpose of an aircraft carrier if not to carry aircraft? And I think to leave our country without a single fixed-wing aircraft able to fly off our aircraft carriers for a decade is a very worrying decision.

"It can't be driven by security needs or strategic needs. No-one based on the security needs of our country would come to the decision that a decade without an aeroplane on an aircraft carrier is the right decision."

Defence Secretary Liam Fox told the BBC there had been periods in the past - before the Harriers came on stream - when the UK had aircraft carriers with no planes to fly on them. Dr Fox said there would be a range of helicopters and unmanned aircraft which would still be able to fly from them.

At least one of the new carriers will be redesigned so that it can deploy normal fighter aircraft that do not need a Harrier-style vertical lift capability - allowing strike fighter aircraft from allies like France to land on UK aircraft carriers, and vice versa.

Bottom line? A WSJ piece said it best, something like 'UK military to do less with less'. There's no way to make this look pretty IMO. Certainly the UK budget is under strain, but exempting NHS and other social services from cuts made unacceptably large cuts in defence spending and other programs an inevitability.

The aircraft carrier mess, while definitely a headline grabber (no serious fixed-wing projection power for over a decade?! Building 2 carriers, but mothballing one immediately?) is hardly the only concern. Conventional ground forces have been seriously slashed. I'll admit it's not necessary to keep armored brigades in Germany any longer, but they've seriously cut into Britain's armored strength, and reduced full infantry strength quite significantly. It's unlikely now that UK forces would be able to manage any significant overseas deployment without US help. Hell, we've seen that already in Afghanistan - UK troops simply don't have enough equipment to provide transport, supply, and air/artillery support on their own. Cutting that capability further does not bode well.

Cutting the size of the RN was probably necessary, but given how small their surface combatant force is already, it's another worrying development. At least they kept the Astute class program going and are (theoretically) keeping the Trident deterrent funded, albeit at a somewhat reduced level.

If the UK is interested in only protecting its borders, this is probably more than sufficient. But if it wants to maintain pretensions as a global power, they just took a serious step backwards. I appreciate that the UK is still far outspending most of NATO (they actually manage about 2% of GDP as recommended by NATO), but they're not just aiming for regional defence but serious global presence.

One other note: It's clear that a lot of this mess is due to a bloated and inefficient procurement system. Many of the canceled projects are way over budget and schedule - the carriers, the Nimrod reconnaissance planes, the gap between Harrier retirement and JSF availability, the Type 45 destroyers and Astute class attack subs, etc. The current government was stuck with an unenviable task of deciding which overbudget programs should be axed (even after spending billions), and which should be completed, albeit at significant cost.

The capability gaps and budget holes are to a large extent caused by this procurements mess, and the UK doesn't have the luxury of being profligate like the US does. If a US carrier is behind schedule, that's okay - we've got a dozen others that can maintain global coverage in a pinch. Ditto for cutting an overpriced or aging aircraft program - we have so many planes of various types out there, that cutting a single program (a la F-22) is hardly a major capability gap. Hell, we can scrape by with ancient refueling tankers and delays in our transport aircraft because our raw numbers can absorb the logistical hurdles. Yet the UK can't afford this luxury, working on a shoestring projection capability like they are. Other small militaries with global pretensions (France, anyone) should take note. For that matter, the US should learn from the mistakes of others and work to reform the DoD procurement system and ensure that capability gaps never arise.

Keeping a global military going is expensive and difficult, and requires forward planning going into the decades. I admire the UK government's effort to make do with a smaller budget because of current constraints, but I question the long-term wisdom of these moves. UK foreign policy will become more and more hamstrung by budgetary pressures and reduced capabilities.

[Dreadnaught]

More importantly, is that 2% of GDP even sufficient? The US is spending 4% of GDP. The UK was already below France in terms of % of GDP, now they are curring even more.

I worry even more about the deterioration in defense in Europe. You don't have a country like China itching to take over the Atlantic, but ceding military advantage is ceding influence. All you're left with is a vote at the UN GA. May as well as Ecuador at that point.

