Britain’s pathetic defence spending is a repeat of 1930s mistakes

Too often, we neglect the Armed Forces only to be caught out by world events. We see that again today

It is an oft heard criticism of today’s political leaders that decisionmaking is too short term, focused on tomorrow’s headlines and securing the lead story on the Today programme. But if not looking far enough forward is a legitimate criticism, so too is ignoring the wisdom of hindsight.

When David Cameron took office in 2010, his new chief secretary to the Treasury found the shocking note from his Labour predecessor telling him that there was no money, and Liam Fox realised he had inherited a £35billion black hole in the Defence budget. The ensuing Defence Review of 2010 decided to solve the problem by taking risk: the starkest illustration was taking the entire Harrier aircraft fleet out of service years before their planned replacement would be ready.

Yesterday’s lead story in this newspaper (“Navy has so few sailors ships must be scrapped”) prompts an inevitable sense of déjà vu. Decommissioning HMS Westminster and HMS Argyll this year, at least four years before their successors HMS Glasgow and HMS Cardiff can join the fleet, is surely history repeating itself.

Defence risks must be weighed up in the context of current world affairs. The spill over from the Israel-Hamas conflict has now had a major impact on international shipping routes and world trade, which will inevitably exacerbate the cost-of-living crisis through rising prices here. As an island nation dependent on the sea lanes of the world for imports and exports, there is a very strong case for the Royal Navy to be able to play a full part in preserving our trade lifelines.

In that context, decommissioning two perfectly serviceable warships makes little sense. The argument seems to be based on the availability of sailors, but with HMS Westminster requiring a crew of less than 200 and some 700 needed for the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, one must ask whether the priorities are right?

Indeed, how wise does the decision in 1998 to propose two new aircraft carriers look now? At a cost of £6billion for those two ships, how many more frigates could have been procured?

While the world focuses on Israel and the Gaza Strip, there is still the threat to European security posed by Vladimir Putin’s continued aggression in Ukraine. That war is set to drag on, consuming vast resources on both sides.

Although the UK will remain a steadfast ally to Kyiv, the sight of an ugly land war in Europe does not make the current investment plans in our army look very clever. To upgrade only 148 Challenger 2 tanks and to cancel the Warrior infantry fighting vehicle upgrade will leave the smallest British Army in a century, with a modern warfighting capability that many of our allies, let alone prospective enemies, look askance at. Gifting our AS90 self-propelled artillery guns to Ukraine was a noble gesture last year, but with the replacement not due to be fielded until later this year, risk piles on risk.

We have been here before, almost disastrously. The determination that the First World War would be the war to end war led to the Ten-Year Rule that there would be no major war in Europe for 10 years. That policy was rolled forward year on year, allowing the then governments to spend very little on defence. Even when a dictator took power in Germany in 1933 and threatened the peace of Europe, the British response was to take the risk of appeasement rather than the deterrent strength of rearmament. Theodore Roosevelt had talked about the secret of international diplomacy being to speak softly while carrying a big stick. At Munich, Neville Chamberlain talked loudly, carrying just an umbrella.

Deterring war comes at a cost but fighting a war eclipses that cost. In 1935, Britain spent 3 per cent of GDP on defence. When appeasement failed and war began, we had to spend more, and after the Army had been defeated in France and the RAF was battling for control of our skies, we spent around 40 per cent on defence. Such is the price of failing to deter war.

Today we spend less than 2.3 per cent on defence. Is it any wonder that ships are being paid off and tanks scrapped? A look in the rear-view mirror of hindsight might just prevent history repeating itself.