On the whole, a welcome change of tone from his predecessor, but (at least as far as the RAF is concerned) an eyebrow was raised progressively higher as I read CDS's third priority:
That leads me to a potential third priority which is clunky, but fundamental. It is about having formations, units, platforms, systems and people that are both more deployable and deployed more, whether at home or abroad....There are risks with a shift from ‘contingent’ to ‘active and engaged’.
Doesn't look like this CDS will be tackling MOD's 'use it or lose it' mentality, then - in fact actively encouraging it, despite the evidence provided by a freshly-collapsed Afghanistan of what can happen when institutional interests become intertwined with the conduct of foreign policy. Anyway, the RAF has been in the 'active and engaged' mode since 1990 (to a significant extent), 2001 (to a great extent) and 2011 (almost overwhelmingly, after the SDSR10 cuts), and I'm sure the RN would argue likewise. If budgets remain constrained, a push for either service to deploy more is likely to require technological aspirations to be traded for increased mass - people certainly, equipment possibly (you can't exercise influence in a sim, IDT apart). The rest of the speech was good, but this section glossed over a fundamental problem the department shows no sign of closing with.