The government’s pledge to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 is being touted as a decisive move to strengthen UK military capability. However, the reality behind the headlines is far murkier.
The need for greater resources for the Ministry of Defence is undeniable. The global security landscape is deteriorating, with Russia’s continued aggression in Ukraine, tensions in the Indo-Pacific, and uncertainty surrounding the future of NATO. However, the UK’s approach to defence has been marked by knee-jerk reactions rather than a long-term vision.
The numbers game
Yesterday Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, told Parliament that defence spending would be increased to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 (2.6% if the security services are included). He claimed this would be the equivalent of an additional £13 billion annually for the armed forces. However, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says in reality, the increase amounts to closer to £6.7 billion, a significant discrepancy. Starmer’s claims are based on assumptions about baseline budgets and economic growth projections which the IFS says are unrealistic.
To avoid further tax rises or borrowing, the foreign aid budget will be used to fund the rises, falling from 0.5% to 0.3% of GDP. This move is may seem logical and there have been cases of absurd waste and corruption in the distribution of overseas aid. However, aid organisations and development experts argue quite reasonably that cuts to humanitarian programs reduce global stability and will only increase security threats in the long run. There is a strong argument that defence spending should not be pitted against foreign aid as a zero-sum game. In theory, it least, it is far better to try to peacefully address poverty, disease and misery in the first place before it gives birth to conflict, terrorism, mass migration and the need for costly military interventions later.
While any increase in defence spending is welcome, the rise is totally inadequate to make a dent in the effects of decades of decline and hollowing out. At best the new funds will fill gaps and prevent further degradation. This will in no way allow the UK to mitigate for the potential loss of US capabilities and assets and support of NATO in Europe. Starmer says there is an “ambition” to increase to 3% of GDP in the next Parliament but effectively this is a bare-minimum window-dressing exercise mainly for the benefit of President Trump ahead of the Prime Minster’s potentially awkward meeting with him in Washington.
What is actually required is an immediate move to 3% with a plan to move to 4% or more, especially if the gross inefficiency of UK defence procurement processes can be resolved. Even with the threat from Russia intensified by Trump’s sudden trashing of long-standing US foreign policy, the UK and most of Europe are not re-arming at the scale and urgency required.
The harsh truth is that, in the UK at least, re-armament would involve cuts to other government departments. Few politicians have the stomach to reduce welfare and NHS budgets to fund defence which is the inconvenient truth. Those of any political persuasion (rightly) proposing the UK should significantly increase defence spending must first explain what will be cut as the economic situation seems to rule out tax rises or additional borrowing.
It should be noted that spending on defence, if managed sensibly is good for the UK economy, stimulating manufacturing and offering high skills employment opportunities.
Delivery
Even if the budget holders have cash to spend today it will take time for this to be felt on the frontline. The chronic reductions in defence spending should have ended many years ago but prevarication has left the UK in a bind. Military infrastructure has been scaled back, the headcount dramatically lowered, forces’ morale has fallen and industries and skills atrophied through lack of orders. With the best will in the world it, will take a long time for this to recover. For the navy in particular that depends on warship programmes that run over decades, it is not possible to whistle up a bigger fleet in a matter of months. What can be done is to end the de-scoping and upgrade the fleet of today. The complexities are beyond the scope of this piece, but autonomous systems may offer a more rapid pathway to greater mass, provided they are managed properly and seen as an extension of the fleet rather than its replacement.
Defence Secretary, John Healy is doing his best with the poor hand he has been given, In addition to the ongoing Strategic Defence Review he has launched the Defence Reform programme, restructuring how the MoD is managed. He has created the post of Armaments Director, made the service chiefs report directly to the Chief of the Defence Staff and given greater power to the MoD’s Permanent Secretary (Senior civil servant). This aims to cut waste, reduce duplication and better support the front-line forces.
An unrelenting focus of the elimination of of red tape, abandonment of adherence to civilian peacetime regulatory frameworks and a change in the risk-averse culture is needed. Many attempts at defence reform have been made and only time will tell if the latest initiative can be effective. Getting relevant kit into the hands of operators faster has never been more important. The strategic environment means MoD desperately needs more funding but it is very hard to make the case when many of its projects have run over budget and under-delivered.
‘War footing’
Starmer is clearly not especially comfortable having to deliver the re-armament message. Although far too little too late, perhaps he should be given some credit. At least there is finally a recognition at the top about how the strategic landscape has changed and unfunded rhetoric about “defence being the first duty of government” is no longer acceptable.
Despite some claims in various media that Britain is now “on a war footing” this is not yet remotely true. Government must provide clear communication and leadership but until there is a change in the national mindset, real security is out of reach. The public at large will need to re-engage with defence matters, consider issues around infrastructure and supply chain resilience, resist disinformation campaigns and in some cases be ready to exchange comfort for national security.
For now, Starmer’s announcements remain aspirational and the RN and other services are in no state to cope with major conflict. Until the SDR delivers a concrete plan with realistic timelines and costings, it is hard to judge if any progress can be made. What is not in doubt is that Putin has now been emboldened and poses a threat to the whole of Europe. Only deterrence and hard power count in the minds of true totalitarian dictators and the UK must step up to defend itself and allies.
That Cameron, May, Johnson and Sunak and their cabal of mediocre Chancellors and Def Secs left HM Forces in the mess despite plenty of warnings and changes in Russian posture means the current govt have to pick up the mess inherited. Takes wars weeks to happen but years to build, fit out, recruit and train capabilities. Nothing will change overnight
I think you’ll find the issues started with a certain Mr Brown and his part-time SoS for Defence (Swiss Toni anyone) forcing the UK to fight two medium scale ops in parallel for far longer than the Defence Planning Assumptions (and therefore funding) allowed.
Not going to excuse Cameron or May, but to be fair Ben Wallace was far from mediocre and did secure significant increased funding. It just wasn’t enough to repair the damage incurred from the noughties onwards.
The fundamental issue was that the nice Mr Putin made his intentions clear from 2008 onwards. It’s just that no-one in the UK, Europe or indeed the US wanted to address it, because it would require making difficult decisions.
2TFGK doesn’t want to do it either, but he has no choice if he wants to get anything out of Trump. The “announcement” is a fig-leaf for his visit, nothing more.
I agree.
It actually lacked credibility.
If he had said we would add 0.1% of GDP every year until we got to 3% I would have said fair enough.
2.5% is *today’s* minimum.
To spin out the other 0.4% into maybes and future tense is for the birds. He is essentially saying he hopes everything quite a down so he can go back to his aggressively defensive strategy of boring everyone to death.
Absolutely agree with you and N-a-B. Simple Left Wing con.
plus 100%
Not the full story.
Not even close.
Iraq was an ego trip gone bad.
Afghan adventure showed how limited the army was / is.
The US learned from their mistakes.
We just wanted to find our own / new ways to fail.
Afghanistan needed a division. UK forces could do little.
The issues started with the 2010 SDR which cut the armed forces massively.
That was 8% immediate cut in that plus the ongoing ‘austerity’ for 14 years .
What increased funding from Wallace ? That was all just military aid to Ukraine, so doesnt build up UK forces.
Went back further than that; Options for Change in the early mid 90’s started the problem/rot. When I demobbed from the RN in 2013 we were still suffering from the ‘peace dividend’ Reductions In Force as they called it.
The problem is if you have more funds but no immediate product to spend on and no competition for contracts, defense inflation is real.
How many truly British defense companies are still out there? Do you really think, British industry would be prepared for a real war?
It’s not like the pandemic, where you can outsource to India and China. Somebody has to tell politicians this simple fact.
Was it not Blair that had a thing for wars without paying for them, and Brown that left the coffers empty?
I don’t disagree with those on your list, but these two should be there as well!
Treasury contingency funding was used by both governments from 2000 onwards to fund the extra costs
As for coffers empty ? Borrowing is required every financial year to meet all costs of every government
Since the 1970s its been around 3.7% of GDP
there is no money left over from previous years like you might think
One advantage the RN has has been the object of scorn for many observers. FFBNW. We don’t need to wait for new platforms manned or otherwise to increase our naval power. Types 26 and 31 were designed to have capacity to be upgunned. For example MK41.Politicians being politicians they will want rapid results from their generosity I have no illusions why it has been announced (Trump) but any extra money for defence is better than nothing. Maybe FFBNW wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
T31 can, as you say, be up-gunned with Mk41 and NSM relatively easily.
5 T31 isn’t nearly enough to protect the waters around the UK save transatlantic supply lines. With or without Mk41 is entirely missing the point. With or without sonar is a better question.
They can start easily by cancelling the decommissioning of Albion and Bulwark. Two hulls that can provide much greater resource than they are given credit for.
Or become two totemic money pits?
You been reading from the Luke Pollard ACME guide to defence?
Problem is there’s no one to crew them. Won’t be for 6/8 years as a minimum as properly crewing the rest of the fleet and the change over of T23 to T26/31 will be a higher priority. At that point why spend good money to keep the ships servicable.
Better to have usable resource in reserve than to have to design and build it from scratch when you need it. In which case it will always arrive too late
I agree they can be kept in reserve and one of them have the refit finished to an extent where the engines can be turned over.
It is a lot quicker to have a crash program to fix a few bits than to build a new ship….
You still wouldn’t have a crew. I’ll take 10+ years to rebuild a navy with the right mix of numbers, skills and experience. At the moment the RN needs extra ships like it needs a whole in the head. It especially doesn’t need extra ships that need a big crew.
If we end up at war, it’s likely reservists and recent retirees would be called back up (exactly that happened in the 1st Gulf War, we had a few called back into service on the 22 I was serving on at the time).
Ergo, ships in reserve? What a wise move. Reservists and call up? There’s your crew.
Won’t there be enough crew when Queen Elizabeth goes into refit?
And the two Wavss… very useful kit needing relatively little crew. Forward deploy to the gulf and help out the USN
Waves are cheap to run – a pointless cut.
The crewing issues could have been solved with relatively small amounts of £££££.
RFA tankers are much more than petrol stations for RN ships. There were an area in which we had the required mass….there is a half baked argument that as the surface fleet is so reduced you need less tankers. The reason it is half baked is that with a reduced fleet and singleton operation you may need a tanker with a surface asset as detachable mass to do policing work etc….the tankers can also lilypad cabs….so the tankers are force multipliers….they were kept for a reason.
The tankers are also big and can do disaster relief and support other things. Not as well as a Bay can but we only have two working Bats because some clot sold one to AUS and we can’t get our act together to fix the third one we actually have.
The Bay class was the future 20 years ago.
Probably still the future given what we are building now.
MOD / RN issues — physician heal thy self comes to mind.
30K in the service seemingly — how many are on the water / in the water?
What is the issue with the Bay?
Calmac style lack of capability regarding fixing things?
Plus you have all the Pompey luv that is swilling about.
Being the Portsmouth Probus club is not a good look.
The interesting thing is that general numbers are not that far down.
So it has to be specific [engineering?] trades that are the issue.
Either that or it is really a maintenance issue rather than a manpower issue that is being concealed by allowing the conversation to be about manpower….but maintenance is about money and manpower….
Typical UK politician bulls**t. No real increase and only done as paper dressing for the Trump visit. They’re all charlatans, this Labour lot are just marginally worse than most.
Isnt the Chagos rent to be £90m per year, doesn’t really put a dent in an annual £6bn in real terms 2025 indexed increase and we could always start charging the US rent as they currently occupy it for free.
£18bn upfront plus reparations plus rent.
Again — not quite the full story.
The Taxpayers Alliance claims its £9bn upfront to settle for the displacement of the population all those years ago, then a further £9bn over 99 years (though admit they have no evidence for that claim).
£9bn over 99 years = £90m per year rent.
The Tax avoiders alliance you mean
yes
So why are we waiting two more years and half a Parliament to begin to halt the rot?
When the SDR is published in a few weeks along with a laundry list of capability requirments but no extra money, how will they be funded? I suppose we could try reducing platform numbers and military personnel for a couple of years. Seems to have worked pretty well for the last forty years, hasn’t it?
We are not really waiting two years.
There’s about £2.6.extra in the pot this year, from the £3bn announced in the Autumn.
Then an extra £5.4bn in 26/27.
Then another £5.4bn in 27/28.
That adds up to the PM’s £13.4bn.
The big shadow over it all is the £17bn black hole in the equipment budget, most of it ships that the navy wants but has no budget for – 2nd MROS, the Stirling Castle MCMVs, the MRSS etc, being as how the budget is all going on 13 frigates for the forseeable future and of course the RN’s 20% contribution to the ever-soaring nuclear budget.
The extra £13bn will no doubt let some of these stalled programmes get moving. But once again the army and RAF will have to play second fiddle to prop the navy up.
.
My maths was never very good and maybe I am misreading what he actually said but even I cant see how the IFS can go from spending £13 billion in 2 years to spending £6.7 billion. I am not a fan of the PM but I am going to take him at his word that the defence budget will increase. In any case my guess is the Navy is not going to get the lions share of this money. There is also no point anyone talking about spending money on capability enhancements until the Navy gets a real grip on its personnel issues. I see little real concrete evidence that this is happening. I know this will cause howls of anguish from the Carrier strike advocates on this website but I would cancel the UK CSG Pacific deployment replace it with a US visit and use the real savings this would offer to offer monetary incentives to retain and recruit sailors. Assuming you are a CSG advocate and think the 2 carriers are a precious national asset why in heavens sake would you send one of them half way around the world when you have a tangible threat in your backyard. A US deployment will keep the CSG in the Atlantic and still ensure those all important runs ashore which do help recruiting.
The £13.4bn vs £6.5bn issue is simple enough. £6.5bn is the new money that Reeves will have to find in 27/28, the rest is inflation. £13.4 billion is the difference between what will be spent in 27/28 and what is being spent in 24/25 including inflation (and growth). Basically Starmer is presenting the numbers raw, and IFS is factoring in inflation so the numbers make sense. The money will be there, it just won’t be worth what it was.
Here’s an analogy. You want to measure the length of a train. To do that you decide to subtract the position of the back end of the train from the position of the front. However, having walked up to the front of the train and marked its position you are tired and hit on the wheeze of waiting until the train leaves the station. As the back end of the train moves past you, you mark it off at the same place the front was. Declaring the train to have zero length, you marvel how it can still carry passengers.
Money in 2027 is not worth the same in buying power as in 2024, just as the back end of the train wasn’t being measured from the same base once it has started moving. At that point you can’t subtract the one from the other meaningfully. Apples and Oranges. Starmer is technically truthful, but his number is meaningless.
Yes, basically if you are considering spending figures in 27/28 to 24/25 then you need to increase spending by more than £6bn just to have flat spending with no increase or decrease. The confusion arises because Starmer is talking about the money as being indexed to the 27/28 fiscal year while people are looking at it in todays 24/25 indexed terms.
Arguing the Prime Minister’s number in terms of indexing is like asking whether ¥200-$50 is ¥150 or $150. It’s neither. You have to convert one side before the subtraction to get meaningful. The value of the pound is different in each of the two years, like two different currencies. If you subtract the bare numbers as Starmer is doing you don’t get a meaningful number in terms of either year.
If the budget is 64.4bn in 2024 and 77.8bn in 2027 with 11% inflation over the three years we can say the extra is
either (77.8/1.11) – 64.4 = £5.7bn in 2024 money
or 77.8 – (64.4×1.11) = £6.3bn in 2027 money
It’s never 77.8 – 64.4 = 13.4 anything.
I thank you one and all for the various explanations and accept that the PM may be trying to play with the figures a little (now that never happened under the Conservatives!!) I also completely get that we have to factor in inflation my maths is not that bad!. The IFS post I assume was that by a chap called Ben Zaranko – see the IFS website. He (unlike me as a mere mortal) obviously has superpowers and can predict GDP growth 3 years ahead and actual inflation figures between 2025 and 2027. We will see.
I hope however that we can all agree that when a government (whatever political persuasion) spends more money on defence we should welcome it.
Nice graphic by Think Defence, but I didn’t spot the TD article it came from on the web site. Anyone know?
He updates it occasionally on Twitter, not sure there’s an article on the main website.
Too little, too late; all three Services are in terminal decline.
Extra money will count for little unless build economics improves and supplier gouging / grandstanding is run out of town.
Treasury bean counting does not help but they get a voice because the MOD is so far out of its depth all you can see are the bubbles.
The RN is struggling at the moment as they stick to outdated concepts and ideas — mini USN / where they have ten we must have one — and have no understanding of value and capability.
Need more hulls on the high seas.
Need fewer people per hull.
Need innovation and energy.
Need new ideas.
Need leadership.
Need real intellect not scrabble enthusiasts looking to primetime a six letter acronym.
The RN is becoming more like the army every day.
Not good.
Blair gave the three services what they wanted — that is where the trouble started.
Army — new armour / AFV family.
RAF — Eurofighter.
RN — full size carriers.
Textbook cases of the old proverb — beware what you wish for.
Not really.
Eurofighter was contracted long before new labour.
The only new equipment for the army were UORs for the pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. No new AFV or artillery ordered during the whole 14 years of new labour.
Brown was the PM when the QE contracts were signed
Not the full story / not the real story.
92-97 — Various USAF fan bhoys in the Tory SPAD universe were always taking pot shots at the Eurofighter and asking why were we not buying the F16 / F15.
Blair signed on the dotted line to get it into volume production.
Army armour — they couldn’t make up their mind.
The costs went up / the numbers came down / they went round in circles.
No decision made — total waste of time which previewed similar shambles to come.
25 years later — still thinking about it / kicking the tyres.
UOR stuff for Iraq was painful to watch.
Initial MOD patch and mend was shameful.
Invincible replacement — Blair smiled as each new design came in 10K tons bigger than the last. He promised them new carriers and he put up with their ego trips and their rampant cost insanity. Brown was kept onside with the Rosyth build angle.
2 percent of 2024/25 GDP — £52/54bill.
2.5 percent of 2027’ish GDP — £70bill ballpark.
Defence — Treasury target is / was 2.0%.
Recent shenanigans have taken it up a bit so the 2.3% figure comes into play.
MOD Black holes — poor management / supplier poor performance / poor delivery.
Thanks for that. Its really only 2% currently and military aid to Ukraine is added to make 2.3% Thats hardly ‘defence spending’, it should just be called military aid as its a tap controlled by Treasury and doesnt build britains forces at all.
According to NATO definition of defence spending, which has changed little since the 50’s, military aid does count towards “defence spending”.
You might not like it, but that’s the fact.
Ben Wallace was very clear that he ‘would never have stood for those kind of accounting tricks’.
So in BW’s time it was a separate sum of money.
“Military and financial assistance by one Ally to another, specifically to support the defence effort of the recipient, should be included in the defence expenditure of the donor nation and not in that of the recipient.”
It seems military aid for other Nato nations only is counted .
Evening I know this is a bit off topic but I was wondering what anti-ship capacity the Royal Navy/ RAF have. I know there are short range options like torpedoes and possibly bombs, and two NSM equipped 23s. But apart from this is there no there anti ship methods? If so this seems severely inadequate as that is only 16 missiles that can hit ships.
At present we have:
In future we are going to have:
So it’s not great at the moment, but around the magic year 2030 we will have a reasonably capable anti ship capability coming on line
There are another couple of smaller missiles that nevertheless go beyond the range of guns.
Martlets from Wildcats are best used for small ships and fast attack craft, but shouldn’t be discounted for up to corvette-sized ships because of the quantity that can be fired at once, with the possiblity of a mission kill. CAMM is another interesting one. Despite its name (common anti-air modular missile) it also has anti-surface capability. You can use that against fast attack craft too.
Even Corvettes have MANPADS, and I wouldn’t feel confident firing Martlet against one of those modern Iglas given that it needs guidance from the nose turret all of the way to the target and so the helo can’t turn away until the missile impacts.
CAMM certainly, but would we use it over a barrage from the 127mm?
Cab fly high over mother and direct fire by seeing over the radar horizon. That way CAMM can uses its 25km+ range to precision strike whichever bit of ship you want to take out at Mach3.
The guidance turret doesn’t need the cab sitting still once it is locked.
In any case run the sums as to the Time of Flight ToF for missile over a 5km range at Mach1….it isn’t very long….plus reaction time after recovering from a big bang….
MANPADS are not instant fire as it takes a defined period of time to boot up and the sensor to come to operational, acquire lock etc….MANPADS are great if you have some warning and a rough vector so you are lined up and ready to fire.
But they are a real risk to cabs. Which is why a longer range standoff AShM would be more than useful particularly as both flavours of RN cabs have very decent lifting capacity.
