[…] In an increasingly dangerous world, Britain’s security clearly depends not just on its own efforts but on its partnerships and alliances. Here, the review is unambiguous: “NATO first”. It is almost as though the reviewers have failed to notice that the Ukraine crisis has morphed into a European defence emergency only because of the arrival in the White House of a rogue president—one who shows every sign of a readiness to abandon Ukraine, and no sign of any willingness to stand up to Putin, ever.
Diplomacy, of course, demands caution in any criticism of Trump. But this looks like a genuine blind spot. There is no sign in the review of any recognition that discreet reinsurance against American abandonment of their European allies is now essential; or that the scale of Britain’s defence technological dependence on the US is something to worry about. How else to explain the relegation of the EU, sponsor of the continent’s crash rearmament programme, to just one cursory reference in 140 pages? The implicit, foundational assumption of the review is evidently that NATO will run on into the future much as it has in the past. So, when the review fails to find an immediate solution to the problem of air and missile defence (a long-neglected European capability which is now at the top of everyone’s new priority lists) it contents itself by supposing some future NATO programme. Läs artikel