A Manifesto for Lord Mandelson - Part 3
Defence
Underlying strategic position
Our security relations with the US have been asymmetric for over eighty years, with nuanced dealings embracing
intelligence, which the “five-eyes” Anglophone nations share;
bases, where Cyprus, Diego Garcia and the UK itself are of great value to the US;
nuclear, whose reliance on US technology means that we cannot be sure that our “independent deterrent” really is, particularly if serving one of its principal purposes, a tripwire for American escalation (France is in like position); and
conventional forces, now vestigial, with independent “out of area” expeditions now unrealistic for lack of airlift, carrier protection and surveillance. Problems with border control, that is the English Channel, are not so much military as legal and political, as discussed below.
Since Suez, the US has struck a balance with its allies, whereby they shoulder enough of the burden to show willingness, but not so much as to be capable of strategic independence. Trump seems to get only the first.
British defence procurement is complicated by the generally futile, but nonetheless costly and time-consuming, effort of our Ministry of Defence (MoD) to keep up enough indigenous technology to be strategically independent; and the position of the UK’s largest manufacturer, BAE Systems, whose American subsidiaries enjoy the privilege, rare for foreign-owned companies, of US security clearances enabling them to take sensitive American contracts directly.
Dealings with the US
Increased military spending is common ground between the NATO allies and our major political parties. Three percent of GDP was the recent target; we now hear of five. A deal is waiting to be struck, heralded by recent briefings that even the smaller figure is an effort.
We have agreed to stay the Chagos deal till Trump’s appointees vet it. They will be unmoved by a non-binding judgement from the International Court of Justice, which America has never recognised. Then again, the US State and Defense Departments are jammed with lawyers: it is for them to find a form of words which mollifies Starmer’s legal piety.
In an ideal world, defence procurement calls for a grand transatlantic bargain whereby each side cedes an iota of strategic independence to the other. Joint staff targets (ie, specifications) in AI, cryptography and electronic warfare promise most, but stubborn national bureaucracies will fail to agree. It’s hard to see Trump or his boisterous new Secretary of Defense getting involved in such intricacies.
Failing this, a transactional approach: we quit the Tempest joint fighter programme, with cancellation fees or compensatory side-deals to our partners, the Italians and Japanese, in return for better access for BAE to the NGAD (USAF) and F/A-XX (US Navy) sixth-generation aircraft programs.
Finally, it is in both our interests that we collaborate on out of area capacity. This means augmenting our two new carriers with deployable aircraft, plus naval screening, for which tomorrow’s fix is drones, today’s is lend/lease from the US Navy. As to aerial and satellite surveillance, airlift, guidance, etc, we need to decide whether we roll our own or forge stronger transatlantic links. Regardless, much of the technology is Stateside, eg, Bezos’ Project Kuiper and Musk’s Starlink (communications); and Lockheed Martin’s C5M (airlift). More deals waiting to be struck.
Equivalent to Europe
Europe has a fragmented defence industry, scant political will, depleted budgets and generally little to offer apart from proximity, as much a liability as an asset. Given the geography, we cannot but co-operate, for choice through NATO, and possibly by sticking to the Tempest fighter programme. On the other hand, no-one wants a Europe so much able to defend itself that it gets ideas. As noted above, once America’s leadership got this.
Control of the English Channel is stymied by the traffickers’ weaponisation of the “law of the sea”, which obliges mariners to rescue the survivors of sinkings. The UK would find it politically impossible to walk away from this. The solution is enhanced cooperation with the French, raiding small boat departures just before launch. This calls for collaboration and money on intelligence, surveillance and enforcement. Something of this sort is needed, regardless of the more ethereal topics of this note.
Next, commercial: tariffs, tax and piecemeal inward investment.