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The long-awaited Strategic Defence Review can lead to significant change in the Armed Forces if it moves beyond previous platitudes and half-implemented ideas on innovation to rebuild the foundations of defence while also making recommendations for the big choices on technological transformation.

The SDR is Released from Purgatory

The much-discussed UK Strategic Defence Review (SDR) has recently been subject to a wearingly familiar succession of leaks and speculation, and now appears likely to be published in the week of 2 June. Through its gestation, the review has been dogged by concerns about delays caused by the changing global context, the level of its ambition, and the extent to which the government’s commitment on spending 2.5% of GDP would be enough to address the issues in Defence.

When the review was in its research phase, a trio of distinguished former UK officials set out a framework against which to judge it. Now the results of the review are imminent, how might it be read, and what should be examined as measures of success or challenge when it eventually sees the public light of day? In particular, how might its level of ambition for the ‘transformation’ of the UK’s Armed Forces be judged?

Schrodinger’s Review

The first area on which to evaluate the review is the manner of its presentation, particularly in its conclusions. The review is unusual in it is notionally independent, delivered by Lord Robertson as part of a trio of senior figures (Dr Fiona Hill and retired General Richard Barrons the other two), alongside a number of external experts and specialists, supported but not directed by a secretariat in the Ministry of Defence (MOD). They had free rein to make suggestions and propose ideas to change Defence, albeit they also have terms of reference – including a budget ceiling – within which to work.

These constrained the review, as did limited capacity (albeit bolstered by artificial intelligence summarising the thousands of submissions), but in the final analysis this should be a review less encumbered than previously by inter-service politics or the orthodoxy of the MOD. However, if media reporting is accurate, we can infer it was largely finished some time ago, but has been delayed until now by wrangling over how to implement it, what this means for the MOD’s finances, and how to present the subsequent work the MOD will need to do.

This was always the danger inherent in picking an independent team but running the review on behalf of the MOD: it could present politically difficult options. It is not feasible to only publish part of it, and cherry-picking will be obvious, leaving the alternative of watering it down. But if the report’s authors are lukewarm over the final results, or step away entirely, it will undermine its intellectual case, and lead to doubt about the government’s seriousness in approaching the issue.

The UK has instead been left with an eclectic mix of the cutting-edge sitting uneasily alongside the obsolete – for which replacements are often late, or, where weapons upgrades lag, new capabilities find their potential limited

A completely independent review would not need government ‘sign-off’ or ‘approval’ from the Treasury. Of course, the Government might not have liked the conclusions, but much like a report from a Select Committee, a government response could have then applied budgetary realism or an alternative perspective and then engaged in the resulting open and (hopefully) educational public debate about priorities. Instead, we are left with something like ‘Schrodinger’s Review’: both independent and dependent at the same time.

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