To think that we should spend less on defence

[Blightfitting]

Interesting article in the paper today
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/01/britain-military-spending-defence-keir-starmer

It chimes with my thinking recently. Why is it that people are completely convinced that we need to spend way more on defence (and thus cut or borrow or raise taxes at home)? Why is the conversation not more nuanced?

How can Russia simultaneously be so shit that it can't beat Ukraine in 4.5yrs and also a looming threat to us?

I get that they can fight a shadow war, with cyber attacks and lone-wolves and infrastructure stuff. But the way to stop these things isn't aircraft carriers and tanks! Ukraine are holding their own using teeny tiny cheap drones, so why do we need to spend billions on battleships? And don't get me started on Trident. Why do we need to have so many nuclear weapons when surely one will do?

I honestly don't get it. Yes we need to be capable of defending ourselves, but the proposed ways of doing this seem bizarre and insanely costly relative to the actual threats we face. AIBU?

As a PP said, if you want peace you must be prepared for war.

Ah, Simon Jenkins, wrong about everything as usual and the Guardian's resident contratrian. Whatever he says, do the opposite.

It's a Simon Jenkins opinion piece, not a Guardian editorial. The Guardian's editorial position is broadly pro increased European military autonomy from the US.

The Guardian, unlike many newspapers, regularly runs pieces that are in direct opposition to the editorial position - and Simon Jenkins is an avowed contrarian and a reliable purveyor of absolute bollocks. It's always amusing to read his column to see what he is being wrong about this week.

Yup, Finland never stopped viewing Russia as a potential threat - in conscription training exercises the saying goes that the enemy always comes from the East.

OP - spending less on defence was a mistake much of the West made after the Cold War ended but it was an understandable mistake then. Making the same mistake now would be incredibly stupid.

YABVVU.

I'm an American military veteran who served alongside BA forces during Operation Granby. Your conventional military forces have been so badly degraded by decades of funding cuts that they are no longer fit for purpose.

It took the RN three weeks to get a single warship to the med. The RN doesn't have a single working fast attack sub at the moment. They are all docked for repairs.

All of our submarines are missing - Five nuclear-powered hunter-killers are out of action leaving the Arctic front door wide open to Russia

The BA is no better. The current active duty force is a mere 72k soldiers, half the size it was when I served. Only 20-25% of the force are front-line war fighters. The rest are truck drivers, medics, cooks, IT and communications, etc. That means that you have one battalion to put into a shooting war. In a high-intensity conflict, they'll last weeks, not months.

You've hollowed out your military to the point that it's a Potemkin Village. It looks real from a distance, but it's an illusion.

That’s not what you said though, you said

“We are an island surrounded by sea?? If we were to have a physical attack, which alot of countries are capable of, how do you suppose we fight/protect it??”

so is it a physical attack or cyber/ drone attack that islands are more vulnerable to?

We have been increasingly reliant on the USA for defence. Trump has shown that we cant trust them as allies so we need to spend the money.

When it comes time to cut defense budgets, how is that done? To be truly efficient, it needs to be at the political level. We need to decide not to engage in particular conflicts.

Once engaged in a conflict, every reduction in spending comes with real consequences. Those are real people serving. The amount of ammunition, the amount of rations, the money for logistics, and even the money spent on planning all go towards keeping our people safe and getting them home.

Effective and safe changes in defense spending mean smart planning and strategy at an upper level. Think about what it would mean if budgets are simply cut like with schools and hospitals.

I’m not arguing against an intelligent overall political strategy, I just don’t think it’s a likely scenario.

Both air and water attacks, have you any idea how far a missile can travel????

Cyber attack, you dont think we have been under attack already from other countries..... Banks have been hit, the NHS was hit....

But yeah we will cut the defence budget....

Anyone that thinks being an island is a good thing is deluded.

For a start, where do we go when we are refugees? How are we getting to safety.....? Not many people can swim the channel but many of us are capable of walking miles....walk to where?

Tell me, would you be happy for a Russian army to behave here as they have in Ukraine? Or for Russian weapons to do to this country what they have been doing to Ukraine for the last few years?