I didn’t mean that the helo has to sit still, but a truly fire and forget missile would allow it to turn around and run away while the missile was still in flight (or hide behind an island in a littoral environment).
Don’t Thales still market autonomous seekers for LMM?
CAMM vs big gun is a good question to which I have no good answer. I think the missile will have better precision, but I’m not sure by how much. Of course we are still on the 4.5″ as yet, but it’s the same thing. Could a Mk 8 naval gun hit a fast attack craft sufficient precisely from say 15 nmi.
Does it have to be precise?
A bog standard 127 shell will cost what, £5000 at most?
Using the £500k figure for CAMM, that means you can put 100 rounds downrange for the same cost and (but not the same magazine capacity) as a CAMM. With the lethal radius of a big shell, you’re doing pretty poorly if that doesn’t destroy a FIAC.127mm shells can also be RASed.
When you get to guided shells, let’s say you can get a comfortable pK with a double tap shoot.
That means you can spend £250k on each round before it becomes uneconomical relative to CAMM, an unlikely figure for a surface attack shell (of course, if BAE’s new wonder HVP all purpose sabot is developed it may well cost that).
So I think we should keep CAMM to what it’s best at, and use the high volume weapon for high volume tasks.
Morning SB, just a few of questions. Is there an actual air launched FC/ASW planned? I wonder why they don’t go for the Marte ER and JSM for the interim as 2030 is still a way off and what happens if something flairs up in 2-3 years or sooner or God help us while on the CSG2025!? Isn’t the RN is getting the latest TLAM upgrades with anti ship capabilities for the Astutes? Would also be useful for the T26/31 mk41s, like Netherlands, Japan and Australia have recently done.
We know that the cruise missile will definitely be air launched (Storm Shadow replacement) and the supersonic will definitely be ship launched (Harpoon replacement, sort of).
The cruise missile will ‘most likely’ not have a surface launch option due to its dimensions, but whether the supersonic missile has an air launch option is less clear.
I think the cruise missile will have to replace the French MdCN, so I expect it will have a surface launch option.
And don’t the French have a sub launched version of the MdCN that might need to be replaced? Something the RN could potentially in its Astutes anf SSNR’s.That’s across a lot of platforms!
JSM is needed for the F35B. Why – because it already exists & is already on the integration list for the block 4 software. Australia & Norway have already agreed to fund the integration. US, Norway, Australia & Japan have all ordered the missile & Konsberg in Norway have already announced new factories in US & Australia. Without JSM, the carriers will have no heavyweight AShM or land attack missiles for years yet. Even if the new design missiles turn up in 2030, getting them integrated into the F35 is a whole other matter, as is getting production up to usable numbers.
You’d think it would be good for the P8s too which I think the RAAF will be doing.
The RAF decided in the 90’s to get rid of Sea Eagle which was the primary ASM of both the RN and RAF. The RN couldn’t afford to support the Sea Eagle maintenance/Mid Life Upgrade on it’s own so an exceptionally good bid of kit was consigned to the scrapheap.
On a slightly different note, the Sea Harriers were using AMRAAM years before the crabs put it on their aircraft 😉
It’s just grandstanding.
It would take tens of billions over a decade to get us back. It is a question of industrial capacity as much as anything.
Plus Realism. Something that is lacking in the addled mind of the West’s Political Class and sadly in a majority of the people too.
As well as industrial capability, it’s also about risk aversion.
A couple of years ago, I suggested to someone in MOD that we buy a load of really cheap drones (maybe £500 a unit, including a camera) for R2 OPV sailors to mess about with in the quiet times. Make their lives more enjoyable and give them a bit of potentially useful training disguised as fun. If they could be British drones renewed annually, all the better.
No Captain would allow it without full testing and certification, he told me, health and safety.
I’m talking about toys, I said, little lightweight quadcopters for teens. They can fly them off the mostly unused flight deck. Maybe set up annual competitions between the 5 ships’ crews.
Nevertheless, the Navy would be liable, he told me. Non-starter.
Risk calculations change in a war and everyone knows it and applauds it. Until then, anything new, including speedy decision making, is a really tough sell.
It’s the same through out defence. It’s isn’t just left field or novel suggests like yours. A friend of mine wanted a door that had rotted through replaced at his unit. He is one of those individuals who doesn’t like being bullshitted and if he knows he is being bulls**tted he gets very angry. The more he pushed the less the estate guys seem to want to move. So he snapped one day and paid for the door to be replaced out of petty cash. On the estate chap’s next visit he noted the door had been changed and the chap got very angry with my mate for being pro-active. A bit silly as the estates person was a pot-bellied midget and my mate a 6 foot 5 Para. The replacement door was replaced the following week with another door that was up to spec. My mate said the new door was less substantial than the door he had put in. But that’s modern defence.
Change needs dynamic leadership.
The current career paths on offer involve too much Powerpoint and rampant box ticking. Well worn path with no need for original thought or exceptional performance.
Walking and chewing gum at the same time is all it takes seemingly.
Innovation is absent and the pace of change is glacial.
Plus all must win prizes — the innocent abroad nature of much of the MOD PR stuff is tough to read.
Plus meccano sets for the captain — no so much that it happened more that they put it out on film.
It looks from the title image like the first thing we should be doing is straightening the kink in our aircraft carrier!
There is a fine tradition of, um, bent ships in the Royal Navy.
Snakey Blakey……..
this is the worst grandstanding seen in years
once again a Labour government has said it is increasing budget whilst folding in other budgets (intelligence in this case), whilst willing to put under equipped troops into the field
if we can find billions for covid, surely we can afford £100bn to avert a major crisis that could potentially cost us far more.
given where we are – time for UK to stop acting like its a major player – it most certainly is not
Professor Michael Clark hits the nail on the head in this interview.
It’s time we faced up to the reality of a future war with Russia without the help of the USA.
LINK 27min 43 sec in.
Russia isn’t coming.
Typical Putin supporter, then cut defense spending.
Why would they come? What have we got worth risking nuclear war for you deluded jingoist? Come on? What has the BBC and Sky News told you to think today? Does the thinking hurt? You are a typical small minded bigot.
More importantly, what has Trump said today since my last post?
“Mr Trump declined to comment when asked about whether he would ever allow China to take control of Taiwan by force.
“I never comment on that,” he said.
“I don’t want to ever put myself in that position.”
No one is seriously suggesting Russia would invade us. However, they have made it very clear they are keen on land grabs and the Suwalki gap is a tempting piece of Land. Therefore either we need to make enough of a conventional deterrence to make them think its not worth the hassle, or have enough of a force to actually uphold our obligations if they decide to role the dice. And if we go for the latter then the UK will almost defiantly come under attack from Russia’s long range missiles, not to mention the substantial increase in their less then discreet espionage. Safely in the knowledge that it would not result in a Nuclear response from us.
That is of course if we actually honour our treaty obligations. Of course we could just say not our problem and shrug ourselves in the corner of our own little Island and become a redundant insignificant weak little nation alone in the cold waters of the Atlantic.
