San Francisco Frontiers - UK faces hard choices over military spending: analysts

Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday named as his new Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis, a former officer in the Parachute Regiment once nicknamed the "steely-eyed messenger of death".

Here's what we know about the UK government's long-awaited -- but yet to be published -- Defence Investment Plan (DIP) for spending over the next decade and the military's strained resources.

- Underfunding -

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) budget reportedly faces a £28 billion shortfall between now and 2030.

In his stinging resignation letter, defence secretary John Healey accused Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the finance ministry of failing to commit the resources needed to "defend the country at this time of rising threats".

Despite the need to bolster military readiness in the next two years, Healey said extra support for defence was "backloaded" to arrive towards the end of the decade-long timeline.

This means the "growth path to reach spending targets is likely following a 'hockey-stick' trajectory with much of the uplifts falling in the final years of a deadline," Fenella McGerty of the International Institute for Strategic Studies told AFP.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly urged NATO allies to spend more and become less reliant on Washington for their security.

Starmer has vowed to raise defence spending to 2.5 percent of GDP (economic output) from next year, increasing to three percent if Labour wins the next general election, expected in 2029, before reaching 3.5 percent in 2035.

This would only cover operations "very much focused on the mainland and the near vicinity of the UK," said Jamie Gaskarth of Chatham House think tank.

Nick Reynolds, an expert in land warfare at Royal United Services Institute, told AFP the UK needed to "make serious choices in what it can do and what it can't".

The army and navy both need to refurbish, he said, which will require a "significant increase in the defence budget", even before modernisation.

When the Middle East war began in February with US-Israeli strikes on Iran, it took the Royal Navy weeks to deploy one ship to reassure allies.

This is due to "a long-term trend ... to have less and less kit that's more and more sophisticated", said Gaskarth.

"It actually means in a crisis you can no longer rely on the idea that you will have assets in place in different regions around the world."

- Drones -

Armed forces minister Al Carns followed his boss Healey out of the door Thursday.

He told the BBC on Friday the investment plan looked at "how to fight the last war rather than the next one", with a "lack of innovation and lessons learned from Ukraine".

Carns told GB News that he wanted more funding for uncrewed systems, since "data is the new gunpowder."

The unpublished plan places too much emphasis on traditional hardware such as ships, tanks and fighter jets, according to unnamed senior military figures quoted by The Times.

It should prioritise new technologies including AI-enabled software, space and cyber capabilities, hypersonic missiles and cheap drones, some argued.

Drones are a "cheap, highly precise artillery system" and give "a lot more range than traditional artillery," said Reynolds.

"So it's essential they are part of the force structure, because they can grant an affordable volume of lethal capability."

The UK is "investing in drones but it's not a wholesale shift," said Gaskarth, and the focus has been on domestic production rather than outsourcing to Ukraine.

"The senior policy makers, service chiefs and politicians are saying that the threat to the UK is increasing and it's immediate," he added.

"And yet, the pace of reform in defence has been really slow."

The defence plan has been repeatedly delayed, but Starmer has insisted he will publish it before a NATO summit in Turkey on July 7.

- Who is the enemy? -

Since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the focus has been on Russia as the most urgent threat with concern over China longer-term.

"The most immediate and the most pressing (threat) is Russia," said Gaskarth.

But "even though the UK might want to wish away China as a threat ... it's still there."

Carns wrote on Twitter on Friday that Britain had spent a "decade choosing to be smaller in the world".

"Right now the rules on communications, energy and trade are being rewritten. By China. By Russia. By countries that take their own security seriously. We need to be at that table. That's a choice we must make," he posted.

Q.Nelson--SFF