When the agenda for this week’s Nato summit in Washington DC was announced, one of the items on it was funding for the alliance. This was no surprise: the need to financially supporting Ukraine since the Russian invasion in 2022 and the possibility of a second Trump presidency leading to a lower US commitment have brought the issue of money into sharp focus. It transpires that the new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, is urging his fellow Nato leaders to increase their levels of defence spending, but he may find that his moral authority is shaky.
The subject of defence spending is one which has bedevilled the alliance for years. In 2006, Nato’s defence ministers agreed that every member state should commit a minimum of 2 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) to military spending to ensure a basic level of preparedness for operations. This obligation was reiterated at the Wales summit in 2014, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and ongoing instability in the Middle East (plus ça change…). It was not an excessively onerous requirement: during the Cold War, many Nato countries were spending between 3 and 5 per cent on defence, while the United States regularly exceeded that. Equally, there was an acceptance that the West had gone too far in cashing in the ‘peace dividend’ after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Without a notional timescale, any commitment, whether ‘cast-iron’ or not, is literally meaningless
But now it has become a long and tortuous process to compel members to meet even this modest commitment. In 2014, when the target was reemphasised – eight years after it had first been agreed – only three Nato countries, the United States, the United Kingdom and Greece, were fulfilling their obligation to spend more than 2 per cent. There was much excitement earlier this year when the outgoing secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, announced that 2024 would see 23 member states meet the minimum. As I have previously noted, that still leaves nine who will not – nearly a third of the total (though Iceland has no standing military forces).
The Prime Minister believes the ongoing threat from Vladimir Putin requires a clear signal and increased spending. This was underlined by the destruction of Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital on Monday, probably by a Russian cruise missile. Starmer’s spokesman has been in full sermon mode:
We obviously want to see other countries continue to take steps to increase defence spending as well in order to ensure that we’re sending a strong signal to Putin that we will do whatever it takes to support Ukraine in their defence. The first duty of any government is to keep the nation safe and protect our citizens, and the defence of the UK starts in Ukraine.
There is an obvious problem here. The UK currently spends 2.3 per cent of its GDP on defence, more than meeting the Nato target. The previous government had promised to increase that to a symbolic 2.5 per cent by 2030. Starmer has said his government will match that increase in spending, and in Washington told the media that this commitment was ‘cast-iron’. But he has refused to set a timescale, unlike his predecessor, and says it will be within the government’s ‘fiscal rules’.
Let us be quite clear about this: without even a notional timescale, any commitment, whether ‘cast-iron’ or of any other metal, is literally meaningless. It represents words that may as well not be said. When Starmer speaks to his fellow leaders and urges them to spend more money on defence, as he is promising to do, they might reasonably ask ‘When?’ Or, full of the bonhomie of international summitry, they might enthusiastically agree to match his commitment, just as soon as he does.
I am not for a moment suggesting that it is an easy task to find an extra 0.2 per cent for defence in straitened economic circumstances. That is still billions of pounds in additional resources. But time and again the Prime Minister shows an unwillingness or inability to distinguish between saying things and doing things, combined with a readiness to preach to others.
It is a scandal that, 18 years after the 2 per cent target was first agreed, only two-thirds of Nato member states are meeting their financial obligations, and the United Kingdom can take credit for always having done so. Equally, 2 per cent is probably too little in the current geopolitical climate. It beggars belief, however, that Starmer feels he has the authority to encourage allies to move further to 2.5 per cent when he can offer nothing more than a promise to do so at some unspecified time in the future. This is the reality of government: deeds, not words, are the currency in the international community.
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