19 Dec Hard Choices Ahead for Defence Spending
For a long time after the end of the Cold War, the electorate cashed in the so-called “peace dividend” not just in terms of cost savings, but by ceasing to think much about defence at all. Occasionally limited episodes of “liberal interventionism” would make it into the headlines, like the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 or Operation Palliser, the 2000 deployment in Sierra Leone. In general, however, voters turned their attention elsewhere, as defence spending fell from 4.1 per cent of gross domestic product in 1991 to 2.4 per cent by 2000. It really did feel like an age of butter before guns.
Afghanistan and Iraq, the two major British military operations of the 21st century (so far), returned defence to the centre of political debate but did not fundamentally alter the United Kingdom’s financial priorities. As a proportion of GDP, spending rose modestly from 2000 to 2003 but then remained largely static for a decade. When deployments were drawn down in Afghanistan after Operation Herrick (2002-14) and Iraq after Operation Telic (2003-11), spending fell further, and from 2015/16 to 2019/20 it dipped below two per cent of GDP for the first time since the 1880s.
Now everything has changed. Politicians and voters have realised that the world is a fragile and insecure place, even if it has taken Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the intensifying conflicts in the Middle East to drive the point home. The percentage of GDP spent on defence has now become a commonplace of political debate: the previous government pledged to increase it to 2.5 per cent by the end of the decade, and the Labour Party matched that quantum, although the Prime Minister has still not given a timeframe for implementation.
Many leading military and civilian figures have also argued that Western countries do not only need to spend more money on defence—although they do—but approach potential threats and future possible conflicts with a new mindset which accepts the increased risks and includes the determination to face them.
In January 2024, the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Patrick Sanders, warned that the population would need to be put on a “war footing” and should prepare itself for the possibility of a conflict which became a “whole-of-nation undertaking”. Earlier this month, in his annual speech at the Royal United Services Institute, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, Chief of the Defence Staff, spoke of the “need to sense the risk of tragedy to ensure we avoid it” and his particular responsibility as the professional head of the armed forces to “stiffen the nation’s resolve”.
This is a shift in language and narrative which is not limited to the United Kingdom. In December, the new Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, told a conference in Brussels that members of the alliance must “shift to a wartime mindset” and “turbo-charge our defence production and defence spending”.
Sanders, Radakin and Rutte are in one sense correct. The West has long underspent on defence, with deeply corrosive effects on our capabilities and readiness, and that must be reversed by a substantial margin. It is wrong-headed to fetishise defence spending as a specific proportion of GDP, as military planners should focus on strategic priorities, defence capabilities and national interests, but the numbers can be useful as a short-hand as well as a goad.
In the case of the UK’s armed forces, something like 2.5 per cent would allow the Ministry of Defence to fill some of the chasms between commitments and capacity, and repair some of the worst hollowing-out of the military. To increase personnel substantially, procure new equipment or broaden the range of missions the armed forces can undertake, however, would need a greater level of investment.
In another sense, though, the talk of a “war footing” or a “wartime mindset” is inaccurate and potentially misleading. Worse, it offers a simplistic view of the choices politicians need to make and justify to their electorates.
Being explicitly and unambiguously at war is terrifyingly costly. Next year, Russia will spend nearly a third of its total budget on national defence, despite President Vladimir Putin’s insistence that the war in Ukraine is only a “special military operation”. Like the UK during the First and Second World Wars, Russia has shaped its entire economy and political system around fighting and winning the current conflict.
With that stratospheric cost, however, comes the benefit of certainty. A country at war knows the threats it faces and can be reasonably certain of their prioritisation. Vladimir Putin must focus his policies on sustaining Russia’s ravaged armed forces and defeating Ukraine. That makes the task of balancing competing policy options straightforward.
Politicians in the UK have no such luxury. The Ministry of Defence is currently awaiting the outcome of the Strategic Defence Review led by former defence secretary Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, which will make recommendations on Britain’s future strategic posture; but it is self-evident that the armed forces cannot do everything. They cannot be committed to the “Indo-Pacific tilt”, maintain a strong presence in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, contribute substantial ground forces to NATO’s eastern flank, continue the AUKUS partnership with the United States and Australia and retain continuous at sea deterrence without choosing which elements are at least at the front of the queue for resources.
The aphorism of French premier Pierre Mendès-France, “Gouverner, c’est choisir”, is unendingly cited by politicians seeking philosophical gravitas, but its simplicity contains a fundamental truth: governing is about making choices. In terms of defence, that means, just like the earliest Egyptian and Hittite battlefield generals, deciding where to concentrate the resources and mass available for greatest effect. When Sir Keir Starmer and the Defence Secretary, John Healey, come to consider the recommendations of the SDR, they will need to grapple with almost-impossible choices among competing priorities.
These difficult decisions are the price of the uncertainty of peace. The “wartime mindset” is in fact a product of failure, of having been forced into a corner, of losing freedom of action and freedom of choice. While policymakers retain that freedom, defence spending may rise, but it will never be enough, and there will always be compromises to be made. More broadly, that small sliver of the government’s overall budget will always jostle with every other area of spending, from health and education to infrastructure and housing, each with compelling arguments for its preeminent claim on resources.
The UK will need to spend more on defence and align its resources much more closely and realistically with its commitments and ambitions. Successive reports from the House of Commons Defence Committee on procurement and readiness, from the Public Accounts Committee on armoured vehicles and the MoD’s Equipment Plan 2023-33 and from the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee on commitments and resources have demonstrated that the armed forces are hopelessly overstretched. To play the kind of role in the world to which governments of both persuasions aspire and to make good gaping holes in current capabilities and personnel will require spending something of the order of three per cent of GDP, though the number itself should not be the target.
Even then, decisions will have to be made which involve painful sacrifices, and a “wartime mindset” will not help. Despite the way it has been framed, adopting that kind of mentality is not like steeling yourself for a visit to the dentist, where stoic determination will overcome everything else. The choices are still there, however tightly we grit our collective teeth. There is no panacea, no magic bullet. So we must stop telling ourselves that if only we had the right attitude, all would be well. It is not that simple.
