We've been here before: what the 1930s teach us about rearmament

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We are living in a new era of threat. So writes the Defence Secretary John Healey in the just published UK Strategic Defence Review. This is a credible document, reflecting the serious team assembled to work on it. But it's come under fire for promising much without explaining where the funding will come from.
Sir Keir Starmer has committed to lift defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP from April 2027, with an ambition to reach 3 per cent in the next Parliament. This is a good first step. But laying out a plan, fully funding commitments and prioritising investments all matter. So, too, does discounting for the optimism bias around procurement. In defence, we commit in haste and are billed at leisure.
The strategic environment has pivoted fast. We live in a world where great power competition is a reality.
It took time for governments across Europe to wake up to the level of threat. Radek Sikorski, Poland's foreign minister, was an early proponent of higher defence spending. In a brilliant speech last summer at the Ditchley Foundation, he reminded his audience that: 'We are in a pre-war moment. The question is not whether we will be attacked, but whether we will be ready.' The Poles have been preparing. They have been there before.
History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Our volatile world now looks and tastes more like the 1930s: competing nationalisms and a real threat of war. But there are differences, too. In 1935, even amid mass unemployment and economic hardship, Britain spent more of its GDP on defence then than the 2.3 per cent we spend today. That in a year when 2.5 million were out of work and industrial output had not yet returned to pre-1929 levels.
The difference now is that other demands on the public purse have grown: the NHS, pensions, and a large welfare state. A more expansive government is more expensive. This is partly true – but Britain's levels of debt in the 1930s were much higher than they are today. We now need to invest in fresh capabilities as we did then. Just as air power represented the cutting-edge military technology then, cyber and space capabilities define today's defence frontier.
All this takes us to the task ahead. There needs to be a vigorous national debate about defence and the current and likely threats we face. Despite social-media doomscrolling and breaking news, public understanding of the threat and what it means has yet to filter through. It's incumbent on all our politicians in government and opposition to be fostering that debate. There's a job for universities, too, where – with a few noble exceptions – teaching and talking about war and defence has withered.
We need to be spending much more on defence. The UK risks falling down the league table of European defence spending as others commit to lifting their budgets. There is a logic for Britain to pursue a Nato-first approach and focus on the near-term challenge: Russian aggression. But there is also a logic in maintaining 'actor-agnostic' capability – you never know where the next threat comes from. Cyber attacks mean that hackers in North Korea or China can threaten UK national security. There is still a logic in keeping close to the United States: our firmest ally, a generous friend and the most powerful country in the world. Yet there is logic, too, in co-operating with European countries – while protecting our own strategic autonomy – because we need manufacturing and innovation as well as money.
The Allies won in the Second World War because of money, technology and manufacturing prowess, as well as grit, leadership and sacrifice. Without committing enough money, Britain's rhetoric on defence will run hollow. The 2025 defence review is a major contribution, but what matters most is money. This Wednesday we will see that unfold when the Chancellor sets out the spending review.
Prof Alexander Evans teaches at the London School of Economics
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