Unless the answer to that is "yes", we need to make the Russian leadership feel that if they lay a finger on us we will take their hand off at the elbow. To do that, we need defence. To get defence, after the way the forces have been treated this century, we need to spend money on it.

After all, bombs make much bigger craters in the roads than the ones we have at the moment; better to avoid them, and all the civilian deaths (and torture and rape and the rest of it).

Incidentally, you accuse a poster of sitting in a Moscow basement to make a post. Since one lot of people who would gain from a defenceless Britain are the leaders in Moscow, that looked to me very much like a case of "he who smelt it, dealt it."

It's summer, why spend on preparing for winter?

That would be a grasshopper talking to an ant, right?

There's also the fact that as an island nation, GB is heavily dependent on ocean transportation for food, bulk chemicals, and other essential goods. A Russian missile attack on key port facilities would put them out of action for months. Those missiles can be launched from Russian warships and submarines, and you have no adequate defenses to stop them.

If they then take out your natural gas infrastructure and key communications nodes, you're well and truly screwed.

My entire point is that Russia can't and won't do to the UK as it has done to Ukraine. We aren't next door to Russia, we are enormously more wealthy, and we are nuclear armed.
Russia could do different things to attack us. So my question is are we spending money on the right things to protect ourselves, and how much should we be spending on those and other things?

The first duty of government is defence of the realm. They really need to take that seriously, otherwise they may find we have nothing left to defend. If we are prepared, we are less likely to have to use our weapons than if we are not. There are also the disproportionate costs of war - if someone is chucking drones at you (cheap) then in order to stop them, you need to deploy missiles (expensive). The other thing is that armaments, like everything else, are constantly evolving. No point fighting the next war with the weapons and tactics of the last one - which means spending money.

Yup, an island nation has its advantages, but it also has massive disadvantages.

We lost a very large number of men just getting food into the country during WWII, and food was rationed until almost ten years after the war ended; we all (yes, even the wealthy) went a bit hungry almost all the time.

We are now less able to feed the population of these islands than we were in 1939, not more able.

Not a good position to be in if another country attacks us.

OP have a listen to the Rest is Politics. It’s a useful guide to what’s going on and really explained to me why we need to spend more. In a nutshell Trump is not going to defend us or anyone else in NATO and we are in a dangerous world. Putin is not sensible and there are many other predators who will disturb the balance. We are a tiny island we need to be able to defend ourselves. This wasn’t so urgent before the advent of Trump.

And also… have you heard on the news about the drones that have been monitoring our nuclear defences?

You're NOT being unreasonable. Russia isn't a threat to us, that's all classic 'look over there!' propaganda. It's 'our own' government that's the biggest threat to us!
And they should bloody well sort the NHS out, instead of financing their murder games!
(Can't believe the ratio here 😳 oh wait, I can)

My grandfather served in Europe during WWII and spent time in England during the run-up to Operation Overlord. He became friends with a British officer who was later KIA, and after the war, would send his family a smoked ham (a cooked gammon) by post at Easter and Christmas, knowing how hard it was to obtain meat in the post-war years.

Do you mean a Baltic cruise? Not sure what the Balcans have to do with Finnland...
But I get your point re Finnland. Russia is the present and they have been hostile for many years now.

Russia can't and won't? Really...... Russia picked on Ukraine purely for the fact it can, simple. Russia is also not our only threat.

I am quite concerned at some of the views being posted here tbh. They are very naive to think we are not at risk of an attack that can wipe out the South of England in a matter of hours because thats where they will hit first.

I always joke that where I am rurally in Scotland, that at least we are outside a nuclear blast zone, however I don't think I'd actually want to survive it.

For context, the Russians can't beat the Ukrainians, whose army is over 10 times bigger than the UKs.
I certainly think the MOD could manage things better. And be less wasteful.

Exactly. So left wing bias. I didn't read the article (because it would irate me) We definitely need to spend more on defense. Its a no brainer, so much conflict in the world atm.