The UK cannot sustain current defence spending and should consider abandoning plans to renew the Trident nuclear missile system, a think-tank report has warned.
The report by the centre-left Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said that at least £24bn of weapons programmes should be reviewed “with a view to making cuts”.
“Fundamental choices are necessary. The attempt to maintain the full spectrum of conventional combat capabilities at the current scale has produced acute strains on resources and, increasingly, on operational effectiveness,” it said.
It calls for the UK to retain a minimal nuclear deterrent but says a “full and transparent review of the existing deterrent” is needed.
Both Labour and the Conservatives are committed to a full £20bn Trident renewal. However, the Liberal Democrats have recently called for Trident to be scrapped, arguing that in the post-cold war world it no longer meets Britain’s defence needs.
The National Security Commission was chaired by Lord Robertson, the former defence secretary and ex-Nato secretary general, and Lord Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader.
Their findings come after the defence budget was put under renewed pressure by the news that the cost of two new aircraft carriers had risen to £5bn, a £1bn overrun.
General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the army, has previously questioned the wisdom of spending large amounts on new weapons systems that are “irrelevant” to modern warfare.
Responding to the news, a Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “The MoD took the decision to delay the two future aircraft carriers in December 2008. We did this in order to reprioritise investment to meet current operational priorities and to better align the programme with the joint strike fighter aircraft. We acknowledged at the time that there would be a cost increase as a result. We are currently re-costing the programme. The MoD accounts published next month will present an initial estimate and the formal costing will be available until later in the year.”
The IPPR report calls for spending on the new aircraft carriers and on the RAF's Tornado and Eurofighter-Typhoon aircraft to be urgently reviewed.
It also says that Britain’s defence system needs to be overhauled to reflect the “post 9/11 and post recession world”, calling for investment in cyber-warfare and in special forces designed to respond to a Mumbai-style terror attack in the UK.
It adds that it is “delusional” for Britain to believe that it can continue to rely on US military protection as an alternative to greater European defence co-operation.
It warns: “There will be a future crisis that leaves us vulnerable to shifting American interests and opinion, relative US decline and European disunity and weakness, when Nato's political glue fails to hold and Europe is left more exposed than at any time since the Second World War.”
