To think that we should spend less on defence

Some countries do prevent foreigners from buying property. E.g. Thailand. We could do that here, but it would be a huge departure from current policy and the fury of the Daily Mail and Telegraph would know no bounds. I don't think it's ever going to happen, but it's not an impossible idea.
The Chinese buying up UK property phenomenon isn't really a sinister plot by the CCP. It's more an outcome of the fact that it's harder to find places to put savings in China than the UK. As a result (and for cultural reasons) there was a huge amount of emphasis put into buying a house/owning a house or land. To the extent many put of marriage until they could buy their own house. Unfortunately this led to a bubble and then a big property crash which the Chinese government declined to intervene in (possibly wisely). So many people lost out, and anyone wanting to put money in property is tempted to look abroad. The UKs especially popular because it has been demonstrated time and time again that no UK government would ever allow house prices to fall without intervening. Plus, many house building companies in the UK (even councils) have sought to capitalise on this market by directly advertising new build homes to Chinese investors.
It's driving up house prices and pricing local buyers out. But it's happening because of our own domestic policies and priorities. Chinese buyers are just reacting to it. It's our fault basically.

The government does not control how individual people choose to sell things belonging to them, such as houses and shares in companies, would be the simple answer.

Imagine the shrieks of fury if they said "no, you can't sell your house for the highest offer".

If Russia and China are the main threats, how come the Chinese are being allowed to build a super embassy? And Russia and China being allowed to buy up/buy shares in British companies and own loads of properties?
Make it make sense.

Surely it can come from eds net zero budget which many people in the know say it's wasteful and not needed

They both spend almost the same amount GDP on defence.

America spends more on defense but this is because'

1. It has interests across the globe it wants to defend. It wants to be an empire. Being an empire and having a presence in 5 continents costs money
2. It wants to protect its own interests in the case of nuclear attack. This means having monitoring systems on other countries soil. It also means providing security to those countries since without said security those countries are at huge risk of being the first targets in any war with no comeback. You take out the eyes first.
3. America wants to support the iron dome. This means, as with nuclear weapons, having radars and monitoring systems in other middle Eastern countries since you need to see the threat before it reaches the target. This means, by default, defending those systems and the countriea hosting them. This is phenomenally expensive as antimissile systems cost billions and each piece of antimissile ammo costs millions. As we can see from the current Iran war, actually using them is eyewateringly expensive. Not providing support will make allies think twice about continuing to host said systems
4. America has a domestic weapons industry it wants to maintain. And a very expensive, some would say wasteful procurement system. I could sell the UK MOD a pen and charge them 50 billion dollars. In so doing we would have smashed the "spending on defense as a proportion of GDP" target easily. But we would not be any safer functionally. Wasteful spending is not the same thing as "carrying" other countries
5. The only time article 6 was ever triggered it was when America was attacked. The UK spent 20 billion dollars supporting Americabin Afghanistan, it was not paid back for this as that's not how NATO works. The expectation is that allies help each other out and receive help back later if they need it. If the UK wasn't committed (by treaty) to supporting America we could have spent the money allocated to defence differently. But because the way NATO is meant to work is each country supports the one in need, money was funnelled into stuff like desert warfare. The idea was we do that knowing we get defence in turn if/when we need it. Except ....

We are located in a very strategically sensitive position re the North sea and Arctic. As the ice melts/as technology improves there's increased interest from China, Russia etc in opening new shipping routes (also oil and fishing for Krill). In peacetime being able to take container ships that route rather than round Africa/through Suez would save a lot of time and reduce the risk of bottlenecks, piracy etc. in wartime it's strategically important. Russia is very annoyed that even though they have a huge (mostly frozen) coastline they still have to sail through the "triangle of death" to reach anywhere. So between them the Nordic countries, the UK and ummm Greenland have control of a very important bit of water. Even though the UK isn't an arctic circle country it has interests in common with them since it basically stands at the gate to the arctic.

So I think having a navy matters. But we should be cooperating with our allies, especially the Scandinavians, to build defensive capabilities together and spending money on what we actually need. Not just what's useful.

As someone who spent 25yrs in the Army, I can assure you the threat from other countries is very real. Russia and China are our main concerns but other eastern countries would love to take a cheap shot given the chance. And now we can't without doubt think America will support us.

