NATO recently unveiled a comprehensive list of defence expenditure data, shedding light on the financial commitments made by its member countries.
In light of NATO’s data, the United Kingdom finds itself in a noteworthy position. While it continues to allocate a significant portion of its GDP to defence, the relative increase in defence expenditure is remarkably small compared to its counterparts.
From 2014 to 2023, NATO’s total defence spending has been on a steady upward climb, jumping from $943.2 billion in 2014 to an estimated $1.26 trillion in 2023, reflecting a firm commitment to security and military readiness among the alliance’s members.
The Top Five Spenders in 2023
An exploration of individual nations reveals an intriguing picture of defence spending:
- United States: The United States leads in contributions, with defence spending increasing from $653.9 billion in 2014 to an estimated $860 billion in 2023, accounting for a dominant share of the overall NATO defence budget.
- Germany: Germany has significantly increased its defence spending from $46.2 billion in 2014 to an estimated $68.1 billion in 2023, making it the second-largest spender within NATO.
- United Kingdom: The UK has seen a relatively modest increase in defence spending, moving from $65.7 billion in 2014 to an estimated $65.8 billion in 2023, placing it third among NATO countries.
- France: France’s defence spending has grown steadily from $52 billion in 2014 to an estimated $56.6 billion in 2023.
- Italy: Italy completes the top five, with its defence spending rising from $24.5 billion to an estimated $31.6 billion.
For comparison, here is the ranking of the top five NATO member countries by their estimated defence expenditures in 2022:
- United States – $821,830 million
- United Kingdom – $66,651 million
- Germany – $60,788 million
- France – $52,289 million
- Italy – $30,307 million
Smallest Relative Increase
Not only has the UK slipped down a place, it had the smallest relative increase in defence expenditure from 2014 to 2023, with a negligible increase of only 0.2%. This indicates that the United Kingdom’s defence expenditure remained relatively stable over the specified period compared to other countries on the list, resisting the trend to increase spending to face increased threats.
You can view the figures here.
As a percentage of GDP
The United Kingdom’s defence expenditure as a share of GDP shows a relatively stable commitment to defence spending, with a slight decrease over the years.
From 2014 to 2023, there has been a slight decrease in the share of GDP allocated to defence spending. In 2014, the United Kingdom dedicated approximately 2.14% of its real GDP to defence expenditure. By 2023, the percentage had decreased slightly to 2.07%.
The trend suggests a consistent prioritisation of defence spending, albeit with a marginal reduction in the relative share of economic resources allocated.
The USA just added a trillion dollars in debt in a month, I’m all for increasing defence budgets a bit but the budget must meet the threat level and right now NATO massively over matches everyone else.
No point in crippling your economy with over spending like China is doing or pilling on debt like the US Is doing.
Quite frankly it’s about time Germany over took the UK in defence spending.
But we are piling on debt. We are spending £100bn a year over the Government’s tax take. We can’t reduce spending on defence though, just not sure how we’d afford an increase that many ask for.
We are pilling on debt but others are worse, High inflation erodes debt a well as % of GDP.
How much debt a country has doesn’t matter if investors continue to be willing to fund it. Political instability in the UK has subsided, but a high-tax, low-growth economy simply cannot compete with the prospects offered by higher-risk emerging markets, or stable, lower-tax markets such as the US.
The UK is not a high tax economy. It’s the opposite our tax burden is one of the lowest in the G20 and the actual lowest in the G7.
The UK economy is set up for high personal wealth, low tax burden so the rich Tory party grandees and rich foreign nationals can live in the UK very comfortably.
How else do people afford multi million pound houses, luxury cars, a nanny, housekeeper, swimming pools, sending all 4-5 kids to top private schools and luxury holidays 2-3 times in the summer and skiing trips to the Swiss Alps in the winter?
I’m not joking I know hundreds of individuals like this. They simply aren’t being taxed enough at the high earning end of the economy.
I’m sorry, Mr Bell, but judging by appearances isn’t efficient in economics. The British economy is not a low-tax one, and neither the claim about the G7 or the G20 is true. I’ll present to you the statistics for effective tax rate in 2022, the last year we have relevant numbers for. That year, the US drew 4.9 trillion in tax revenue from a GDP of 25.5, for a tax-to-GDP ratio of 19.2%. The UK, meanwhile, drew 786 billion pounds (we will work in pounds so that exchange rate fluctuations do not throw us off) from a GDP of 2.2, for a tax-to-GDP ratio of 35.7% – almost double. Canada had a tax-to-GDP ratio of 33.2%, according to the OECD. Japan has a ratio of 35.8%, placing it level with the UK. The other three nations – France, Germany, and Italy – are certain social market economies and so, predictably, have tax ratios upwards of 40%. As such, the UK is far from having the lowest tax burden in the G7. Similarly, the UK has one of the highest in the G20, due to its relatively advanced welfare state. Emerging economies tend to not only have lower tax rates, but also higher levels of tax evasion, leading to a lower actual tax intake.
As for the wealthy people thing… I’m not sure if you’re suggesting that no one should be able to afford luxuries, and I would contend with that suggestion. The British top tax bracket is 45%, and tax breaks are much more difficult to use than in North America. The effect of a taxing the rich is debatable, but high tax rates for businesses are always detrimental. The UK used to boast one of the lowest corporation taxes in any major economy, however with successive increases, this advantage has been reduced. In addition, the same as for personal tax, tax breaks are of little help. In the US, a company can write off all costs and is incentivised to invest by being able to recoup that from taxes in full. In the UK, investment only possesses a 50% tax break.
