British armed forces review after terror attacks

British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon today announced an urgent review of the Armed Forces in the light of the US terror attacks.

Mr Hoon told the Labour Party conference in Brighton that they may need to ‘‘re-balance’’ Britain’s existing military capabilities in order to deal with the new threat of global terrorism.

‘‘The attack on the United States has brought home to us with brutal clarity the question of whether we are doing enough to cope with the full force of the new threats we face,’’ he said.

‘‘We must have the right concepts, the right levels of forces and the right capabilities to meet the additional challenges we face from international terrorism conducted on this scale.’’

Mr Hoon stressed it would not be another full-scale strategic defence review (SDR) - just three years after the last one - and Ministry of Defence sources said it would be ‘‘evolutionary not revolutionary’’.

However the Defence Secretary indicated that it would require extra funding from the Treasury at a time when Chancellor Gordon Brown was warning all spending ministers of the need to exercise ‘‘discipline’’.

‘‘I think we need to look very carefully at the level of financial commitment that we require,’’ Mr Hoon told BBC Radio 4’s the World at One programme following his speech. The purpose of the exercise will be to look at the need to be able to combat sophisticated international terrorist groups prepared to carry out the sort of highly organised suicide attacks seen in America.

Mr Hoon said it would increase the post-Cold War emphasis in the SDR on ‘‘rapidly deployable, flexible forces’’ able to deal with a crisis anywhere in the world.

He acknowledged however that the SDR had not placed sufficient weight on so-called ‘‘asymmetric’’ threats from small, diffuse forces like terrorist groups.

‘‘No one anticipated a threat on scale of the threat we are now having to deal with. No one either anticipated the kind of fanaticism we saw on display in those appalling scenes on September 11,’’ he said.

‘‘We are dealing with a very different world.’’

He said that the review would also have to look at the implications for Britain home defences.

‘‘We need to ensure that we protect our people from these kinds of threats.’’

The review is likely to emphasise the need for improved intelligence gathering capabilities.

However defence experts dismissed suggestions that it would mean a significant expansion of the SAS.

The special forces’ stringent recruitment requirements mean that there was only very limited scope for increasing their numbers without diluting their quality.