Britain and the Future of Europe’s Defence

Abstract

All Britain’s strategic relationships will change over the next decade with 2015 as close to a defence-strategic year zero as is possible. With the withdrawal of the overwhelming bulk of British combat forces in Afghanistan in December 2014 barring shocks Britain will for the first time in a generation contemplate its place in the world without the backdrop of committed operations. The run-up to the 2015 National Security Strategy (NSS) and Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) will see a profound re-assessment of Britain’s national interests. As such 2015 will represent Year Zero for British strategic planning when many of the assumptions concerning strategic interests must and will be considered in the light of the exceptional change that is taking place in Europe and the wider World. Strategic planning never takes place in an entirely free space, as Hew Strachan has pointed out.1 There are always a host of enduring commitments that must be upheld. However, with Britain’s future place in the European Union now in doubt and questions as to the future interest of the US in NATO the strategic choices Britain makes over the next five years or so will represent the most profound re-orientation of British foreign, security and defence policy since 1945. The principal aim of British strategic policy is the same as that of any other leading state — influence. The retreat from strategy that has affected much of Europe including London has seen the British political class adopt a series of political clichés that reflect more their own strategic fatigue than fact. In spite of the undoubted change that is taking place in the world London routinely exaggerates the capability and ability of the emerging powers to shape