Tribune leader, 10 July 1992
“We are not a global power, nor do we have aspirations to be
a global power. We are primarily a middle-ranking European power.”
So said Malcolm Rifkind, the Secretary of State for Defence,
on Tuesday, the day he published the Government's 1992 defence White Paper,
and it is difficult to disagree with the sentiments. Britain's world empire is
long gone, its economy is only the fourth biggest in Europe (and sixth biggest
in the world) and its influence in world affairs is minimal.
Yet the practice of Mr Rifldnd's Ministry of Defence does
not match his mod-eat rhetoric. For all the talk of a new defence strategy in
the White Paper and for all the spending cuts planned in the next five years,
British military procurement decisions are still being made as if the cold war
were in full swing.
The most obvious sign of this is the MoD's decision to place
the long-delayed order for the fourth Trident nuclear submarine with the VSEL
shipyard in Barrow. That decision will be widely welcomed there because it
will save the yard from closure for a few more years. But there is absolutely
no rationale for the fourth Trident boat except as a job-creation scheme. In
the absence of a Soviet nuclear threat, precisely whom is Trident supposed to
deter? Is it really worth spending £33,000 million or so over the next 30 years
to provide insurance against the unlikely eventuality of a rogue Third World
state acquiring not just nuclear weapons but also the ability and desire to
threaten Britain with them?
But Trident is not the only evidence of continuing MoD
delusions of grandeur. Almost as telling is its response to the German government's
decision last week to pull out of the production phase of the four-nation
European Fighter Aircraft. The Germans, after more than two years of weighing
up the options, have decided that EFA is not the sort of fighter that they will
need at the turn of the century. Because it is designed to counter the very
best Soviet aircraft, it is extremely complex and therefore expensive. But
because the cold war has ended, there is no need to counter the very best
Soviet aircraft. The Germans believe that they can make do with a cheaper
fighter.
There is no reason that Britain cannot do the same. Indeed,
as with Trident, the only rationale for continuing with EFA in its current form
is as a job-creation scheme. There is no military reason for producing such a
high-tech aircraft and the export market for EFA is shrinking by the month.
Labour has responded to all this by expressing concern
about jobs and the preservation of Britain's manufacturing base, which is fine
as far as it goes. In the long run, however, the fact is that Britain cannot
remain reliant on military industry if it is going to compete in the international
markets of the next century. Labour must make it clear that, rather than paying
billions to keep the shipyard workers of Barrow employed on Trident and the
British Aerospace workforce beavering away on EFA, the answer is to switch that
expenditure to civilian projects, particularly retraining and research and
development, to give British high-tech manufacturing a chance to prosper beyond
the end of the decade.
