The following article by Mike Morrissey was first published in Unity, the weekly paper of the Irish Communist Party.
FOR many decades we have been asked to believe that military power should be a paramount aim of government policy. Herman Goring reputedly said ‘Would you rather have butter or guns? Preparedness makes us powerful. Butter merely makes us fat.’ At a NATO meeting in February 2025, Pete Hegseth said ‘values are important, but you can’t shoot values, you can’t shoot flags, and you can’t shoot strong speeches. There is no replacement for hard power’ (The Guardian, 27/06/2026). His boss, Donald Trump, has declared that Hegseth loves war, a characteristic the Economist, however, believes should categorically disqualify him for his job (04/06/2026).
Recently both the UK defence secretary and armed forces minister resigned, claiming they were being given insufficient funds to guarantee the country’s safety. The offer in the draft Defence Investment Plan (DIP) was £13.5 billion, later negotiated up to £15 billion by diverting capital spend from other programmes, but still short of the £18 billion demanded. The Ministry of Defence’s ideal figure was £28 billion. Even so, £4.7 billion of the promised £15 billion appears to be unfunded, leaving the shortfall to be sorted by Starmer’s successor.
Their resignations were widely interpreted as the final nail in the coffin of Starmer’s premiership and has stoked subsequent, fierce rows about the balance between defence and welfare spending in Britain. Starmer’s almost certain replacement Andy Burnham, before he even enters a leadership contest, has been challenged by the former head of the armed forces, Tony Radakin, to meet the ‘Moscow test’ – would he guarantee sufficient defence spending to ‘keep Moscow at bay’ (Pippa Crerar, The Guardian 28/06/2026). What’s rarely said is that many of the retired military move into armaments’ companies as board members, consultants or even employees. Taking their recommendations for appropriate spending is like taking advice on addiction policies from crack dealers.
Real Threats
Let’s be clear: in 2025 the UK’s defence spending was higher than any EU member other than Germany; at $81 billion (dollars for international comparison), it was the seventh highest in the world, largely equivalent to its global GDP ranking. Much of the current debate, however, hinges on the assumption that Russia has a revanchist agenda beyond its dispute with Ukraine to take over the territory at least of the former Soviet Union. While this writer knows nothing about military strategy, it hardly seems credible that Europe could fall to Russia.
For a start, the dominant narrative of the Ukraine war is about Russia’s current difficulties – Crimea under siege; the inhabitants of Moscow and Petersburg deluged by black rain resulting from drone attacks on oil installations; even analyses that the Russian economy is on the point of collapse (it isn’t). One estimate (The Center for Strategic and International Studies, July 2026) gave a figure from 2022 to June 2026 of 1.4 million Russian casualties with 450,000 deaths – a 2026 monthly casualty rate of 30,000 compared to a maximum recruitment figure of 27,000. It concluded that the Russian-Ukrainian casualty ratio for 2026 was 8:1. Even allowing for miscalculation, or even exaggeration, from a US-based think tank, the data doesn’t suggest a Russian juggernaut about to roll over Europe. Nevertheless, a reporter recently asked Keir Starmer if Britain could respond adequately if attacked by Russia – perhaps that reporter and this writer don’t live on the same planet.
Meanwhile, even though Ukrainian cities are under daily attack, the mortality rates remain relatively low owing to competent air defence and the continuing flow of funds and weaponry from Europe. Yet it is claimed that, precisely because Putin is losing his war in Ukraine, he will divert forces from a failing battle space to attack heavily defended Poland and the Baltic states. That sounds more like a strategy to put Ukrainian forces in Moscow.
Equally, the preoccupation with Putin tends to ignore considerably more serious sources of global insecurity. The attack on Iran by the US and Israel, in the middle of negotiations, precipitated an energy shock the full consequences of which have yet to be felt. Putin’s war crimes have been dwarfed by events in Gaza and the victims of this more recent war. In the first hours of the US attack, a tomahawk missile hit a girl’s school killing 120 children, many more have died since; the IDF has literally flattened a six-mile-wide corridor across Southern Lebanon, killing thousands and driving hundreds of thousands from their homes. With the usual exception of Spain, criticism from official sources of the US and Israel has been muted in western Europe.
Lack of Funds or Lack of Competence?
Also, looking at assessments of UK Defence projects, one might hesitate to trust the Ministry of Defence with any kind of sizable money. It has an ‘ongoing history of buying vast weapons systems from favoured companies that arrive late and over budget – and often don’t work properly’ (Private Eye, 26/06/2026). Twelve MOD projects have been rated ‘red’ by the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, i.e. unlikely to be delivered. A further 27 projects are rated as having ‘significant issues’ (amber). Critics argues that its incestuous relationship with arms firms leads to over-optimistic claims for what is ‘high-cost, low-performing kit’. For example, the project to build a sixth-generation fighter aircraft (jointly with Italy and Japan) has been budgeted at £8.7 billion but is likely to cost more than twice that. At the DIP launch, the new Defence Secretary, Dan Jarvis, claimed that 47 of the major 49 defence projects are delayed or over budget (The Guardian, 30/06/2026).
It’s frequently argued that defence spending creates or preserves jobs which is why some major unions are in favour. This argument is weakened by the fact that any new kit bought from abroad (mainly from the US like the F-35 fighter) simply adds to the trading deficit.
Worse, the logic of having a nuclear deterrent, which is fundamental to UK defence strategy, is that it must be updated at enormous cost. Thus, at the core of the DIP is upgrading the UK’s nuclear capability. This includes £47 billion for new submarines to replace Vanguard, £13 billion for a new nuclear warhead and £1.7 billion for nuclear fuels. A further £1 billion will have to be found for F 35As capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
The Guardian comments ‘at its heart (the DIP) is a massive investment in nuclear, which accounts for 20% of the entire defence budget and is rising to 25% as modernisation continues’.
Yet, there are major concerns over parliamentary scrutiny of this programme (apparently, it’s too sensitive), whether it will even work and whether it is truly independent. Trident tests in 2016 and 2024 both failed, meaning there has not been a successful British test in over a decade (Marion Messmer, Chatham House, 09/05/2024). Trident is a US-built missile system and needs to be maintained by its US manufacturer, Lockheed Martin. Tom Stevenson (Someone Else’s Empire, Verso, 2023) suggests that the system is so integrated with the US that it cannot be called genuinely independent – US permission may be required for any launch. In short, the single biggest cost of the defence programme has questions over its functionality and may not even be in the control of the UK. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the entire defence debate is rife with exaggeration, the need to protect of defence company profits and even absurdity.
Safe?
The most used word in this debate is ‘safety’ – what is required to make us safe? Yet risks come from many sources. An article in the British Medical Journal estimates that the recently concluded pharmaceutical deal with the US (a response to Trump’s tariff threats) will cost the NHS an extra £44.7 billion by 2036 and cause 229,000 excess deaths (Cross, Claxton and Hill, Health Costs of the UK-UK trade deal on pharmaceuticals, 01/07/2026). That threat received meagre media attention outside of the usual suspect, the Guardian. As Frances Ryan argues ‘The smallest change to social security, for example, is greeted with endless, incensed front pages, while ministers can spend billions of pounds on weapons without a single pundit debating the details’ (The Guardian 16/06/2026).
In response to US demands and mostly imaginary threats, the UK government claims it wants defence spending to rise to 3.5% of GDP by 2035, i.e. about £30 billion a year in real terms. Without a radical restructuring of the tax system or a steep rise in productivity, that could only be achieved by deep cuts to the welfare budget – making people, poorer, more vulnerable and less safe.