More UK defence spending will decrease both growth and security
Sir Keir hopes to win over President Trump at his meeting tomorrow with his announcement to ramp up defence spending from 2027, from 2.3% to 2.5% of GDP. This amounts to an extra £13.4bn pa, but will, according to Sir Keir, be “fully funded” by cutting the foreign aid budget, from 0.5% to 0.3%. (Of course Starmer could pay for the increase by taxing wealth, which is undertaxed by £170bn pa, or by creating the money. But 1) he can’t upset his donors and 2) he and Reeves cling to the fiction that taxes fund government spending.)
Armed Services Minister Luke Pollard claims Starmer is moving money from ‘soft power’ to ‘hard power,’ and says the extra spending isn’t just about defence but about “creating more jobs and growth.”
He’s wrong. Research shows that the fiscal multiplier - how much economic activity is generated for every pound of government spending - for defence spending is 0.6. For every pound spent, just .60 of economic activity results. And if the spending is on nuclear weapons rather than soldier salaries, the multiplier is NEGATIVE, which means economic activity falls.
That’s because there’s no ‘market’ for nuclear weapons - the hope is that they’ll never be used. They’re a ‘sunk cost’ that is lost forever to the productive economy. But that sunk cost is rising globally. Spending on nuclear weapons rose 13.4% in 2023. The US led with an 18% annual increase but the UK came in second at 17.1%. It’s not as though the world needs more nuclear weapons since we have enough to blow up the planet many times over.
The largest positive fiscal multipliers are generated when money is spent on health (4) and education (>8). It’s not rocket science - spending money to keep your people healthy and educated provides a large net boost to the economy.
Does Russia threaten the UK?
But let’s examine the excuse Starmer gives for increasing the defence budget - the “threat” from Russia. Does Russia threaten the UK?
I’ve gone over the reason in previous posts for the Ukraine war, the main one being NATO’s unrelenting expansion since 1991 up to Russia’s borders. But Russia is not the USSR.
At the end of the Cold War, the Soviet bloc was 9.2% of the global population and 10.5% of its economy in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. Today, Russia’s population at 144 million is 1.75% of the global population vs 4.2% for the US, and its share of global GDP is 3.9% vs 12.7% for the US.
The USSR had a much larger military than Russia does today. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union had a standing military of 4.3 million, two times larger than the US, and a larger population - 288 million vs 250 million Americans. So the USSR was a peer adversary.
But Russia isn’t, apart from its formidable nuclear arsenal. Its population is 7 times smaller than the combined population of NATO member states and 2.5 times smaller than the US population. And Russia’s military headcount is just 39% of the size of NATO’s standing armies.
The point is that NATO, not Russia, is the world’s largest military power and hence threat. It accounted for 55% of global defence spending in 2023. NATO spends 5 times more than China and 10 times more than Russia.
I would argue that the UK’s real enemy is not Russia, but, since 1980, a slavish adherence to neoliberal ideology that has resulted in the immiseration of its own people as evidenced by falling living standards and life expectancy, and rising poverty and inequality. It’s why I refer so often to the “failing UK”.
For Scotland, it comes down to what kind of society we want. If we’re happy remaining under Westminster rule, then by all means, let’s stay in the failing UK. But if we believe we should run our own affairs and invest in our people, not war, then we have no choice but to terminate the union.
The Russians lost around 3m people in WW1 and an astonishing 27m-40m people in WW2. During the latter they crushed the Germans at Stalingrad (when 91000 German army personnel surrendered), defeated them in the enormous (6000) tank battle at Kursk, survived through great hardship and death (1.5m civilians) in the 3 year siege of Leningrad and forced German surrender after the brutal hand to hand fighting in Berlin. That is to name just a few.
For context the UK plus colonies incurred 1m and 450000 deaths in WW1 and WW2, respectively. I think I know who won the wars, certainly the 1939-45 conflict.
The Russians also fought and defeated Napoleon too, which marked the beginning of the end for the Little Corporal early in the 19th century, before which Bonaparte had swept all before him in Europe.
We should be grateful. But instead we make a pariah out of the Russian Bear. And then we poke it ... and then wonder why it gets a bit pissed off.
Through having common enemies in various wars Scotland does, therefore, have history in common with the Russians. Culture too - we have the same patron saint and they consider Burns as the "people's poet" with St Petersburg hosting "Days of Scotland" cultural events annually.
But what is the stance of our First Minister? He spouts some meaningless mantras and simpleton slogans such as 'Scotland stand with Ukraine'. What he really means is that Scotland's government 'stands with Ukraine'. He hasn't consulted us, the people, but he has just taken his orders from his fellow neo-cons in London in attempting to propagandise us.
Maybe John should really go full-on and stand with Ukrainians in the frontline. He'd be doing as all a favour.
Hi Leah. I agree that UK military spending is wasted on nuclear deterrence. The UK's "independent nuclear deterrent" is in fact an American system, with UK atomic warheads, the launchers & rockets provided by the USA, but fitted in UK submarines. Therefore it can't be launched without USA permission.
Especially as it has so far, only deterred the west, from actually protecting Ukraine or ending the war in Ukraine. It's acknowledged that both the Biden administration and Boris Johnson told Zelensky to reject a neutrality agreement from Putin in 2022, and that the USA would provide all weapons Ukraine needed to defend against any invasion.
The English government as usual, is trying to appease an American president, who THIS time, actually DOESN'T want a war to continue!
Starmer has no idea how to create "growth" in a stagnant, rapidly collapsing British economy. Even English electricity is having to be sequestered from Scottish over capacity in renewables!
As for conventional armament and armed forces, the UK seems to be thinking of ordering more air defence missiles or other conventional weapons to sell on to Ukraine, since Britain is not under threat (despite sabre rattling by Putin last year)