First things first: defence policy is difficult. Even more than is generally the case in other departments every decision made at the MoD is a question of trade-offs. This is true of all aspects of the brief: policy, personnel, procurement and so on. If you do this you can’t do that and so on. Add the timescales involved and the realities of inter-service rivalry plus some unhelpful sniping from the Treasury and you can see why the MoD can become pretty dysfunctional pretty damn quickly.
Nevertheless…
Is anyone impressed by Tory defence policy? No, I didn’t think so. Neither the Prime Minister nor his Chancellor appear to have much interest in Defence issues and it shows. Then again, at the MoD Liam Fox is hardly master of all he surveys either. Indeed it’s hard not to think that Fox was woefully unprepared for government.
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