NATO has released a report detailing the defence spending of its members.
The U.S. is in first place with $811 billion which is equivalent to 3.5% of its GDP. The UK comes second with just under $73 billion in spending estimated for 2021, which is 2.29% of its GDP.
Luxembourg has the lowest defense spending as a share of GDP in NATO at 0.57% of GDP or $474 million.
NATO say that it collects defence expenditure data from Allies and publishes it on a regular basis.
“Each Ally’s Ministry of Defence reports current and estimated future defence expenditure according to an agreed definition of defence expenditure. The amounts represent payments by a national government actually made, or to be made, during the course of the fiscal year to meet the needs of its armed forces, those of Allies or of the Alliance.
In the figures and tables that follow, NATO also uses economic and demographic information available from the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission (DG ECFIN), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).”
NATO add that equipment expenditure includes expenditure on major equipment as well as on research and development devoted to major equipment. Personnel expenditure includes pensions paid to retirees.
The cut-off date for information used in this report was 2 June 2021. Figures for 2020 and 2021 are estimates.
Let’s think and be civil. Soft power keeps the UK safer for less expenditure. SP is built using Foreign Aid via cultural programs, education etc. Not against spending more on defence but cutting 0.2% of FA sends a message to potential partners that the UK doesn’t want to help you via sharing our values but by the barrel of a gun. Is that what “Global Britain” is about?
So, Britain has to take a disproportionate share of the Foreign Aid burden compared to our NATO allies as well as a disproportionate share of actual defence spending? Why? If we maintained our spending at 0.5% and France increased to 0.6% then it’d still take France nearly two decades to catch up on what we’ve already put into foreign aid.
I thought it was Britain who wanted to take the lead in rules and values-based international order? We cannot compare ourselves to others and say we still want to set an example for others to follow.
But we have been and we still are. Since we first adopted the 0.7% FA target we have been outspending all of the major players in terms of GDP commitment. Even if we maintain 0.5% for another ten years then there will still be few countries who will catch up with our cumulative spending over the same period. Where is the kudos for what we’ve already done? Is the international community attitude really along the lines of, “That’s fine and all but what are you going to do for us next?”
We don’t have a big enough economy to spend like America
USA is HUGELY in debt though
When you have the worlds reserve currency and can just keep printing more money to service that debt, its largely irrelevant.
America is seriously considering paying people TO not work as a permanent socialist program. “guaranteed wage.” in fact, they’ve already started to do that with $300 per week and there are loads of job vacancies but if someone is giving you money why bother? They, Biden and cronies, actively decided to corrupt the free-market system by flooding the country with dollars for free. They’ve spent trillions on covid handouts. They are raising corporate taxes and many business are closing. see it every day. The American century, the 20th century, is over. We’d all better get used to China being top dog and stop pretending it won’t be. Problem is not when, but how we accept and work with china in that very near term reality…
Hi Rob, this isn’t a political site please don’t continue this in future.
Trouble is Tom, most of the money is lost due to corruption. I’d prefer the UK invest in hospital ships and do mercy missions than see money disappear and fall into the hands of tyrants or criminals.
I also think the Foreign Aid budget has gone to the wrong countries historically. India, China? These countries have space programs and state they don’t want the money.
If soft power is winning the hearts and minds, then I’d prefer we have a direct role in it. Use the Royal Engineers to build new hospitals etc. Hospital ships can double as support ships in times of war/crisis.
So I would suggest part of the Foreign Aid budget be assigned to the military as they also provide the very security blanket for any works to be carried out. If a blanket isn’t needed, then why are we spending money in these countries? Is it really to court favour. Spend the money transparently in third world countries.
In my view the UK is an overly permissive, soft touch. They don’t know when they are being fleeced, and as evidenced by Brexit, don’t know how to strike proper win-win deals. Hard to believe a large portion of the financial transactions flow through London. Germany and France and others have to be loving the fact Biden is in power in the US and won’t ruffle feathers over a few dozen billion here and there. Important to be liked, unlike Trump who called it like it was (and was called racist).
Really?
What is your evidence for this, or is it just what your socialist friends tell you around the dinner table?
Billions cannot be spent without tangible, evidenced results. One thing I do know is that the virtue signallers will never struggle to spend other people’s money.
Hi Gfor, I said let’s be civil but anyhow. I’m a democratic socialist at best. “Billions cannot be spent without tangible, evidenced results” *cough* Ajax, dodgy chinook’s. The list goes on. Not saying FA is spent perfectly but neither is defence.
Tom, agreed about very poor spending in defence, I have worked in it for over 30 years, so I see on a daily basis how taxpayers money isn’t used in the best manner. However two wrongs don’t make a right, let alone balance the national accounts.
When an arbitrary amount is set, it will get spent regardless of need. I would prefer we allow taxpayers to decide whether their earnings are diverted to these projects as I cannot see evidence that soft power actually achieves anything approaching its huge cost to the nation.