Many wealthy people of the type you talk about in the UK either use non-dom status or are foreign nationals, meaning that they are not expected to pay tax in the UK. Whatever you say, the “high-end of the economy” is paying more than its fair share of taxes: particularly, the companies both large and small.
So you tax them more and they suddenly start looking around, the wealthiest are also the most agile. If you had millions you’d have houses in different countries and international bank accounts so can move easily, they also don’t earn their a lot of their money from the UK, most super rich are wealthy due to global investments, so they don’t need to be here. Heck I’m’ not wealthy and lived in a number of countries over the years, its not hard to move if you want to.
You do understand if you pay a house keeper you effective pay their income tax to HMRC, if you buy luxury car you pay VAT.
A high earner pays 45% income tax and a very high % of their spend will be on VATable goods @20% meaning they pay 65% in tax. Not including NI. I’m not sure you could say 65% taxation is low.
A high earner can move to Portugal and pay 20% on all income for the first 10 years or Dubai and pay zero income tax and 5% vat. At the same time putting everyone they employ directly and indirectly out of work.
Comparing UK to the G7 isn’t that relevant, a better comparison is ‘where would the wealthy settle’. You would need to consider schooling, good private health care, transport links, crime, VAT, entertainment, climate as factors as well as income tax. UK scores reasonably well and the compromise is paying a bit more tax but there’s a limit to the amount of compromise people will make, thinking otherwise is usually driven by emotion rather than logic.
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/personal-income-tax-rate
Personally I don’t care about the super rich or look at them with envy, class wars were of the last century imo. One idea perhaps double or triple the number of rich living in the UK would increase tax take considering the top 1% make up 33% of the tax take. Make that 3% and rest of us can join the 37% of adults that currently don’t pay tax, there’s a nice thought. Not only that the super rich don’t rely heavily on NHS, government schools or other government services. So the increased tax take by adding 2% more wealthy people doesn’t result needing 2% more in government services so the 99.9% of the increased tax take is spent on us.
The best form of socialism is to maximise your tax income then distribute it not drive it down and have to increase the % tax to get the same income, that’s a downward spiral which won’t end well. Particularly for defence as that bares the brunt of the cuts that will be needed.
What a nice fantasy you have there.
But in the real world the rich don’t just sit around paying taxes, they buy real estate, utilities and services then charge the rest of us however much they can get away with.
The whales make a splash and the rest of us drown
Just start taxing capital gains fairly, it’s a lot harder to move to Spain and take all your investments with you.
work hard
Not to mention that capital gains are taxed less than income.
So the people who do the work keep less of their profit than the people who sit around owning things.
That’s bollocks. People with that sort of spending power are taxed at the highest end of the scale. What do you want? 70, 80% tax rates?
They pay more taxes because they earn more. That is enough. It just goes into the bottomless pit of welfare/social security/handouts/French police anyway.
you realise wealthy people pay less of their annual income in tax right? they don’t pay income tax like all of us. They use capital gains, loans and off shore companies to keep their earnings out of the national coffers. Wealth inequality has skyrocked in the UK and the middle class is disappearing, soon we will have the rich and the poor and nothing in-between and people like you will be cheerleading it all the way. You have bought the right wing story that everybody is trying to take your money and give it to the poor but what they really want is for you to blame the poor and not look at them.
It’s not just about how much GDP, it’s as much about the way what we already have is used we keep seeing multi million contracts being awarded to offshore defense companies, maybe invest in better terms and conditions for the men and women and their forgotten families Britain needs to look at a more wholistic approach all across the board I went to see an old mate who bought an old married quarters, to get there, I had to past the current ones, I was appalled the whole estate was like an inner city low investment area, awful. No wonder that the navy is hemorrhaging sailors.
From an economic perspective, American debt is irrelevant. While the US market remains favourable and profitable, we will continue to pump money into it. In recent years, growth in the American economy has defied expectations to vastly outpace increases in debt (that is, the years since 2020’s splurges).
You can double the defence budget, but it wouldn’t make a scrap of difference, until you can actually produce the goods faster. We shop abroad for fighter aircraft, why not for the rest.second hand or not(I drive a foreign car) I have a Japanese t.v, if a piece of equipment is good enough, and Better STILL AlREADY BUILT,CAN DO DO THE JOB WE’LL WANT IT TO DO WHY Not Indeed why not? Is it because the U.K doesn’t want to be seen using other nations cast offs?I think so.and the Au.k needs to get real, pull it’s dinosaur head out of its backside,The whole world is trading ALL KINDS OF KIT.why not us?
I do agree with some of the Heavy Industry, we should source ship Hulls from the bigger builders for better value, and then fit them out with there UK defence systems.
Poland once a Heavy industry leader now cannot produce its own tanks.
issue is Buying from oversea’s reduces your Tax return in putting the money back into the system.
you end up with less for your £s CHR3s was the prime 147 units upgraded or 50 new Lep2s for the same value.
Because that destroys the economy by cutting all the jobs and manufacturing and sending it abroad effectively making everyone else richer. That is a ridiculous idea. We need more things built here for jobs and to sell. You also lose all the know how and expertise and infrastructure that you won’t get back ruining your future and relying on foreign countries for supplies who can dictate everything since you know longer can make it yourself. Wow.