Actually if they invaded Scotland I think Boston would be here in a nano second 🤣🤣

Why would someone want to attack us, you've said yourself we are a rich domesticated country, that is a threat to others. Taking out a tiny island (which we are in the grand scheme of things globally) as strong as we may think we are, we are a pawn.

Exactly this.

Russia has no interest in physically occupying the UK. They do, however, see it as a historical enemy and adversary. So they would be quite pleased to neuter it militarily and economically if they could do so at minimal risk to themselves.

You are aware, I hope, that Russia has used chemical weapons to kill innocent people on British soil.

Let's cut the benefit bill anyway, just in case.

The Guardian is the most laughable propaganda shitrag in this country. That became blindingly apparent during the 'Pandemic'. You'd see reality more clearly if you stepped away from it!

Tell us the exact reason why another country would wish to physically attack the UK?
I'm continually stunned at the amount of people who eat brainwashing propaganda whole. All, of course, from 'our own' 'government' who crowd control us most effectively via our minds - usually using FEAR tactics.
Psychopaths and their war games, using the ordinary masses as fodder!

Not to mention the occasional drone targetting your garden because you could grow food in it.

Imagine… no avocado, no pineapple, no sweetcorn, no anything that has to be grown overseas. No spare fuel for greenhouses, so spuds, carrots and cabbage for all, hopefully grown in your back garden just where your lounge seating used to be. No longer enough meat for barbecues so that’s not needed either. No cyber, irregular power, it goes on and on. Life would change immeasurably.

Thank goodness you’re not in charge. 🙄

Nuclear-powered boats are also far more survivable in war than diesel-powered ones, which have limited range and must rise to periscope depth regularly to recharge their batteries and load fuel.

Having a uniformly powered submarine fleet also simplifies the logistical support and training required.

Nuclear weopons will be proliferating in future, not diminishing, because absolutely everyone can see that Russia wouldn't have invaded Ukraine if they still had the nuclear weopons they used to have and gave up.

The focus should be on what we spend it on, not an arbitrary amount. Outcomes not inputs.

Yes I get it...the point is I suspect (and of course the submarine lot are very secretive) you really need the Astutes with all the knobs and bells for the deep water/ocean stuff, that's their natural element.

What the RN/HMG aren't doing is building nuclear boats simply to address submarine threats in the north Sea, which is how your comment came across....apologies if I misread it.

The first responsibility of any Government is to protect and safeguard it's citizens. If a Government can't protect it's citizens - there will be no Welfare. For me there is no tradeoff, so talk of 'there will have to be cuts in Welfare to fund increases in Defence' - so be it.
Saying that, defence procurement is dire. Too many cost over runs and poorly thought out policy.

Why do the Astute class subs have to be hidden any more than any diesel sub used to have to be?

I wish you were right about them being "out in the oceans", but they are not; all five of them are in dock at the moment for one reason or another. https://www.forcesnews.com/services/navy/former-sub-captain-says-problems-run-deep-unlike-astute-boats-all-five-remain-dock

The astute class nuclear subs have to be anything we want a sub for because that's all we've got (apart from the the nuclear deterrent, and they have to be hidden as much as possible so are generally out in the oceans).

I think the USA, in the loud and bombastic person of Donald Trump, is the only NATO nation that has stated it wants NATO to be disbanded, isn't it? Though I suppose trying to prepare a fall-back organisation so that when the USA blows it up the other NATO countries still have an alliance, just one without a thoroughly unreliable ally in it, could be seen as being prepared for it no longer existing and thus blowing it up. Seems slightly stretched reasoning to me, though.

And of course the USA has no need of any bases in the nasty old NATO countries that are not kowtowing well enough to Trump.

Next time he calls (and loses!) an elective war against a non-belligerent country and demands NATO must join in, he mustn't be all surprised if NATO countries tell him he may not use their countries for his aggression, nor overfly their countries as part of it. Not when the war he's called is not a defensive one; NATO is a defence organisation, and Trump is not particularly interested in defence: that why he tried to rename the Department of Defence, the Department of War. (Has that gone through yet?)

It’s not just the US blowing up
NATO.

Europe Has been spending the peace dividend on welfare.

I understand the US not wanting to carry most of the defence spending for us as well.