The MoD wanted more money. Does it deserve it?
John Healey, the former defence secretary, resigned on Thursday because the government wouldn’t give defence more money. Experts, military chiefs, and even Keir Starmer have stated that defence is the priority, so what went wrong? Good defence spending prevents war, because it makes an adversary think twice about attacking you. In a perfect scenario, the guns and missiles are never fired, because the cost of war is greater than the cost of deterrence: Ukraine is spending half of its GDP and losing thousands of lives because Putin thought he could win. But that money needs to come from somewhere, which is a difficult argument to win: we never see the wars we don't fight, but we do see the potholes that aren't filled or the taxes on our payslips.