Four options with foreign aid:
1. Do nothing.
2. Send money with the hope that it will be used to dig a few water wells and not go to corrupt local officials.
3. Give the money to a UK company to fit out a truck with well drilling equipment, then go abroad, spend a year digging wells, train some locals how to use the kit, then leave it there and come home.
4. Do 3 but only with a trade agreement of some kind with the local government that gives us some influence in the region, like getting them to allow girls into schools or not persecuting political opposition.
4 is best. 2 is the worst.
Sorry Tim, option 4 may be best, but even then there is little to nothing to show for a single penny spent. I appreciate it is difficult to quantify soft power by its claimed nature, but all other ‘investments’ should show value for tax payers money. I work hard for my salary, I certainly resent giving it to the treasury to be used to salve the public images of politicians.
A very quick poke through some OECD figures show absolutely no correlation whatsoever between money given away in the name of soft power and results by any measure.
As I said above, it just seems a very socialist view of problem solving in the national and global arena.
Yes, very difficult to quantify soft power, it is basically charity. But if we got UK companies to do infrastructure work abroad then at least we’d get some UK employment out of it as well as the satisfaction of actually helping. Much better than creating an Indian Spice Girls pop group in a country with Nukes and Satellites.
You have me in total agreement with the last sentence.
If we do force taxpayers to donate to charity, I agree with your UK companies doing the building proposal and Pete’s (below) of Australia’s policy of building assets and then gifting as a better solution.
In my opinion, the UK should set aside a fixed amount of money, maybe equivalent to 0.7% GDP but set it aside once.
This fund should be tapped in to during times of crisis, floods, crop failure, natural disasters etc and, once the emergency is over, the fund can be topped up.
I remain to be convinced of the impact of soft power
Foreign Aid has proven to fuel corruption in developing countries.
Shipping money overseas doesn’t work. It’s appeasement in the loser form. Someone will always have a bigger checkbook than the UK.
Foreign aid is taking money from poor people in rich countries to give to rich people in poor countries is a very true saying
Foreign aid should be spent in way that aids uk too.
Build 2 hospital ships crewed by volunteers from nhs. Cash spent ship building, tax’s back to economy.
We also control the aid given out as at present 80% of it ends up with warlords getting sold
EXACTLY – and thanks for that.
I support soft power myself, provided it it spent properly. I also support defence spending with it. However…
“cutting 0.2% of FA sends a message to potential partners that the UK doesn’t want to help you via sharing our values but by the barrel of a gun.”
It shows that we are being sensible while the public finances are under extra Covid strain with extra borrowing. Some describe it as literally borrowing money to give it away.
Even with a reduction we still spend more than most other countries.
So where does that leave them? Are they sending us a message that they will happily let us spend more while they fund themselves in other areas?
How is a small reduction not soft power yet the the restored full amount IS soft power!?
If the UK is responsible for deaths by cutting aid as those MP’s were saying what does that say for the countries that spend less?
Are these the same people who were demanding the UK halt its vaccination programme to let others have those supplies as “the right thing to do” ?
I really like what the Australians often do such as rather than handing over cash they might build OPV’s / fishery protection vessels and gift them to various pacific states. Maintains the steady drumbeat in the shipyards, supports economies of scale for their own needs, avoids cash disappearing into the ether and provides those nations with a sound asset that supports protection of fishing grounds and disaster relief efforts etc.
Yes it is a good way of assisting our smaller Pacific neighbours, certainly a project that I’m happy to see my tax dollars spent on.
Currently 21 Guardian class PBs are under construction by Austal in WA, the construction cost is approx $330m and another $200m over their life for sustainment.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian-class_patrol_boat
And a lot of the money is spent here in Oz, firstly during construction, then over the next couple of decades for sustainment.
These 21 PBs are replacing a previous class of 22 PBs that were also supplied free to Pacific nations.
Cheers,
Yes. Good principle.
Sadly I wonder how much gets corrupted when it’s given out.
Yes. But his words which you quote are repugnant.
Spilt British blood has saved western democracy twice inside 50 years. British treasure has since continued to be spent defending Communist totalitarianism and hegemony.
And both has been expended in the name of freedom all over the world, from Korea, Malaya and the middle east – and not least our own with and kin in the South Atlantic.
And he has the nerve to pretend we do things “by the barrel of a gun” ?? Repugnant. Get out of my sight, what ever your name is.
Dear oh dear….10 out of 10 for the Am-drams there Trevor. 😂
Whilst I agree with you in principle.
In real terms, how much do the needy actually get?
So much evidence of graft and corruption in so many of the countries we send aid to.
So, should be spending hard earned British Tax money on countries that send Rockets to Mars? Are buying the latest tech for their military, whilst ours makes do?
I agree with foreign aid… but not in the current ‘none controllable method’.
We, the British Tax payer, should be able to See where our money goes…
Darren I’ve worked in places where ‘aid’ is being delivered. There’s a fairly large gravy train involved in international aid.
Agreed, most definatly.