British politicians are not interested in defence, only cuts and more cuts are present.
British politicians react to the demands of their electorate & there is little chatter on defence. We will obviously keep up the 2% but the pressure is on other NATO members rather than us. The demands in the UK are on the NHS etc. not defence. That is democracy I’m afraid.We need to put the case more firmly.
It’s only democracy if you bother to ask your electorate, which they never do. They react to the newspapers, ie the opinions of a few rich owners, which they pretend are the demands of the electorate.
If you ask a stupid question, like should we spend more on doctors or soldiers, you’ll hear doctors every time. But ask, should we spend more on hospital administrators or defending the country, I doubt the NHS would walk that one quite so easily.
These are complex matters and Daily Mail soundbites aren’t the best way to decide.
There is plenty of polling done by the government and private companies, though polling agencies like yougov etc that clearly show defense isn’t a priority for the voters. The focus is on cost of living, the NHS and tax cuts.
The newspapers drive the narative, but they aren’t the only source of info. Read daily mail/express and you would think immigration is a huge issue but all the polling shows it’s way down their in priority way down.
You make my point for me. Why then is the number of small boats crossing the channel a political priority for the Prime Minister? Immigration was exercising the news on the radio again this morning (along with the case of a BBC presenter who it is alleged commited a crime, but which the principals deny and for which it seems there is no evidence). I don’t remember the last time I heard the Today programme do a piece on UK Defence that lasted as long as the time they spent on immigration, including sending an anchor to Tunisia, weaving it with headlines, and interviewing the Minister for Work and Pensions on the matter.
Global stabilisation is one of the major outputs of Defence. Isn’t that linked to migration? Yet never by the media. Perhaps it should also be pointed out more often that over half of the increased inflation we have seen in this country recently is due to a war we might have prevented, and that a far worse war that we are trying to prevent is on the cards that could tank our economy for a decade. Money into Defence affects the issues that government and the people really care about. The dots are never joined. I know I’m preaching to the converted here.
We get virtually no education on UK defence; it’s barely mentioned by media or politicians, except as a cost or a cock-up. I’d expect opinions on defence to be soft for the majority of those asked. Easy to sway if politicians wanted.
Agreed, and its pants.
We live in a representative democracy. Individuals do not have the time or inclination to scrutinise & decide every piece of legislation. Choose someone you trust to make those decisions. That said most people look no further than the party that appeals to them – the people tend to get the Government they deserve – as the saying goes.
You are right of course, the number of highly paid administrators in the NHS has ballooned in the last 15 years. Now there are almost as many non clinical administrator’s as there are individuals who are direct patient facing.
The NHS management theory seems to go. We have a problem with capacity. Let’s employ an administrator or 20 to improve efficiency, oh that has not worked. Let’s employ another 20 administrators to improve the efficiency of the efficiency programmes.
Darn it that hasn’t worked, we need obviously to employ more very highly paid administrators to manage the contracts for the private companies now sub contracted in to manage the efficiency of the efficiency programmes. I kid you not this is actually what is going on behind the scenes in the NHS. Don’t believe me? Look at the Primary care groupings, integrated care groups, county and regional integrated care groupings. These are all sub cohorts and replication of managerial oversight in addition to NHS trusts and have replaced the old strategic health authorities with 2 or in some cases 3-4 overseeing organisational structures.
All under the Tory government and all utterly unnecessary and wasteful taking precious resources away from frontline clinical care.
£36b budget per year for the NHS £24b is operational costs, 75% of the budget is spent on Cancer treatment and care, only 25% for everyone else. NHS bean counters and mid level managers numbers is higher than nurses.
If the government came out and admitted that the amount of equipment given to the Ukrainians had left our own stocks lower than they should be, it might make people think that our defence is More important than a war in Ukraine.
The west nis showings signs of Ukraine fatigue will and ability to keep giving equipment to the Ukraine is decreasing the stuff they’ve been given hasn’t been as effectively used as was expected the alleged counter offensive hasn’t played out well
Britains historic strength has always come from not over spending on its military during peace time and having sound finances that allow the country to borrow large amounts of money to build an army if needed during war.
US debt it’s completely out of control now, they can’t afford to spend as much as they do on defence nor can China. Neither will end well just like it did for us and Germany in 1914.
Also as we are showing in Ukraine just as we did in France and Russia in 1914 it’s always better and cheaper to pay to support someone else’s army than try and maintain a large standing force in peace time.
Being an island in a benign security environment these are luxury’s the UK has that others don’t. No point in overspending to guard Germans land boarder or get sucked in to wars in the Taiwan straight for little UK benefit.
Only problem with this is that the UK no longer has sound finances.
It has the second lowest debt in the G7 though, no one has sound finances anymore but atleast the UK is trying to tackle the problem. Trying to borrow money to grow like the US and China are doing is bound to fail. Japan can show the consequences of that.
However the UK was able to borrow around $300 billion during COVID, only a few countries on the planet can borrow like that. Shows what can be done in an emergency if you want to rebuild a military, that’s double what Poland just done and three times Germans emergency war fund.
As a percentage of GDP, 7 Nato members have higher government debt than the UK. The rest have lower. And borrowing ability/cost is not just about government debt levels: the UK no longer has an AAA or prime rating – its fallen to AA.
