Military reformU.K. Launches Military Revolution
The British government has unveiled its new, post-Brexit military strategy on Monday, highlighting a major reform of the British armed forces which aims to adapt the British military employ new tools to face new threats. The number of soldiers will be reduced – making the post-reform military the smallest British army in 300 years – with hundreds of tanks, armored troops carriers, and jet fighters mothballed. Money will go toward developing and deploying innovative capabilities, including satellites, electronic warfare, cyber, drones, and robots.
The British government has unveiled its new, post-Brexit military strategy on Monday, highlighting a major reform of the British armed forces which aims to adapt the British military employ new tools to face new threats.
The emphasis on cybertools will be accompanied by a reduction in the overall number of troops.
“The armed forces must think and act differently,” Defense Minister Ben Wallace told Parliament. “They will no longer be seen as a force of last resort, but will become an active force more present in the world.”
The armed forces will operate in the “gray zone between peace and war.”
The change in orientation will result in budgetary changes, with more money directed toward developing and acquiring innovative capabilities, including satellites, electronic warfare, cyber, drones, and robots. About £6.6 billion will be invested in research and development, and Britain will create its own space command. Conventional and nuclear strike capabilities will be augmented. The Defense Ministry will announce the number of nuclear warheads Britain will develop and deploy.
The Royal Navy will be strengthened, following Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement last year of his plan to make the United Kingdom “the leading naval power in Europe.” The Royal Marines will be transformed and given a new name — the Future Commando Force (FCF) – and will assume the responsibility for “protecting the sea lanes and maintaining the freedom of navigation.”
The army will bear the brunt of the reductions in the number of troops. The army’s size will be reduced by 10,000 men, making it the smallest British army in about three hundred years. The number of army soldiers will be reduced from 82,000 to 72,500, and 700 Warrior armored troops carriers a third of the Challenger II tanks will be withdrawn from service. The Royal Air Force will see 100 aircrafts mothballed, but the RAF will also be given £2 billion to purchase the future Tempest fighter jet, developed by BAE.
The sweeping reform and downsizing of the military have been with criticism. Former army chief of staff Lord Richards of Herstmonceux warned that the plan, if adopted, would make it impossible for Britain to retake the Falkland Islands today, or wage another Gulf War. He said that “numbers always matter” in modern conflicts, emphasizing the importance of conventional capabilities.
“When threats change, we must change with them,” Wallace said, otherwise we end up with “an army similar to that of the First World War.”
Last November, Johnson said that his plan was to invest more in the British military than any previous government in the last thirty years, with additional £16.5 billion over four years. The U.K. defense budget will thus reach 2.2 percent of GDP, keeping the United Kingdom in a position it has held for over a decade, as the European country which spends the most on defense in absolute terms, and sharing, with Estonia, the second position among NATO members when the defense budget is measured as a percentage of GDP (Greece, with 2.4 percent, spends the highest percentage of its GDP on defense among NATO members).
