In the ten-year period from 2020 to 2030, the United Kingdom (UK) government will spend over £190 billion on military capability (NAO, 2021, p 5). Most of that money will support programmes in the traditional maritime, land and air environments. There will be significant new investment in warships, for example Type 26 and Type 31 Frigates (MoD, 2020a, p 31), armoured fighting vehicles and mechanized infantry vehicles, such as Ajax and Boxer (MoD, 2020a, p 34), and F-35 Lightning II fast jets (MoD, 2020a, pp 37–8). However, over time and in accordance with the nation’s new approach to the utility of armed force – the Integrated Operating Concept (IOpC) 2025 – more money will find its way to support operations in the new domains of space and cyberspace (MoD, 2020c, p 1). But who decides what military capability should be procured and, more importantly, why? How much responsibility lies with elected politicians, who generally know little about the practical application of military force, but are accountable to the taxpayers whose money makes up the defence budget? Conversely, how much responsibility defaults to senior military officers and civil servants, who claim to hold the professional knowledge fundamental to the necessary decision making, but cannot be voted out of office?

This book is an investigation of why UK Defence has the military capability that it has. To define Defence, I have borrowed the following definition from the 2015 version of the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) operating model: