The FT is right to highlight the need for a credible defence investment plan (The FT View, April 7) but stops short of offering fresh insight.
The volume of commentary on Britain’s defence posture is now so great that large language models underpinning AI will have ample training data on national pessimism. What remains in shorter supply are practical, implementable solutions.
The persistent attacks directed at the civil service and the government may be cathartic, but will not improve delivery; new capability delivered to front line operators is the metric against which everything must be judged.
If budgets rise — and they should — we must be equally serious about how the money is spent. There is no downside to spending better, yet that conversation remains under-developed.
Several structural factors drive the current situation. First, parts of the incumbent industrial base are optimised to navigate a regulated procurement system that tolerates outcomes that are merely “good enough”. For those (mostly public) businesses, this is a rational response to poor incentives that continue to reward mediocrity.
Second, the UK exhibits a structurally low tolerance for risk. This pushes decision makers towards the safest, most defensible options — often the same incumbents — a modern version of “no one ever got fired for buying IBM”.
Third, the media and government defer too readily to tangential expertise for their insight. Being good at manoeuvring a mechanised brigade in 2005 is not the same as understanding AI, supply chains or autonomous systems today.
What would better spending look like? First, far greater intolerance of underperformance. Second, a more targeted approach to industrial policy: back UK suppliers where talent is genuinely world-class and manufacturing is scalable — partner or outsource for everything else.
Third, the re-establishment of an independent, non-profit technical authority to hold suppliers to account and reward genuine technological and delivery excellence.
Rob Harper
Founder and Chief Executive, Rowden, Bristol, UK