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The PM is announcing tomorrow an extra £16.5bn for defence over the next 4 years, to be spent on robots & drones, space & cyber. The conclusions of the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy are biffed to an unknown date in the New Year. 1/6
This will be seen by some as putting the cart before the horse. The whole point of the IR was to work out where Britain wanted to be in the world by 2030 & then agree how best to get there. Instead, the government appears to have decided the means before the ends. 2/6
No 10 insists they know where they are going, that 90% of the IR is already fixed, & the defence announcement is merely the first iteration. And yet I am told by insiders that this review was always about the money and that has now been decided. 3/6
The rump review comprises merely ambitions and aspirations - for Britain to look more to the Indo-Pacific, to focus on burden-sharing & problem-solving, and - one hopes – to decide its future relations with Europe, the US & China. 4/6
In February, the PM said this was “the biggest review of our foreign, defence, security & development policy since the end of the Cold War… a defining moment in how the UK relates to the rest of the world”. That billing will now take some matching. 5/6
Oh, and if it emerges that this increase in defence spending is being funded in part by a reduction in the UK’s foreign aid budget, there may well be a political cost. Swords are meant to be beaten into plowshares, not the other way about. h/t @patrickwintour 6/6
