Groucho Marxism

In February this year, Keir Starmer set out plans to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, stating that this would be offset by cuts to aid spending. This was met with uproar by many on the left, and its not hard to see why. Figures from the Stockholm Peace Research Institute (SPRI) fact sheet show that the UK spent $82 billion on defence in 2024, equivalent to 2.3% of GDP and easily above the 2% baseline required by NATO. According to the SPRI, the UK already ranked sixth on the list of countries by total military spending in 2024. Our military spending in that year was already well ahead of comparable countries like France ($65 billion), Italy ($38 billion), and Spain ($23 billion). The only western European country ahead of the UK was Germany, with spending of $89 billion.

Why, then, does Starmer want to increase defence spending further? Ostensibly it is to defend the UK from higher threat levels in an increasingly multipolar world. But this makes little sense when other countries do just fine with significantly lower levels of defence spending than the UK. It also makes little sense given that we are a member of NATO. Total military spending by NATO countries in 2024 came to $1.5 trillion, well above the total military spending of the rest of the world put together. It’s not clear why a supposedly defensive military alliance would need to outspend the rest of the world in this way; surely at most it only needs to match the rest of the world’s expenditure. Regardless, the UK cannot possibly be under any serious threat when it belongs to such a powerful alliance.

The real reasons Starmer has committed to increase defence spending are twofold. The primary reason the UK government spends so much money on defence is not to protect its citizens, but to maintain and increase its power and influence on the global stage. It does this primarily through hard power; that is, by attacking or threatening to attack countries that act in ways the UK government doesn’t like. Thus, ‘defence’ is really an Orwellian euphemism for ‘attack’. The second reason is the power of the arms lobby. BAE Systems, a UK-based company, is number six on the list of global weapons manufacturers, and number one on the list of companies outside the US. This company and others like it actively lobby (bribe) our politicians to make decisions that are favourable to them, which usually involve increased arms production.

The high levels of defence spending in the UK therefore have little to do with keeping the country safe, and much more to do with attacking our adversaries and kowtowing to the arms industry. This raises the question of much should a country like the UK should spend on defence if the aim is to simply protect its citizens. Is it even necessary to spend any money on defence at all? Some countries have managed to reduce their defence spending to near zero. To find one we need look no further than our closest neighbour. Ireland spends just $1.5 billion on defence annually, equivalent to around 0.25% of its GDP, the lowest per GDP figure in the EU. That’s less than 2% of what the UK spends in absolute terms and around 10% of what the UK spends in per GDP terms.

Has Ireland’s lack of defence spending made it any less secure? Clearly not. The country has not been under any threat of invasion by a hostile power since WWII. Moreover, Ireland is not a member of NATO, which shows that NATO membership is not necessary for national security (although it is more than sufficient). A critic might counter that although Ireland has not been under any threat of invasion in recent history, that doesn’t men that it won’t come under such a threat in the future, and when it does it will be woefully unprepared. The problem with this argument is that there is no limit to how far you can take it and it can therefore be used to justify any level of military expenditure. In truth, it simply isn’t possible to prepare for every eventuality that might occur at some point in the future.

Ireland is an useful comparator because it is very similar to the UK in many ways, particularly in terms of culture and geographical location. Comparing Ireland with the UK is about the closest thing you can get to a controlled experiment in geopolitics. Its interesting to note then that despite the fact Ireland was until recently considered a poor country, Ireland’s GDP per capita is now roughly twice that of the UK. I’m not suggesting that Ireland’s impressive economic growth in the last few decades is entirely down to its low levels of defence spending, but I do think it was a factor. It is generally accepted that investing in defence not the most efficient way of encouraging economic growth when compared to investing in other sectors.

This makes Starmer’s commitment to increase defence spending seem even more nonsensical, especially when you consider that his and Labour’s election campaign was fought almost entirely on the promise of increased economic growth. There is simply no good reason for further increases to UK defence spending, and plenty of reason to think it could be drastically reduced. Unfortunately, for the time being it seems we are doomed to continue wasting even more public money on defence – money that would be much better spent elsewhere.