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Strategic Defence and Security Review

I will in a moment. This brings me to the second aspect of the armed forces' primary mission. Defence is also there for when everything goes wrong—when despite our best efforts, deterrence and containment have failed, diplomacy is exhausted, and, as a last resort, the use of lethal force is required. No other arm of Government can deliver this or is designed for this purpose. So our armed forces must be structured, first, to deter; and secondly, to deliver the use of force in support of our national interest and to protect national security. We undertake this strategic defence and security review at a time when our armed forces are delivering on that primary mission in Afghanistan. We must have strategic patience and resource that mission fully, but it would be a mistake to base our future security on the assumption that future wars will be like the current ones. That is why we must maintain generic capability able to adapt to changing threats. I now give way to my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis).