Some thoughts

 A good overview of the new joint UK-Aus sub plan here:  Australia to join Royal Navy SSN(R) submarine programme A few quick thoughts: 1) The UK should speed up the Dreadnaught SSBN project, 2) Then focus these with a continuous building programme to deliver one every 3 years, 3) and aim for a fleet of at least 8 in service. 4) Names? How about the Admiral class, starting with Hood, Nelson, Rodney, and Howe? 5) Finally, really crank out the PW3 reactors for use in the subs and in Roll-Royces' Small Modular Reactor  project to ensure energy security

 It is well-established that militaries tend to get soft in peacetime and it takes the trauma of a major war to shake them up and reestablish their fighting prowess (see for example the states of the UK and USA's armed forces at the start of both world wars. With that in mind, a trio of worrying stories. First up,  Royal Navy appoints first female admiral . I don't have an issue with women in the military, apart from in front-line infantry (and that's only because to get them in standards have been lowered). However, as the linked article states: 'her career has seen her move up the ranks from a Royal Navy Logistics Officer to the Deputy Director of People Delivery. Jude Terry has also worked with the MoD as an operational planner, a branch manager for Navy Command HQ and Assistant Chief of Staff at the Standing Joint Force HQ' So she has basically worked in support roles and is the equivalent of a Director of HR. The fact that the Navy has a 'Director of People...

I've been mulling over this the past week, and just put down the following points as a comment at Navylookout : For me the biggest missed opportunity of the review is the chance to reform defence procurement (esp. as this was something Dominic Cummins was hoping to fix), so I expect we'll continue to see cost overruns, reduced orders or equipment, and BAE making off like bandits. The shipbuilding program is more positive, historically we were always planning ahead and had constant build schedules, but this century we seem to have stopped this and just looked to replace stuff as it wore out (looking at the current ships in-service dates it's clear this happened around the time of the Afghan and Iraq wars) and it's good to see talk of continuous production runs and keeping the yards busy. I'd hope for at least 12 autonomous minehunter units that could be based either ashore or on a ship. However it would be inefficient to use large (and expensive!) frigates for this ...

Finally published today . I had a quick skim this evening and it is broadly positive, you can definitely feel the fingerprints of Dominic Cummijgs on this. I'd suggest this is a good attempt to 'find a role' for the UK, I particularly like the emphasis on scientific research and soft power. More thoughts to follow, esp. as we still need to see the details for actual defence spending (due Monday).

Useful background points. Post-Brexit we need to decide on what our role in the world is (finally answering the point Dean Acheson  made all those years ago), and then decide on priorities for defence. I'd suggest we need to return to the focus on the Royal Navy as our 'shield', followed by the RAF and Marines, with a smaller army (historically the only parts we kept in peacetime were the sovereigns guard unit plus those essential parts like the Royal Engineers, that would form a core that could be rapidly expanded), but a larger Milita/Home guard as a backup for domestic emergency support. 

  European Union forms own 10,000 strong ‘uniformed service’ As the article states it's a border and coast guard force, but could lead to one. No mention of what (if any) vessels the coast guard side will have. I assume that initially it will support and work with national forces, but imagine with time it will supplant and take them over. This also ties in with my own thoughts on the case for an integrated UK coast guard, a draft article about which I am working on. Altogether this news is another reason to be glad we are out, my main motive for voting leave was because I did not want the UK to end up a province of a federal Europen superstate.  I suspect over the next few years the drive for more centralisation will accelerate.