Defence chiefs have drawn up plans to cut 20,000 troops from the British military and reduce the size of the Royal Marines, in a bid to replace the MoD’s firepower with cyber warfare and space technology.
The Treasury has asked the departments to make a saving of 5% or more as part of a wider review into Government spending, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has appointed a history professor to personally oversee any cuts to UK defence capability.
According to draft plans a significant chunk of the Royal Marines’ capability could be axed, including its artillery, engineers and landing craft.
This money would instead be invested in new cyber and space warfare technology.
Downing Street said it did not recognise the plans when they emerged on Sunday and the Ministry of Defence said it would not comment on the detail of the leak, but pointed to a Government commitment to increase defence spending each year above the rate of inflation.
A spokeswoman said: “The MoD is progressing its contribution to the Integrated Review by planning how best to meet tomorrow’s threats within that increasing budget.”
The Government has also committed to NATO and said the UK will continue to spend more than 2 per cent of GDP on defence.
HMS OCEAN, HMS BULWARK, ROYAL MARINES from 45 Commando, and Royal Navy and Army helicopters take part in the final exercise of NATO Trident Juncture in Portugal.” – Photo: MOD
Lord West of Spithead, a former First Sea Lord and security advisor to Downing Street commented to the alleged leak saying: “I imagine that all sorts of things are being talked about,
“They’ll be floating them, and quite often, let’s face it, people have floated ideas to see what the reaction is from members of parliament, peers, the media and everything.
“That could be what is going on.”
Lord West also suggested replacing hard defence capability with space, cyber and robotic technology could only go so far to aid the UK in fighting conventional wars.
He said: “The Treasury always think of cyber and AI and space as a nice cheap way of doing things,
“I don’t think this is necessarily the way to win a war. In the final analysis, wars end up killing people and you need kinetic killing capability.
“I’m quite happy to face someone down in a field if I’ve got a machine gun and he’s got a laptop.
“It all sounds wonderful but you still need that kinetic capability.”
Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s chief advisor, is said to have taken a personal interest in restructuring defence capability.
In a blog post last March, Mr Cummings accused the military of having “continued to squander billions of pounds, enriching some of the worst corporate looters and corrupting public life via the revolving door of officials/lobbyists”.
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Editor-in-Chief | Carl D. Pearson has been involved in British politics and media from an early age, with the key knowledge of what it takes to run a news organisation for the 21st century. Mr Pearson, as Editor-in-chief, is responsible for supervising the daily tasks of publishing media and content to UNN’s website and various platforms.
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