Where the axe may fall in the defence review

But the review of Britain’s future defence needs has become bogged down in the Government’s wider cuts agenda, leading to criticism from the Defence Secretary Liam Fox in a leaked letter, the Commons Defence Select Committee and senior military figures.

This criticism has led the Government to publish the review in two parts. The Foreign Secretary William Hague will make an announcement tomorrow, explaining what the country’s defence priorities are in the years ahead.

“The Government is in danger of making the mistakes of the 1990s.” Former Labour Defence Minister Kevan Jones

On Tuesday, the Prime Minister will talk about spending, setting out how much will be cut from the £37bn defence budget. The Ministry of Defence has been told to prepare for reductions of 10-20 per cent – a smaller cut than other government departments are facing.]

However Channel 4 News reporter Carl Dinnen was told that a deal had been thrashed out between the Treasury and the Prime Minister keeping the defence cuts under 10 per cent.

Who Knows Who: Britain’s Defence Review – who’s gunning for what?

But it’ll still mean billions of pounds must be saved over the next five years – with thousands of jobs lost and possibly an entire fleet of aircraft.

So what is likely to be cut?

The Army
With 9,500 British troops in Afghanistan, and the Iraq mission still an issue, the Government has to tread carefully here.

Some troops should be withdrawn next year, in line with the Americans, and the Prime Minister has said all combat personnel will leave by 2015.

Professor Malcolm Chalmers, who advised the former Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth and now works at the Royal United Services Institute, believes there are likely to be small cuts in the Army’s 102,500 strength.

In a hangover from the Cold War, there are 19,000 troops stationed in Germany, almost all of them Army personnel.

The Ministry of Defence says they are there “for reasons of national and NATO security”, but Professor Chalmers thinks their presence is anachronistic and they could be withdrawn to Britain.

He says the main rationale for keeping them there is the cost of rehousing them in Britain, although they could be stationed at mothballed RAF bases.

The majority of Britain’s Challenger 2 tank fleet is in Germany, and this is likely to be cut in the defence review.

The former head of the army, General Sir Mike Jackson, told Channel 4 News last month: “We have an army of about 100,000. For a country of our size and place in the world, it seems to me that it is as small as I would want it to be thought of.

“I hope the defence review isn’t simply a budget-cutting exercise, but stems from an objective and careful look at where Britain wants to be on the world stage.”

The Royal Navy
The Navy, which has 35,500 personnel, is expected to lose some of its surface fleet. Britain currently has 24 frigates and destroyers, and Professor Chalmers believes a reduction to 15 is possible.

The previous Labour administration signed contracts for two new aircraft carriers, which are being built in four places: Clydeside, Rosyth in Fife, Portsmouth and Appledore in Devon.

On Friday, the National Audit Office (NAO) said their cost had risen by £650m to £5.9bn – because of a decision by the previous government to spread the cost over a longer period.

But the project is likely to survive the cuts, according to Professor Chalmers, as cancelling it would be prohibitively expensive.

The Government could decide to make only one of the carriers operational, with the other possibly carrying helicopters rather than planes. This would save money because fewer F35 joint strike fighters, made by Lockheed Martin in the US, would be needed.

Professor Chalmers says that if the Government had started off with a clean slate, it would probably have decided the carriers were not a priority.

Defence cuts options
Channel 4 News interviewed Professor Michael Clarke, Director of RUSI (Royal United Services Institute) about the options open to the government with their defence cuts.

Clarke said the success of review shouldn't be judged on how many ships, tanks and planes are left at the end of it. He also emphasises the importance of cyber security and how that keeping aircraft carriers at expense of surface fleet is risky.

On the political angle, he said that the very nature of what is kept in and out of the government's spending cuts will reveal a lot about political line up in present cabinet.

Watch the full interview below.

The Royal Air Force
The RAF is 40,340-strong and could lose some of its Tornado and Harrier fast jets, which might mean the closure of Air Force bases.

The situation is not helped by the fact that decisions taken by the Labour government have led to cost over-runs, with the Typhoon fighter jet programme rising by £2.7bn, according to the NAO.

The prospect of cuts has prompted Air Marshal Timo Anderson, director general of the Military Aviation Authority, to warn that Britain could be left vulnerable to attack.

He was reported as telling MPs on 11 October: “Without such an air defence capability, the UK would not be able to guarantee security of its sovereign air space and we would be unable to respond effectively to a 9/11-style terrorist attack from the air.”

The Trident nuclear deterrent
Despite their different views on Trident, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats “will maintain Britain’s nuclear deterrent”, according to the Coalition agreement.

Trident is made up of four submarines based on the Clyde, which can deploy ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads.

It is due to be replaced at an estimated cost of £20bn, which the Treasury has said will have to be borne by the MoD.

Ministers have been working to a timetable that assumes a final decision (known as the main gate decision) on a replacement will be made by 2014.

But Channel 4 News has been told that a delay is being considered to save money in the short term.

Professor Chalmers believes this is a likely scenario, although Mr Cameron may not reveal how long the delay will be.

The concerns
Last month, in its first report since the General Election, the Defence Select Committee said the review was being carried out too quickly, within the constraints of a “budgetary straight-jacket”.

A member of the committee, former Labour Defence Minister Kevan Jones, told Channel 4 News: “The Government is in danger of making the mistakes of the 1990s, when there was a rush to get money out of the defence budget. Short-term Treasury-led spending decisions to get cash will have long-term implications for this country’s security.”

Even Dr Fox has his concerns. In a leaked letter to the Prime Minister in September, he warned of “grave consequences” if “draconian” spending cuts were made to the Armed Forces while Britain was at war.

On Friday, in an article in The Times, he offered reassurance that Britain would remain a “major contributor” to Nato after the review – following US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s comment that she was worried about the scale of the cuts and their effect on the alliance.

Across the political spectrum, there are real worries that austerity, rather than creative thinking, is shaping the review.

But Professor Chalmers is more sanguine, saying: “It looks as if the MoD is going to get a real-terms reduction of 5-10 per cent. If this is the case, defence will have risen up the pecking order of government priorities quite significantly, compared to the last two decades. I think the MoD could not have realistically expected more.”