WIREDGOV

The MoD’s financial settlement in the next Comprehensive Spending Review must be made in the light of the need to retain a credible deterrent capacity in the country’s Armed Forces, says the Defence Committee in its report on Deterrence.  The deterrent strength of the UK armed forces against conventional military threats is reliant on the credibility of the Armed Forces to project military power. Looking at the nuclear deterrent, the Committee points out that the UK’s ability to effect a nuclear response is not credible in dealing with all threats, and so strong conventional deterrence is also required. 

Chairman of the Committee, the Rt Hon James Arbuthnot, says:  "Deterrence must be credible to be effective: Britain has to show the capacity and the will to respond proportionately and effectively to threats at every level. Recent events in Ukraine illustrate the speed with which new threats, and indeed the reappearance of old threats, can manifest themselves."

• Deterrence in the twenty-first century
• Clarify & formalise Parliament's role in war decisions
• Lords Soft Power Committee releases 'Persuasion and Power' report
• Was the current Ukraine Situation a ‘foreseen threat’ (5^th news item)
• PC&PE:  We no longer wield such a big stick
• MoD:  Re-sizing our military forces is only acceptable if it is balanced by a reduction in political requirements for ‘world policing’