The UK needs to spend 3.6 per cent of GDP on defense if it is to modernize its military while protecting its nuclear deterrent and meeting NATO commitments, according to internal MoD calculations.
This figure would be a 56 per cent increase on current spending levels of 2.3 per cent, and is widely seen as a completely unrealistic request in light of the UK's strained finances.
Sir Keir Starmer He has given a “firm” promise to raise spending to 2.5 per cent and launched a comprehensive review of Britain's military capabilities, which is due to end next year.
A figure of 3.6 per cent would take spending to around £93 billion and bring the UK closer to Poland, which shares a border with Ukraine and spends more than 4 per cent of its GDP on defense annually.
One person involved in the Strategic Defense Review said the 3.6 per cent figure put forward was “a wish figure floating around the MoD”. Another said the figure was that service chiefs “wrote (in) their Christmas list, knowing there was no Santa Claus”.
Without this increase, the UK will have to scrap some military ambitions and commitments, warn people involved in the process.
“We will either have to eliminate some capabilities or reduce staffing further,” a senior defense official said. “There is a gap between our ambitions and reality… and even 3.6 percent may not be enough.
However, the number is far from the highest estimate entered into the review, according to four people familiar with the process.
The National Audit Office has taken a dim view of some of the department's final plans. Last year, the 2023 defense equipment plan was described as “unaffordable” because it would exceed the available budget by around £17 billion.
the Official jurisdiction The review, or SDR, is to “define the roles, capabilities and reforms” of Britain’s armed forces so that the country is “secure at home and strong abroad”, all on a “path” to raising defense spending to 2.5 per cent. cent of GDP.
The figure would make the UK one of the biggest spenders in NATO – and consistent with the government's “NATO first” strategy – even if it fell below the 3 per cent spending target proposed by Secretary-General Mark Rutte in response to Donald's re-election. Trump. -Elections and the Russian threat to European security.
Currently, only 23 of NATO's 33 members have met the alliance's current spending target of 2 percent of GDP.
Officials and analysts also say the 2.5 percent spending is not enough to fully replenish Britain's military, which has been hollowed out by years of underinvestment.
The same senior British official said: “SDRs are about injecting a sense of reality, and if we want to do all the things we say we do – and maintain them – then 2.5 per cent is not enough.” He added: “Some difficult choices must be made, and they will be politically sensitive and militarily difficult.”
General Sir Rowley Walker, the head of the British Army, warned in July that the army needed to modernize and prepare to fight a major war within three years.
“With any conceivable budget, even if it is just a little over 2.5 per cent…,” Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director-general of the Royal United Services Institute (ROSI), told MPs last month. . . “We will not be able to address (the British Army’s) lack of readiness, war stocks, etc.”
But Francis Tusa, editor of the Defense Analysis Newsletter, said the Defense Department's calculations come from “a position that being rational won't get you anywhere, which is exacerbated by inter-service rivalry.”
He added: “One trick often used is for services to offer cuts that leaders know they will reject, such as excluding the Red Arrows or the Household Cavalry Regiment.”
The largest item in the UK's current £60bn defense budget is maintaining and modernizing the nuclear deterrent, which Chalmers estimated would cost around £12bn a year, a fifth of its budget.
The fighter jet, part of the Global Air Combat Program and the OCOs trilateral defense agreement with Australia and the US, is expected to cost billions of pounds, while current staff and pension costs represent nearly £17 billion a year.
An additional £3 billion a year has been pledged to Ukraine, while £4.5 billion is being spent on the region. One intelligence accountwhich funds Britain's three main spy agencies.
Foremost among these commitments is the United Kingdom’s commitments to NATO, which include “Strategic Reserve CorpsThis typically requires two divisions of about 20,000 soldiers each, plus accompanying equipment and ammunition.
But the regular forces of the British Army, which currently number about 75,000 soldiers, will face difficulties in deploying only one division ready for war.
General Sir Nick Carter, former head of the British Army, said the ability to generate a credible and sustainable division depended on the UK having an 80,000-strong army.
Defense officials believe the UK does not get enough credit for the nuclear deterrence it has declared to NATO.
But they also acknowledge that the Defense Department needs to improve efficiency and reform a procurement process that is so cumbersome that turning a procurement decision into a contract could take years.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, stressed the importance of such internal reforms last month.
“There is still too much hierarchy and processes. Too much duplication and insufficient priorities. . . . (We need) to overcome organizational inertia . . . that permeates a large part of our system,” Radakin said. He said Audience in Russian.
The Ministry of Defense said: “This government has a firm commitment to spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence, and as the Prime Minister has said, we will set the course in the spring.”
He added: “NATO is the cornerstone of global security, and the UK will remain a key contributor to the alliance, alongside our strong support for Ukraine.”