Some here adore peddling Russophobic bull ox. They would love a war. You can practically hear the veins throbbing in their head as they bang childish insults accusing anybody indulging in their bigotry with them is an appeaser at best or a traitor or west.
Now by land grabs I assume you mean Crimea? A territory added to the Soviet Ukraine republic in 1954 and a territory that is ethnically 95% Russian. Now did they annex the territory? Yes. It is indisputable. But let us look at some background. The legitimate government in Kiev, a pro-Russian government, had just been deposed in an Obama administration CIA backed coup. The Banderite influence was growing in Kiev and Russia saw itself losing their naval base at Sevastopol and probably feared for the ethnic Russians too. Why? Because it was obvious how Kiev regarded Crimea because KIEV THEMSELVES HAD ANNEXED CRIMEA IN 1995 causing ethnic Russian leaders and representatives to flee to Russia.
Sometimes it is quite rightly pointed out the ethnic Russians of the Donbas region were happy to stay within Ukraine. But there is a difference surely between being an ethnic Russian in a state that leans culturally and politically towards Russia and being an ethnic Russian in a state where your culture and language are under assault by the central government and paramilitaries are committing atrocities against your people. The peoples of the Donbas knew what was coming if they didn’t do something. It might shock some here having read some of the tripe they put out but going to war is a serious business.
Um. I think mentioned should be made of the EU. The EU wanted Ukraine to give the Euro more, um, room. It is a fiat currency after all. And what would have happened if the Ukraine had been sucked into the EU? As has happened elsewhere industrial capacity would be transferred to the centre aka Germany. It has happened here in the UK. And where is the Ukrainian’s industrial capacity or capability? In the Donbas. And what would the citizens of Donbas receive in return? Regeneration grants.
So there are ethnic Russians in the Donbas with a new government in the capital backed by ultra-nationalists and the CIA with a supranational organisation hovering to take their livelihoods.
Let us consider a few further points.
When the 911 incident happened America was invading Afghanistan within about 4 weeks. That was over 3,500 deaths approx. Russia sat on its side of the border for over 7 years with over 14,000 dead. Yes they were helping the Donbas militias just as the US has helped militias around the world opposing governments for decades too. Let us not forget private American citizens helped to fund the IRA. If the Americans hadn’t lost the war in Afghanistan would they still be there? Of course they would.
One of the conditions of the IMF loan that the government put in place in 2014 by the US was Ukraine opened up to foreign entities purchasing Ukrainian assets. Russia currently occupies about 20% of the Ukraine. Whereas foreign entities now own over 30%. Who is actually grabbing Ukraine land then? If the Russian loan had been left in place there would be no foreign ownership of Ukrainian assets. No drug addled sons of US Vice Presidents and other children of senior democrats on the boards of Ukrainian companies. When Biden was VP he treated the Ukraine like a personal fiefdom.
Let us also consider who wanted EU membership and perhaps why they wanted. In 1991 the population of the Ukraine was 51 million by 2021 it was 41 million. Apparently now it is hovering around 30 million. I would humbly suggest EU membership was being pushed by the Ukrainian middle class to enable them to escape more easily the most corrupt country in Europe. Not for the good of the country but for personal gain.
It was fortunate for all of us that the Cold War ended so calmly. But we should expect some altercations as things settle. Artificial states seldom work. And the Ukraine is the definition of an artificial state.
Never thought that would get through ^^^^^
Who is saying cut defence spending because Putin isnt coming
They couldnt even get to Kyiv !
Britain has been invading Russia more times
Crimea 1853-56
Murmansk ( instead of being in France !)and Archangel, Sevastopol and Novorossik ( with French), Odessa, Baku and Baltic coast 1918-20
Russia won’t be invading the UK for sure.
But Russia will just restart its little grey/green men asymmetric warfare in the states it believes are part of its made up empire.
And that will fester until another war starts.
I answer above replying to Harry. The comment has gone into moderation.
Russia — myth vs reality?
Three years in and it looks like the Winter War turned up to 11.
Relying on Iranian drones and North Korean lathes plus cheap labour shipped in.
Not a good look — Kleptocratic state finding the cupboards bare and looking shocked.
At least Stalin could point to all the Trotsky luv in the 1930’s Red Army.
Putin has shown us his cards and they are worse than we thought.
Still not sure what Donny John is up to?
Anti China play vs Putin’s useful ersewipe vs American Manbaby.
Sometimes you see a plan and then reality kicks in.
The mistake that the old guard make is assuming a transient President is a permanent change in US policy.
From the header image it looks like one of the first things we need to spend money on is fixing the bend in our aircraft carrier ! 🙂
Like to see that starboard Phalanx put more forward and an extra one rear starboard. Or a pair of 40mm for a greater depth of field of close in defence. Is there any news on 30mm, even Ancilia being added to these carriers?
Oops, duplicate post
Shiny things cost money.
While I understand new ships and aircraft.
We need to increase the army by 1 division. Then add if costs allow ships aircraft etc etc.
But it will take a few years for arty, new vehicles, training them up.
So 5 extra P8s
2 extra Wedgetail, that’s 2 billion gone. Plus running costs. But if its payment of delivery better for us.
Without wishing to sound trite we are an island. The army is under equipped not necessarily too small.
We need enough Wedgetail to have a plane aloft 24/7/365.
And we probably need twice as many P8.
Yes, we should focus on what we are good at and expand those areas.
We can do that with the levels of funding that are now in place.
No point in trying to recreate BAOR it is gone and would take decades to recreate and isn’t what is needed today.
We also need more RAF fighting mass and pilots. So I see an order for 25 F35B being announced with a P8 order and Mk41 for T31 and maybe some TLAM to keep Tangerine Man happy.
Maybe 2-3 more Type 31? Reform of recruitment.
BAOR did nothing once we had a viable A-bomb. Eurocentric defence and the Army holding sway in the MoD is what destroyed our defences. Look what happened after the Falklands. We send a force of spare infantry to the other end of the world with ships in defence not ideally suited to the role the RN being by then very much a ASW force. And we win. I often wonder whether somebody somewhere in Whitehall thought that perhaps UK defence efforts would be better directed towards mimicking the USMC and having a force to fight fires in the periphery? Not hard to imagine somebody dusting off plans for a supersonic Harrier and designs be drawn up for bigger Harrier carriers, new LPD’s, and better defensively armoured ships. Focus on what we are good as you said.
And for me the same mistake was made with the QE’s. Instead of looking at we did well ASW and light amphibious warfare and building a pair of 40,000 ton LHD something like USS Makin Island we just build a ‘normal carrier’. We can just about replicate a Wasp class’ air group now; swapping CH-53 for Crowsnest cabs. We could have justified an extra squadron or two of Pingers. There is a lot of talk here of modularity and the helicopter is just a module. Just as the missile in its VLS is a module. The modern warship is already modular in a real sense.
