The drumbeats prophesying war are getting louder. Speaking in Berlin this week Mark Rutte, the new Secretary General of Nato, warned that Europe, once again, is staring at a potential conflict “on the scale of war our parents and great-grandparents endured… reaching every home, every workplace. Destruction, mass mobilisation, millions displaced.”
The immediate threat today is from Vladimir Putin. Russia is already on a war footing as it seeks to annex Ukraine by bloody force. The Russian President barely troubles to disguise his ambitions. “We are not planning to go to war with Europe. But if Europe wants to, and starts, we are ready right now”, he menaced unreassuringly at the start of this month.
We – the United Kingdom and our democratic allies on the continent – are not ready for war. The so-called Coalition of the Willing, or COW, is struggling to deliver enough support so Ukraine can keep on fighting.
If the UK, France and Germany fail, then defending ourselves may become existential. An invigorated but unsated Russia would likely seek further conquests to the West, while Trump’s USA holds back, interested only in what America First can extract from the “weak” and “civilisationally” alien Europe depicted in this month’s US National Security Statement.
Meanwhile, for all the summits and high-level diplomacy, Sir Keir Starmer’s government is failing to make the defence of the realm a priority. As they all squabble over the cost of living and public services, the opposition parties are no better. Nor, it must be said, has British public opinion woken up to the threat and sacrifices required to stay safe in this post-postwar era.
The Prime Minister has talked tough repeatedly on defence spending, escalating defence pledges to 2.5 per cent of GDP in 2027, to three per cent in the next parliament, and then to 3.5 per cent by 2035. But the OBR watchdog found these fighting words “not funded” in Rachel Reeves’s November budget. In this policy area, as in others, Starmer states a bold ambition without implementing measures to make change a reality.
George Robertson, the former Nato Secretary General, who led the UK’s recent Strategic Defence Review, warns “the money will have to be made available in some way.” But under current financing the Royal United Services Institute points out “if you’re going to deliver the SDR and accelerate new capabilities and new ways of equipping the forces, there’s going to have to be some kind of cuts.” Far from strengthening our existing military capability, it faces cuts in the short run.
Funding Ukraine’s war effort should be the easy bit. The €210bn of Russian assets held on EU territory are effectively free money, desperately needed to prevent Ukraine going bust next year. Supporting Ukraine to make sure that Russian is not rewarded for its aggression would be far cheaper than fighting the sort of total war Rutte is warning about.
In the middle of the Second World War the UK was spending 54 per cent of its GDP on the war effort. Rationing, conscription and the repurposing of industrial production were in force. There was no welfare state then. That is where our money has gone since.
The overall tax rate in wartime was not far above its level today but borrowing soared, with the debt/GDP ration reaching 250 per cent.
If Rachel Reeves is to obey her rules then big borrowing is out, even if the markets were up for it, which they are not. So that means going back to the drawing board to keep the nation safe. Reeves needs to rethink her decision to rule out across the board tax increases. The welfare bill is unsustainable, and needs cutting urgently, but taxes are going to rise too in the face of increased threat – and every household should expect to pay their part.
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Halting and deterring Russia now – and not only provisionally as Trump and Putin intend – will require a sustained qualitative change in the UK’s spending priorities. Starmer may not be the leader to deliver that.
For all his globetrotting this year – he’ll be in Germany for more COW talk on Monday – Starmer did not go to the Munich defence conference in February where Vice President JD Vance first spelt out his new administration’s contempt for Europe.
If the UK endorses an American dictated settlement for Ukraine, it threatens to be another Munich – the one in 1938 – with Starmer reprising the role of Neville Chamberlain, hoping for peace in our time while inadvertently opening the door to total war in Europe.
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