By Scott Raffan and Ross Munro
On the 2nd of September 1939, Britain went to war with Germany. The question of Britain’s readiness in such a scenario today is contested by defence experts.
The head of the UK Armed Forces, Sir Richard Knighton, views our current era as the “most dangerous” period he has known. This is largely due to the Kremlin’s irredentism in Ukraine and the risk of further spillover into NATO states.
The Government is currently spending around 2.3% of GDP on defence and has committed to meeting NATO’s target of 3% by 2030 and 3.5% by 2035. Although, as The Gaudie reported previously, the Defence Investment Plan will only see defence spending rise to 2.7% by 2030.
Russia currently spends 6.2% of GDP, £117 billion, on defence. Russia has a war economy and prioritises defence over welfare; Britain is not, and if it were to, in the event of war spend the same as a percentage of GDP, then it would dwarf them at £188 billion.
However, financial commitments do not automatically translate to readiness. Russia has half a million troops and is already on a war footing with hard lessons being learned in Ukraine. Including reservists, Britain has around 183,000 service personnel whose experience has largely been in the War on Terror over the last two decades in the Middle East.
The Gaudie’s exclusive interview with Dave Doogan MP shed further light on the state of the UK’s defence. The minister criticised the “twenty-four billion pound gap in the Defence Investment Plan” and argued that prioritising Trident has caused the UK to “starve conventional defence” which he described as “the type of defence that we are going to need.”
Further criticising procurement, Doogan told us that the UK is discovering that “the United States is not the ally that we thought it was” and that it’s been far too easy to just buy off the shelf American product” or “upgrade [equipment] maybe a little bit because we can’t afford to replace it.”
NATO’s newest member, Finland, has a very different approach to Britain. General Sir Patrick Sanders said Britain must “begin preparing by building bunkers”. Finland has over 50,000 bomb shelters across the country, which allows most of the country to remain safe in the event of war.
Finland spends less of its GDP on defence at 2.5%, but mandatory civil service for men has prepared Finnish society for war. 280,000 soldiers are full-time, with 900,000 reserve Finns trained to defend the nation in the event of a conflict.
How and if the UK will fill the funding gap in the Defence Investment Plan will be answered when Chancellor John Healey reveals the Budget at the end of October. In our interview, Dave Doogan said that he “suspect[s] it won’t be plugged.”