UK Combat Air Strategy 2018

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DefenceSynergia (DS) is pleased to publish the UK’s  Combat Air Strategy 2018 This is welcome if well overdue given that UK has published a myriad of strategy light documents since 2010. The misnamed National Security Strategy (NSS) spawned two Strategic Defence and Security Reviews (SDSR 2010 and 2015) and the fallout in turn generated the requirement for the recent National Capabilities Security Review (NSCR) and, the yet to be published, Modernising Defence Programme (MDP).

Ahead of the NCSR and MDP the Ministry of Defence asked Sir John Parker to produce a Naval Shipbuilding Strategy despite the Government, separately, commissioning and publishing in 2018 a National Industrial Strategy white paper. Almost as if Defence and its Industrial Sector were not part of the economy or an essential guarantor that all sectors can function without foreign let or hindrance.      

All of which might have been better informed if the NSS actually contained Her Majesty’s Government’s ‘Strategic aims’ to inform all Government Departments of their higher level strategic considerations when formulating policy. For MOD, pointing to the funding required for the Armed Forces to draw-up cohesive and realistic military strategy and plans that actually meet national aims and that can deter the threat.