Bernard Ingham: Scaremongers must not disguise the key questions over Britain's defence

The most torrential leakers are always Ministers as they strive for public sympathy against the Treasury and such Prime Ministerial

budgetary appeal courts as Star Chambers. The late Alan Clark was virtually incontinent and would have confounded a whole technical

college of plumbers sent to plug him.

But no one does it with quite such authority or aplomb as our Armed Services. They are past masters at warning of disaster if the Army, Royal Navy or the RAF has its wings or other essentials clipped.

We are now at the height of another doom-laden season of slash-and-may-you-burn-in Hell. It is all very entertaining. It is also rather more difficult than usual.

We have a record 156bn deficit, which has to be eliminated. By any standards, we have a bloated public sector. The abuse of the taxpayer is legendary. We are fighting a bloody war in Afghanistan where our troops have been no better equipped than they seem to have been in a less than stunningly successful campaign in Iraq. And some pretty expensive hardware in the form of the Trident so-called nuclear

deterrent ideally needs to be renewed.

All this against the background of a somewhat indeterminate foreign policy, which should inform the whole business of cutting. If anybody knows what it is, please drop me a line.

Don't bother if all you have picked up is that William Hague thinks it should be moral or ethical. Tell that to the blacks and whites alike in Zimbabwe where Robert Mugabe has been allowed to rule tribally,

racially and corruptly for 30 years.

This explains why for the first time since Tony Blair was a lad we are having what is called a strategic defence review at a tremendous gallop.

I am not one of those who equates the quality of an inquiry's report with the length of time it has sat. Take, for example, Lord Saville's recent gold-plated and diamond-studded Bloody Sunday report after a decade of deliberation. It was widely praised for no better reason than it gave the Irish nationalists what they wanted.

Some evidence of Harold Macmillan's cool, calm deliberation is

desirable in these great reviews of national policy but matters are now pressing. The outcome of the defence review will therefore, and inevitably, be called a rush job. This is unfortunate because in our straitened circumstances we need a defence policy that carries

credibility and is properly funded.

We shall not get one unless the following questions are given clear answers. What should govern our defence policy and the size of its supporting resources? If it is our foreign policy, what is it – to protect our national interest?

If so, how do we do that in a world not in imminent danger of global war but threatened by fanatical terrorism and, frankly, Islamic expansionism? What kind of resources do we need to combat these

threats?

What, for example, is the balance between intelligence and military deployment?

In other words, is it true that we need highly trained, faster and more flexible forces to protect the nation from external threats? If so, what really would give value for money?

How can we defend retention, let alone renewal, of Trident? But how can we justify getting rid of it, given there are rogue states, a Middle East powder keg and Islam on the march?

Given the horrendous budget deficit, isn't the sensible thing to do to retain some protection against blackmail but postpone refurbishment?

If I had an easy solution, I would not be writing this column. But several things need spelling out since I judge there is waning support for the Afghanistan conflict and rising concern for the welfare of our troops there, combined with a restiveness over the extent of our defence commitments while Western Europe largely contracts out.

We cannot continue indefinitely as the world's policeman. Why should we

spill blood and treasure while others, apart from the US, effectively opt out of the dangerous stuff?

How do we protect ourselves from terrorists when our policies are

apparently radicalising a generation of would-be suicide bombers?

We might get somewhere if the coalition regarded the defence review as an overdue exercise in public education. In a "Big Society", this vacuum would not need filling.