The Conservatives today showed the gravest betrayal to our armed forces and most crucially failed to renew the Trident Nuclear deterrent in a desperate attempt to placate Liberal Democrat peace-nicks.
The Conservative leadership even spat in the face of those Conservatives who believed that all were to be held to the coalition agreement. This agreement rested on the crucial 'line in the sand' issue of the renewal of trident. It appears the Tory leadership has sold its principles to placate the coalition partners.
The Strategic Defence Review today was nothing to do with the actual requirement of national defence and everything to do with shirking responsibility and undermining national sovereignty to justify over-aggressive cuts. The Coalition government seemingly ignores the threat of a state-on-state conflict despite rising tensions in Iran and statements by Argentina over the Falkland Islands over the summer months. It ignores the requirement of the Navy which is increasingly dealing with pirates in the Cape, drug smuggling in South America and the rise of China in the Far East who are militarising the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. It ignores the requirement of the Army to project power in numbers in conflict zones which we may not be able to predict.
The cuts also link with discussions that David Cameron has had with the French who are due to share logistics in defence. A country which has a history of flaky and abstract loyalties.
Mr Cameron and Dr Fox are engaged in high level conversations on sharing A400M military transports, which are due to enter service in 2012. There are rumours that the French may also gain access to Britain's Boeing C-17s and on aerial tankers. Crucially todays report lends credibility to the sharing of Britain's two new aircraft carriers. The fact that one of our carriers is to be fitted with a catapult allows French Rafale strike fighters to fly from it. Dr Fox called this position 'unfeasible and unrealistic' but with this catapult it puts this very much on the agenda.
These conversations are all in the public domain and are due to form part of a conversation at next months NATO summit. UKIP voters will be particularly interested to note that instead of withdrawing from European defence agreements, we are about to see even further integration with Europe.
The crucial clue is the fact that Britain will not have air-craft capable of flying off the carriers. Whose planes are we going to fly?
This blog supports NATO and the premise of joint defence, but for Tories to pay no reference to the undermining of national sovereignty over our armed forces is a betrayal. In addition to sharing defence with another country the Tories have slammed our boys where it hurts:
AIR FORCE
The Harrier jump jet and Nimrod reconnaissance planes will be scrapped. Some squadrons of Tornado jets will be saved, but Joint Strike Fighter and a modernised Eurofighter will form the basis of the RAF fire power and there will be extra money for unmanned planes. The air transport fleet will be upgraded with A400M and A330 aircraft, replacing the Tristar and VC-10 from 2013. Some air force bases will close and 5,000 RAF personnel will lose their jobs over the next five years. Extra 12 Chinook helicopters to increase flexibility.
ARMY
The Army will have to cut up to 7,000 personnel over the next five years, and lose 40% of its tanks and 35% of its heavy artillery. It will lose one deployable brigade out of six. This will undermine the UK's power penetration should another conflict arise in the Middle East such as Iran.
NAVY
The Ark Royal, launched in 1985, will be decommissioned almost immediately, rather than in 2014, as previously planned.
The construction of two new aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, will go ahead, as it would cost more to cancel the projects than proceed with them but one of them will be mothballed rather than entering service and the other will be fitted with equipment for jump start jets rather than the Harrier.
The navy will lose 5,000 personnel and its surface fleet will be cut from 23 to 19. It will get a new fleet of Astute-class nuclear-powered submarines.
TRIDENT
The government says £750m ($1.2bn) will be saved over four years on the Trident nuclear deterrent missile system by cutting the number of warheads on each boat from 48 to 40 and reducing the number of missile tubes from 12 to eight. The UK's nuclear warhead stockpile will be cut from 160 to less than 120. The final "main gate" spending decision on Trident will also be delayed until 2016 - after the next general election.
This is a major betrayal of our national defence and is a cheap sop to the Liberal Democrats. Not renewing our nuclear deterrent is the crucial message from this review. It is partisan political judgements based on contemporary political circumstances and not military reality.
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
The Ministry of Defence will lose 25,000 civilian staff over the next five years. It will also have to renegotiate contracts with industry and sell-off "unnecessary" buildings and assets.
The defence is review is not strategic, it is not progressive and it is clearly designed to undermine the core principle of national sovereignty. A Coalition Government which has given fig-leaves to Liberal Democrats which has left this country in a weaker position to our enemies.
They have failed to stand up for our military, failed to stand up for our country and have played partisan games with our nuclear deterrent. Shame on them, shame on them all.
