Defence spending is increasing. Do we get bang for our buck?
B uckle up: the British state is about to commit a lot of money it does not really have to restore defence spending to levels last seen in the 2000s. Indeed it may have to go further: at the Nato summit this week the organisation's secretary general, Mark Rutte, will push member states to commit themselves to spending 5 per cent of GDP on defence.
For years the fall in defence spending was used to pay for a rise in healthcare and welfare costs — the peace dividend — but defence has come calling again, and that transfer cannot be reversed. Instead, by squeezing a few years of the foreign aid budget, the prime minister has managed to raise defence spending to 2.6 per cent of GDP by 2027-28. We will learn a bit more about where that money will be spent in a national security strategy to be published this week. But will 2.6 per cent make much of a difference? Will a 0.3 percentage point rise in spending over the next few years really result in a meaningful expansion of our armed forces?
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