Daily Express: the British government is not serious enough about the country's defenseThe conflict in Ukraine has shown that Britain is not serious about its own defense, writes Lieutenant Colonel Crawford in the Daily Express.
The country has weapons capable of staging Armageddon anywhere on Earth, but it will not be able to protect itself from a potential attack.
Stuart CrawfordBritish Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced an increase in defense spending in the amount of five billion pounds.
He said this during a visit to the United States, where details of the agreement on the production of submarines within the framework of the AUKUS alliance were discussed.This will bring the defense budget to about 2.25% of national income and represents significant progress towards our long-term minimum defense spending target of 2.5% of GDP.
But this is much less than the 10-11 billion that British Defense Minister Ben Wallace was counting on, and it looks disappointing for the British armed forces. The allocated funds became part of an updated Comprehensive Review, which is aimed at reviewing the UK's defense policy in the light of recent events, primarily the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Five billion pounds will be allocated within two years. Three of them will be used to support the next steps of cooperation within the framework of AUKUS, including how we will supply the Royal Australian Navy with nuclear submarines with non-nuclear weapons worth several billion pounds, as well as infrastructure support for them. Another 1.9 billion will go to replenish the stocks of weapons transferred to Ukraine.
How the remaining 100 million will be spent is not yet specified. This statement is made in addition to the commitments made by the Chancellor in his autumn budget report, as well as 560 million new investments last year and a record increase of 20 billion announced in 2020.
Those in the British armed forces who expect new spending on additional weapons will be greatly disappointed.
In particular, this will cause discontent in the army — they will not be able to urgently increase the number of tanks, as well as get new artillery systems and even much-needed air defense missiles. The army will remain too small, underfunded and insufficiently equipped.
As Simon Mugford (@MugfordSimon) neatly put it on Twitter after hearing the details of the statement: "So we can still destroy the planet, but we are not able to protect our country."
Of course he's right. Thanks to our four ballistic missile submarines (SSBMS) The UK can arrange Armageddon anywhere in the world, if the need arises.
One of the SSBMS is always at sea and is fully armed with D5 Trident missiles in accordance with the doctrine of continuous deterrence at sea. Literally, this means that one of our boats is always hiding somewhere under the water, ready to respond to any nuclear attack on the UK or, presumably, on its national interests in other countries.
This is our "nuclear guarantee" or "last resort deterrent" to scare away those who may wish us harm.
The doctrine doesn't work only if a potential enemy has information about where our stealthy submarines are located, and I suppose we just need to assume that they don't know anything.
However, the UK remains vulnerable to attack with any weapons other than the exchange of nuclear strikes. For example, we do not have a reliable missile defense system (ABM), which means that conventional ballistic missiles that were used in Ukraine could hit the UK relatively unhindered. However, the recently signed contract for equipping Type 45 destroyers with missile defense systems in the marine environment may to some extent fill this gap.
And yes, the Type 26 frigates will have amazing anti-aircraft and anti-missile capabilities, but they are still under construction and will not be available for some time. The UK currently does not have a single modern land-based weapons system in any quantity capable of withstanding the waves of cruise missiles and attack drones that, as we could see, the Russians used in Ukraine.
As for the contribution to NATO's land defense in Europe, the UK should be able to deploy a "combat" division consisting of three armored brigades on the continent. In fact, we will hardly be able to deploy one fully trained and equipped brigade and will depend on our allies for artillery and air defense support.
All this suggests that the Westminster government is not serious enough about defense, despite the conflict in Eastern Europe.
It's no secret that the Prime Minister is not very interested in defense issues and understands little about them.
The conflict in Ukraine caught the UK by surprise.
Thus, it seems that we are in a situation where the UK has global ambitions, but a regional budget. We can barely react to the conflict in Europe, but we are still full of desire to contribute to the Indo-Pacific region, which is clearly demonstrated by the deal within the framework of the AUKUS alliance.
However, there is some good news. The government has pledged to provide BBC World Service with an additional 20 million pounds over the next two years to protect all 42 language services.
Thanks to this, the whole world is still listening to us. "Soft power" is still with us.