So has everyone else though. Only the USA and Germany still have AAA and they ware likely to loose it soon.
Canada, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden……… All AAA.
What’s most worrying for the US is the almost total lack of investment in infrastructure despite all that horrendous debt. So much of what they rely on was generated by Roosevelt in the 30s and is increasingly difficult to maintain let alone build upon. They can shout make America great again as much as they like but unlike the post war boom (a strict one off due to a range of factors) that created that greatness, there simply are not, as things stand the regenerational environment for them to do so. Something is going to have to give to maintain their present ‘greatness’ I’m afraid, but certainly seeing Germany until recently not pulling their weight militarily is understandably a stiletto to the ribs. Even Japan with its pacifist Constitution is a power in the top ten and growing. so the War guilt long plied in German over defence spending is long past its sell by date I’m afraid.
America spends a huge amount on infrastructure. The issue is it’s all very high cost, low return, maintenance of car dependent infrastructure in low density settlement patterns.
Pretty shocking actually to read in the latest list of most powerful militaries published based on a wide range of factors. Uk is 5th France 9th and Italy 10th which surprised me. Where were the Germans about 20th I think and guess what even Australia is ranked 16th. Egypt was 14th and Ukraine 15th. Brazil 12th and Indonesia 13th I mean if it weren’t so damn pathetic it would be funny for Germany with a massive arms business is actually deemed weaker than Pakistan in 7th. Beyond parody and I suspect Poland will likely make top 20 in a year or so.
The global firepower index is and has always been a joke. I wouldn’t take stock in anything they publish
True. It does not reflect combat experience, training state, equipment modernity (or otherwise), readiness of people and kit, possession of nuclear weapons, or ability to do power projection or limits on using military might overseas placed by a Constitution (ie Japan).
Its just a crude numbers tally.
I think once South Korea and Japan was ranked above the UK!
Your military points are completely valid, Jim. Your economic ones, not so much.
Firstly, China. Where does the claim that they cannot afford to continue to increase defence spending come from? If it is from the somewhat stagnating GDP figures, then it is flawed. China was never going to grow endlessly, nor until it hit GDP per capita parity with the US or any developed country. Neither will India, mind you. There is a ceiling at which point the catch-up effect stops being so noticeable, and that is when growth becomes more difficult to instigate. All developed nations are well beyond this point (theoretically, it is possible that economists are wrong). Most economists/financials thought that China would hit that ceiling in 2027/28, coincidentally when the country’s GDP was predicted to approach America’s. Well, we were wrong. Off by about 5 years. It was considered entirely feasible, at the time, that the US could retake the lead within a few years of China’s catch-up effect dissipating. China’s slowdown, it is important to note, had little to do with their crackdown on large companies.
Now, on to America. “America’s debt is out of control” you say. Is it? That would involve either the country relying on increasing interest rates to fund its debt, or the country defaulting on its debt. Neither of those have happened. Yes, the Federal Reserve has increased interest rates, but this is an administered change in order to combat inflation as opposed to an attempt to induce international demand. The aim is to temporarily reduce Americans’ spending power here, not to find funds. And, yes, the country came close to a default for political reasons, but it was not a case where the US would have struggled to find the money to fulfil a particular payment had it had the will. In fact, as I’m sure you’re aware, its government underwrote one of the largest issuances of bonds in history to meet impending bills – those bonds were sold within a single trading day.
The American economy is far too dominant for its debt to be an issue. I’m not even talking about “technological prowess”, “military superiority” or other things that Americans like to point out. Simply put, American finances are too large (for the moment) for any nation to realistically try to compete. I say this with a degree in PPE, a job at an international bank, and as someone who lives between California and London.
Jim,
I read yesterday that the interest payment on the US National Debt is about to overtake what they spend on their annual Defence budget – I could not get my head around that for quite a few hours!
Our island position does not mean that we don’t contribute to European land defence – for half a century we had a Corps in Germany plus a brigade in Berlin – (plus 5 RAF stations in Germany). Today we have troops on eFP duties in Estonia and Poland. We are in NATO and contribute to Euro-Atlantic security; we don’t just do Home Defence.
I could see that we could contribute a naval task force (Carrier Strike Group) to the Taiwan straits if the Americans asked us to at a time of tension, but they may not for a number of reasons.
Tories gonna tory.
Very true 😕
When did the security services et al get rolled into Defence?
Think we mostly agree that the UK needs better procurement to ensure better bang for buck, but, I would suggest with the SSs taking a chunk of change too, their budget may be deducting some serious wonga from Defence overall.
We moved to “Defence related” measurement under George Osborne’s Chancellorship about a decade ago. The Treasury claimed it was to comply with NATO rules, but the Defence Select Committee said it was the only way we could hit our 2% target. It obfuscated things for several years, which I suspect was another reason.
It’s about £4 billion I believe, it’s always been in the defence budget to my knowledge it’s well with in NATO reporting standards to do so. USA includes NSA and CIA in its figures but not FBI.
France includes Gendarmerie in its defence reporting figures.
Yes, the SIA is about that much. Word is it was added by Osborne.
Comparisons can be problematic. With US agencies like NSA, that is a part of the US DoD, and has many military in its ORBAT, so it is natural it will be in their DoD spend.
CIA has a military side, both private contactors and SOF support.