And we should have been buying TLAM in bulk from GW1. Again why wasn’t T45 designed with enough VLS capacity to match the Arleigh Burkes? Let’s leave the carriers to one side for a moment. Imagine a RN with 2 96+cell VLS cruisers in the Med (plus a tanker etc) and a further 2 in the Indian Ocean and what we didn’t have then our own reconnaissance satellites. We could have hit anything we would have wanted to hit with those deployments. Plus have four large capable ships sitting on our main trade route. TLAM is a bombardment weapon that can be used as a sniper rifle.
The priority really needs to much improved AA on our land to protect vital infrastructure, civil and military assets, as we as a country are unprotected from rogue state or terrorist fired hypersonic or ballistic missiles. The programme to improve the AA on the T-45 is already in the pipeline. The navy in general is on an improvement programme already.
The next priority has to be army troop and equipment numbers, Archer and land sceptre to name two things that we need much greater numbers of right now.
Land ceptor
A lot of the commentary is childish at best. To take the UK defence spending, as if it happened in a vacuum, as if our government is some wayward child, suggests an ignorance of analytical capabilities and historical awareness. As all western countries have reduced their spending since the last war and all non former soviet countries spend less than we do, this analysis is childish at best. We live in a democracy, therefore defence spending goes down and up, according to the political will of the people. This disparaging of leaders who diverted resources to other areas, after all we are not at war and are not under attack, or even in proximity to threats, are naive at best and perhaps disingenuous. Although Trump disgusts me, he is logical in suggesting that those in most proximity to the threat, should pay the most in their defence, yes Germany I’m looking at you.
Is Triumph too far gone to not be decommissioned? It strikes me that she would be very useful at the moment.
She was extended once at crazy costs.
The nuclear certified berth has not been converted for the Astutes.
Triumph was time exported and gave great service – time to move on.
Good overview. Thankyou.
It is also worth mentioning that both the nuclear deterrent and military pensions are included within the defence budget and have been since around 2010, when Osborne decided to do it to meet the minimum of 2% set by NATO. 2% is the minimum level recommended. not the target. Without trident and pensions, I expect our rel spend would be in the region of 1.5%.
Secondly, several analysts have already looked at 2TK figures and rubbished them, as well as suggesting that the payments to Mauritius for taking the Chagos Islands and Diego Garcia off our hands will be included in this figure.
Thirdly, I see others have mentioned the Albion and Bulwark and it is worth remembering that recovering a capability is considerably more expensive and takes a lot longer that maintaining one. The carriers are a prime example of that.
Finally, do I believe 2TFGK? Not a chance.
Basic maths — Moving from 2.0% of GDP to 2.5% of GDP is £13bill of cash in 2025 pounds or 2027 pounds.
IFS in ego tripping mode might want to bump their gums and claim that the reality is slightly different — that is what they do and how does the media luv to suck it up.
But today’s reality is not where the Treasury wants to be — 2.0% is what they have in their books and that was our and their reality going forward.
Large scale conflicts on the Eastern front may come and go but the Treasury view is what we have to deal with.
Albion and Bulwark — everything that is wrong with RN design and MOD contract delivery.
Harold Wilson capabilities at Tony Blair costs.
Too slow for the 1909 fleet.
Not good — flat screens or no flat screens.
All
There are three key issues noticeably missing from this “otherwise quite good” Navy Lookout article
TIMELINE
On the timeline……:
The simple fact is that the very nice Mr V Putin attacked the UK with WMD’s (note 1) back in 2018…
… an event which the (ongong) public inquiry says, and I quote:
“Could have killed thousands”.
So the 3rd March 2018 really ought to be been on the NL graph
(PS lets go out and celebrate this quite-unique seventh anniversary – it is next Monday!)
The only two people who emerge with any credit from that one (and only) attack on the UK mainland by another nation’s military forces since WW2 ended in 1945 were these two “very junior players”:
The still-ongoing public inqury simply confirms what many of us strongly suspected back in 2018 = that the entire response from the all of remainder of the British government really was totally and utterely incompetent
Let us also not forget that one attack with WMD’s on the UK mainland in 2018 came against the background of:
———————————–
The second thing missing from this NL article is something that is now essential at the very top of the UK defence establishment…
= the missing link is called IQ
Far too many people at the top of our UK defence establishment today only got there by saying the right things – i.e. toadying up to their bosses
Therefore. throughout the top echelons of all of our defence establishment – both the three armed services and also throughout the civil service and industry – there is nowdays a complete and utter lack of focus
Thus there is complete confusion – a confusion which is, incidentially, very evident in the article above – about three different terms:
Overall, this bugger’s muddle at the very top of the UK defence establishment today all stems from having some completely and utterely muddled lines of responsibiliy and accountability
There are, today, no fewer than ten massive organisations whom all think they are the “top dog” when it comes to taking any of those key decisions about defending the UK
These ten are:
——————
However – whatever one personally thinks of the New York propery developer with orange hair – .the good news is that he has now properly focused people’s attention here in the UK on defence = even if he has just trodden (very hard) on very many toes to do so ..
The good news is that:
All in all, the Donald’s actions today really do remind me of Bill Clinton’s back in the 1990’s
….when the civil war in the former Yugoslavia was ongoing (sorry, trigger warning not given…. I really must not use that nasty term war – it was Ethinic Cleansing)
The Yugoslav situation really got on the US President’s nerves whenever he watched the early evening news on CNN (i.e. Clinton News Network)
So Mr H Clinton then told the European governments to all go in and sort it all out..,..and they waffled on … on on…..using every excuse under the sun not to get involved…
There was therefore in the mid 1990’s some very serious arm-twistiing “behnd the scenes” – by the superpower called the US of A = all in all very similar to what is now happening with the negotiations about Ukraine and Gaza.
Difference now is, that with “The Donald” being in the Oval Office, this is all being played out in fromt of the media and also on social media (i.e. not behind sound-proofed diplomatic doors)
—————————-
Learning From the Past
There now needs to be proper UK defence review = one that gets back to being very focused on getting the basics right
I suggest that the next UK defence review comprises just one sheet of paper= recycled.
When Tom King took over the MOD, so round about the same time as the Berlin Wall fell, he pretty soon asked his top civil servant team what the MOD was there to do….
They then all milled about like sheep……and all looked completely flumoxxed.
They then, to be fair to them, a few weeks later came up with three very simple conclusions as to what the UK always needs to be doing for our national defence policy
These three key objectives in that “unofficial 1990 King” defence review were to
That one sheet of paper thus, in turn, lead to some very good reforms of the armed services throughtout the 1990’s……in particular:
And until the defence establishment fully focuses on these three key priorities – a focus which must be driven right from the very top – the UK will continue to waste one hell of a lot of our defence budget.
———————–
NEXT STEP – ONE MORE CUT!
So the third item which was, quite-noticeably, missing from this Navy Lookout article today was any comment whatssoever about the one (and only) growth area there has been in any aspect of UK defence expenditure over the past thirty five years (i.e. since the Berlin Wall came down in late 1989).
