{"id":54974,"date":"2019-04-22T00:00:47","date_gmt":"2019-04-22T00:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2019\/04\/22\/vice-chief-of-uk-defence-staff-talks-brexit-budget-and-littoral-ships\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T00:03:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:03:55","slug":"vice-chief-of-uk-defence-staff-talks-brexit-budget-and-littoral-ships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/interviews\/2019\/04\/22\/vice-chief-of-uk-defence-staff-talks-brexit-budget-and-littoral-ships\/","title":{"rendered":"Vice chief of UK Defence Staff talks Brexit, budget and littoral ships"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 The United Kingdom\u2019s defense plans are at an inflection point. This September, a major government review will lay out its budget for the next several years. The government recently announced plans for a new littoral fleet, while also buying a series of expensive American-made airplanes. And looming above it all is the question of what the country will look like after it leaves the European Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a recent visit to Washington, Defense News sat down with Gen. Gordon Messenger, vice chief of the Defence Staff<\/a>, to discuss the Defence Ministry\u2019s modernization strategy and how this will all work out post Brexit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.K. has its regularly scheduled <\/b>comprehensive spending review<\/b><\/a> coming in the fall, which will set budgets for the next three years. How important is it that defense gets a favorable budget increase?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, we secured essentially \u00a31.8 billion (U.S. $2.4 billion) in the autumn budget statement<\/a>, and what that allowed us to do was to tackle some of the areas of underfunding, but critically it allowed us to free up some money for technological advancement and the pursuit of capabilities in certain areas. And it also allowed us to free up some money for what you could describe as \u201cspend to save.\u201d In other words, efficiency programs that need upfront investment, things that are almost certainly going to cost you in years one, two and three, but if you get them right and implement them right, you\u2019ll save money in the latter years. We\u2019re increasingly getting to a point where if you want to get after, you know, reasonably sized efficiencies, they almost all require some investment upfront, often in information systems that provide you with better management information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re trying to review the acquisition process as a whole, but one of the key elements to that is to go narrow and deep into certain technological areas, and we\u2019re calling them the \u201cspearhead\u201d programs. We\u2019re picking areas that have the best technical potential for exploitation, but also areas that are of most importance to us. So the underwater battlespace would be one; faster and better network decision-making would be another, and there are three or four different programs that we\u2019re driving through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So in terms of the question about where that takes you, I think that clearly the larger the defense budget, the more one can spend in that high-end piece. But even with the defense budget as it now stands, we recognize that the modernization of defense and the need to be able to respond more agilely to technological advancement is a critical part of retaining your strategic edge as a military and therefore demands investment, and we\u2019re putting money aside for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But is there a minimum pound increase you need to see? In the next few years you\u2019re buying P-8s, E-7s and F-35s, as well as other high-priced gear. <\/b>That\u2019s not cheap<\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There isn\u2019t a fixed sum that anyone has in mind, and we absolutely recognize that the government\u2019s got to balance many other priorities, too, not least health and social security and education and all those other departments that are making legitimate calls on the public purse. But no, we\u2019ve \u2014 we\u2019re in a much better place in understanding our budget and where the pressures are and in factoring those out over time. And, as you say, there is quite an ambitious capitalization program at the moment. I mean, the nuclear area, there\u2019s huge capitalization in both the Dreadnought and the ongoing Astute submarine build, as well as warhead development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The P-8, the E-7<\/a>, the F-35, you will have seen, I hope, the announcements about future combat air<\/a>. These are big commitments to modern capability that we\u2019re determined to follow through, and we\u2019re spending a lot of time on just making sure that that\u2019s a realistic ambition over the 10 years based on a realistic understanding of how much money we\u2019re going to get.<\/p>\n\n\n\t