FBI rightly not included.
Our equivalents, GCHQ and SIS, are not MoD, but under the FCO. They also have military / MoD personnel working for them, but in GCHQs case under MoD organisations and in SIS case I’m not expanding.
I have no problem with the Intelligence community being part of the defence spend, as they defend the UK much as HM forces do, and cannot usually publicise it. What I would have liked is if their addition was compensated with additional funds for HM forces proper, which we know Cameron, Osbourne, and all since are not keen on changing.
Much like the capital costs of the nuclear deterrent replacement being bought into core budget.
It is a difficult one, the Security Service defend this nation every day, as do the Police CT Command. They’re not your average coppers with their national role.
The Gendarmarie I believe are paramilitary? We have no real equivalent I can think of.
Ultimately what is and isn’t a defence spend is a subjective target, if we brought GCHQ and SIS into the defence spend, the argument would then be “Should the NCA be in there?”
The Gendarmes are barely paramilitary, for the most part they’re straight up Police (they’re duties include traffic policing, and policing any municipality that doesn’t have enough population to warrant it’s own local police force). It’s like a combination of the Border Force, Local Police Forces, RMPs, and Riot Control forces.
Agree, it is subjective. If they decided NCA was classed as “defence” I’d be up in arms, as including organised crime, even with the loss it makes to the UK economy, is too much. Both SIS and GCHQ have a military connection, and in the latter’s case directly supports military operations, which to me at least differentiate the two.
But on the other hand “organised crime” includes VEO’s so an argument could be made, you see what I mean? I could, playing devils advocate, argue that the NCA is more of a “defense” organisation than the fisheries protection squadron, and probably get a degree of support.
I do mate.
I’m not seeing it, where in the doc is that David?
I don’t think they publish the sum it’s covered by one of those £10,000 screwdrivers that the RAF mislay.
Thats *if* Germany actually spends that amount, given its currently trying to cut 30 billion Euros in its general budget and historical reluctance to spend money. And like some others have said, the UK has by and large paid its way, while Germany and France are simply catching up.
Hi folks hope all is well.
Well Germany does need to do a lot of catching up with defence spending, and obviously the current Ukrainian war has made a significant shift in mindset.
Doing the maths, there is a difference of 2.3 billion, this I gather is less than we spend on illegal migrants given the figures published today. Apparently we are now finding over £3 billion to accommodate the migrants? Hopefully from the NATO meeting taking place our PM may announce another increase in UK defence spending.
Cheers,
George
A big factor is also what you get for your money. It’s hard not to look at France and consider they appear to get better value for their money than us.
The sea is always bluer on the other side of the Channel? They don’t always do that well.
For sure, just overall they seem to be in a better position. They have some major procurement mistakes and gaps just like the UK, but final image appears better.
I’m tending to agree in terms of army yes. Air force not so sure. The French have no 5th gen stealth aircraft, no enablers such as heavy airlift capacity or Joint rivet electronic recon aircraft.
In terms of navy , the RN is numerically smaller but has better destroyers, better SSNs and a more capable auxillary fleet. The French navy has better frigates in their FREMM class, at least until type 26/31 are in service and more capacity for airborne assault with 3× mistral class LPHDs.
So it’s a mixed picture. Numerically France does have an edge but the UK could surpass France if decisions made are seen through to fruition eg Tempest brought into service in large numbers, another batch of type 31s or better yet type 26s ordered and Aukus subs/ SSNr is delivered with 12-15 subs for RN. All are within our governments gift.
A choice to focus on RN and RAF and retain an elite but compact army of 80-90k troops seems like the right decision at this time. Not 72k, that number is too small.
To me 80k is too small. Recently history has showed us that. The army struggled to maintain its presence in Iraq/afgan and wasn’t able to increase it when it was needed. That type of deployment seems a realsitic future one and so cutting further is nonsense, but the economy is a mess and so I guess affordability has to be considered.
The army was set at 120k (was 160k) for the post Cold War world (Options for Change, summer 1990, which was after careful analysis and was about right.
80k is too small for our army and 72k is tiny. Not all that number is deployable by a long chalk, and some of it is committed to what used to be called PCF tasks (Permanently Committed Forces).
The goalposts change to suit politicians and bean counters – a division used to be 20-25k, now Ben Wallace claims it is 10k troops.
We should have had an Infantry division in Helmand (three times the size of Wales) – we had just a brigade group. We couldn’t do the job properly and lives were lost, in some cases unnecessarily. Crazy to do Iraq and Afghan together for a time.
That’s been the case for quite a while. And they seem to produce most of their weapons themselves.
Have you seen the French Airforce? it’s not exactly top tier. Lots of light forces for sure but few enablers, even basics like intra theatre lift. The RN has twice the tonnage of the MN as well.
It’s hard to compare unless we want to war with each other.
Another way to look at it as they have over twice as many fighter/bombers but ours are more advanced. Their navy ships are generally better armed but smaller. Our sub fleet is better but they have massively bigger land force. We have better heavy lift capability etc etc. It’s basically a big game of top trumps, would need a realsitic war scenerio to work through it.
Not knocking them they have some good stuff but their force it’s very much keyed to either dropping a nuclear weapon on someone or running round the North African desert, ours is far more scaled to chasing Russian submarines around the far North Atlantic and defending Norway.
