2% of GDP on Defence Balls

Sir John Redwood, writing in his diary last week, commented on the NATO summit and stressed the importance of the UK “helping secure proper financing of the defence capabilities we need from all our allies, and to work to get our allies in more agreement about the importance and aims of NATO.”  Pious words but regrettably somewhat typical of the political class who are all too ready to proclaim the importance of defence but are rather more reticent when it comes to prioritising the budget accordingly.  Indeed, it is a pity that such a pre-eminently important matter is not taken more seriously in the manifesto – I quote from another frequent visitor to my Inbox, the analyst Howard Wheeldon:

“I am grateful to Henry Jones, a young up and coming defence journalist, for this and actually took the trouble to count up that in the Tory Party manifesto of 2017 there had been 640 words devoted to defence whilst in the 2019 manifesto this had been cut back to just 195 words! For one if not the primary roles of government – that of defence of the realm – for such a vitally important area to have been downgraded by the party almost to the status of being an also-ran department is to my mind quite appalling.”

In the current auction of electoral promises, an inconvenient non sequitur arises from the implication, grandly virtue-signalled by those who should know better, that the UK will fulfil its defence obligations if only it should spend 2% of its GDP thereon.  As a result the electorate will come to believe (why shouldn’t they believe the politicians) that as long as a magic outlay of 2% is achieved we shall all live happily ever after?  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Firstly, 2% is probably an entirely arbitrary figure dreamed up at NATO HQ to fulfil some goal or communique.  It is a political declaration most likely based upon what, despite their vulnerability, even the Belgians might grudgingly stump up to insure against being trampled over again. It has nothing to do with what we need to do the job. Historically we spent a lot more of our GDP on defence before being seduced into cashing in the peace dividend (several times over).  Secondly, we don’t actually spend all that money on people and kit and a significant percentage is made up through creative accounting, pensions, for example, to please the bean-counters.  Finally, and most significantly, the threat has not diminished since the peace dividend was cashed in.  Far from it and the diversity of things that could harm us is, if anything, is more concerning than the relative stability of the Cold War confrontation.  Why should we feel, now, that 2% should be enough?

The problem is that our defence expenditure does not seem to be linked to what our foreign policy, such as it is articulated, might require us to undertake.  The arbitrary 2% may or may not be enough – take your pick and take your chance!  Incongruously, Conservative governments have not been very good at providing what the armed forces need, often quite the contrary.  Fortunately, when stretched, the armed forces have been able to “punch above their weight” but that convenience wore thin long ago.  Nowadays, we are told, we cannot even field and support a fighting Division – a parsimonious bottom line of Cameron’s defence butchery.  This is a truly a truly pathetic condition for a nuclear capable member of the Security Council and so-called principle ally to the USA for coalition operations, to find ourselves.  It really is simple: if we cannot afford the defences necessary to uphold our foreign policy then we need to change our foreign policy accordingly.  It is not a chicken and egg – the job of Government is to define the policy.  Then Government has the inescapable responsibility give the armed forces the tools they need and trust them to finish the job.

So when, inevitably, we have another defence review let us hope, like the promising (but subsequentially betrayed) defence review of 1997, that the new Government will indeed link defence posture to policy.  When it suits, governments can make grand commitments: climate change, overseas aid spending and pensions triple lock, for example.  So talking of locks, why cannot we lock our defence posture to our foreign policy?  If it is politically convenient to make grand gestures on becoming carbon neutral surely, as the first duty of government, we can expect them to make a similar, but meaningful, long-term pledge on our future security?