Agree 100%
What makes me laugh the most is the people who scream and shout that we should do more, spend more, act more…
But when they pass a beggar in the streets of the UK these same people say…
“Don’t give them money, you don’t know what they will spend it on…”
or
“don’t give to beggars it makes them dependant on welfare…”
So how does this concept not work in their minds for overseas aid?
The MOD wants to build a new barrack, they ask, get funding, it gets built, we see the end product…
So let us cut out the regimes that steal…
Water aid wants to build 10 deep wells, they ask, get funding, they get built, we see the end product… would that not be more efficient?
Exactly right just said exactly same above. Aid to India China and Palestinian families of suicide bombers!! Hmm tax money well spent. Shows how out of touch MP’s are
Tom can you actually state how the 0.7% of GDP on aid was reached. Don’t state it is in a OECD report from the 1970s but provide a detailed analysis of why it should be 0.7% and not 0.5%, 0.3% or zero or even an arbitrary figure. 0.7% has been plucked out of thin air and if you set a value then civil servants will inevitable match that target without thinking logically about what it is spent on. The majority of people in the UK from opinion polls demonstrate the UK thinks 0.7% is too high and they prefer increased defence spending. Why don’t we put foreign aid to a referendum for instance? That seems a fairer way of deciding what to spend that then has public consent.
Tom, there are a couple of angles on this: When purely considering state aid, clearly a reduction in spending is likely to reduce the impact but I think it’s important to remember that soft power is a concept which exists within a complex framework of influence. In its simplest form this goes something like, ‘you can’t have soft power without hard power to back it up’, but there are many subtleties.
To my mind, a key issue which the NATO numbers highlight is around value for money. We frequently compare ourselves to France who seem (to the layman at least) to be able to do more with less..
Utter nonsense.
Simple answer is grow GDP and defence RnD spin off has a much better chance of creating a robust growing economy that can give more for decades to come. Gifting money does nothing to strengthen the UK economy and make us a guaranteed long term contributor.
In what way does foreign aid “keep the UK safer?” Safer from what? What benefit is it to the UK to provide funds for girls education in Africa? It might be a worthy aim but it has no connection with our security.
Think longer term. Those girls grow up and get into positions of power and responsibility, and hopefully remember which country helped them get there. Also the basic, a stable country is less likely to fall apart and cause more terrorists/freedom fighters causing issues.
Stabilising a country is desirable but really sits outside the ambit of development aid. It’s also an incredibly difficult thing to get right. Just funding things that foreign governments should be providing themselves adds nothing to our security.
Helping out in acute crises-earthquakes, tsunamis- is a reasonable thing to do. Making good the deficiencies of often corrupt 3rd world governments is just wasting money we don’t have.
Mostly I agree.
You mention girls. And I believe that girls and women are treated very badly in the 3rd world.
I want to see all given a fair opportunity inside of a safe and not corrupted environment.
Let’s face it, we have a government that channeled away billions to their mates during a global pandemic where tens of thousands died in the uk, we have no morale high ground when it comes to corruption.
I fully agree it’s hard to make sure the money goes where it is most needed, but not trying is guaranteed for none to make it. My thinking is that as long as enough makes it, over time it helps stabilise very unstable countries (most 3rd world countries and a lot of 2nd fall into that category) and stable countries help our security in the long run. How much an impact is impossible to tell, since you can’t time travel and remove the money to see how the world would look.
Shocking statement. ‘channeled billions to their mates’
I find that offensive.
Tell that to the courts, which have ruled on it multiple times now
Any evidence from said courts as to who received exactly what amounts then?
Look up the good law project, the evidence is there.
Who can argue with that. Woman and girls are treated appallingly in countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, more like property than people and it shows little chance of significant improvement.
All rather depressing, as we move further into the 21st century, some countries remain stuck in the 18th century, keeping woman under educated and subservient.
This chasm of opposing attitudes will likely continue to grow unfortunately.
Thinpinstrippedline wrote a very balanced article on this subject.
How do you come to such a conclusion? Any numbers to back this up? While foreign aid is admirable, i don’t buy for one second that there is any return on investment, and certainly does not do anything to contribute to the UK’s security. Otherwise you will have to explain to me how funding a hospital in Central Africa or providing food to Somalians makes the UK more secure.
As for spreading British values, while i agree that the barrel of gun is not an effective means, but neither is writing a blank check. There have been billions and billions poured into Africa over many decades by many western countries and UN programs, yet things seem to deteriorate. Furthermore this influx of money has fueled an enourmous amount of corruption and people clinging to power to keep their hands in the till.
I find that British and western values are ideas that are spread much more effectively with culture (movies, books etc…)
My 2 cents
And people that wouldn’t send us aid for one second
No logic to that especially has UK has been spending a lot more on aid than most if not all our partners.
If we want to have the maximum influence we need both soft and hard power in all there myriad forms. The more real and potential allies and the fewer real and potential enemies the safer and stronger we are. On aid hope someone asks those upset by temporary cut which govt spending or tax increases they would support to cover the £4.5bn reinstating it now would cost.
David,that mechanism to fill the aid gap already exists. Its called giving to charity. That is my problem with this attitude of paying money over at a predetermined rate, regardless of need or result.
As I’ve said above, there is no correlation between money spent/influence/friends/safety from terrorism etc.
How about we spend foreign aid helping our homeless, people using food banks and kids in poverty. Helping inpoverished Indians while there government currently builds 4 boomers 7ssn , carriers, strategic nukes and space program. Until this year we were giving millions to Chinese peasants, what joke. I believe we even gave to charity helping Palestinian suicide bombers families! Fed up of helping countries that would not return favour.
We do. Take a look at our welfare budget.
NATO has kept the uk safe not giving money to Africa if anything that has made us weaker the billions spent giving money to the African spice girls or breeding programs for rare fish off the coast of Somalia (really Mercedes for warlords) could have been spent on more war ships giving people in the uk jobs
And why should we give fat more than nearly every other western country? While U.K. is having to borrow cash to run the U.K.
Im afraid 60-70% of public want us to help our own poor first
Can anyone explain how the French seem to get more out of a smaller budget? Are we comparing like for like? I note they are ahead of us in the Global Firepower index. On the surface they have more troops (+ 40%), more fighter aircraft (269 Vs. 119), helicopters (432 Vs. 269), more tanks (406 Vs. 109), more ships and not to mention their own in country developed nuclear weapons systems?
“On the surface” being the operative phrase, this analysis gives a 1 to 1 rating between a Mirage and an F35 🤦♂️
If they have so many more helicopters, why are they depending on U.K. Chinooks in Mali?
That index isn’t very useful as it typically just counts numbers and spits out a score without comparison of capability.
Generally also doesn’t distinct between operational equipment in active service and mothballed equipment and depends on how countries categorise equipment (e.g. some countries coastguard/rescue fleet might count to their air force and others may not).
In the manpower figures the French include the Paramilitary police.
FYI French army is 115k personnel, Gendarmerie (Military Police) is another 100k. So if you include Gendarmerie than the French Army is 3x bigger than UK’s. So OP was correct
Gendarmerie is part of the armed forces so it should be included in the figures. They have MP like responsibilities. No way you could see a British Bobby doing what they do.
Actually Gendarmerie have a lot more responsibilty than just Military police, they enforce traffic laws on highways, are the only police force in rural areas, they also do search and rescue missions, provide security in overseas territories, and have special units like GIGN (counter terrorism, hostage etc…)
Incorrect. Paramilitary police is not included.
Good point
Maybe they just spend the money on sound projects and equipment.
Don’t be silly. French numbers might look good on paper, but they do not have the depth of capability and deployable capability that we do. ISTAR is well behind the UK, so is heavy lift helicopter capability. No F35, Astute, 2 QE carrier’s, T26 ect. The French have a lot of equipment that isn’t really very useful. But it looks good on paper. It is very wrong to think that everyone does it better than we do, because that simply isn’t true at all.
Good on paper only? Having a laugh?
While it is true France does not have heavy lift helicopter, it has the NH90 and H225 Cararal medium lift. France has plenty of airlift capability; it has 18 A400M (32 more to be delivered), 11 Transall C160, 27 Casa 235M, 18 C130 Hercules, 4 A330 MRTT (11 more to be delivered)
France has no ISTAR capability? It has 4 modern E3F Sentry (seems to be good enough for the USAF), 2 Transall C160 Gabriel, 3 E2C Hawkeyes, 18 Atlantique 2, plenty of military ISTAR satellites (Syracuse, Helios, Ceres, Pleiades, CSO etc…)
As for your unsubstantiated claim that French equipment is not useful, this is grotesque and completely untrue ie Rafale, CdG (refit 2018), Fremm (seems good enough for US Navy), Barracuda SNA just entered service, Mistral LHD are all state of the art and quite useful!
Plenty of upgrades and new equipment in the pipeline. In fact French armed forces are undergoing a complete and subtantive overhaul with
– Scorpion program (Jaguar, Griffon, Serval, Leclerc XLR, VBAE) for the army, Tiger Mk3 upgrade, drones etc…
– H160M helicopter for all services,
– 5 FDI frigates, 10 PO (ocean patrol to replace Aviso Type A69), 6 POM (OPV for overseas territories), 4 Vulcano supply/logistic ships, Airbus VSR 700 rotary drone for the Navy all due to enter service within the next several years.
– Rafale is being upgraded to F4 standard starting 2023.
– 3 E2D Hawkeye ordered in 2019.
On top of that, many major projects for the years to come with
– EPC (Euro corvette with Italy/Spain) by 2030,
– MAWS (A320 Neo maritime surveillance) for 2030s,
– PANG (carrier) for 2038,
– ASMPA 4G (nuclear air launched hypersonic missile)
– SNLE 3G for 2037 (next gen SNLA),
– MGCS (next gen tank)
– FCAS for 2040
France has one of the most up to date and operational armies in the world. Furthermore it is quite deployable, since expeditionary missions are a priority for France that currently participates in many combat missions and has overseas territories around the globe.
