Defence Dialogues

Constructive talks? Or a dialogue of the deaf?

As part of “strengthening the nation’s readiness for war”, defence will reconnect with civilian society. There will be a government-led “national conversation”. The promised pow-wow was one of 62 recommendations in the Strategic Defence Review accepted by No.10.

With the SDR’s publication in June, it was back to the Cold War future. Russia is “an immediate and pressing threat”, “warfighting readiness” is repeatedly invoked, and there is a renewed commitment to NATO. The parallel National Security Strategy raises the prospect of “the UK homeland coming under direct threat, potentially in a wartime scenario.”

An aircraft carrier (with fast jets) against the backdrop of the Northern Lights, RAF drones ready for take-off and strike, a unit skiing in snowy wastes perhaps training for Cold Weather Warfare, the grim grey hull of a submarine, missiles being loaded, a female soldier with a camouflaged face, guns, union flags…

The imagery deployed within the Review bristles with British military can-do, the words conjure up a brave new world of long-range missiles, nuclear subs and munitions factories.

In his foreword, the Prime Minister speaks of keeping the British people safe and making defence and security the fundamental organising principle of government. Such rhetoric is to be expected: less inevitable was the commitment to 5% GDP made a few weeks later to back it up.

Back in February, PM Starmer announced to the House of Commons that the existing defence budget of just over 2.3% GDP would rise to 2.5% GDP in 2027 (or 2.6% with inclusion of the Intelligence, Security and Cyber Security Services’ budgets). The exact amount this would add to the budget is contested, ranging from an extra £6 billion to £13.4 billion – as the PM claimed that winter’s day. He also stated that defence spending would reach 3% GDP, but the timing to fulfil this was hazy: “in the next Parliament”.

Published on 2 June, the SDR is equally opaque about precise timings and numbers. Overall, the Review will put a stop to the “years of hollowing out and underfunding” by successive governments, identified by former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace. Any reversal, however, will happen “over time”. The number of Regular personnel and Active Reservists will rise “when funding allows”. The caveat, “subject to economic and fiscal conditions”, is repeated throughout. In short, the Review is an unfunded wish list.

Three weeks later, just ahead of the NATO summit in The Hague, came the shock announcement that the UK would be spending 5% GDP on defence and security by 2035: 3.5% would go to the core defence budget; 1.5% to “protect critical infrastructure, defend networks, ensure civil preparedness and resilience, innovate and strengthen the defence industrial base.”

This was an unexpected for victory not just for the UK’s defence and security sector, but for President Trump and US Federal taxpayers. Since the Eisenhower era, successive administrations encouraged Europe to share more of the defence burden.

NATO’s European members have long refused to accept the reality that they were being squeezed between an expansionist Russia and a United States which was calling time on their free riding. In a blistering speech to February’s Munich Security Conference, which included a defence of free speech and democracy, Vice President J.D. Vance went on the warpath about allies paying their way.

Between then and The Hague, like a hanging before breakfast, the prospect that a Trump-led United States might walk away from NATO finally concentrated the minds of alliance government leaders – who undertook to hit the 5% target.

The leap to 5% GDP is not such a financial jump for some. Poland, where all adult men are soon to undergo military training, spent 4.2% in 2024, expected to rise to 4.7% this year.

In the UK, the unexpected rise to even 3.5% GDP within a decade could represent an additional £30 billion a year, reports the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

While Defence UK members, defence and security policy wonks, Armed Forces’ Chiefs and defence company bosses will undoubtedly welcome the extra investment, the public might be less enthusiastic, not least because their concept of security might be very different.

The United Kingdom is a welfare state, not a warfare state. In the context of the public finances, taxpayers are defence-hesitant. A YouGov/Financial Times poll found that while half of those surveyed agreed that defence spending should increase, most were opposed to raising taxes on people like them to pay for it. They were also against cuts in other areas of public spending in favour of defence.

Polling by Focaldata ahead of May’s London Defence Conference anticipated voter apathy towards defence signalled by YouGov/FT. It concluded, “Arguments for boosting defence spending face an uphill battle.” Should the debate on public spending prompt demonstrations, it is easy to imagine “Nurses Not Nukes” on the placards.

The 5% target is going to be hard to sell to the Parliamentary Labour Party. In July, many MPs rebelled, refusing to countenance cuts to the welfare budget. It is surely optimistic to assume that an extra £30 billion a year on defence will automatically be included in the Party’s next general election manifesto. But Party strategists could well be thinking that by 2029, the Trump Presidency will be over, and the geopolitical landscape will look very different.

Meanwhile, the government wants a “whole of society approach” taken to the defence of the realm. A chapter is dedicated to this laudable ambition in The Strategic Defence Review: Making Britain Safer; Secure at Home, Strong Abroad. But will the whole of society be supportive?

Hours before the Review was launched, Ukraine special forces personnel pulled off one of the most daring raids in recent military history. Penetrating deep into Russia, operatives used drones to take out 41 enemy jets. As military commentator Preston Stewart noted: “Choose your fighter: $500 drone or $150 million bomber … The drones won – and it wasn’t even close.”

Over-burdened taxpayers want to know that their money will not be wasted on protracted defence projects whose budgets can spiral out-of-control. After all, a percentage of GDP, while indicative of a direction of policy travel, is an arbitrary number – not necessarily a needs-based one.

The MoD data breach, with its accompanying super-injunctions, wasted billions and cover-up, hardly inspires confidence that the Department is the exemplar of good data protection practice – or indeed is on the road to warfighting readiness.

The Saturday before PM Starmer headed to BAE’s Govan shipyard formally to launch the SDR, 1,195 illegal migrants landed in the UK, a record number for one day. Defence Secretary John Healey had to concede that Britain has lost control of its borders over the past five years.

The Review makes no refence to illegal migration. In Europe, however, there is growing awareness of the weaponisation of migrants by hostile states. In April, the EU Commission confirmed: “Foreign state actors, among them the Russian Federation and Belarus, have deliberately weaponised illegal migration as part of their hybrid warfare strategy, targeting EU Member States such as Finland, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, as well as Norway.”

The PM declares “we will never gamble with our national security”, but for the public, – especially women and girls – living in areas with high numbers of illegal migrants, ministers and officials are gambling with their personal security. Taxpayers will ask why they are financing advance nuclear submarines for “strong abroad” when “secure at home” demands action on small boats.

Already burdened by the heaviest taxes on record, the public will be asked to pay even more, as if defence is “open sesame” to their wallets. They will wonder why Margaret Thatcher went to war to defend one British Overseas Territory (the Falklands), when PM Starmer not only hands over another (the Chagos) but expects them to fill the coffers of Mauritius.

The Review states the UK relies on importing almost half (46%) of its food, a vulnerability it says is one of threats to daily life. It offers no solutions, but to bolster national security, more food should be home grown. Policymakers’ current hostility towards Britian’s farmers is surely unwise.

Encouraging more public understanding of, and involvement in, defence is positive. But out in Middle Britain, citizens’ ideas about their day-to-day security might not match those in the MoD’s Main Building, in Whitehall or in Parliament.

The national conversation could well be a monologue falling on deaf ears.