In the last century the UK twice was dragged into world wars. The small armies of peacetime were soon retreating and subject to huge loss, with the need to recruit, train and equip much larger armies after the war began.In each war innovation and greatly expanded industrial output transformed our force, with new tanks, planes,…
In the last century the UK twice was dragged into world wars. The small armies of peacetime were soon retreating and subject to huge loss, with the need to recruit, train and equip much larger armies after the war began.In each war innovation and greatly expanded industrial output transformed our force, with new tanks, planes, and types of munition.
To fight those wars we still had capacity to make steel, explosives and other essentials and intellectual property to make competitive planes, ships and weapons. By 1943 we were making 26,000 planes a year despite bombing of factories and sinking of imports . Today we have run down our steel, chemicals and other essential raw materials for defence. We buy planes and weapon systems that need components and sometimes permissions from overseas. In the two world wars our enemy sought to blockage us, sinking many of the ships bringing imports. An island nation needs to be able to make and grow things for ourselves to make it easier to survive a war.
The National Security Council needs to do more work on ensuring our defence spending buys domestic capacity and the rights to make the weapon systems here. The MOD needs to overhaul its procurement. There have been too many budget overruns and delays, too many one offs and variations after the programme has started. We need to able to make more standard guns and ammunition, more drones and good value missiles.