[wiggin]

If all of NATO spent 2% of GDP and pooled some resources (e.g. projection power), it would be enough for modest interventions and more than enough for defense of the alliance itself. Anyone who really wanted to be an individual player (e.g. the US and France/UK to some extent) would have to spend more. I think the bigger concern in Europe is not currently China (though from a global perspective it certainly is), but rather Russia and the Middle East. Lack of military heft in Europe has made their closer neighbors more willing to bully Europe, especially on energy independence. I don't think it's really a matter of worrying about an actual war, but deterrence goes for far more than merely actual shooting. For that matter, being the go-to person for military interventions automatically gives you a seat at the table everywhere.

The bigger question is how big you can make a professional military with projection power. These two costs are by far the most expensive in modern militaries: providing salaries and benefits (healthcare, retirements, etc.) for professional military, and providing for the logistics and technology for projection power. There are economies of scale here, which is why the US can support a global infrastructure - their tax base is so much bigger, and the US can support a much larger infrastructure for a per-unit lower cost than smaller advanced militaries. The European solution would be to pool resources, but that runs into inevitable political headaches and requires unprecedented cooperation on foreign policy. France and the UK have been testing the waters in this realm, but it needs to go a lot further if they want to keep projection power on a budget.

Nevertheless, we haven't dealt with the personnel cost problem. The only effective solution any Western military has found so far is conscription (it works in Israel; they keep their military budget to a mere $14-15 billion by forgoing significant projection power and paying their conscripts shit), but that's not viable in many countries.

The US is facing major budget issues, too. For more than the last two decades, the US taxpayer has been subsidizing world peace while the rest of the developed world (with some exceptions - thank you, Brits) slashes defense expenditures in post-Cold War euphoria. This situation isn't going to persist indefinitely, and further cutting European defense budgets isn't going to deal with their very real structural deficit issues brought on by overgenerous social spending and awful demographics. With defense budgets such a small portion of the pie, there's only so much you can cut there.

(On a similar note, the UK is cutting science budgets by 'only' 10%. Shortsighted budget reform seems to be the theme here. I understand, though, the absolutely wrenching decisions they have to make in light of the terrible fiscal situation brought on by over a decade of mismanagement.)

[earthJoker]

The UK doesn't really have it's own politics on what to do with its army, does it (I mean beyond protecting its borders). If Europe should really handle the problems with the ME and Russia by itself, common foreign and defence politics would be needed IMO. We all know how well that worked the last time before the Iraq war.

The only effective solution any Western military has found so far is conscription

That's only faking the number. You may have less spending and therefore less taxes, but the loss to the economy is the same as these people can't work at the time they do their service. Conscription is lowering the GDP of any country.

[wiggin]

Uhm, pretty much all military spending is 'wasted' GDP in that while it's technically employing people and such, rarely does it provide any productive uses outside of killing people or providing political clout. It's necessary, of course, but that doesn't make it productive. Thus, conscription lowers GDP just as much as a professional military (actually, less most of the time, since the professional military not only takes useful workers out of the economy, it also spends more of society's money to pay them). But from a fiscal perspective, it saves some money.

[earthJoker]

I just wanted to point out that while a professional army might be wasted GDP, militia army just result in a lower GDP. In the end the loss to the economy would be about the same, actually I think a professional army should be more efficient as specialisation in general is. In conclusion, there is no free cake.

[Nessus]

The only effective solution any Western military has found so far is conscription (it works in Israel; they keep their military budget to a mere $14-15 billion by forgoing significant projection power and paying their conscripts shit), but that's not viable in many countries.

Slavery is also a bit of an ethical dilemma.

[Hazir]

People are born free, but that doesn't mean they are born free of commitment to the society they belong to. It's funny to see the consequences of these British cuts in the long run; these Conservatives are going to intensify the cooperation in Europe in order to be able to actually do something with their reduced forces. Give it 10 years and we'll have a EU military command.

[earthJoker]

Slavery is also a bit of an ethical dilemma.

Conscription is actually surprisingly well accepted in the societies that have it, despite its heavy impact on the individuals.

[Nessus]

Conscription is actually surprisingly well accepted in the societies that have it, despite its heavy impact on the individuals.

For some reason, I am aware Doesn't change the underlying issue, however.

[earthJoker]

True, and I think for countries with no present danger (like mine) conscription is an unbearable intervention in the private life of men.

