The Long-Range Forecast

At any other time, the proposal to spent $270 billion over the next decade on national defence would have captured headlines. But this announcement caused only a brief ripple in a news cycle dominated by the coronavirus and gloomy economic news. Yet these very elements had prompted the government’s decision. We were told we needed to ‘prepare for a post-Covid world that is poorer, more dangerous and more disorderly’. Amid rising Indo-Pacific tensions, $800 million was earmarked for the AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile.