British Prime Minister Keir Starmer visits Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia, July 11, 2024. (Elizabeth Fraser / Arlington National Cemetery/ Army)
LONDON — When British Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled long-awaited military spending plans this week — promising to make the U.K. “battle-ready” — he did so at a shipyard in Scotland that builds frigates and destroyers for Britain’s Royal Navy, saying it was time to deliver a “defense dividend for the British people” and answer the rising threat posed by Russia.
Starmer’s remarks, standing in front of the frame of a ship and workers in hard hats, coincided with the release of the government’s “strategic defense review,” which called for building up to 12 new attack submarines, creating six new munitions plants and procuring up to 7,000 British-made long-range weapons. The review also said Britain should spend $20 billion to modernize its nuclear warheads.
Britain is a formidable military power, but analysts say it has been constrained in recent years by tight budgets. The new recommendations pose additional tough questions — about where the money will come from and whether cuts in other programs or public services might be required as a trade-off.
Starmer’s Labour government came to power promising to prioritize economic growth, and the prime minister sought to portray the military spending proposals partly as a jobs initiative, particularly in northern England, where the submarines would be built.
But even as Russia’s assertiveness presents genuine risk, some analysts say it may be difficult to drum up public support for more military expenditures.
“There are genuine reasons to spend more on defense,” said Olivia O’Sullivan, director of the U.K. in the world program at Chatham House, a think tank. “But that’s a difficult sell.”
President Donald Trump is insisting that European allies take more responsibility for their own security and has called on NATO nations to increase annual defense spending to 5 percent of gross domestic project — far above the alliance’s current 2 percent target and even greater than the roughly 3.5 percent now spent by the United States, the richest and most powerful ally.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has suggested the alliance may try to create some wiggle room by moving toward a 5 percent spending benchmark “in total,” with core military spending at about 3.5 percent and the remainder supporting infrastructure, cyber programs and logistics.
Motivated in part by uncertainty over Trump’s commitment to defending European allies, several European countries — including Germany, Poland and the Baltic states — have recently announced plans to raise military spending. In February, the British government announced it would lift spending from 2.3% percent to 2.5% of GDP starting in April 2027 — a bump officials described as the largest sustained increase since the Cold War.
The increase will be financed in part by slashing overseas aid. Starmer has also said it is the government’s “ambition” to reach 3 percent during the next term of Parliament.
The authors of the strategic defense review — George Robertson, former NATO chief; Richard Barrons, former deputy chief of the defense staff; and Fiona Hill, a former White House adviser — made 62 recommendations, all of them accepted by the government.
They did not project a total cost of their recommendations but said they were affordable over 10 years with “promised new resources.”
Starmer, however, has not detailed precisely how or when Britain plans to reach the 3 percent goal.
Max Warner, an economist with the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, said raising spending to 2.5 percent of national income by 2027 will require freezing public investment elsewhere. Achieving 3% would probably mean cutting other spending, raising taxes or borrowing more.
“It’s an ambition,” Warner said, but “we don’t have really any detail on timings or pathways.”
In Britain, public support for increased military spending is mixed. A recent YouGov survey found that nearly half of respondents backed higher defense budgets, but most opposed financing the spending through personal taxes or cuts to other services. Pressed on when Britain would hit the 3 percent target, Starmer on Monday said he was “not going to put arbitrary dates on that percentage.” He added that he was confident that spending plans could be achieved with the current funding allocation.
Starmer’s government is facing competing demands, including calls to increase welfare spending, revive the economy and also to adhere to the Labour Party’s own fiscal rules. The government is expected to publish its broader “spending review” next week, outlining multiyear budget allocations for various departments, with many expecting increases for defense.
Part of the government’s pitch to the public is that military spending is not only a response to threats that are “more serious, more immediate and more unpredictable than at any time since the Cold War,” as Starmer said, but also a strategy for creating jobs and boosting investment.
Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy director general of RUSI, a defense think tank, said that the promise of “defense dividends” is central to the government’s messaging.
They are “emphasizing the importance of defense as an employer in less well-off parts of the country, outside London and the southeast,” Chalmers said. “But of course that depends on spending the extra defense money in the U.K. and not on imports,” he said.
He compared this approach with Poland, which has ramped up defense spending, with much of it on off-the-shelf weapons made in South Korea and the U.S. By contrast, Britain hopes to channel investment at home.
One of the flagship announcements is the commissioning of up to 12 nuclear-powered attack submarines — to reinvigorate the British navy. The plan calls for a new submarine to be made every 18 months in Cumbria, in northern England, replacing the existing fleet of seven submarines.
“With new state-of-the-art submarines patrolling international waters and our own nuclear warhead program on British shores, we are making Britain secure at home and strong abroad,” said Defense Secretary John Healey, who estimated the proposal will create 30,000 jobs.
Warner, the economist, said increased military spending will benefit some industries and regions of Britain but that it was not necessarily the most effective way to stimulate growth. “You could imagine education or transport infrastructure or science and technology perhaps having broader growth potential,” he said. “But they’re choosing to spend on defense.” Ellen Francis in Brussels and Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report.