The UK now has a very-highly-bloated – and also very very inefficent – set of three national intelligence services
These three are, collectively, about twice the size of those which once (very sucessfully) operated throughout the original Cold War..
Thus many of those key lessons from the defence reviews of the 1990’s were forgotten on the 12th Sept 2001 – a date which can go down in history as when the intelligence establishment decided to take over all of the key responsibilities for defence of the UK.
.
So, in 2001, the spooks unilaterally decided that UK defence policy would become:
“UK national defence = war on terror”
A decision which, in turn, meant plenty more jobs ((and also big gold-plated pensions), for the boys and girls employed in the MI5 / M16 / GCHQ branches of the civil service
And so, despite that huge increase in expenditure, we have since had the following outcomes from our three UK intellgence agencies:
And so. with this quite appalling track record over the past three decades – it should now be quite obvious where the real problems in our defence estabishment now reside…..
That much needed IQ now needs to be brought to bear………the UK intelligence budget now needs to be cut (big time)
——-
To conclude…
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
Note 1.
Say again ?
Andy
?????
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
The figures are to NATO standards, it’s silly to suggest that we exclude what everyone else includes!
Trump just said the Chagos deal ‘Wasnt Bad’ and “I think we’ll be inclined to go along with your country, I have a feeling it’s going to work out very well.”
Expect an imminent screeching U-turn from Reform and the Conservatives in their opposition to it.
Watcherzero
I was watching it live on Sky News
He did, as you rightly pointed out (directly above) say exactly that
However ………
The Donald then went on to say, about one minutes later;
“we do need to see the details”
That key caveat was one that has been – quite frankly – not very well reported in the soundbites that were subsequently used by the news editors in their headline story
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
It is obvious that the announcement was timed to appeal to Trump. But what pushed Starmer to upset many in his party by taking funds from foreign aid? And how does he know what increase is needed until the SDR is completed? The answer I think is that the extra money announced will be required just to fund existing programmes. The MOD has not published a 10 year equipment plan since 2023 when it lurched back into a £17b shortfall because of increased and accelerated costs of the nuclear programme and the RN including costs of T32, T 85, MRSS, MROS, FAD none of which had even reached definition stage.
But defence inflation tends to run higher than general inflation so it is reasonable to assume that the additional money is to cover that. What happens if the SDR recommends increases in forces and equipment that can’t be afforded even by the announced higher funding, who knows?
The best we can hope for is that existing programmes might be accelerated a bit and that backlogs of maintenance can be overcome so that we have a higher level of availability of some very expensive assets.
The opposition had been pressuring Labour to commit to a firm date for reaching 2.5%, they had said they would do it by 2029 but Labour had only previously said it would be during this parliament. The ONS in their budget analysis last year actually modelled that it would increase gradually to 2.5% in 2029 in their five year spending forecast despite the government not allocating it.
Saying they would reach 2.5% by 2027, (two years earlier than the opposition) headed them off, but that it would continue to increase and reach just under 2.6% in 2028 with a large investment in Intelligence that year seems to have not got much press/commentator attention with most people only focussing on the 2.5% target headline.
As to why Aid in particular I think it was because it was the most flexible budget with the least domestic impact, taking from any other department would have required cuts in services and a third of the international aid budget is already being used to fund Asylum accommodation in the UK. While International Aid is softpower, Defence is hardpower so the increase in hardpower also offsets the reduction in softpower.
Peter S and Watcher Zero
The key issue that Rachel in the Accounts Department now faces is that the total UK National Debt now is – post the 2008 banking crisis and also post 2020 covid crisis – at huge post-wartime levels (see graph)
UK National Debt has only ever been higher after three very big wars: the Napolionic Wars; WW1 and WW2
Thus the regular interest repayments on the UK national debt are huge: each years repayments being about the same as the total annual UK education budget (which is the second highest spending depaartment, after the NHS)
The British national debt: how did we get here? – Intergenerational Foundation
So, without the ability to borow any more money on the national credit card: Rachel has had to face a very big challange –
Q1:
Where to initiate some big spending cuts to pay for defence of the Realm?
Thus – because foreigners don’t vote in elections – those big cuts happened to the foreign aid budget.
Frankly, those cuts have been a long time coming, and thus I believe they were quite inevitable
Interesting, the several public opinion polls run in the past week show an astonishing high level of public support for moving taxpayers money away from foreign aid over to defence : approval ratings from the pubic over the past week are typically 70%-80%.
Those opinion poll ratings really show that the UK general public is “pretty sensible”
Therefore it is only those wealthy missionaries – those who work in, and appear on the maninsteam media and social media etc – who are opposig those cuts to aid
The fact that The Donald forced this big increase in defence spending onto the UK just makes those left-wingers even more incensed.
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
Since 1762 over two hundred and fifty years ago our national debt as a share of GDP has been higher than the 96% today in more years than it has been lower.
The years where debt has been over 100% are approximatly:
1762-1776
1782-1860
1919-1959
2019-2022
Watcherzero
Thank you for posting…… all in all, a very interesting set of figures.
I hadn’t gone back nearly as far as you….. I stopped looking at 1800
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
Talk about lies, dam lies and statistics! PIT. If you had used the original source table, our level of debt, historically would have looked so so. Context is all;
https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/spending_chart
Following a global financial crisis and global pandemic, our level of debt is so so, compared to our peers and better than many. As any 1st grade economist would note, the level of debt is pretty irrelevant, what is important is; who owns the debt, the serviceability of the debt and the reason for the debt.
If you take a country such as Germany, with a chronic allergy to debt, this has consequences for infrastructure and growth, as they are now discovering.
Okamsrazor
I totally agree that the key issue is the repayability of that debt.
However history tells us that paying off the UK’s national debt, especially on the current huge scale, will take the UK a very very long time….
The UK only paid off the WW2 Lend Lease debt to the USA – which started on the very same day as the heaviest air raid of the Blitz (10th March 1941) just before Tony Blair came into power in 1997
(ie Lend-Lease repayments took over half a century)
———————-
On the really key measure – GDP per head – the UK economy has been flat-lining ever since 2000
There has also been, since 2008 a huge asset price bubble – caused by QE (ie big inflation in asset prices) directly caused by excessive money supply.
So many youngsters today realy struggle to even do the basics – i.e. to put a proper roof over their heads.
And those huge debts in the UK today – from allowing excessive immigration; failing to prepare properly for a pandemic and, especially, the 2008 banking crisis – were all fundamentaly caused by very basic (i.e. gross) incompetence at the very heart of government.
And it is not just that the UK has huge national debt those aforementioned youngsters are now taking out forty year long mortages, simply to put a roof over their heads
….so there are also huge private debts, in addition to the huge national debt
…. so those accumualted debts will probably take us about another half-century to pay off…………
——–
So, we now come onto your “interesting” comparision with the German economy……
Yes, once upon a time……the Germans did have superb infrastructure and a booming economy; and, at the same time, very little national debt.