While France does not have the might and size to rival the US or Chinese forces, it certainly is not a paper army with useless equipment. You are truly ignorant to make such a comment.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. The French get substantially better value for money than the mod seems to deliver with the same budget constraints. They also manage to support their domestic industry in doing so. Maybe their domestic producers are more patriotic and actually deliver world class vehicles within a sensible budget.
My my that touched a nerve didn’t it. I think ‘truly ignorant ‘ and ‘grotesque ‘ is slightly on the dramatic side. Some good kit on that list, and also some pretty old obsolete kit too. Both nations are struggling for new money for defence, hence closer military cooperation.
Yeah but we are plainly struggling far more. The French are only lacking in niche heavy lift, and have more numerous and usually just as effective programs in all other areas. And with far more domestic content. No-one is saying there are perfect but they have made long-term strategic decisions and stuck to them within a reasonable budget, all whilst supporting local industry. Can’t really say that about any areas of UK defence other than fast air and, perhaps only more recently, complex shipbuilding.
Are we struggling more though?? It is a very British negative mindset to presume everyone else is doing it better and cheaper, when they clearly are not. Better at fudging the numbers maybe. France doesn’t have a BAE Systems or a Rolls Royce. People put BAE Systems down, but my god what kind of shape would we be in if we didn’t have such a national defence giant.
Great answer. I learned a lot.
I think not pissing away their money on failed defense projects has a lot to do with it. Rafale cost them a fortune in the early 2000s but they seem to be getting the export orders in now days. They barracuda, scorpion and fremm projects have all delivered well domestically and in the export markets.
FREMMS are designed and built by both French and Italy. Italy are doing quite well out of the concept. So its not all France. And not particularly cheap at a claimed €650.
France is building subs for australia, but there are cost and delay problems
As I see it at its simplest, we want to separate out our AA from ASW so have 2 types of ship. One of our designs has been exported, and clearly in due course we will build something significant for our next AA ship.
Bad choices by the army has cost us dear when it comes to mechanized procurement. And our involvement in the middle east has massively disrupted our need to restructure our army.
The sub deal is turning into a political hot potato in Aus to say the least, last I saw it was now reported to be costing 90billion australian dollars, massively over budget.
Are we looking at like for like in expenditure ?
I am not sure about the details, but there may be differences.
Thats a question that I have been pondering for years. They also have a nuclear triad and we don’t.
I wonder if it is because Giat/Nexter produces equipment that is exceptionally good VfM.
The UK the second largest defence spender in NATO and we cant afford to upgrade our full compliment of tanks. 🙁
It’s not that we can’t afford it, it’s the eternal question of whether the money could be better spent elsewhere. In this scenario it was concluded that it could be. Whilst I’m always extremely suspicious of any government cuts and the sound-bites they use to justify them, in this instance I have to admit that it makes sense (considering how the UK would use it’s tanks and the scenarios the UK would be in where a large deployable tank force was required). However the next big step is ensuring the money saved by not upgrading the tanks is actually spent more beneficially elsewhere…
Its because the british army have been wasting money.
In between that we have been spending significantly on Iraq and Afghanistan and not on looking at modernisation. But such modernisation it has attempted has been cakhanded.
Our tanks have been used on kinetic operations many times, often in significant numbers.
How often have our ships been used in serious kinetic ops, other than 1982? When did an RAF fighter last take on enemy air?
Graham, for our challenger 2 tanks the largest operational deployment that I’m aware of was to Iraq in 2003 when 120 were deployed. If you have a think about how our tanks would be used and how we would get them there.
You either have deployment to the Baltic’s to deter Russia, or deployment abroad for some sort of expeditionary mission.
Regarding Russia, the onus has to be on countries on the European continent to provide the bulk of the tanks, it’s daft to expect the UK to somehow transport 100s of tanks across the ocean and then all the way across the continent, Germany and France really should take the lead for this. For the UK, it makes much more sense to plan for a small supportive deployment to fly the flag, so to speak.
For expeditionary deployments I struggle to think of a scenario that would require us to transport 100s of tanks across the world, again I see it much more likely that a smaller force will be deployed. If for the invasion of Iraq 120 was deemed sufficient, I think this does set a good ball park figure for the unlikely event of any sort of repeat of this in the future. Bluntly, we would not be invading any significant countries alone, it would be part of an allied effort, most likely with America, so again our tank forces would be providing a supportive effort.
Also bearing in mind the devestation caused by Turkish drones in the Armenia Azerbaijan conflict, it doesn’t really make sense to ramp up tank numbers at this point in time.
Agree. Prioritise RN,RAF and the Intelligence community.
