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Breaking the Mould: the United Kingdom Strategic Defence Review 2010

Paul Cornish and Andrew Dorman, March 2010

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The authors argue that for decades successive defence reviews have followed a process in which policy development moves through four phases: failure, inertia, formulation and misimplementation. This has resulted in a cycle of defence reviews that have proved to be incomplete and unsustainable. The article suggests that the strategic defence (and security) review promised for the next parliament is in danger of continuing this pattern of policy deficiency.

The authors contest that this need not be the case. With a close understanding of the pattern of past reviews it should be possible for the 2010 review finally to break the mould and produce a coherent and above all sustainable defence policy and strategy.

Related resources can be found within the project Defence Policy and Economics >>