I thank the shadow Secretary of State for the tribute he paid to the Duke of Edinburgh—one with which I very much agree, and I know all of my colleagues in the Ministry of Defence do too. The military are taking great pride in their preparations for his funeral on Saturday, where they hope to give him the send-off he deserves.
I welcome this debate. We live in a new age of systemic competition where information, data and technology shape conflict every bit as much as ships, tanks and fighter jets. Military hardware can be undermined by cyber-attacks or by the severing of undersea cables, while the use of proxy forces and other covert and deniable activities makes it harder to determine when the threshold of war has been crossed. So we have to think about defence differently.
“The Integrated Operating Concept 2025”, published last year, changes the way we think about our response to conflict. No longer can we have a contingent force sat in the UK waiting for the fight. Instead we must be operating persistently around the globe in forging partnerships, building capacity, tackling insecurity and competing with our adversaries. Make no mistake, however: we recognise that we cannot be upstream of every potential conflict and that we must therefore not only be able to operate but able to fight.
We can all be nostalgic over the force structures that won the wars of yesteryear. Undoubtedly there is a comfort in looking out of the window and seeing row upon row of the capabilities that have kept us safe in the past. But as surely as hoof became wheel and sail gave way to steam, we should all be clear that technology is moving on quickly and industrial capabilities will no longer get the job done alone. We have a duty to the British men and women of our armed forces not to indulge in a game of military bingo, obsessed with the metrics of previous conflicts. Instead we must keep adapting to the threat, because the reality is that if we fail to change, we will be defeated.