Commenting on the Government's defence review, Dr David Blagden, of the University of Exeter’s Strategy and Security Institute, said:

 

“The publication of the Integrated Security, Defence, Development, and Foreign Policy Review confirms much of what was already expected. There is emphasis on a “tilt” in UK commitments towards more engagement with the Indian Ocean and Pacific theatres, but also continued recognition that our Euro-Atlantic home region will have to remain the enduring focus of UK strategy; there could therefore be difficult balancing acts to come when deploying forces ‘East of Suez’ means less availability for European/Atlantic/Mediterranean operations.

 

"There is also significant commitment to developing new science and technology - both in general, and also with specific military applications - that should help to keep the UK at or near the frontier of technological sophistication, but that may also come at the expense of proven conventional capabilities; next week’s Defence Command Paper will contain more detail on that front. 

 

"There is an eye-catching decision to raise the stated ceiling on the number of nuclear weapons in the UK stockpile, reflecting growing concern about several possible deterrence challenges, including a potential Russian threat to NATO, fears over a catastrophic cyberattack that could inflict damage akin to an atomic strike, or state supply of weapons of mass destruction to a terrorist group.” 

 
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