[Khendraja'aro]

Germany just got rid of conscription, by the way

[wiggin]

I just wanted to point out that while a professional army might be wasted GDP, militia army just result in a lower GDP. In the end the loss to the economy would be about the same, actually I think a professional army should be more efficient as specialisation in general is. In conclusion, there is no free cake.

This is debated. Certainly Adam Smith made that argument - voluntary specialization of the labor market is more efficient than conscription. Yet that's assuming that most conscripts are, essentially, cannon fodder and that you can't have a very wide range of specialization inside the military. From doctors to computer scientists to marketing gurus, the military of today could use all of them in productive positions that match their specialization. From that perspective, then, things get a little more complicated. In fact, since the majority of conscripts will be taken right out of high school (while others are allowed to specialize with more education before a longer period of conscription), it's likely that conscription could have an overall positive economic impact by providing de facto training and specialization.

We're also assuming that draftees are for a short term. I understand this underscores the concept of 'fairness' in a society, but it doesn't make sense from a military perspective. The US doesn't need to draft everyone for a short period, they just need a decent sampling of the population for a longer period that allows for better specialization. Alternatives could either include some form of national service, or just a lottery.

At the end of the day, the answer is that 'it depends'. It depends on the way in which conscripts are recruited and used, and it depends on the fiscal situation of the government. Very briefly, the choice to enact a labor tax (conscription) rather than a higher fiscal tax to fund a professional military depends on how much a tax will distort the economy. Conscription is often a bad choice, but generally gets better and better if the fiscal situation already includes a lot of non-military spending. This is the case today.

This isn't to argue that conscription is the best solution to the problem. But from a fiscal and not economic perspective, it's almost always better, and from an economic perspective it can be managed to have a lesser impact, especially in today's fiscal environment. It's probably only necessary in militaries with high personnel costs, too, which is hardly all of NATO.

Slavery is also a bit of an ethical dilemma.

Whoa, that's going a bit far afield. Perhaps another thread? I really wanted to talk about the future of UK defense policy. Briefly, I think calling a labor tax 'slavery' is about the same as calling an income tax 'theft'.

[GGT]

Unveiling the strategic defence review, PM David Cameron said defence spending would fall by 8% over four years.

Can/would the US do the same?

[wiggin]

No and no.

[earthJoker]

From doctors to computer scientists to marketing gurus, ...

Now you freak me out, I was just in the service with this combination, if you guessed the lawyer too you would be an oracle. Beside the doctors, all of us just made basic jobs (cleaning toilets, picking up the phones ect.). Not really effective.
And the doctors weren't nearly seeing as much patients as they would do in RL.

Briefly, I think calling a labor tax 'slavery' is about the same as calling an income tax 'theft'.

I don't really get it, do you see conscription as a form of tax?

[wiggin]

Now you freak me out, I was just in the service with this combination, if you guessed the lawyer too you would be an oracle. Beside the doctors, all of us just made basic jobs (cleaning toilets, picking up the phones ect.). Not really effective.
And the doctors weren't nearly seeing as much patients as they would do in RL.

Depends on the military. Currently, the US DoD pay civilians a whole pile of money to do certain tasks, and it pays professional soldiers (officers) a somewhat smaller pile to do other skilled labor. Doctors are the most obvious example, but there are also signals intelligence units, network architecture/security jobs, PR and information warfare/psychops, weapons design and validation, legal affairs, etc, etc. Depends on the service, though, how much advanced skills are needed. IIRC the Swiss have a very different model for their armed services than the US/UK/France's interventionist model. I know that my in-laws worked for the Israeli equivalent of the NSA during their service, using their training in mathematics/CS and electrical engineering. In general, they highly value skills in engineering, medicine, law, and language.

I don't really get it, do you see conscription as a form of tax?

One of the classical economic models for conscription is to view it as a labor tax. Instead of the government paying professionals a higher wage and recruiting them from the population, the government uses less tax income and directly taxes labor (e.g. taking X percentage of the 18-year old males out of the labor force and using their labor/time for the time of service). Then, the question becomes which tax is more distortionary on the economy - the income/etc. taxes needed to support a professional military, or the labor tax needed to support a conscript army?

There are obviously other concerns here, but that's the basic argument.

[Nessus]

There are obviously other concerns here, but that's the basic argument.

