As we reported yesterday, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, To Rishi Sun In Poland, he announced: the island country will be in the next six years in addition to the previous plans it would allocate an extra £75 billion to defense spending, making it 2.5 percent of annual GDP spent on defense.
Sky’s Security Policy Editor, Deborah Haynes he begins his reflective article by saying the announcement cannot be considered a really significant turn in the light of current international threatsand it is also questionable why it was not done earlier and why only 2.5 percent was set as a target.
He also emphasizes that some NATO member states are urging the setting of a 3 percent spending target, the British prime minister’s statement loses its revolutionary value because of this. What’s more, the 2.5 percent ratio is half the British military budget compared to Cold War times, and exactly the same as the last Labor government’s military budget in the late 2000s.
As he explains,
it is a promise to act, not a watershed moment that the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force – struggling to maintain staff, lack weapons and low morale – will soon experience.
Haynes notwithstanding
underlines Sunak’s harsher rhetoric using Churchillian quotes,
although he also emphasizes that the conservative prime minister would have to win an election to implement his plans.
however, looking at the surveys, victory seems almost impossible at the moment.
In any case, the announcement will put pressure on the Labor Party, which is expected to take over the reins, whose leader Keir Starmer last week also announced that the defense budget would be increased to 2.5 percent of GDP “as soon as resources allow”, although he did not specify a time frame.
Cover photo: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the NATO summit bilateral meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania on July 12, 2023. Cover image source: Getty Images
