Comment: Britain's diminished place in the world

Wednesday, 9 March 2011 12:00 AM

Britain's power and influence has not shrunk as a result of defence spending cuts, four senior government ministers have insisted. Really?

By Alex Stevenson

The Commons' defence select committee has spent the afternoon grilling the men who, with the exception of the prime minister, are uppermost in maintaining Britain's place on the world stage.

The task is not an easy one. Last year's strategic defence and security review (SDSR) outlined defence spending cuts of eight per cent in real terms. The decision to stick with the Trident nuclear deterrent placed even greater pressure on the budget for military spending. One of two future aircraft carriers is to be mothballed, while overall personnel numbers will fall by 17,000. The Harrier jump jet has been withdrawn from service. Britain's future ability to deploy an expeditionary force outside Europe has been reduced by between a third and a quarter.

Making its assessment of the impact these cuts would have on Britain's place in the world, the annual Military Balance publication from the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) thinktank concluded: "The resultant contraction in military capacity will reduce the nation's ability to project military power and influence internationally."

This paints a depressing picture. But, astonishingly, it's one which foreign secretary William Hague, international development secretary Andrew Mitchell, defence secretary Liam Fox and Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin simply don't acknowledge.

They have chosen to stick by perhaps the most surprising line of the NSS: "The national security council has reached a clear conclusion that Britain's national interest requires us to reject any notion of the shrinkage of our influence."

Committee chairman James Arbuthnot asked Hague, given the Navy's surface fleet has been cut to just 19 "serious" ships and Britain won't have any operational aircraft carriers for a decade, "can you really say our influence will not shrink"? Here's what followed:

WH: That depends for what we do in other areas.
JA: It's compensated elsewhere?
WH: There's a mix of these things.
JA: This denial of a shrinkage of influence strikes me, at any rate, as being a little unrealistic.
WH: Influence doesn't just depend on the resources that you're devoting. It also depends on how you are using them.

This is exactly the same logic as that used across the board by the coalition government: the negative impact of the cuts will be mitigated, or even entirely offset, by doing things more efficiently.

According to Hague, this involves maintaining or extending Britain's influence in international bodies like the UN or EU. Cultivating bilateral relationships helps too; the result will be an overall maintenance of the position because of a boost in "soft power", even as Britain's "hard power" contracts.

Not that Fox was especially willing to accept this. "The whole question of influence is very multifaceted," he said.

"There are ways of effecting influence. The one asset that has not been discussed sufficiently in terms of influence is time - the time that ministers are willing to spend working on those relationships themselves. Hugely underestimated."

The global shift of power from west to east, as viewed by the IISS, puts Britain's defence cuts within a broader trend. The Military Balance says persuasive evidence exists that "a global redistribution of power" is taking place.

When the Chinese and the Russians assess the extent of Britain's power and influence, critics will say, let us hope that they consider that ministers are spending more time on relationships before jumping to any hasty conclusions.

These arguments didn't filter through last October. Perhaps the daily attrition of responding to the opposition's complaints has firmed up the government's rhetoric since then. The approach is now clear enough. Uniting the strategic defence review with wider security issues provides broadbrush cover for an argument which downgrades the role of 'hard power' in Britain's foreign policy.

It will be easy, in the coming months and years, for voters to assess the veracity of these efficiency savings claims. They will see the police numbers fall, the NHS waiting times slide, the school funding standards slip - or not. On the global stage, the impact of defence cuts will be harder for them to detect.

This may be why the coalition's big-hitters on the international stage can defend their claims so confidently. But that doesn't mean Britain will retain its place in the world.

The opinions in politics.co.uk's Speakers Corner are those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the website or its owners.

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