 "UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. AFP File")
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer made the case for increased defence spending by citing the threat from “tyrant” Vladimir Putin.
At a time when the Russian war on Ukraine and US retreat from Europe have plunged the continent in the worst crisis since World War II, Starmer on Tuesday announced that his government will increase the defence spending to 2.5 per cent of the economyby 2027 and to 3 per cent by 2034. The specifics will be published in a strategic review due to be published in the coming weeks.
In an article in The Daily Mail, Starmer said that Russian President Putin’s aggression does not just threaten Ukraine but the entire Europe and UK and increasing the defence expenditure is a must for that.
Starmer said, “Putin’s aggression does not stop at Ukraine’s borders. It threatens us here at home…Besides, as our history shows time and again, tyrants like Putin only respond to strength. So that is how we must meet the test of this new era – with strength.”
Putin has ushered in an “era of global insecurity” where Russia is working with North Korea and Iran to put up a united front, said Starmer.
To counter them, Starmer said that the UK will work with the United States and rest of the European allies.
The pledge to spend more on defence and the framing of Putin as a tyrant comes at a time when the United States under President Donald Trump has become friends with Putin’s Russia and has left Europe to its own fate. It came a day before Starmer’s visit to the United States where he will meet Trump and try to persude him to stay involved in Europe and convince him about a peacekeeping plan for Ukraine that has prepared with French President Emmanuel Macron.
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More Shorts‘We can’t hide from this threat’
Starmer said that the UK could not hide from the Russian threat.
Starmer said that if someone would have told him at the time of the fall of Berlin Wall that Russian tanks would be rolling into European cities someday, he would not have taken them seriously. He further said that Putin has not just done exacly that, but also struck the UK directly.
“After all, it is only seven years since he launched a chemical weapons attack in Salisbury, the heart of Middle England. Russian spy ships menace our waters. Planes intrude in our airspace. Cyber attacks are launched on the NHS, threatening lives. We cannot hide from this threat,” said Starmer.
At a time when the relevance of Nato is under question and Trump has essentially turned the United States an ally of Russia, Starmer sought to put up a united front. He said that the UK cannot choose between European and the United States and has to work with both — though he called the United States the most important ally.
In the plan prepared by Starmer by Macron, fewer than 30,000 soldiers will be deployed to Ukraine as peacekeepers. They are seeking US indirect support to the effort in the form of continued US deployment of US missiles and warplanes in eastern Ukraine as a deterrent for Russia.
Starmer urged to spend on tanks, drones
Even though Starmer pitched the hike as “biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War” in a speech on Tuesday, it amounts to just 0.2 per cent of the economy and £13.4 billion a year that critics have said is too little, too late. However, the timeline is faster than what the previous Rishi Sunak government had proposed before it was voted out.
Commentators have urged Starmer to not spend the funds on long-term projects like aircraft carrier or submarines but on urgently needed equipment like modern rifles, tanks, and drones, and replenishing ammunition stockpiles of various types, as per lessons drawn by the war in Ukraine.
Matthew Savill, the Director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, told The Daily Telegraph, “There may be some projects they could speed up. They could double the Army’s combat output for example by rapidly procuring drones, sensors, and electronic warfare equipment.
“If you know the problem is weapons stockpiles and we don’t have enough, perhaps they will accelerate some of the complex weapons stuff, such as the Spear 3 cruise missile for the F-35s and get them into production earlier.”
Experts have also said that the UK should replenish the stocks of tanks as any confrontation with Russia is bound to be intensive on land that will involve tanks.