Trump says we need to spend five per cent of our GDP on defence. That would increase the spend from £60 billion to £140 billion. What are the consequences of that?
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Donald Trump says that we've got to spend five per cent of our GDP on defence.
Right now, the UK's GDP is around £2,800 billion a year.
Five per cent of that is £140 billion a year.
And according to the House of Commons Library, this year the government will spend £59.8 billion, call it £60 billion for the sake of convenience, on defence.
In other words, if we were to do what Donald Trump wants, we have to find another £80 billion to spend on defence. And given that he is planning to pull the US out of defending Europe, maybe we'll need to. But in that case, the question is, where do we find another £80 billion to spend on defence in this country when, supposedly, our books are already struggling to balance?
I think that this is a question that I have to address because it is almost existential with regard to the future of how we manage this country, how we see ourselves in the world, and to whom we accept responsibility at a time when the US is clearly giving up on everyone.
I'm not, by nature, a big fan of defence spending. It is something that to me seems almost alien to what I would wish the government to engage in, but I also know it's necessary. And I suspect that my attitude to defence is not untypical. If it wasn't, we would have spent a lot more over recent years on defence, but in fact, we really did take a big dividend from the end of the Cold War in around 1990 and reduced our defence spending considerably as a result, to the point where we have a fairly small army, a tin-pot air force, and more admirals than we have ships, half of which are themselves tied up against dock sides because they don't work. I don't wish to damn our defence forces, but the overall profile of where we are is not good, as any defence minister would, if they were being honest (and that's a rare quality) admit.
So, how are we going to find another £80bn out of the total government spending, which is itself near enough, £1,100 billion, or thereabouts?
This is a significant slug of money. It's like saying, let's not educate children under the age of nine, for example.
Or it's like, let's give up on social care altogether. Or, let's take a big chunk out of the old age pension, perhaps raising the pension age to something over 70.
Or, well, you can decide which thing you want to give up.
Whatever is suggested, the cost for someone is going to be high unless the £80 billion comes out of increased taxation, in which case the cost of that £80 billion is going to come out of everyone's pockets.
Now, let's stand back and face reality. You can't, in practice, increase defence spending by £80 billion without actually reallocating vast amounts of real resources inside the UK economy, from what they're being used on now, to defence. That's a simple, straightforward statement of fact.
We would need more people in the Army, in particular.
We would need more people in the Air Force.
We would need more people in the Navy.
And, of course, we would need more civil servants to support them.
And our defence industry would need to be bigger.
So, ignoring money for a minute, the truth is that if we are to increase the total part of UK economic activity that is expended on defence, something else has got to give.
So, the change in finances is merely going to reflect a physical reality that actually you are going to have to reduce your household real disposable income if the country is going to be defended to the extent, and out of its own resources, that it is at present using US money and US troops and planes, which are located here in the UK, some of them not very far away from where I'm speaking right now.
The fact is, that is the reality that we're really being presented with. It is that we are going to have to give up our income. And the answer therefore to where this extra £80 billion of spending going to come from, is not from cuts, because cuts would not deliver the outcome that we need.
The outcome that we need is more young people - and by definition, most people engaged in defence are young - working in our army, air force, and navy. And if they're doing that, they are not producing the other things that this country requires.
That is the fundamental reallocation of resources that is being demanded.
Forget the money, deal with the fact that this is people.
And let's also face the fact that at present, young people don't want to go into the forces.
There is an enormous recruitment problem with our armed forces. It is very difficult to actually bring any of our defence units up to strength at present, simply because people aren't signing up to join the army or air force.
They don't want to put their lives at risk for the country.
They don't want the form of lifestyle that these forces present.
They don't want the discipline that it imposes.
They do not wish to be exposed to the risk which they perceive to exist. And you might describe the young people in question as being entirely rational. Because why should they? After all, they only have to look at somewhere like Ukraine and see what the terrors of modern warfare are and that a lot of people do die, and they will say, I value my life more than that, so why should I join up?
So, are we actually talking about something quite different here? Are we actually talking about conscription if we are to increase the number of people in the armed forces so that instead of them representing a bit over 2 per cent at best of national GDP, they are going to absorb 5 per cent of national GDP? Is that what's necessary?
These are real questions. Let's stop the faffing around with the money issue. Let's talk about the reality.
And let's also talk about another reality, which is why young people don't want to go into the forces. And that is that they know that when they come out, they're treated pretty abysmally.
The armed forces actually leave them exposed when they leave. Many have PTSD and mental health problems as a result of the trauma that they've seen or suffered.
Many of them are treated very badly when they're in the armed forces. There are far too many cases of abuse for anyone to be comfortable.
Nobody should take those issues lightly because there's also a big problem with regard to housing for people who leave the armed forces because they don't get automatic access to anywhere and have not saved enough whilst they've been living in armed forces accommodation to find an alternative.
And there is the problem of getting a job. It's very difficult to transfer from being in the infantry to doing something else in civil society. It's fine if you're a skilled aircraft engineer, you'll probably get a job fairly easily. But most people aren't in that skill category. Or they have skills that aren't transferable. You might be able to fly a drone for the military. But there's very little chance you will fly an equivalent drone in the private sector. So, how would we actually transition people out of the armed forces if we put so many people into them?
I don't know the answer to any of these questions, but as I said right at the start, there is a form of existential nature to this question about redefining the role of defence in our economy that does beg us to actually address what the issue is, and what we're living in fear of, and whether it might happen, and why it's worth our while to dedicate so much of our resources to defence when maybe we don't think the threat is worth rising to.
