How much defence can we afford?

Max Hastings says that the stakes are high for Liam Fox’s strategic defence review: but we must maintain our current troop numbers and cut in other areas to pay for them

Britain’s armed forces are entering a dangerous period of upheaval. The new government’s strategic defence review (SDR) will impose swingeing cuts, and the only uncertainty concerns where the axe will fall. Defence Secretary Liam Fox has announced — in the Sunday Times, rather than to parliament, that the Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, will step down in the autumn.

Stirrup will therefore remain as a lame duck while the SDR is carried out. This is deliberate. Fox wants to emphasise that the SDR’s outcome will represent the intentions of government, which a new CDS will then be required to carry out. He thus hopes to avoid the tribal warfare he believes inescapable if a soldier — almost inevitably a lobbyist for the interests of his own service — takes over immediately.