Instead of delivering a strategy, the prime minister’s defence review was an exercise in political opportunism
Defence reviews and foreign policy resets come and go in British politics. Some of their conclusions struggle to survive sustained contact with the real world. Most are remembered only by defence specialists and whichever armed service does well – or badly – out of the reordered spending that is each review’s core purpose.
Occasionally, there is a substantial exception, a defence review that embodies a real strategic decision that resonates across the years, both in the wider world and at home. Labour’s 1968 “east of Suez” withdrawal white paper was a notable example. It marked a major step in the dismantling of Britain’s post-imperial role. Arriving in the wake of Brexit, Boris Johnson’s integrated review of foreign and defence policy this week had the potential to be another.
