The UK’s 5% Defence Spending Target Is Just Another Box-Ticking Exercise

 The UK last month announced it has comitted to 5% defence spending by the year 2035 in the face of recent global threats and instability. A significant increase from previous 2% defence spending targets under previous nato guidelines. But is this worth it and is it really effective to measure your defence capability by how much of your GDP you spend?

This is where I believe our nations defence issue highlights itself. This nation seems to measure anything by how much money is wasted on it. We could very well be spending a extra 2% of GDP on the military and yet still be struggling to mobilise 40,000 troops. A spending increase on the military is effectively a waste of money if you are not going to increase your manpower count. which currently sits in the 70k range, with most of that figure likely being civilian reserves with real jobs, not proffesional soldiers, and alot of that likely admin and technical staff. 

With that in mind we see that our government is overly bureaucratic. They set a spending target, throw money at the sector to tick a box that they have spent all this extra money on defence, without actually increasing manpower and battle ready career soldiers or our nations actual ability to field a army capable and big enough to fight in a battle larger than a playground riot. 

Now for example if we set a requirement of 2% of the population size requirement as military manpower, the UK would have a more suitable 1.3 million manpower in its army and easily be able to defend from any of its enemies anywhere around the world on its own without help from anyone. This would be much more effective than simply using money spent as the core metric to determine military readiness. we can spend trillions on our army and keep manpower to 70k, all that extra money wont make that 70k any more effective, they will still be over run by a nation that fields a 1 million manpower army. The UK needs to rethink this bureaucratic system and realise it needs a requirement of manpower based on population percent rather than spending. Focusing on spending is only promoting a waste of money. in the end we need manpower to fight wars, even if that manpower is equipped with rusty old guns it will still beat a tiny well equipped army. for a prestigious nation such as the UK we should be expecting a army of this size.

Not only that, its also out navy too that needs a boost and reform. As a island nation we should be a inpenetrable fortress impossible for any to steo foot on, we should be the safest place on the planet. yet we find thats not the case. we barely have much in the way of naval forces and instead of equipping the navy to our requirements we have instead just copied off whatever american does. for example our focus on aircraft carriers. for defence a aircraft carrier serves no purpose for us. for america it made sense as it served as a mobile base for americans to assert command and control over the pacific far away from american airbases. for UK defence we can launch aircraft from our nations airbases, which makes aircraft carriers pointless, the only such reason would be for the defence of the falkland islands if it ever slipped into hostile control again, only then would we need a mobile base to serve to retake the islands far away. but for defence? its not needed.

The carriers cost a obscene amount of money for no real defence purposes for the UK. We likely could scrap a single one of these carriers and build maybe 3 to 6 destroyers, which could more effectively cover and monitor our shores and waters. While our air cover for defence wont be effected by the loss of the carriers at all due to use of local RAF air bases on our land. As we see there seems to be bad financial management and decisions in UK around defence. Where we pick the most expensive option that isnt the most suitable or effective for us.

So this increase of spending to 5% by 2035 isnt really going to change much. its just another beaurocratic black hole of monetary waste that isnt going to seriously increase our militaries capability to defend us from threats. I do say this as a concerned citisen too, I personally would like to see the UK make better more realistic choices in its defence. Worryingly it seems our military bases are not even defended judging by events from RAF Brize Norton, our largest most important airbase which got casually strolled into by a bunch of random civilians who then sabotaged RAF planes. This was a very embarrassing display on the global stage and shows that we dont even have manned defended military bases. How can we defend our nation if our military bases cant even detect and stop some unarmed untrained civilians breaking and entering? this highlights a huge security concern our nations enemies can and will exploit. Will they just throw money away and claim thats fixed by spending money? or will the recruit soldiers and have a constant perimeter guard on duty at all times like should be expected? Also if we havent even got guards for our bases 24/7 then you can bet any missile defence wont be manned when they are needed. 

Like I said, you can waste as much money on this as you want but your not gonna make a difference, we need a serving manpower equal to 2% of the UK population for a more effective defence strategy. The military has been very fussy with recruitment in the past years of peace though, I personally was turned down by the navy myself for not being sociable and not going to the pubs on my weekends. But yet now theres not enough sailors in the navy to man ships.

This is why I believe the UK urgently needs armed forces reform. From funding strategy to force size to cultural attitudes within the military. If we’re serious about defending this country, we need more than just big numbers on paper—we need real people, real strength, and real security.

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