F35 is such a game changer in the air as is the new mk2 AESA for Typhoon. I don’t think the French Airforce could do much solo and would struggle in SEAD/DEAD without F35.
Where do you think the French get better value ? “ Appearing “ to do things is their speciality .
I think our PM is happy at 2% George sadly 💰💰
The reality is that most of Europe are already starting from a long way back, its not your spending that is the sole factor – its your expenditure starting point, the Europeans have underspent for years and will take years to catch up.
To an extent. It’s not to say that the UK has been swimming in cash. Ever since the 2008 crisis, it’s been very much… limited.
couldn’t care less what others spend, whether we can meet our own commitments is what matters
That’d be a no, then.
Given the lack of spending by the German government in the recent past, all they are doing is catching up.
Read it carefully – UK spending actually slightly DOWN from 2022 to 2023. While war rages in Ukraine, and other NATO members are currently raising defence spending, UK cuts continue…..
It’s not a cut, it’s because of the drop in the value of the pound. It’s a cut in dollar terms because the Tory’s crashed the pound. It will go the other way next year.
Stop putting Sunak in the same bag as the incompetence that came before him. Pound up from 1.15 to 1.29 in just over half a year, resurgent growth, falling inflation, a rising house market, American tech companies and banks happy to invest here… I could go on.
Rising housing market? House prices are falling, not enough new homes being built and rents are going through the roof for tenants, buy-to-let investors pulling out so fewer rental properties available, councils not maintaining public stock properly.
Resurgent growth? – increase of 0.3% in in GDP a Quarter is not much to write home about.
The council thing I have no clue about. As for house prices, they have been increasing despite incessant forecasts of an imminent collapse. Rents going up also indicate more demand in the housing market. 0.3% real growth during 8% inflation is extremely impressive.
Rents going up in a cost of living crisis. Lovely. GDP is a terrible economic indicator. Maybe we should find a new system to judge a countries prosperity. Like the disparity between the richest and poorist. Or people living below the poverty line.
Whether or not it’s just due to the exchange rate, as Jim says, the pound terms increase is feeble too. On top of that, note that a lot of our defence spending is in dollars anyway, and that inflation has still massively outpaced the budget.
I don’t think this is overly significant. So Germany are spending roughly $2 Billion more than the UK in 2023? At that rate it will take Germany 10 years just to make up the difference in our spending for the year 2014, which is the other year given for comparison, not to mention the decades in which this has been the trend.
It is good though that Germany is now taking its military seriously and sharing more of the burden for collective defence.
Indeed, considering our investment in ultra high end like the nuclear deterrent (which the Germans indirectly benefit from) and nuclear submarines and our relative locations in the threat arena, I was shocked to read last year that the Germans don’t have many frontline tanks than us when surely in any conflict their land forces will be in the front line especially as until recently Poland was pretty I’ll placed to hold up an invasion. The damage they have done to pan Atlantic relations whatever their excuse is shocking now the threat level is seen to be what it was.
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Where do you get that Germany hasn’t got as many frontline tanks as us? We have 220ish in 3 Regiments and fwd deployed training establishments. The Bundeswehr has about 300 in 5 and a half Battalions, and unlike us their Leopards are a bit newer. Most are A6’s and A7’s (Also they’ve managed to get a new IFV into service while we’re cutting ours).
Yep. All agreed.
With 14 gone to Ukraine, we have 213 tanks on the active list – as well as those out with the three armoured regiments and training units (including RAC Centre Bovington, BATUS (22 tanks?) & the REME trade training unit at Lyneham),
some are in depots for a variety of reasons:
-they are in pools (two pools in Germany)
-they are Repair Pool (replacement when a unit-held tank is undergoing Base Overhaul)
-they are Attrition Reserve.
Some more details on those pools in Germany:
Source: Wiki/British Army Germany (BAG), successor to BFG:
Athlone Barracks, Paderborn
Ayrshire Barracks, Mönchengladbach
The Germans used to have thousands of tanks. It is incredible that they only have about 266: now.https://www.statista.com/statistics/1294391/nato-tank-strength-country/
compared to our 213 tanks.
They have dropped the ball – their readiness was poor under Ursula VDL – G36 rifle was unreliable – and their army manpower is just 62,066! [Problem with aircraft availability too, as I recall].
https://www.bundeswehr.de/de/ueber-die-bundeswehr/zahlen-daten-fakten/personalzahlen-bundeswehr
Got to give it to the polish on defence they seem to be going in the right direction ,were our government and other parties in the UK the word defence spending and what it means is like flocking a dead horse 🐎
Poland is a weird case, where are they getting all that money? And what is neglected because of it?
It’s not that weird. The Polish government are simply investing in a military that can face the threat. The Polish have been invaded and occupied x4 in the last century. I think they’ve got their defence plans correctly balanced.
Massive capable army with huge numbers of advanced MBTs and direct long range fire units, a capable air force for top cover and a developing costal navy ideally suited for Baltic operations and with heavily armed type 31 frigates now chosen, an ability to support NATO and North Atlantic operations.
Seems like the correct defence posture to me.
Good chance the USA will relay and even considered that Poland is now the top Military in Europe.Has it is no secret the US Generals have not been regarding the UK has a top fighting force for the last few years.IT some what hurts me to post this ,nothing against the pols good on them.However we Brits still the best.🇬🇧 more plz💰💰💰🤔 .