IT is odd how there work thing’s out🤔
Just like most armies. Tank numbers have been slashed everywhere, even in Russia. Germany originally had about 2000 Leopard 2 tanks, since then they have reduced the number to around 250 in service, the rest was sold second hand around the world or mothballed. France are only upgrading 200 Leclerc to XLR standard, the rest have been put in “storage” (aka used for spare parts)
At the end of the day if potential enemies have reduced their tank fleet then it is reasonable to adjust your numbers accordingly and spend in other areas such as cyber, space etc…
My 2 cents
Maybe but but we are the only power to cut tank numbers to 148 lol!! seems criminal to me.
I’d rather have 148 first rate tanks, than 250 outdated tank’s. With Challenger 3 we can stand shoulder to shoulder with the American Force’s, even in small numbers. With a larger but less capable fleet of tank’s, we simply would be told to stay at home.
Like WW2 ? when our Tanks were rubbish ?
Any comparison to WW2 is a tad unrealistic when looking at todays capabilities.
Yes. And hope that the 148 are not expected to do more than it’s numbers and its mechanized infantry and artillery warrant.
Our defence weight bares down on other things than tanks.
Looks like we’ve bet the farm on Ajax to the extent that it appears to be the IVF fulcrum for UK land manoeuvre (as well as Boxer, but no issue with the latter in terms of potential – better late to the party than never). In other words I think Ajax is the light tank option, not a traditional SV, though for some reason it keeps that designation. Challenger 3 likely more of a back up option to ”stiffen the Ajax line’.
In more other words, it ‘Has’ to work at this stage. Hence the fury at initial acceptance faux pas to date. No brushing issues under the carpet; it must perform genuinely at 9/10ths, including that damn cannon, of course.
That said, my views must be taken with a decent pinch of salt, as I’m more comfortable with Navy.
Regards
IVF is surely an infertility treatment. Ajax is not an IFV – it is a recce/strike vehicle. (Only the media use the term ‘light tanks’).
Morning, Graham. Yes, I’d noticed the birth defect just after sending, plus that IFV was not a correction. Posted too late and let sleeping babies lie.
Light tank was however more deliberate. Since the removal of Warrior from the combined heavy armour/strike concept, I’m puzzled as to the replacement philosophy. Leaving out air and fires, instead of a 2 plus 2 ground formation we have 3 chassis. Not in itself bad, perhaps, depending how do you combine them? Ajax becomes more central? Fully operational, it would appear to have both a significant offensive and defensive capacity beyond earlier scout iterations.
As mentioned, not my main area of interest; but would welcome any or your thoughts on the subject.
Regards
Well there are probably as many command and hospital versions of Ajax as their are fighting ones. Go figure!
Ch2/3 is not there to ‘stiffen Ajax, surely. It’s the main fighting unit, once Ajax has worked out what thß
e enemy are doing.
Well said. Many people reluctant to let go of the past.
The key thing to look at is whether the opposition (not your allies) are either replacing or upgrading their tanks.
…or to upgrade any WR IFVs or AS90s.
Wow, did not realise Germany recently was spending more on defence than France. Not that too much can be gleaned from these figures mind.
Much bigger population. % GDP number is less but it is getting better.
Ukraine was a wake up call. I think they plan to keep increasing their expenditure theirilitary spending was getting beyond a joke when they should be the ones leading the line in mainland Europe.
Yes, I imagine Ukraine combined with pressure from America has played a part. Be interesting to see how they spend it.
I thought it was after Ursula left the money started being spent properly and the budget increased to fix her problems.
She had ran pretty much the entire armed forces into the ground, no working subs, hardly any ships at sea, handful of aircraft able to fly etc etc.
Germany is increasing its Leo II fleet from 228 to 332 (104 new Leo II A7V currently coming in) and modernizing 4 Marder IFV batallions
.
2020 it ordered 38 new Eurofighters and 4 new destroyers / frigates (MKS 180).
Last week, a 20 billion EUR aquisition project was passed for the next four years. Main points:
Marine:
2,8 billion EUR for 2 new additional subs (with Norway), with the likely option of getting more of them later
480 million for new radars for F123 frigate class
1,34 billion for 5 new P8s
2,1 billion for new spy ships.
900 million for 2 new tankers (pending some audit of the costs)
500 million for naval strike missiles
Luftwaffe:
1,5 billion for the SCAF / FCAS project (plus another 4 planned, depending on conditions).
866 millon PEGASUS Persistant German Airborne SurveillanceSystems
200 million for new air defense radars
Heer:
1,9 billion to upgrade 150 Pumas to the new S1 standard (40 Pumas are already at that level and ready for the VJTF 2023)
304 million for new laser aiming devices, independent on what rifle we’ll be getting
88 million for Boxer „Joint Fire Support Team
Cyber:
900 million for cyber security
That leaves still some projects for the next parliament.
Germany needs 40-60 new heavy lift helos and 90 replacements for the Tornado fleet (hopefully 45 EF and 45 SuperH / Growlers.
Plus the modernisation of the other 150 Pumas – and then another batch of 200 IFVs replacing the remaining Marders. Either Puma, Lynx or maybe CV 90. Or even Boxer.
