Defense Secretary Ben Wallace has warned that global conflict could widen by the end of the decade, as he called for a clear timetable for increasing UK military spending to 2.5% of GDP.
“By the end of the century, the world will be more dangerous, unstable and defense will be more important to our lives,” he said, stressing the risk of a broader conflict with Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a “rising China”. threats and the rise of extremism in Africa.
He told the Financial Times that the world was seeing “the end of the anomalous (peaceful) period after the Cold War”. “I think the conflict is coming, it remains to be seen whether it will be hot or cold. . . I think there will be a conflict between a range of opponents around the world. . . We all need to be ready for this. ”
Britain’s defense secretary issued a warning that he had been courting wider European support for Ukraine, while asking Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to set a timetable for a pledge to boost the defense budget to 2.5% from Ukraine’s 2.1%. gross domestic product.
In the March budget, Hunt committed an extra £11bn to the Ministry of Defense over the next five years. The chancellor also reiterated the government’s “desire” to increase defense spending to 2.5% of GDP in the long-term, but did not specify a timetable.
Wallace said he would welcome the additional funding, but added: “There’s one more way to go, and that’s dating.”
UK defense spending has fallen steadily from its historic high of around 7% of GDP in the mid-1950s. Since taking over as defense secretary in 2019, Wallace has received a series of one-time funding injections, but much of it has gone to large projects, such as new submarines to carry the country’s nuclear deterrent, making the department’s day-to-day — The day’s budget is compressed.
Increasing the core defense budget to 2.5% of GDP by the end of the decade would require £14bn more spending in 2029-30 and £42bn over the five years of the next Parliament, according to Royal analysis by the Joint Services Institute.
Wallace stressed that, of all the services, the military needed the most urgent investment, declaring that it was “15 years behind and in need of modernization.”
He is preparing to release an update to the 2021 defense command document, which lays out plans to modernize the armed forces, and prepares to launch another funding battle with Hunter.
“The government needs to show its priorities . . . unless you say to the Treasury that defense is going to get a bigger share of the (funding) in the next round of spending, the Treasury is not going to be prepared for that.”
He said he was trying to change a Whitehall culture in which the defense budget was seen as a “cash bucket for other things” or a “quarry” from which money was extracted for other government priorities.
But he appeared to reject critics’ calls to reverse his decision to cut 9,500 troops from the army, reducing it to 72,500 — the smallest size since the days of Napoleon — arguing that new technologies would allow fewer to produce more. Effect.
Speaking to the Financial Times in Berlin earlier this week after meeting his opponent Boris Pistorius, Wallace praised Germany’s plans for a 100 billion euro fund to boost its armed forces. modernization. He said it was “an important message to the whole of the UK (people) that we are going back to a time when we needed to invest in defence”.
Asked about his apparent interest in current NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg when he steps down in October, he was even more cryptic: “I think NATO members are watching who can dance.” . . Let’s see who’s dancing. He called it a “great job” in an interview with Time Radio earlier this year.
On Ukraine, Wallace said Kiev forces were well-prepared, well-equipped and highly motivated ahead of a counteroffensive against Russian forces that is expected to begin soon. However, he warned that Western allies should not view attempts to drive the Russians out of the occupied territories as a “renewed effort” that would necessarily lead to an end to the conflict.
Wallace said Britain and other allies were “alert” about the deployment of Russian forces in Ukraine with unconventional weapons if the counteroffensive went well. He said any use of chemical weapons was “unacceptable and there will be a response”.