I usually speak only for the army. We know the weaknesses (and they are dire) which lead US Generals to say what they say about the British Army.
Our army’s strengths lie in its: ‘can do’ attitude, versatility (task, role and terrain), training, combat experience, leadership, fighting spirit, speed of deployment.
Can Poland afford it? They have no other choice. Its call good planning
Polish state-owned banks secured funds for arms purchases in the US; they released governmental bonds and took out a 12 trillion Korean won ($9.2 billion) loan to purchase military equipment. Contrary to what some people believe, Poland is not a poor country.
To be fair, in the most rudimentary terms, who cares? The approach the current PM has is that whether or not the UK increases the budget to 3% or not, it’ll still be a good 10 times smaller than the American one. It’ll also probably be too late to change anything in time for an upcoming conflict. So, if the heavy lifting is still to be done by the Americans, and as long as Britain remains the foremost power in Europe capable of exerting influence, is there a necessity to keep spending? I’m not saying this is a correct approach, just that this is THE approach.
We are not just a European power. We are a global power. Our 2% of GDP spend does not cut it.
I agree – a military is not only to fight wars but to prevent them, to project diplomatic power etc.
I was just outlining the reason Sunak appears opposed to increasing the defence budget.
They’ve a better Idea of what they need and they then go out and get it
The issue isn’t really about quantitative expenditure. The UK may have the third largest but the how is the spending done on a qualitative basis? How can France field twice a bigger army with less money? Is it because of an in grown defense sector? Subsidies? Probably, in the US, Boeing is the largest subsidy recipient, they have the backing of the government. I wouldn’t be surprised if Germany as well has (now) staunch government support after years of neglect
France doesn’t field a “Twice bigger army” though, not really.
Paper strenght the British Army is 78,000 and the French 118,000 (which isn’t 2x the British Army, 2x the British Army would be closer to 160,000), but that 118,000 number includes the Paris Fire Brigade, so cut 10,000 from that.
It also includes the Troupes de Marine, which in France come under the Army not the Navy, so you can cut another 17,000 from that. So Apples to Apples comparison then: The British Army is 78,000 men and the French Army is 90,000 men. Still larger, but the difference is not nearly so pronounced.
You are mistaken, French armed forces number 205 000 active military personnel (+ 35 000 reserves) split the following way :
– French Armed Forces (Land) count 130 000 (15 000 reservists, 15 000 Officers, 38 852 NCOs et 61 148 other ranks)
– The Marine Nationale : 35 113 soldiers : 6775 other ranks, 23043 NCOs, 4559 Officers and 736 Reservists
– Air and Space : 40531 personnel :10 065 of other ranks , 23695 NCOs, 6441 officers and 158 “volunteers”
-Gendarmerie Nationale : 34 356 personnel
No I’m not.
I’m not comparing the French Armed Forces to the British Armed Forces. I’m comparing the FRENCH ARMY (the Armée de Terre) to the British Army. In fact I’m comparing the Regular French Army to the Regular British Army. If I added in Reserves the comparison would be narrower, but I can’t filter out Troupes de Marine reservists from the rest of them so you can’t make a fair comparison.
If you’re going to correct me, do make sure you’re correcting me in the right way. In fact, if you look at your numbers you are AGREEING with me:
Guess what? 130,000 minus 15,000= 115,000 which near enough is the starting number I used for the regular component of the French Army (then subtract units which in the UK fall under either civilian or navy command).
Where i’m from, Army is the entirety of Armed forces (land sea air space), guess that’s where the misunderstanding stems from
An Army is an Army, ie the land fighting component of the Armed Forces, it’s not a misunderstanding, you’re using the word wrong.
Even if I give you that and compare armed forces to armed forces instead of Army to Army: You are still wrong.
The total size of the British Armed Forces is 189,000
British Army: 78,000 Regular + 30,000 Reserves
Royal Navy 33,000 Regular + 4,000 Reserves + 2,000 RFA
Royal Marines: 7,000
Royal Airforce: 32,000 Regular + 3,000 Reserves
189,000 vs the French 240,000 (your number). 240,000 is not double 189,000. That would be 378,000.
But again, it’s even worse because the French Armed forces include 34,000 Gendarmes which in the UK would fall under a combination of border force and various local police forces. So again; Apples to Apples the actual size difference between the British Armed Forces and the French is 17,000.
But wait: We forgot the Paris Fire Brigade, the London Fire Brigade is a civilian force, not part of the military so remove them as well.
And then we find: The actual size difference of the French Armed Forces vs their like for like British Counterparts is only about 7,000.
I don’t care what the useage of the word is where you are from, a difference of 7,000 when you’re talking about six figures is never going to be “double” or “twice bigger.”
In some countries, such as France and China, the term “army”, especially in its plural form “armies”, has the broader meaning of armed forces as a whole, while retaining the colloquial sense of land forces.
Cool, so I bothered to write out a 230 word reply to you, and you only bothered to reply to the first 23, even though I was willing to grant you the point that you where talking about Armed Forces and not just the Army.
So, aside from the fact that you are wrong {even if in French Armee was the title of the Armed Forces (it’s not, as you said it’s plural [“Forces of the Armies of France”] and you didn’t use a plural so I think you’re now just being dishonest and trying to back pedal) we are speaking in English. It’s not a misunderstanding if the fault is on you for misusing a word} unless you want to actually have a discussion about the size and composition of either the two Armies or the two Armed Forces, I don’t really care which, we are done: Because so far you’ve not made a substantive reply to me.