Correction
“1,9 billion to upgrade 150 Pumas to the new S1 standard”
Actually, that 1,9b number is for upgrading all remaining 310 Pumas.
Parliament greenlighted that in principle, but only 150 will be done right now, For the other 160, certain conditions need to be met.
(basically, the 40 vjtf Pumas already upgraded need to work out in the field over their 6 months deployment as promised before the rest of the money becomes available)
Luxembourg might have a small defence expenditure as proportion of GDP. But it is not the smallest. That’s Iceland. The report says Iceland has no armed forces but it seems odd to ignore them completely. Iceland must spend something on Keflavik for example which is used for Iceland’s defence and NATO’s defence (albeit using other nations’ aircraft).
Until 2006 Keflavik was maintained by the US though the US will still invest in infrastructure upgrades they want. Since then its been maintained by the Icelandic Coastguard (The coastguard are the only military branch in the country) they operate 4 ships, search and rescue helicopters and 4 early warning stations. Special forces are provided by a police SWAT team.
In WW2 we had to ‘invade’ Iceland in order to protect them from German invasion.
Luxembourg’s spending on Navy capabilities is woeful, Just why do we put up with this ?
Not even a half arsed Coastguard… the swine. 😉
Luxembourg has No coastline, Not their fault!
You say that now but just you wait till Global Warming takes hold.
Comparing expenditure is probably the only practical way of presenting members contribution. It isn’t necessarily the best way of organising the alliance. It would be better for each country to define its efforts in terms of manpower and key equipment.
On this metric, the UK spend looks disproportionately large compared to its manpower and equipment levels. In part, this is because we buy at arm’s length prices from private sector suppliers. Some others, France and Italy for example, have substantial state ownership of suppliers, so published acquisition costs exclude ongoing financial support to industry.
Even allowing for this, we seem to get too little for our money. Combat aircraft numbers are pitifully low with no apparent plan to increase them.
We suffer more than most from a lack of strategy: what exactly do we want our forces to do? And because we lack clarity on that, our procurement is inefficient and plagued by short term thinking.
The Integrated review and linked papers failed to rectify this.
You do realise that 50% of air strike are now carried out by drones.
A lot of reading to sift through but the first impressions on it are that I would guess the figures are able to be ‘massaged’, things like pensions will apply to some countries more than others depending on how the Forces are structured (long term careers v shorter careers) and probably a whole host of of other ways. The ‘big picture’ on spending is interesting though.
As for the ‘Foreign Aid debate’, superficially it does look like the government have wheeched 4 billion PA from Foreign Aid and given it out to the Forces and I get the controversy. Maybe unfairly but the array of politicians and celebs (some of who I don’t mind) trailing out a litany of “food from babies mouths”, “Covid jabs from arms” etc has made me lose any sympathy with the argument, I’ve found it very simplistic and patronising. Its not just the UK that is tossing in, go and chap on some of the other countries door’s that are chipping in considerably less. Things like the AZ jab getting dished out at cost aren’t factored in to the 0.7/0.5% debate. Its only supposed to be for a few years or so because of covid (I’ll not hold my breath on that, its not like BoJo to go with what suits him). If come the next election this hasn’t been properly laid out then the voters can have a say. If my back of a fag packet logic of 4 years worth of Foreign Aid roughly adding to the money given to the Pusser then come the next manifesto he might put it back up to 0.7% Who knows, its BoJo.
Figures can be massaged, but you can put money on every country doing it to the max extent possible, as such I suspect the figures are probably pretty accurate for comparison purposes.
Looking at the numbers am I the only one who wonders what kind of armed forces we’d have if we didn’t pee so much of it away on messed up arms procurement. Yep I have edited my comments in case there are children watching.
The losses from failed projects is still small, in comparison to the overall procurement budgets.
Similar to shop stock losses from theft
Many are not aware the UK uses More disproportionately on pensions than actual defence procurement compared to other nations . Also some countries like Turkey with own defence industry may have a smaller budget but have higher purchasing power giving them more equipment procurement power due to cheap production cost compared to the UK example.
That’s why I always say China in real terms can build more military hardware than the US due to their purchasing power while spending less currency wise.
While I can’t say for definite James, I’d guess your average Chinese squady/crab/matelot isn’t on a rockstar wage (even the submariners 😮 ) which all adds up (or down) when it comes to budgets.
I don’t think our forces are on rock star wages either!
Even a junior bobby on the beat gets a lot more money than a young squaddie and gets overtime pay – and doesn’t work such long hours.
I didn’t say they were Graham. Having said that…. We are amongst the best paid (or were fairly recently) although sadly an easy target for government savings by not getting pay rises. The basic pay might not be that vast but when you add in money for being deployed etc it can build up to quite a decent whack.
Let’s not forget the poor hard working, down trodden teachers, who have a paltry starting salary of 30k , regular pay rises as they get automatic promotion, close on a guaranteed job, secured by rabidly left wing unions who will back a teacher to the hilt, no matter how useless they may be, months of paid holidays and an excellent pension.
