On Tuesday the UK government announced that it had commissioned a Strategic Defence Review. The accompanying press release says that 'the review will consider the threats Britain faces, the capabilities needed to meet them, the state of the UK armed forces and the resources available.' It promises to be consistent with a 'NATO–first' policy.
I will admit that the announcement of a review of this kind often causes me to groan. It hardly seems long ago that the UK last carried out such an exercise. The 2021 Integrated Review, moreover, was followed two years later by a 'refresh' document which updated it to take into account new security challenges. Still, with a new government and (in my opinion) years of neglect on defence I think the review is appropriate.
In this blog I argue that the UK needs to increase defence spending, especially by expanding the size of its armed forces, but the country also needs to avoid getting tangled in an obsession with numbers.
Defence debates
In everyday conversation there are two views that often crop up about defence spending. Listening to the radio recently, I heard a caller on a phone–in show express the first such view. 'It's as if the government doesn't realise how many people are waiting for hospital operations. This money is needed for the NHS not the military.' I prickled inside listening. People expressing this viewpoint seem to believe defence is a luxury that comes last when allocating budgetary resources. It's as if the caller didn't realise that there won't be an NHS if we don't have a country because we've been invaded or nuked out of existence. (I exaggerate, if only slightly.)
The second view, typically coming from a retired general, goes to the other extreme. For proponents of this viewpoint, defence is the priority and everything else comes after. In an important academic paper, David Baldwin labels this perspective the 'prime value approach': it thinks that 'security is a prerequisite for the enjoyment of other values such as prosperity, freedom, or whatever.' I don't fully embrace this view either because it has no end. You could keep arguing that more money should be spent on defence and security until there's nothing left for anything else. Even if defence is more important than certain other areas of spending, it doesn't mean spending every penny on it. The reality is somewhere between.
Baldwin argues for a different perspective based on the 'law of diminishing marginal utility'. This perspective recognises that there are many important policy objectives and resources should be allocated to defence and security only as long as the return is greater than for committing those resources to other policy objectives. After a certain point, the country is reasonably secure and each extra 'unit' of resources committed to it brings slighter and slighter benefits. Defence and security may be one of the primary roles of government, but it is not the only one, and the gains on spending are less and less after a certain point.
The right thing to do
The relevant detail right now is that the UK's armed forces have been cut to the bone. An obvious area where money needs spending, in my view, is to increase staff numbers. In 2010, when the British public voted out the last Labour government, the armed forces amounted to 177,890 fully–trained personnel (the size of the army was 102,260 personnel, the RAF 40,130, and the Royal Navy 35,500). In 2023, by contrast, the total size of the British armed forces was 130,660, which is to say more than 25% smaller (army: 73,190; RAF: 28,550; navy: 28,920). The official data is here.
For comparison, during the second world war, with conscription, the country had nearly five million personnel in uniform. In 1952 the UK had more than 800,000 people in its armed forces. Since the 1950s, defence spending as a proportion of GDP has fallen from 7% to roughly 2%. Although UK defence spending in real terms has increased over the past few years, the additional spending has gone mostly to maintaining and acquiring equipment and land.
One might argue that the numbers of troops is less significant than their effectiveness. I disagree. At some point, absolutely, that will be the case but currently the UK's armed forces are too small to provide a meaningful defence capability. When a former US National Security Adviser offered a withering assessment of the UK's defence capabilities recently (see this post for the comments), one could hardly disagree.
Britain's shrinking troops. Note that this graph is provided for illustrative purposes and uses different data from the figures cited in the text, hence small inconsistences with the numbers mentioned.
Getting it right
An eminent trio of external reviewers will lead the reporting process. The combination of former NATO Secretary–General Lord Robertson, Fiona Hill and General Sir Richard Barrons brings a good combination of experience and expertise.
I hope the review will concur that, despite economic constraints, the UK simply has to spend more on defence than it currently does. Critics will say spending leads to waste and that is often true. Spending itself cannot be the measure of an effective commitment or policy. As Goodhart's Law has it: 'When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.' That is why a review is necessary and why this review – 'root and branch' is how the government has described it – must not encourage an obsession with numbers. If all that matters is spending, say, 2.5% of GDP on defence, dubious accounting practices are likely to emerge.
It needs to focus on specifying the capabilities that are lacking in the unstable world the UK finds itself in. In the event of a major war, the UK will need large numbers enrolled into its armed forces; technology cannot replace manpower. In overseas wars, the UK has needed to engage local troops to hold onto territory: for example, a central component of the UK contribution to fighting ISIS in Iraq was training Iraqi and Kurdish security personnel (see this report, p.12). (One of my gripes with the Integrated Review a couple of years ago was that I thought it focused too much on new technology.) I sincerely hope there will not be a large war. But if there is, then the larger the armed forces are going into it, the easier it will be to conduct training of new recruits or conscripts at scale and at pace.
On Tuesday Prime minister Keir Starmer spoke of 'responsibly increasing' defence spending. Defence secretary John Healey spoke of 'clearer accountability [for the armed forces], faster delivery, less waste and better value for money.' The words are all good. Let's hope the review is accomplished swiftly, rigorously and impartially.
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