British army halts some training exercises to save money, reports say

Some U.K. army units are being told to cut back on training exercises to save money, according to British media reports.

Exercises involving 90 or more troops have been suspended as the army seeks to save roughly $40 million, according to The Times, which first reported the training cuts.

Units that are preparing to deploy or are assigned to quick-reaction or standby roles are exempt, Sky News reported, citing military sources.

That includes troops preparing to deploy to Estonia, where the U.K. leads a NATO multinational force near the Russian border, as well as units preparing for a major NATO exercise next year.

The U.K. defense ministry has not publicly detailed the cuts, but a British army spokesperson told Stars and Stripes that certain training will continue.

“We are prioritizing activity that contributes most directly to readiness, deployability and operational effectiveness,” the spokesperson said Friday.

The spokesperson also pointed to a 15-year, $2.7 billion overhaul of army training announced less than two months ago, which the government says will help prepare British troops for modern warfare and strengthen support for NATO allies.

The program, announced July 10, will use artificial intelligence, advanced analytics, simulations and virtual environments and is expected to train as many as 60,000 soldiers a year.

Rising fuel and ammunition costs have made exercises more expensive than anticipated when budgets were drawn up, Sky News reported.

The pause is expected to last for most of the remainder of the year, according to the BBC.

The restrictions come as European NATO members seek to strengthen their ability to fight a major conflict in Europe following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

At an alliance summit last year, NATO leaders agreed to raise their defense and security spending target from 2% to 5% of gross domestic product by 2035, following sustained pressure from President Donald Trump for European allies to spend more on their own defense.

Under the new target, at least 3.5% is to go toward troops, weapons and other core defense needs, with the remainder devoted to broader security-related investments such as infrastructure and civil preparedness.

Britain plans to increase core defense spending to 2.7% of GDP by 2027 but has not detailed how it will reach the 3.5% target by 2035.

Doing so would require about $34 billion in additional annual spending beyond what is currently planned, the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimated in June.

News of the training cuts comes less than three months after Britain’s top military officer warned lawmakers that pressure on day-to-day defense funding could force the military to scale back training and operations.

Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, said Thursday that the effects of reduced training could become more serious.

“The impact gets worse over time, because you might lose familiarity with equipment or tactics,” Savill wrote on X.