FTI Consulting Public Affairs Snapshot – Un-tilt from the Indo-Pacific?: Refreshing the Integrated Review
When the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy (IR) was published in March 2021, analysts and experts were left divided on the UK Government’s proposed foreign policy ‘tilt’ towards the Indo-Pacific. Cheerleaders described it as a prudent rebalancing of priorities given the increasingly nuanced economic and security relationship with China, while detractors interpreted it as yet more evidence of the Conservative Party’s post-Brexit allergy to anything European.
What few predicted was the swift re-emergence of brutal and bloody warfare on the European continent. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, less than 12 months on from the IR’s publication, bought the reality of state-on-state conflict closer to British shores, and NATO’s sphere of influence, than anyone felt prepared for. As the UK joined its allies in swiftly condemning the illegal invasion and providing material support for the defence of Ukraine, there were immediate calls to revisit the Government’s underpinning national security and defence strategy, with some even arguing that the IR had become redundant.
The November announcement that a refresh of the IR was underway in light of the new European geopolitical context has been welcomed by these very same commentators and policy tsars. Indeed, in the context of defence, it is a process that had been underway behind closed doors at the Ministry of Defence (MOD) for some months. Under the direction of Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, it was merely formalised during the Chancellor’s Autumn budget statement. It is a process widely expected to conclude in time to inform Jeremy Hunt’s next budget, due on the 15th of March.
The review will need to do much more than simply reposition strategic and geopolitical priorities. The war in Ukraine asks fundamental questions about the validity of the UK’s established defence posture and the military doctrine that underpins it. It challenges accepted wisdoms on retained force strength and deployment readiness levels, and it highlights the jeopardy of budget-driven parsimony with regards to equipment procurement, contingency stockpiles, and the growing propensity to accommodate capability gaps.
For MOD, these questions are both domestic and international. While the IR refresh is certain to offer a response to the former, how well this aligns to the fundamental need for the UK to operate in lockstep with its NATO and other European allies will determine how successfully the collective endeavour of containing and overcoming the Russian challenge will be achieved. This is an inherently multilateral challenge and requires collective endeavour – and alignment – to be met.
For one of the main constituents – the UK defence industry – political statements about EU-NATO joint declarations aiming at increasing interoperability cannot mask the continuing unwillingness of the UK and EU to address fundamental sticking points in establishing a cooperative approach to capability development and procurement. The Defence and Security Industrial Strategy (DSIS), published alongside the IR, hardened how the UK aims to guarantee operational independence through its approach to procurement. At the same time, in Brussels, the concept of EU Strategic Autonomy is being doubled down on, even in the context of cooperative NATO capability development.
Post-Brexit, these approaches combine to render two distinct and increasingly ringfenced markets. How UK industry can successfully access rapidly expanding European defence budgets – Germany alone has announced a €100 billion special military upgrading fund – and an increasingly consolidated central budget managed by Brussels remains an enigma.
UK Defence manufacturers might therefore find some solace in the fact that the IR refresh is unlikely to lessen the emphasis on the Indo-Pacific region in the UK’s foreign policy. Instead, it will serve as an addendum to its mother document, reaffirming the relevance of the Indo-Pacific while simultaneously recognising the radical reshaping of the UK’s European security interests. Ultimately, there will be no rejection of the IR’s central themes – not least because it is Wallace who will be marking his own homework.
Last week’s announcement of the UK/Japan Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) – which will see the deployment of forces on each country’s soil for training and other operations – was a demonstration of the UK’s continued commitment to the security of the Indo-Pacific region in the face of a growing threat from China. Taken together with the recent announcement of joint UK-Japanese collaboration in the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) and talk of future collaboration on hypersonic technology, autonomous vehicles, air and missile systems – Japan has the potential to become an important market for the future of the UK defence industry.
The Government will inevitably point to an IR refresh that is more sophisticated than a binary choice between the UK’s European interests and its role in the wider world. Inevitably, one of the prisms through which this will be rationalised is how Russian success might raise the prospect of an increasingly assertive China escalating tensions over Taiwan to breaking point, a conflict that would inevitably draw the UK in economically if not militarily.
Nevertheless, critics will point out that budgets are not limitless, and, to some extent, this can only ever be a zero-sum game. The reality of disseminating capabilities thinly over vast distances will surely unnerve both military chiefs and strategic planners. What credible role can the UK play if its attention, resource and military assets are spread across multiple spheres of interest at the same time?
Yet if the Russian invasion of Ukraine has proven anything it is that – far from initial predictions – overwhelming mass in terms of troop numbers and equipment does not automatically result in swift, glorious victory if coherent military strategy and doctrine are so evidently lacking. This does not exempt the UK and its allies from the need to address capability gaps exposed by the unexpected shape and nature of Russian aggression. But it does give credibility to the view that a circumstantial focus on the crisis in Europe should not detract from the UK Government’s long-term strategic pivot towards the Indo-Pacific.
For industry, the evolving defence posture of the UK’s Indo-Pacific allies – promulgated by a Chinese threat that show no sign of abating – undoubtedly presents ample opportunities for collaboration and exports. Closer to home, the lack of tangible progress on an overarching UK-EU defence cooperation agreement means that the IR refresh is unlikely to unlock the fundamental sticking points that are preventing industrial collaboration between European allies.
As a result, the focus for UK defence companies seeking to expand their defence export portfolios in line with the prevailing political context will continue to mirror the tilt towards the Indo-Pacific market, even after the publication of the IR refresh.
| The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of FTI Consulting, its management, its subsidiaries, its affiliates, or its other professionals.©2023 FTI Consulting, Inc. All rights reserved. www.fticonsulting.com |