Patience is a virtue, mate – and you have it in abundance!
I think that’s the first time I’ve been called patient 😂
Breathe mate. I found that long reply good reading actually, on comparative strengths. It is a myth that is banded about often and I also believed the French Army to be much bigger compared to ours. Interesting. 👍
I’d offer, that the french forces are better operated and procurement is better.they don’t retire or withdraw it’s equipment like we do. Hence, they maintain their numbers better than we do
?? Where are you from if you think the army includes the navy, marines and air force and space and cyber bods. That’s weird.
Lebanon, Army there is a blanket term for all armed forces branch. Miss Dern i can see got very irritated, i don’t know if i hit a nerve. when i said twice as big i obviously meant it as a figure of speech not really x2 as big
Thanks Tullzter. We use words differently. Its great to have someone from Lebanon on this site.
I studied in Birmingham for 5 years then went back home. Whilst in the UK, my interest in defense related subjects grew, then recently discovered this website which i find very interesting
Funny how someone looking in from the outside can say I’m so patient and yet the person who refused to discuss the actual topic wants to portray me as irritated. It’s almost like you’re trying to deflect.
Also please don’t presume my title, that’s actually quite rude.
Apologies if i offended you, it was not my intentions
Fascinating, mate. I never knew the Parisian fire brigade were included in that. Is there any reason other than history that only the Parisian fire brigade is included, as opposed to all French firemen?
Only two countries in NATO have a smaller defence budget (in current dollars) in 2023 than 2022: the UK and Greece. Only three countries with a smaller budget in 2023 than 2021: the UK, Italy, and Greece. Meanwhile, Poland has gone from 15 billion to 29.
That’s pityful. $65.7 billion in 2014 to an estimated $65.8 billion in 2023. That’s not even close to inflation. I just hope the estimation is way out or the stats are misprinted.
This is all about Germany playing catch up, having spent only 1 to 1.5% of GDP in recent years, as I recall.
Politicos still need to realise that the 2%of GDP figure agreed at the Wales summit chaired by the British PM some 7 years ago is a floor figure not a ceiling target.
With state vs state war in Europe, we should spend nearer to 3%, still way below what we spent in the Cold War.
That goes a fair way to explaining why the Italian navy is nearly as big as ours they’re better run, they have a sensible approach to the navy and doesn’t throw its vessels into the scrapheap, when the vessel has years of service left in it.
The Italian Navy exists in a very different space from the RN though. It doesn’t have SSN’s, SSBN’s, large Carriers, the RFA and only one modern amphibious assault ship. It’s focus is on escorts and surface combatants, while the RN keeps a similar number of surface escorts as the Italians, but a lot more capital ships.
Germany has spent less than 1.5% of annual GDP on defence since 1995. Apart from a large one off injection to increase key equipment ( it is finding it difficult to spend it quickly), it has committed to reach the NATO 2% over the next few years. Quite right and long overdue.
France too fell short of the 2% for a number of years, even including the gendarmerie, which is a stretch.
UK should worry less about this nominal threshold and more about getting better value for the money.
,
The UK includes pensions which the other countries don’t though
I don’t think that is correct. I believe that almost all NATO states include military pensions in their defence budgets. This point is often raised to devalue Britain’s defence spending versus its peers, ignoring that fact.
Our defence figure also includes the nuclear deterrent which always used to be directly funded by Treasury (until Osbourned changed the rules and made MoD cover it) and some non-Defence intelligence (I believe).
Change of Govt in Germany as they have been shaving there defence budget for decades, suddenly turning on the taps will take decades to make a difference.
and considering that Germany purchased its fuel oil from Russia, that increase is likely to go on there fuel bill.
Public sector pay rises increase inflation…
2% is a tiny amount of a nations expenditure and to put defending ones country so far down the list of priorities is shocking . The UK should be looking to at least double our expenditure not make some vague promises to increase to 2.5% at some indeterminate date in the future . The government(s) are playing fast and loose with our security .
When Russia starts to invade Germany then you will see UK defence spending increas dramatically
I would like to know exactly where or what our defence mony goes on as we are short of a lot of munitions i .e.tanks and jet fighters also we seem to be short of ammunitions .and also has us giving a lot of our ammunitions to the Ukraine made us vulnerable ok it’s ok giving them all our outdated stuff but shouldn’t we replenish our stock with up to date armaments
What a scandalous waste of money,
Conservative Governments and the MOD have claimed for ages that we were spending 2.35% of GDP on defence.
I worked out the maths and couldn’t see it, defence spending as a proportion of GDP came to 2.07%.
The key stat that jumps out ifrom this report is that we did in fact only spend 2.07% in 2023. All the bluster from defence spokesmen and the MOD has plainly been designed to deceive Parliament and public.
Given that, since Osborn’s chicanery, that figure includes the cost of the nuclear programme, a large chunk of intelligence spending, civil service pensions and whatever other bits the Tories managed to slip in, that is not a lot of money to sustain force levels and procure equipment.
I do wish we would stop boasting about the UK’s leading contribution to NATO. If you take out the Osborne tricks, we are not actually spending more than 1.5% of GDP on defence, which is why we have to keep cutting service numbers and the equipment inventory.
It is all a bit shoddy really.