Hang on a minute, where do I sign!
“Hang on a minute, where do I sign!”
You’d have to pay me a lot more than that to look after somebody else’s spoilt brats. I know a few teachers and I’d end up leathering the kids…. and their complaining parents. 😂
Nice……. 😨
Its the way I roll brah…. 😎
Not really but lets just say the Armed Forces gain wasn’t a catastrophic loss to the Education sector. Or the Care sector.
…or train drivers on over £50k!
Sorry to misinterpret you Andy.
Not many troops are deployed at the moment, so few benefit from the Operational Allowance pay uplift (only paid for the most dangerous environments, anyway) which was a whopping £29 per day when I last looked. Still the lads get free food and accomodation on tour, as well, and maybe a loaded phone card and free bottled water.
The US look after their deployed guys somewhat more generously – I once heard that income tax was waived for them when on tour!
You’re right, maybe not that many troops but matelots spend a lot of time away too and get separation pay or whatever the latestt incarnation of it is. I’m a bit out of touch with it all but I was getting a fair whack extra when I went anywhere on a boat. Admittedly I was towards the top end of it and they had tweaked it all over the years and the younger boys were getting a good bit less.
As for the Yanks, they do (or did) get a lot of benefits but personally I preferred getting a decent whack up front, it was better for mortgage purposes and lets an individual spend on what THEY want.
Of course, we all like a moan and compare what others have, its human nature.
Would be nice if Merkel and Germany did more than the absolute bare minimum for their own defense but not holding my breath on that.
Trump wanted to get Merkel to start pulling her own weight but zombie Biden reversed all the U.S. troop pullouts from Germany. Ugh.
yaaaaaaawn!
Not fair. The 2% target spend was actually introduced by Obama administration (Biden was a part of) after Ukraine. This was agreed by Nato members and would be done over some years.
Germany is increasing but in small increments, they had agreed to reach the 2% target over about a decade. Anyway there are upcoming elections in Germany and defense budget is not a political priority. It will depend on who gets into power.
If anything, Trumps ranting stopped Germany from spending more. Orange One pissed a lot of German MPs off, making them completely unwilling to buy American if it could be helped at all.
Just look at the above spending numbers for 2020 and 2021.
Germany is increasing its Leo II fleet from 228 to 332 (104 new Leo II A7V currently coming in) and modernizing 4 Marder IFV batallions
.
2020 it ordered 38 new Eurofighters and 4 new destroyers / frigates (MKS 180).
Last week, a 20 billion EUR aquisition project was passed for the next four years. Main points:
Marine:
2,8 billion EUR for 2 new additional subs (with Norway), with the likely option of getting more of them later
480 million for new radars for F123 frigate class
1,34 billion for 5 new P8s
2,1 billion for new spy ships.
900 million for 2 new tankers (pending some audit of the costs)
500 million for naval strike missiles
Luftwaffe:
1,5 billion for the SCAF / FCAS project (plus another 4 planned, depending on conditions).
866 millon PEGASUS Persistant German Airborne SurveillanceSystems
200 million for new air defense radars
Heer:
1,9 billion to upgrade 150 Pumas to the new S1 standard (40 Pumas are already at that level and ready for the VJTF 2023)
304 million for new laser aiming devices, independent of what rifle they’ll be getting
88 million for Boxer „Joint Fire Support Team
Cyber:
900 million for cyber security
That leaves still some projects for the next parliament.
Germany needs 40-60 new heavy lift helos and 90 replacements for the Tornado fleet (hopefully 45 EF and 45 SuperH / Growlers.
Plus the modernisation of the other 150 Pumas – and then another batch of 200 IFVs replacing the remaining Marders. Either Puma, Lynx or maybe CV 90. Or even Boxer.
Why all the Foreign Aid comments? That is not what this article is about.
First poster set the ball rolling, or maybe stirred the Hornets nest?
Sorry if this has been raised by others, but why does the U.K. spend such a high proportion of its expenditure on operations and maintenance (41.6%). The average NATO % is nearly half this, while our spending proportion is about 33% higher than the US (see figure 7 in the report). This same figure also illustrates that the Proportion the U.K. spends on personnel is very low compared to other countries (32%, compared to France on 42%).
Maybe because we actually use our military on ops rather than sitting nice and shiny back at base?
When the kit and and people are used they need to be repaired, seviced and maintained/updated. As Daniele stated that costs money mate.
That all makes sense, but what I struggle to understand is why the U.K. budget in 2021 for this is $30B, but for France it is just $15B.
Thats interesting and not something that I have looked at before. I guess our activity levels, even post-HERRICK and TELIC are higher than most to account for the high O&M spend; a cynic might say we spend a lot on maintaining unreliable and ageing equipment – that would certainly be true of much Land equipment. I cannot account for the low personnel spend except to say that perhaps we don’t have many people now! A parochial point is that there is only one regular army unit in West and East Sussex combined.