Britain near bottom of NATO rearmament table

Britain stands thirty-first out of thirty-two NATO countries on an internal alliance measure of how effectively members are meeting their rearmament promises, with only Iceland lower, according to a report by the Defence Committee.

The committee, chaired by Tan Dhesi, the Labour member for Slough, sets the figure against the government’s Defence Investment Plan and the warning that Russia could attack NATO as soon as 2030.

Dhesi said: “And if the UK government means what it says – that Russia could attack NATO as soon as 2030 – then work to rectify these vulnerabilities cannot start soon enough.”

The report states: “However, the current reality could hardly be bleaker. According to an internal document apparently drawn up by NATO to measure how effectively members are meeting their rearmament promises, the UK is number 31 out of 32 Alliance countries. Only Iceland, a country with no military capability, is lower on the table.”

Ed Arnold, senior research fellow for European security at the Royal United Services Institute, told the committee: “[s]o that’s a pretty poor position to be in… [a]nd the only way that you can increase that really is through cash because it’s all about fleet availability, it’s all about readiness to be out of the door as soon as possible and as soon as needed.”

The Defence Investment Plan published in June splits funding into two parts, investing £298 billion in the four years to 2029-30 to reach 2.7 per cent of national income spent on defence, and a period running to 2035 by which all NATO allies including Britain have committed to spending 3.5 per cent of national income on defence.

Sir Keir Starmer, then Prime Minister, said in June this year that it was the British intelligence assessment, and the assessment of other NATO countries, that there could be an attack by Russia on NATO as soon as 2030.

The committee concludes that the near £300 billion investment over the next four years represents the bedrock on which any British contribution to deterring or defeating Russian hostility against NATO from 2030 rests, and that the Ministry of Defence needs to enhance the readiness of existing military assets as well as investing in new capabilities.

A separate conclusion states: “Government is already investing in the Hybrid Navy and Atlantic Bastion concepts to deter and, if necessary, defeat those threats in the High North. However, Royal Navy equipment readiness and platform numbers in particular are currently far worse than the government’s stated requirements. With 2030 identified as a key date by which to be ready to deter or defeat any Russian threat, dramatic progress is required before the end of the decade to improve the availability and capabilities of the UK’s Armed Forces for operations in the High North.”

In evidence to the inquiry the Ministry of Defence said capabilities are held at varying levels of readiness, that every platform goes through a cycle of deployment, maintenance, training and preparation, and that equipment is held at different readiness depending on the capability it is required to meet for NATO.