Though welcome, there are fundamental concerns about the new defence commitment of 2.6% of GDP by 2027 just announced by the Chancellor. It was triggered by John Healey’s Strategic Defence Review. However, as the Chancellor revealed, the debate has already shifted to when 3% will be attained. Some NATO members and the United States are pushing for a further rise to 5%. More money doesn’t mean more things; it opens the door to new programmes and capabilities.
The UK has always been geared to maximising defence and lethality from platforms rather than concentrating on mere numbers. Traditionally, well-resourced defenders should be able to inflict a loss rate of 3:1 on their attackers. As Russia’s human casualties have, according to Kyiv, just passed the million mark, Ukraine has demonstrated that it’s possible to up that ratio with a wise use of doctrine and technology to 10:1.
The real problem arises in that rigidly hugging a defence spending figure of 2.6%, like a climber clinging to a rocky cliff face, fast-becomes irrelevant in today’s era of international crises. It removes the inclination for blue-sky thinking using limited resources which is the hallmark of successful military activity, and demonstrated daily by Ukraine.
The trouble with fixed figures such as 2.6% is they take no account of the fluidity of international security or advances in defence technologies, which are subject to their own dramatic rises in costs above inflation. Britain was caught in the inter-war period by a similar, rigid restriction, the Ten Year Rule. First adopted in August 1919, it directed spending plans based on the assumption that “the British Empire would not be engaged in any great war during the next 10 years”.
Ironically, the suggestion came from Winston Churchill, then Secretary of State for War and Air, who later became its bitterest opponent. Officially abandoned only in March 1932, even then spending continued to decline due to effects of the Great Depression. It led directly to Chamberlain’s woeful appeasement policy of 1938 and Britain unpreparedness for the Second World War in 1939.
Healeys have traditionally had a close association with defence under Labour. Denis (no relation) held the post from 1964-70, and began the economic drives which brought us to where we are today. His namesake now has to reverse that trend. The Strategic Defence Review, urgent and necessary though it was, took 11 cumbersome months to deliver, in an era of unparalleled international tension. What Britain now needs is a continuous uninterrupted, rolling defence review, free from political interference.
Only this will ensure, as drone and AI technologies evolve at breakneck speed, that we are ready for the next war, if it comes.
