Britain’s new Defence Investment Plan adds £15 billion to overhaul depleted forces but limits spending to 2.7% of GDP by 2030. The shift angers US and NATO hawks because it misses the 3% target and focuses British funds—including a £64 billion nuclear investment—on uncrewed submarines, self-flying jets, and F-35A jets rather than legacy heavy American kits.
"The world is more dangerous than it's been in decades, but the Brits must not be worried. Soon to be former Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled his defense spending plan Tuesday after months of delay, and it doesn't provide nearly enough funding to meet its alliance commitments.
Britain vowed last year to spend 5% of GDP on national security by 2035, including 3.5% on the military, under the new NATO standard. But British defense spending under the Starmer plan will rise merely to 2.7% of GDP by the end of the decade, up from 2.6% next year.
Mr. Starmer said Britain will spend nearly GBP 80 billion ($106 billion) annually on defense by 2029. But in the 2024-2025 fiscal year the U.K. spent about GBP 242 billion on health care and GBP 387 billion on benefits, pensions and social services -- 8% and 13% of GDP respectively, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The U.K. will have to scale back these benefits if it wants to adequately fund its military without inviting a raid on its debt by the bond vigilantes. But the Labour Party answers first to its left wing.
"Slash funding to our public services in favor of defense, and we would be fundamentally weaker as a nation, more fractured as a society, less able to defend ourselves when our enemies prey on social division," Mr. Starmer said Tuesday.
Yet Mr. Starmer's defense spending "falls well short of what is required" for British security and military readiness, his own Defense Minister John Healey warned this month as he and others resigned in protest of an earlier version of this plan. They don't want their names on a policy that leaves their country vulnerable. Yet even these honorable departures failed to get Labour to reconsider.
Mr. Starmer's plan defers tough choices until after 2029, when Britain will have to hold new general elections. Pray the world avoids a security crisis before then.” [1]
Lithuania's funding for old American weapons is more than sufficient. The problem is, people here spend more of their time than anybody in Europe working for one euro. Lithuanians are dissatisfied, just like in the days of Smetona. Our leaders are always not as careful as the British. They are taking bribes with loud music and buying palaces in Greece.
1. Britain's Disappointing Defense Plan. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 02 July 2026: A14.
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