Britain’s armed forces lack the mass, readiness and resilience needed to produce a credible deterrent in an era of intensifying threats. The danger comes not only from an aggressive and expansionist Russia but from a reckless and murderous Iranian régime with its back currently to the wall, while China continues to use any means at its disposal to advance its interests globally. To begin to meet these threats, His Majesty’s government must give an absolute and unqualified commitment to increase core defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP, with a clear timeline for delivery. This cannot wait.
This argument has been set out in an open letter to the Prime Minister by the analysis and advocacy group Defence on the Brink. Full disclosure: I am a member and contributing editor at Defence on the Brink, which was founded by my colleagues Ted Jeffery and Col (Ret’d) Philip Ingram, along with Col (Ret’d) Simon Diggins and Cormac Smith.
But you don’t have to take our word for it. The letter has been signed by more than 30 senior figures in defence and security, including three former defence secretaries, a former chief of the general staff, a former first sea lord, an ex-chief of the Secret Intelligence Service and three ex-chairs of the House of Commons defence committee. These are people who have earned a hearing.
Too many people are underestimating the danger of the current geopolitical situation. It is easy to argue that Russian combat troops are not poised to invade the British Isles, though the fact that Russia’s embassy in London said last summer that the Kremlin ‘harbours no aggressive intentions and has no plans to attack Britain’ should make us suspicious. But imagining that the 1st Guards Motor Rifle Regiment parading along Whitehall is the only form of military aggression we face is desperately simplistic and out of date.
The threat of war is not a distant possibility; in some ways it has already arrived. Dr Fiona Hill, former senior director for Russia on the US national security council and one of the authors of the UK’s 2025 strategic defence review, has pointed to Russia’s ‘poisonings, assassinations, sabotage operations, all kinds of cyber attacks and influence operations. The sensors that we see that they’re putting down around critical pipelines, efforts to butcher undersea cables.’ Her conclusion was stark: ‘Russia is at war with us’.
We are woefully underprepared. Governments of all persuasions have indulged too deeply in the post-cold war ‘peace dividend’ and resorted too often to short-term political expediency. Procurement programmes have been deferred and diluted, with half-measures the order of the day. But the effect has been cumulative.
The British Army’s strength in regular troops – trained and untrained – is currently 74,270, lower than at any time since the Napoleonic wars. If Sir Keir Starmer’s cherished coalition of the willing were ever activated, we would struggle to generate an expeditionary force much above brigade size, between 3,000 and 5,000, without seriously compromising current commitments. The Royal Artillery, having transferred its entire fleet of around 100 AS-90 self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine, now relies for close support on an interim force of 14 – yes, fourteen – Archer Artillery System 08s bought from Sweden.
The Royal Air Force has no medium-lift helicopters, having retired its fleet of Pumas before a contract for their replacement had even been awarded. Its F-35 Lighting squadrons have aircraft available at a third of the Ministry of Defence’s target, and were unable to carry out any missions at all between October 2024 and January last year due to maintenance. Recently there have been times when as few as one or two of the Royal Navy’s five Astute-class attack submarines have been operational. We have no comprehensive anti-ballistic missile defence system.
The government is in denial. It is increasing defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027, and has committed to meet the Nato target of 3.5 per cent on core defence and 1.5 per cent on wider resilience and security by 2035. Yet the Ministry of Defence is facing a shortfall of £28 billion over the next few years simply to make the United Kingdom ‘war-ready’. As our letter to the Prime Minister says clearly:
Britain and our Nato allies continue to talk tough on deterrence and collective security, yet our actions fall dangerously short of matching this rhetoric and of meeting our treaty obligations. We are deluding ourselves if we believe Russia and our other adversaries are unaware of this.
We cannot tinker at the margins any more. Headline increases which equate to stasis or real-terms cuts are unacceptable and designed to mislead the electorate. The government has to be honest, initiate the ‘national conversation’ on defence and security advised in the strategic defence review, and face up to the fact that making us safe and resilient will cost a lot more than we are currently spending.
Our letter sought to be clear and straightforward but without hyperbole. The seniority of the signatories attests to that. But the gravity of the current situation cannot be ducked. ‘You must recognise that we are facing our 1936 moment: global conflict is highly likely if we don’t invest in deterrence now.’
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