Government spending has a lot to do with proximity to the (voting) public. Ministers who deprive hospitals and schools of money do so at their peril. Cutting bobbies on the beat is also inadvisable. But defence? While Britons tend to take the excellence of their armed forces for granted, most pay little attention to them day to day. This country’s last big military adventure was the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The subsequent policing operation in that country and the UK’s involvement in Afghanistan passed largely unnoticed. Relentless shrinkage in military manpower means that most civilians know no one in the services. The forces have ceased to be a central component of national life. That makes them easy to ignore when the public accounts are flashing red and backbenchers in marginal seats are clamouring for tax cuts.
Jeremy Hunt will not cut defence in his budget next week — he may even award the Ministry of Defence a small rise. But caught as he is in a fiscal headlock he will not give the military the increase it so desperately needs. This is a short-sighted and dangerous mistake by the government that could one day come back to bite this country.
“Could” is the problem. Fears raised by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s rise may prove unfounded. This doubt is all the Treasury needs to keep shifting defence spending to the future. Not helping is the MoD’s lamentable procurement record, resulting in billions wasted on botched projects. NHS jam today is always more urgent than preparing for a war that might never happen. This is a sure way of increasing the risk.
Ever since the end of the Cold War, Britain and her European allies have been winging it with defence budgets of 2 per cent of GDP or less. Donald Trump, possibly the next US president, has warned “delinquent” Nato partners who duck this 2 per cent level that he will leave them to the tender mercies of Vladimir Putin. Mr Trump likes to rattle his audience, but he raises the spectre of US retreat. By virtue of their size and nuclear status, Britain and France (with Germany) must step up.
Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, and General Sir Patrick Sanders, chief of the general staff, have warned that the age of the peace dividend is well and truly dead. Mr Shapps says the country should consider itself to be in a pre-conflict phase. He is pressing for defence spending at 3 per cent of GDP.
At £52 billion in 2024/5 the actual figure will be about 2.3 per cent. Inflation, help for Ukraine and modernising the nuclear deterrent has eaten up the crumbs from Mr Hunt’s table.
In the meantime the forces must try to marry Britain’s ambitions with dismal reality. The navy is starved of escorts, submarines, replenishment ships, aircraft for its two breakdown-prone carriers and sailors. The RAF is about to lose 30 of a mere 137 Typhoons, has tiny numbers of airborne early warning and maritime patrol aircraft, no ballistic missile defence and no system for suppressing enemy air defences. The army is the real basket case. With just 75,000 soldiers and falling, and few tanks and artillery pieces, it could barely field an armoured brigade if called upon. In a war, stocks of ammunition would likely last weeks.
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Of course, this ticking timebomb of military unpreparedness will be forgotten amid calls for tax breaks next week. Every so often this country must painfully relearn the lesson that to maintain the peace one must prepare for war. Defence is not just another spending department; it’s different.
