In this episode of The Weekly Defence Podcast, we go in-depth into the recently released MoD Command Paper, which sets out how the concept of a 'Global Britain in a competitive age' will be achieved from a military/strategic standpoint.

Integrated Review- In focus [00:30]

In this special edition of the podcast Senior Editor Naval Richard Thomas and News Editor Ben Vogel are joined by Air Vice Marshal John Stringer, Director of Strategy at UK Joint Forces Command, and Gary Waterfall, retired AVM in the RAF and ex-Operations Chief of Staff in Permanent Joint Headquarters, now in post as the Senior Military Advisor to DSEI.

In a roundtable discussion, we explore the implications of the Command Paper for the UK armed forces and look into broader strategic objectives that the MoD wants to achieve. 

Integrated Review – focus on Air, Land and Sea programmes [34:52]  

Richard Thomas, Ben Vogel and Air Editor Tim Martin engage in an in-depth conversation about significant outcomes from the IR for key air, land and sea programmes.

The first part of the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy confirmed the UK carrier strike programme will progress with at least 48 F-35s to equip the RAF by 2025. The second part of the Command Paper released on 22 March raised some questions about what the actual number of aircraft will be.

The MoD will expand nuclear weapons stockpile up to 260 warheads, and the National Shipbuilding Strategy will undergo an updates for vessels manufacturing, maintenance, subsystems and design. 

Type 26 , Type 31 and Type 32 frigates and the Fleet Solid Support Ship programme should go ahead, securing naval manufacturing through the 2020s.

As for the British Army, procurement of Ajax and Boxer as well as the Challenger 2 upgrade are set to progress. This comes at the expense of the Warrior programme, which the MoD will terminate.

This episode was produced by Noemi Distefano with music and sound mixing by Fred Prest