Aye, aye Captain! The new defence chief of staff needs to tackle the China question
The appointment of a new chief of the defence staff—the professional head of the British armed forces— easily slips into the important but not newsworthy category. Last week’s announcement that Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, currently first sea lord, will take up the post in November should, however, give even passing observers pause for thought.
For context, the chief of defence staff is the prime minister’s chief military adviser as well as the armed forces boss. Generally drawn from the heads of the three services, the position has been held by four generals and two air chief marshals over the past 20 years, but Radakin is the first sailor to hold the job since 2003. This is the end of an era of land campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq which made this preponderance of army men inevitable. This is now a battle of the sea.
Radakin has spent the past two years overseeing a transformation of the Royal Navy. This has been a major restructuring around the two new aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, allowing the navy to increase its presence around the world as well as strengthening its capabilities in the North Atlantic.
The appointment of Radakin, then, is another piece in the puzzle of the “tilt” towards the Indo-Pacific. While Russia remains an acute threat, our eyes are trained on Asia.
As well as a question of defence, this is about the economy, stupid. Last year, then Trade Secretary Liz Truss sealed a trade deal with Japan, followed by South Korea, Vietnam and the Pacific islands; a deal with Australia has been given the nod. The prospect of closer trade ties with India is also on the cards and the UK has applied for membership of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Now, in her role as Foreign Secretary, Truss deigned to go clubbing with the Australian High Commissioner, George Brandis, at Conservative Party Conference in Manchester. While this may seem like an entertaining side-note, the relationship between the UK and Australia has rarely been closer.
Looming over all of this is our tense relationship with China. David Cameron and George Osborne realised the economic potential of a cordial spirit of engagement, with President Xi famously being treated to a pint in the Plough at Cadsden during his 2015 state visit.
Recently, however, tensions have arisen over the brutal treatment of the Uyghurs in north-west China and the curtailing of democracy in Hong Kong. Britain has become more robust towards China, with HMS Richmond sailing through the Taiwan Strait last month and the Carrier Strike Group, based around HMS Queen Elizabeth, due to operate in the South China Sea.
This muscular diplomacy has been conducted by Radakin’s navy. As chief of the defence staff, he will be charged with pushing forward this agenda. He will also be operating in a context in which the roles of the armed forces and MoD are inextricably intertwined with those of the Diplomatic Service and the Department for International Trade. Strategic unity of purpose is now the name of the game, and for the Integrated Review to work—indeed, for it to be “integrated” at all—every action taken by the government must contribute to the same goal: a strong UK presence in Asia and the Indo-pacific.
Business should take note. This is not just a sailor getting a promotion.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin’s promotion is a signal that our Global Britain agenda is increasingly seen through a maritime lens. Now might be a good time to investigate Duolingo courses in Mandarin, Japanese, Vietnamese—and perhaps even Australian slang.