‘Our military might is powerful case for Union’
Ben Wallace argues that rise in defence budget will shore up UK and extend its international influence
In their storied past our Armed Forces have seen off every threat to our shores, but they now face a new challenge: saving the Union itself. Ben Wallace regards the military might under his control as “a key component of the Union”, and with an extra £24.1 billion to spend over the next four years he is about to put his money where his mouth is.
The extra money will create 40,000 jobs over the next four years, the majority of them in Scotland and former “red wall” constituencies in the north of England.
“It plays a very strong role – defence – in the Union,” the Defence Secretary says. “You can see that because the SNP are arguing to save the Black Watch, while the biggest single threat to the Black Watch is them. They want defence jobs in Scotland, but they don’t want the Union. Well it doesn’t work that way and they know it. It’s a fraud really that they perpetrate on the people of Scotland.”
Mr Wallace, a former Scots Guards captain as well as a former member of the Scottish Parliament, rolls his eyes at the suggestion that the 140-year-old Black Watch regiment is under threat (“it isn’t”) and reels off a list of the big money contracts and jobs that are coming Scotland’s way as a result of the biggest increase in defence spending in 30 years. Type 26, Type 31 and Type 32 frigates will all be built in Scotland; submarines will remain based on the Clyde; RAF Lossiemouth will remain home to maritime patrol and an Engineer Regiment.
“The United Kingdom, as the United Kingdom, is the only scale big enough to support such a broad and deep group of defence forces,” Mr Wallace says. “That means Scotland benefits. Economics is really the bottom line of Scottish independence, more than anything. British defence jobs, a large number of them are in Scotland and they will continue to be so as long as we all remain part of the United Kingdom.” Coming after Boris Johnson described devolution as “a disaster”, Mr Wallace’s words will soothe the nerves of Scottish Tory MPS.
For much of Mr Wallace’s 18-month stint at the MOD, he has faced a war of attrition with successive chancellors, as well as Boris Johnson’s outgoing chief adviser Dominic Cummings, for the resources the Army, Royal Navy and RAF so desperately need. He insists that “No 10, including Dom Cummings” were “entirely behind” the plan to fix the historical problems of defence, resulting in the four-year settlement that will be announced in next week’s spending review. He says that in his time as foreign secretary, Mr Johnson saw that defence was “one of Britain’s greatest exports” and so “the Prime Minister didn’t need any persuading”.
He diplomatically fails to say how much arm-twisting was needed to get Rishi Sunak on board, but says while Covid made for choppy waters in spending decisions, “we are literally at the end of the road for putting things off ”. Mr Cummings’s biggest gripe with the MOD was procurement, and the billions of pounds of public money wasted on projects that were either scrapped or ran out of financial control. Mr Wallace, who had a brief career in aerospace between his time on the benches of the Scottish and then the Westminster parliaments, admits that previous holders of his office committed to 20-year projects knowing “they will be long gone by the time they actually have to be delivered”.
Instead of “increasing expectations unrealistically” among defence chiefs it is better, he says, to be “quite brutal through the process of procurement, asking ourselves why do we need this, and not be frightened to cancel programmes”.
Mr Johnson said yesterday that there would be a need to “remove or reduce less relevant capability” as the new money is allocated, and Mr Wallace cites “knackered” armoured vehicles that were bought in “panic” for Afghanistan are among the kit that will have to go. Vehicles that are kept need to be better protected in the era of eyes in the sky, Mr Wallace said, which is where some of the new money will go.
“If you deploy armoured vehicles in the field, and you don’t have some form of counter-drone capability, air defence capability, electronic warfare capability, you can become incredibly vulnerable,” he says. “If you can be found you can be killed.”
Ships at sea also need to be “hidden” from long-range missiles, and “that’s why we have to maybe let go of some capabilities, or protect them better”.
The UK has already spent
£100 million developing its Dragonfire laser weapon, which is “not like a laser out of Star Wars”, he stresses, but “it can just burn out all the sensors, and suddenly render a [drone] completely pointless, or maybe a very expensive aircraft. That’d be really, really useful
‘Moscow respects strength. Both Russia and China have been investing, the world of constant competition is upon us’
preventing people finding you.”
While no military personnel will be made redundant over the next four years, Mr Wallace concedes that overall personnel numbers are likely to decline through natural wastage.
Boots on the ground will always be needed, he adds – just not until other weapons have knocked out the enemy’s ability to fight back.
While wars might still be about territory – particularly territory rich in water or minerals – “the last act of the play is the engagement. All the rest is the softening up” using new tactics such as cyber attacks. Does that mean the age of the beefy soldier is coming to an end in favour of geeks in camouflage? “I think let’s do it alongside, it’s not all one or the other.”
The newly-announced National Cyber Force will “grow in 10 years to a very large force” in which more than half will be military personnel.
So how will Moscow and Beijing respond to Britain’s “big stick” of £190 billion of defence spending over the next four years? “We know that Moscow respects strength and capability and you see it in the world where Putin is challenged by strength or determination you see him change his behaviour. Both Russia and China have been investing, the world of constant competition is upon us. It was, after all, the Russians that effectively coined that, and they shouldn’t really be surprised that that’s what’s coming back.” Joe Biden will also help to inform Britain’s future strategy because the US has been “very clear” that it wants to shift more resources to the Asia Pacific region.
Asked what keeps him awake at night, Mr Wallace says: “The proliferation of capabilities that used to belong to a monopoly of very few states, mainly enabled by the internet.”
Rather than needing to be an electrical engineer to know how to make a bomb, instructions can be found in “a Blue Peter type video” online. “We have to invest in defence. People ask why we’re doing it now – because our adversaries are not waiting right now. The terrorists are plotting, our adversaries are competing or challenging our values. The Russian submarines are out at sea. That’s why.”