As an individual I'd have a hard time swallowing that argument; it's not exactly one and the same for me to spend my working hours doing what I (ostensibly) chose to do and pay the gummint a portion of my salary, or to do what I'm told under the threat of punishment for n days.

e: We really need our own thread for this though

[GGT]

Uhm, pretty much all military spending is 'wasted' GDP in that while it's technically employing people and such, rarely does it provide any productive uses outside of killing people or providing political clout. It's necessary, of course, but that doesn't make it productive. Thus, conscription lowers GDP just as much as a professional military (actually, less most of the time, since the professional military not only takes useful workers out of the economy, it also spends more of society's money to pay them). But from a fiscal perspective, it saves some money.

Depends on the military. Currently, the US DoD pay civilians a whole pile of money to do certain tasks, and it pays professional soldiers (officers) a somewhat smaller pile to do other skilled labor. Doctors are the most obvious example, but there are also signals intelligence units, network architecture/security jobs, PR and information warfare/psychops, weapons design and validation, legal affairs, etc, etc. Depends on the service, though, how much advanced skills are needed. IIRC the Swiss have a very different model for their armed services than the US/UK/France's interventionist model. I know that my in-laws worked for the Israeli equivalent of the NSA during their service, using their training in mathematics/CS and electrical engineering. In general, they highly value skills in engineering, medicine, law, and language.


One of the classical economic models for conscription is to view it as a labor tax. Instead of the government paying professionals a higher wage and recruiting them from the population, the government uses less tax income and directly taxes labor (e.g. taking X percentage of the 18-year old males out of the labor force and using their labor/time for the time of service). Then, the question becomes which tax is more distortionary on the economy - the income/etc. taxes needed to support a professional military, or the labor tax needed to support a conscript army?

There are obviously other concerns here, but that's the basic argument.

The obvious other concerns would be....moral? If pretty much all military spending is wasted GDP, yet you also call it "necessary", then isn't this more about offense vs defense? And for whom?

[earthJoker]

One of the classical economic models for conscription is to view it as a labor tax.

I don't think Nessus was talking about the economical effects, rather on the social ones. And while this model might work for large scale economics, it wont work for the individual. As you can't really calculate the value of not being able to choose what you want to do.

[Steely Glint]

These cuts where not anywhere near as bad as they could have been. The Treasury was demanding more, and rumors were of 17 escorts for the RN, slashing of the amphibious force, canceling the new carriers entirely, etc etc. The cuts, when you lot at them closely, are not actually all that bad. Fox has consistently said he's aiming his SDSR at about 2020, which makes sense: realistically, the UK is not going to be able to take part in anything major until then anyway. We're fully committed in Afghanistan until 2015, plus another 5 years to regenerate afterwards.

Loss of Ark Royal and the Harriers (with either Illustrious or Ocean ALSO to be scrapped depending on a study to pick on as a permenant LPH) is only a blow in terms of retention of carrier skills - as an actual weapon to be used against someone with semi-modern anti-air defenses it is probable getting a bit long in the tooth. FAA pilots are currently on exchange with the USN to keep up carrier skills and such: hopefully, this will be sufficient to keep naval aviation alive in the RN till 2019.

The current status of the carriers, I think, is that Queen Elizabeth is to go ahead as a CATOBAR to fly F35C (squadron of 12 embarked routinely plus helicopters and apaches - presumably to take the full compliment 40 in the event of some emergency) , and the fate of Prince of Wales is to be decided in 2015, she'll either by placed on "extended readiness" (mothballed), fitted as CATOBAR to go on rotation with QE as the duty carrier or sold if they can come up with some arrangement with allies to provide continuous carrier coverage (hint: this will never, ever happen).

Escort wise, we'll probably lose the 4 type 22's (the oldest ones) and get a like for like replacement for Type 23 with Type 26, which is supposed to be turning up around 2020. We also get to keep most of the amphibious capability, and we get 7 astutes. All in all, the outcome was about as good as can be realistically expected and can be justified, morally, politically, etc given the scale of cuts going on elsewhere in government.

