Defence review delivers sobering message, for Gibraltar included

The Strategic Defence Review published by the UK Government on Monday makes for uncomfortable reading.

The 144-page document details the threats facing the UK and, by extension, its Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. These include Russian aggression, the risk of state-on-state conflict involving NATO, the rise of China, and technological shifts in warfare.

The document sets out a roadmap to move the UK to what Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer described as “war-fighting readiness”. Its 62 recommendations - accepted in full - include plans for more nuclear warheads, 12 new submarines, 7,000 long-range weapons, a new cyber command, and up to £1 billion to enhance air and missile defence while improving integration with allies facing the same threats.

The review has sparked intense discussion on how these goals will be funded, given the UK public purse is under severe pressure. It also comes as the US presses NATO and EU countries to sharply ramp up defence spending amid fears Russian aggression could spread beyond Ukraine.

In northern and eastern Europe, countries are on high alert. An attack on a NATO member would require a coordinated response. But there are cracks.

Max Hastings, the respected journalist and military historian, wrote in The Times on Tuesday: “Europe, and the European members of NATO, are deeply divided about rearmament and about policy towards Putin. The northern nations and especially the Nordics are deadly earnest, while the southerners and Hungary do not want to know. This makes strategy-making hard for everybody.”

Hastings also questioned whether the UK’s commitment to increased defence spending is sufficient.

“Some items on the shopping list can be purchased only by sacrificing others,” he wrote, adding: “By 2030, when our European partners are committed to spending 3 per cent of GDP on defence, our 2.5 per cent means we shall lag all save Spain.”

The review reaffirms that the UK Armed Forces’ fundamental role is deterrence to ensure that war in defence of the UK, its Overseas Territories, Crown Dependencies and allies is not necessary. The goal is deterrence through resilience and a credible capacity to respond.

“It must be unequivocally clear to potential adversaries that the UK and NATO have the ability and will to fight,” the review states.

It also stresses the importance of the UK’s overseas military bases including Gibraltar, which provides “critical support” to UK and allied objectives. It underlines the need to protect British sovereignty in the Overseas Territories “against all challenges”, and to uphold the right to self-determination of their people.

All of this affects us directly, even if we might prefer it were otherwise. Just as we accepted the Brexit referendum result in 2016 despite most of us voting the opposite, the UK’s threats and challenges are our own too. But Gibraltar’s strategic value comes with an obvious corollary.

Back in April, during a Defence Committee evidence session in the House of Commons, potential threats to Overseas Territories were the focus of discussion between MPs and defence academics.

Among them was Professor Peter Roberts, Associate Fellow at the University of Exeter’s Centre for Public Understanding of Defence and Security.

A former Royal Navy officer and ex-Director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, Prof Roberts was frank.

He said that while the UK could rely on European allies to bolster air and missile defence, its ability to guard against less conventional threats was less clear.

“What if a civilian freighter off the south-west approaches fires a bunch of cruise missiles - which are containerised and available pretty much off the shelf - at the west country and our strategically important gas offloading port?” he asked.

“The risks are that if you just rely on the European physical capability, you ignore the fact that as guardians of the western Atlantic, to the west and the north, for all of NATO and Europe, we have a responsibility that we have neglected, because we did not think it was possible to put a missile on a ship and fire it at the homeland.”

And he raised concerns about the potential vulnerability of the UK’s overseas territories and bases.

“There is a huge, soft underbelly to UK interest to which we have an obligation and legal commitments,” he said.

“We are just relying on hope and optimism bias that nothing will manifest itself in that way.”

“That is not the way that Moscow looks at it.”

“For them, an attack on Cyprus, Gibraltar or the Falklands would undermine UK credibility and, as such, a couple of missiles or drones that fly into power plants in Stanley work equally well as an attack on Edinburgh.”

“The idea that we can think about it in geographic terms is slightly problematic when we think about the threat actors and what they are playing against us.”

Was he being somewhat alarmist? Possibly, but we also live in worrying times. The Strategic Defence Review leaves no doubt about that.

Perhaps the most concerning section in the document is its outline of what war might mean for the UK. While unsurprising to anyone following the news, the implications are sobering.

If the UK were to fight a state-on-state war as part of NATO, the report said, it could face attacks on UK Armed Forces and overseas bases; air and missile strikes on military and critical national infrastructure; sabotage and cyber-attacks on onshore and offshore infrastructure; disruption of the economy through cyber-attack, maritime trade interdiction and attacks on space-based assets; and information warfare aimed at undermining social cohesion and political will.

The point of the Strategic Defence Review is to prepare the UK for worst case scenarios and, in so doing, reduce the chances of them becoming a reality.

How the Ministry of Defence and other agencies in Gibraltar have prepared to respond to such potential threats is not discussed publicly, for obvious reasons. That is the job of those tasked with keeping us safe.

We often see military exercises on land and at sea here, both rehearsing responses and signalling readiness. Those exercises have become more regular in recent months. Much more happens out of sight.

Security partnerships are also essential in this region. Political rhetoric can often obscure the fact that, on defence, the UK and Spain are close allies, as is Morocco.

There are many in Spain who would prefer to see the base in Gibraltar gone, of that there is no question. Environmental campaigners, for example, routinely describe visiting nuclear submarines as “floating bombs” and raise alarm each time one arrives in port.

But the UK argues it is precisely these types of assets that enhance European security for all, Spain included.

There are, of course, strong arguments against militarisation. The UK Government has been criticised for cutting its aid budget, funds that help address root causes of conflict and crisis.

But the Strategic Defence Review outlines threats no government can ignore.

Alongside bolstering homeland resilience, the UK will pursue a “NATO-first” defence strategy to strengthen cooperation and deliver a coordinated, collective response in a dangerous world.

Luke Pollard, the UK Armed Forces Minister, this week described Gibraltar as “a cornerstone of NATO’s southern flank”.

In the context of our ongoing treaty talks, the outcome of which we all eagerly await, UK ministers have repeatedly made clear they will only agree to a deal that protects British sovereignty and “UK military autonomy”, and which the Gibraltar Government is content with.

Given the common threats that all European nations face and Gibraltar’s role as a key piece in a wider collective defence picture, starkly laid out this week in the Strategic Defence Review, that reality has hopefully been carefully considered in Madrid.