However the much-feted-at the time (and very woke) Mrs Merkel, together with her utterly useless sidekick Ms Useless Von Der Leyen then reorganised the entire German economy, by:
So this is the effect, today, of their quite-spectacular economic policies:
A third of long-distance trains delayed in 2023, DB figures reveal
VW reaches union deal to cut 35,000 German jobs after gruelling talks | Reuters
And that was all happening before the full implications of what the President with orange hair has just said to Europe this week said…… which is a repeat of what he first said to Mrs Merkel eight years ago…….. = that Germany needs to stop freeloading on the USA for Europe’s defence
.and thus Germany will be the one nation that really looses out from Mr Trump being in the White House
….because Germnay will now
Thus the ordinary voters in Germany have now seen through their politician’s economic nonsense (i.e. word salad) = and they have just voted for big changes.
Coincidentially that election happened at the same time as the world order changed significantly: …..
.
German today – literally last week – is where the UK was back in 2016 with our Brexit vote.
.. and thus it is going to be a very interesting ride over for Germany over the next few years….
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
PS
Ms Useless Von Der Leyen is now doing exactly the same again, only this time on a much bigger scale – so really buggering up the entire EU….
Cutting ODA more refugees.
Overseas aid ? A good third of that is actually spent in Britain housing and supporting illegal migrants
Its a Sir Humphrey way of describing Home office expenditure
I think that disgusting display by Trump and Vance has demonstrated in no uncertain terms that America is as bad as Russia. That makes 2.5% on defence woefully inadequate – the UK and EU both need to quickly ramp up defence spending far beyond that. Our world – the UK and EU – just got a whole lot scarier.
Disgusting display by both for all the World to see.
We have just had an American administrative stoking a proxy war with the planet’s primary nuclear power. And all goes back to Obama’s administration orchestrating the original Kiev coup. AND YOU THINK THE WORLD IS SCARIER NOW BECAUSE TRUMP AND PUTIN ARE TRYING TO THE END WAR? Good grief. Give your head a wobble.
Games being played / now and in the past — happens all the time.
Ukraine if given the choice will vote with their feet and head west.
Russia and their unique form of big stick capitalism is failing.
Winter War levels of performance can’t be hidden — 3 years of failure.
Zhukov would be at the Dnieper River in less than a week.
Putin is playing a poor hand very badly.
Donny John is his only ace.
Big Auto — Russia was the Euro future in 2005.
But guys kept turning up looking for their cut.
Eventually even the desperate gave up.
They are not learning that lesson anytime soon.
Reckon you are pretty much alone with your view here. Take a look at World opinion on that meeting, it was a disgusting display of loud mouthed bullying and egotistical bipolar disorder. Didn’t you once state that Putin would never invade Ukraine ? Well you got that totally wrong as well.
Because Putin couldn’t win an invasion of large country like Ukraine with a decrepit army and airforce.
Thats was true
How is that true? Putin has taken control of huge areas of Ukraine and cost the lives of untold numbers. WIZ stated that he wouldn’t invade but he did.
Putin on his own? Really?
Russia occupies about 20% of Ukraine.
Foreign entities since the Ukraine constitution was changed as a condition of the IMF loan now own 30% of the Ukraine.
Who is grabbing Ukrainian land?
These kinds of conversations are nothing new in geopolitics. High-level discussions between world leaders often involve blunt rhetoric and strategic posturing—those familiar with these environments understand this. The key difference this time is that it played out in public, giving us a rare glimpse into the type of exchanges that typically happen behind closed doors.
Before anyone asks, I speak from personal experience as a former British MoD official, having been in the room with Defence Secretaries and Permanent Under-Secretaries during critical negotiations. Instead of getting caught up in partisan outrage, we should focus on the broader geopolitical realities at play.
The real issue here is the trajectory we’ve been on since the Obama administration’s involvement in Ukraine in 2014, which played a significant role in shaping the current conflict. Meanwhile, the previous U.S. administration actively escalated a proxy war with the world’s largest nuclear power. And now, suddenly, people are outraged because Trump and Putin are discussing ways to end it? The selective outrage is baffling.
This is a space to discuss military and defence matters. While politics inevitably influences international security, reducing the conversation to personal views on Trump—whether positive or negative—adds little value.
I’m more interested in what we all see as the priority moving forward: how we rebuild our forces, the role we will play within NATO and Europe, and what this means for the so-called “Global Britain” strategy, which, frankly, seems laughable in its current state.
This war is a continuation of US policy since 1991 when they declared they had won the Cold War and decided they wanted to own Russian resources.
I find it confusing that many here accuse Russia of sudden aggression after they sat on sidelines for 7 YEAR as over 14,000 ethnic Russians were killed by Kiev. At time when Germany and France under Minsk 1 and 2 should have done something to protect ethnic Russians.
It was perfectly correct for the US to invade Afghanistan within weeks of 911 apparently.
And many of the same criticising Russia now will be cheering when US forces go into South America to deal with Cartels. Which is something I support.
I am often the only sane voice. It is one of the many downsides of high IQ.
Yes I did say Russia wouldn’t invade. But as I keep saying I didn’t think it would happen because I DIDN’T BELIEVE THE US STATE DEPARTMENT WOULD BE STUPID ENOUGH TO PUSH THE AFFAIR TO WAR.
I have a consider opinions based on decades of experience. You do as the MSM tells you to do and think.
Yet another new name for you I see………
I agree, your IQ is staggering.
‘I have a consider opinions’ – What does this mean?
The great unanswered question of the 20th century — how would things have turned out if a certain political vibe had made it into the Oval Office in 1936 or 1940?
Famous aviators / radio priests / nativists had made it into power?
Where would that have left us / the world in the face of rampant ethnic expansionism?
Re-running the 1940’s was all in the imagination.
It was a journey into the make believe / what ifs.
Now it is our new reality.
Donny John is a true Hapsburg — he knows nothing / he learns nothing.
Velensky in the Oval Office — set up vs Starmer to blame?
Express — all Starmer’s fault for disrespecting Vance and leaving him bitter and twisted..
RoW — Set up because Donny John never forgives and he never forgets.
Interesting times this way comes.
What are the odds of conscription in place for the new academic year?
How high do people here think the defense budget will get to as percentage of GDP? I gotta believe that 2.5% is not the ceiling, given how things are going and that I keep hearing the increase to 2.5% only fills gaps and does not contribute to a real increase in capability.
“Defence”.
A lot will depend on the potential ceasefire. If it happens, the key question will be whether Europe and the UK still view Russia as a threat.
If we return to the complacency of the past 30 years, I don’t see 3% happening. With an election approaching, politicians will also consider whether increased defence spending is a vote-winner.
I personally hope there is consensus across all parties for reaching 3% within a meaningful timeframe
@peterf1000, totally agree. What happens after “cease fire” will be the key.
So disappointed we aren’t able to continue the “Fantasy Fleets” comments from the last article. Whatever happened to it ?
Taken down by the author, I believe. Unfortunate but not surprising, considering the strongly worded criticisms it sparked.