Increased defence spending is crucial for Britain’s great power status
The alleged threat by Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson to disrupt government business unless there is a substantial increase in defence spending is not only further proof of the weakness of Theresa May’s government, but indicative of the parlous state of our country’s armed forces.
Once the world’s greatest military power, more recently a member of the Big Five, the UK in the twenty-first century can hope to do no more than help out if danger threatens the West.
There are, at present, 81,500 full-time soldiers in the British Army, with 330 battle tanks. Naval personnel, including Marines, number 29,000, operating some 73 ships, most of them small. The RAF has a strength of 33,000, with 830 aircraft of all types, including trainers.
By comparison, the United States boasts 1.3 million soldiers and 13,000 tanks. On its own, the U.S. Marine Corps is more than twice the size of the entire British Army. The U.S Navy lists 325,000 sailors and 480 ships, and the Air Force 318,000 personnel and more than 13,000 aircraft.
The U.S. has five times the population of the UK, but it has 15 times the number of service personnel, plus a massively larger reserve force. In 2017, its defence budget came to $634 billion against the British total of $53 billion. Donald Trump has since proposed a 13 per cent hike for 2017, taking the new total to a staggering $716bn. It’s not just that we spend less per capita. We hardly register on the scale.
This wouldn’t especially matter if Britain didn’t like to portray itself as a vital part of the West’s defence. Nor would it affect our military standing in an EU context if France and Germany were themselves at a military standstill, or downsizing.
But British defence secretaries, to say nothing of generals, admirals and air marshals, like to cozy up to the Pentagon and to suggest we’ve got America’s back – which, plainly, we don’t – while in our dealings with the Europeans we take the view that we are number one and they mere amateurs, struggling to keep up. The truth is, America outspends us by 10 to 1, and the combined EU by 5 to 1.
Earlier this year, President Emmanuel Macron announced that French defence spending this year is to rise by $2.2bn, to $42bn, with further substantial increases promised over the next five years. Taking into account its superior GDP, this should cause France to overtake Britain in the defence league by 2025. Under mounting pressure from the U.S. and Nato, Germany’s yearly defence spend, which currently stands at $45.5bn, is also set to rise, to $50bn over the next three years and by as much as 80 per cent by 2025. Should this happen – and there are countervailing domestic pressures – the result would be a Big Three, Britain, France and Germany, with the rest of Europe bringing up the rear.
At that point, our one remaining trump card, differentiating us from others in the pack, would be Intelligence – MI5, MI6 and GCHQ – backed by the SAS. But the EU, for political reasons connected to Brexit, is bent on stepping up its members-only surveillance and special forces capacity to the extent that the UK would, at best, be a backstop. Is this realistic? Will it happen? It is much too early to say. All we can be sure of is that America will be looking to the most effective-possible security partner and that, over time, this might no longer be the UK.
In consideration of all of this, and bearing in mind that the Navy’s two new aircraft carriers cost £3bn ($4bn) each and a single F35b multi-role fighter aircraft £64 million ($85m), what Gavin Williamson reportedly wants – and needs – is a minimum annual increase in his budget of £2bn ($2.65bn) over the next ten years. This would take our military expenditure fractionally above the 2 per cent of GDP demanded by Nato but in practise would enable us to do no more than upgrade one of the RAF’s existing Eurofighter squadrons, equip the Navy’s ailing type 45 destroyers with new anti-ship missiles and perhaps part-fund the development of a battle tank to replace the ageing Challenger 2.
Williamson could, I suppose, point to the £1bn bribe given by the Government to the DUP as proof that the cash could be found. Whether he will get it is another matter. At some point, the Chancellor’s 11 Downing Street sofa will have disgorged the last of its small change, and the likelihood of further tax increases on top of those destined for the NHS is surely remote. Borrowing is the obvious answer. But Philip Hammond is already up in arms (pun intended) about the need to continue reducing public debt and, without serious prodding from his next-door neighbour, is unlikely to sanction another £2bn a year for men and machines that may never be used.
Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell are, needless to say, a lost cause. Don’t look to a future Labour Government to reinforce Britain’s fighting capacity. Instead, expect them to reduce us to a rescue and recovery service, answerable to the UN and the International Red Cross.
When all is said and done, and always assuming there isn’t an actual war to fight, what it comes down to is prestige and bragging rights. How important is it to the notion of global Britain post-Brexit that the UK should continue to be viewed as one of the world’s top-five military powers? If the answer is Important, or Very Important, the price will be high, not only this year, but every year, for ever. If not, we must learn to rebrand ourselves as a soft power, with special skills, that no longer looks to its permanent seat on the UN Security Council as proof of its virility. The alternative – big hat and no cattle – is unsustainable and it’s time we woke up to the fact.