Of course, none of this is set in stone. The carriers in particular will always be under attack, from the RAF, who think they should own everything that flies, from people who are generally anti-military because they are offensive weapons, from the treasury - expect the argument to be made, come 2019, 'you've lasted 10 years without carrier air power, why do you need it now - why don't we save money and sell them both'... in particular, the small size of the Joint Strike Fighter buy means they will probably be squabbled over by the RN and RAF - and if the RAF ends up owning all of them then they won't be deployed on the deck of a carrier very often, at which point the ships themselves start to look a bit pointless. And so on.

And, yes, we really need more escorts. But I can't see that happening this decade or the next, so I guess we'll just have to make do with 19.

One other note: It's clear that a lot of this mess is due to a bloated and inefficient procurement system. Many of the canceled projects are way over budget and schedule - the carriers, the Nimrod reconnaissance planes, the gap between Harrier retirement and JSF availability, the Type 45 destroyers and Astute class attack subs, etc. The current government was stuck with an unenviable task of deciding which overbudget programs should be axed (even after spending billions), and which should be completed, albeit at significant cost.

A lot of the problem was due to the previous government continuously delaying procurement projects and running on old equipment well beyond what it was designed for, incurring increased maintenance costs. In essence, short term savings made but greater costs long term. And now we have this wave of equipment which all needs replacing at once, just at the time when government budgets have to be cut. For example, the build of the carriers was slowed down meaning less money was spent short term but it added another £650 million to the project overall. I do agree with you about procurement, I think companies like BAE and Lockheed etc just look at governments as a sort of giant money well

[wiggin]

I wasn't responding to Nessie, I was responding to you. The actual benefits or lack thereof from a holistic perspective for a draft is a very complex question and likely country specific. I was just saying - as an aside - that the only viable fiscal solution to rising personnel costs so far has been conscription. Whether or not it's a good idea - from an economic or a social perspective - is a very different question.

Back to the point: fiscal tightening is going on in a lot of Western countries. This is leading to pretty significant defense budget cuts that are degrading capabilities of major Western powers. Is this something that can be averted? How should we address the issue?

edit: Just saw your post, Steely. In principle I agree - I think the headlines about the carriers were overblown compared to what they did to the Army. Furthermore, I'd say they probably made the best of a bad situation. But the situation was needlessly awful by lots of blunders in the past, and the cuts were unusually savage because election pledges had ring-fenced NHS from cuts, which is absurd.

[Steely Glint]

I'd pick the NHS over any number of aircraft carriers or soldiers any day of the week.

[wiggin]

It's not an either-or, Steely. Defense spending in the developed world has been growing much slower than healthcare spending. To make huge cuts in the budgets of everything (education, scientific research, defense, etc.) but leave NHS completely untouched is ridiculous and ignoring the real medium-term threat to fiscal stability.

It's like Obama's freeze in non-defense discretionary spending a while back. Sure, it's not a bad idea to have a spending freeze (though exempting defense spending is pretty silly), but it ignores the elephant in the room of entitlement costs. In this case, I think that a number of very important budget items (including defense) were seriously hurt, rather than inconvenienced, by the drastic cuts, and NHS got a free pass through the process. That's bad government.

[Dreadnaught]

I'd pick the NHS over any number of aircraft carriers or soldiers any day of the week.

Don't you think the military has a role in protecting a way of life that allows for developed systems like the NHS?

[Being]

Don't you think the military has a role in protecting a way of life that allows for developed systems like the NHS?

The military hasn't actively protected us from much for a very long time. And it is highly over-funded. It seems the thing they are most adept at is spending tax money on useless adventures. How many more years will the miltary spend defending us against Iraq? How many more years will they fight against the people we put in power in Afghanistan? Shit, they don't even do all the work, they hire private contractors to do it. I say cutting back on military spending is a good thing. What, are you afraid that 40 million unmarried Chinese men are going to come here and interfere with your selection of women to fool around with?

[Dreadnaught]

The military does more than just protect borders. It projects power and protects interests.

[Being]

The military does more than just protect borders.

I never mentioned borders.

It projects power...

So do ICBMs.

...and protects interests.

Please list some of the interests that the military is actively protecting.

[Dreadnaught]

I will if someone else thinks that militaries don't protect far-off interests.

[Being]

I will if someone else thinks that militaries don't protect far-off interests.

Which far-off interests? And by actively I mean engaged with the enemy on a regular basis.