If Palmerston, geopolitics and prudent uncertainty had informed the SDSR, as they should have done, there are cuts that should not have been made. Type 22 frigates should be kept in commission. Likewise the Nimrod MRA4 anti-submarine warfare aircraft, HMS Ark Royal and Joint Force Harrier. Of these, the last cut is the most urgent to reverse, because the RAF is destroying the force as fast as it can, and with it the aura of power. Captain Jerry Kyd, the last commander of the Ark Royal, was quoted as observing eloquently that the "glowing embers" of naval fixed-wing aviation were all that was left. These are actions that void Hague's Palmerstonian words. Actions speak louder than words. 

SDSR is formally incoherent on all these key topics. It states categorically that there is a strategic requirement for a future carrier strike-force. It then announces the withdrawal of the present aircraft carriers and their aircraft. Of this Lord Inge said: "I find it extraordinary that if the carrier is so critical to the future of our defence and our maritime capability, Her Majesty's Government are prepared to get rid of our present capability and wait 10 years for its air and carrier replacement." 

During these ten years, a range of skills will die. The personnel involved will leave the Service. Carrier operations, both the pilots and the deck crews involved in the difficult ship/aviation interface, in the specialised skill of commanding aircraft operations at sea and the maintenance of aircraft in the unforgiving environment of the sea, will vanish. As nations trying to acquire carrier capability are finding — for Britain is eccentric in its trajectory of reductions — such skills are only painfully learned. SDSR also prescribes a minimum credible nuclear deterrent. The crux of credibility is the invulnerability of the submarine platform. Yet as well as reducing the numbers of submarines and frigates available to protect that platform, SDSR dispenses with the Nimrod aircraft which provides highly specific defence for our submarines, as well as other important covert functions. "An extraordinarily bad decision," says Lord Inge. In Viscount Trenchard's words, "the decision to scrap the Nimrod project is completely incomprehensible and wasteful, as £3.8 billion has been spent on the project to date and the fourth aeroplane out of nine is now being painted." It seems eccentric to dispose of a unique capability so close to its full realisation, and inconsistent with the stated importance of the nuclear deterrent and of counter-terrorism. Another example: SDSR stresses cyber-threats yet deletes frigates which can be unique and potent sovereign long-range data collectors.

Why has this happened? The most convivial explanation is "cock-up". The National Security Council is acting as a telephone exchange, not a source of autonomous thinking. The SDSR was a university essay crisis that ran off the rails. Not inconsistent with that is the second: that it was flawed by a "scales of analysis" error.