But without asking the questions, we're in deep trouble, and the economic consequences of those questions are considerable, and in particular, there will be an enormous cost to the real disposable income of people that they will have available to spend on consumer goods if people are put into the fundamentally unproductive activity of running around in military training because nothing is directly produced as a consequence, and yet some of our brightest and best and fittest and youngest of people will be doing just that.
This is serious stuff.
It's not good enough for Labour ministers to say we're going to increase defence spending without dealing with all the consequences. They've got to address the fact that they are talking about a fundamental realignment of the economy. And that means that they have to take these questions seriously.
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Agree
Given that we are an Island dependent on imported food and energy I suggest we also need
1. Some sort of ‘food security’ policy and
2. To rebuild our Merchant Fleet – like the US, we need not only to have British Owned and flagged ships but we need the seafarers to crew them and shipyards that can build and maintain them.
I might add that looking at the Caledonian MacBrayne, Northlink & Isle of Wight fleets you could guarantee a steady flow of work for shipbuilding and repair yards from now until the collapse of modern civilisation.
Since I am a foreigner with a soft spot for British culture, perhaps I can be forgiven for whispering the obvious:
Bring Jeremy Corbyn back, from the dead if you must.
Practically all other European nations share your predicament: you have a ‘people’ problem. It is solvable only by someone ‘real’.
Is Trump planning to increase US defence spending by about half again? Because it is currently around 3.3% of GDP, and hasn’t passed 5% since the end of the Cold War (it increase around 2010 back towards 5% but then fell away again).
So while many European may need to increase defence spending to reach a 3% target, it is not clear to me why Trump should now demand other countries spend more (proportionately to GDP) than the US does. I suppose he wants to create demand for US arms manufacturers.
We need to remember that the US operates a ‘two front’ policy. It has forces for the Pacific and forces in Europe/Middle East. This is despite the pivot to Asia strategy. It is always going to be spending more than European countries.
Britain and France do have minimal intervention forces because of the commitments to places outside Europe The ‘Global Britain’ strategy of the Johnson period didn’t create a credible strategy and for anything more than a police action we would depend on the United States.
Given that Europe has a greater GDP and population than Russia -the only conventional military threat -we should be able to create an effective defence.
The problems are 1) competing national economic interests 2) modern systems need large sums of research and development .If the cost of R & D can be spread over a large number of units, the unit cost comes down. The US can do this. A European country can’t without skewing the budget.
Even in European systems e.g. an aircraft , components are made in the US. It would be very expensive to recreate the same thing here.
The implication ( which we have been trying for decades with limited success e.g. helicopters and the Eurofighter ) is closer co-operation with Europe. not just in manufacture but is deployment of those forces and agreement on their uses.
Ian, you suggest R&D on modern weaponry requires large amounts of money, but Ukraine is innovating on drones on a shoestring budget, Russia, supposedly financially crippled by the West sanctions, is innovating on hypersonic missiles, and North Korea – hardly a rich country, has developed nukes.
Meanwhile much of the West expensive weapons are ineffective and often down for maintenance due to their complexity and fragility.
Don’t need to worry about the Pacific fleet. All indications are that the Orange menace is going to give Xi all he wants, hanging Taiwan out to dry. Potentially South Korea and Japan as well.
Regarding US military spending, if they ‘abandon’ Europe, they will need to spend a lot more because European countries will certainly stop buying hardware from the US manufacturers which is going to put their costs up. I suppose it will lead to a boost in the fortunes of the European defence industry, but it would be much better to be spending the money on something which actually improves the lot of the general populace, instead of needing to waste it on things that go boom (or hopefully don’t have to go boom).
Putin really doesn’t care one jot about the Russian people, hence why many millions of them live in Dickensian conditions, but our politicians do at the very least pretend to care about the lot of the man on the street.
One big point which isn’t often considered is that the whole debacle of failing to properly support Ukraine following this Russian act of aggression (the Biden administration didn’t provide even a fraction of the support they could easily have given at pretty much no cost to themselves, for example), what it will teach everyone is that the only way to keep yourself safe is to have some nukes. The Biden administration were reportedly worried about Putin using nuclear weapons, hence their softly, softly approach, but it was never anything but an empty threat as seen by the many times ‘red lines’ were drawn, or the nuclear doctrine was changed, yet nothing ever came of it. Putin has claimed Ukraine is part of Russia, so is he going to nuke his own lands? One of the main aims of the invasion was to try and take the valuable agricultural land and natural resources of Ukraine, so is he going to nuke that? Not to mention that the prevailing winds blow into Russia.
However, making nuclear weapons isn’t actually all that difficult. Germany and Poland could, and probably will, produce some within a few years. Finland as well, probably. In the Pacific, China has made their intentions towards Taiwan very clear. Without the overt support of the US, Taiwan will have little choice but to develop nuclear weapons themselves, though they have perhaps left it too late. South Korea have decided not to develop them until now. They will. The only question then is whether Japan will follow suit, in spite of their experiences during the war.
As weapons proliferate, the chance of a misstep or mistake leading to their use increases.
@ Richard Kirby
Richard .Thanks foe the comment. In a post to fit in here, a lot has to be left out. Your points about cheap innovation are correct. Some modern equipment is indeed out of line due to complexity. However, the drones fit into a wider picture. The US supplies intelligence from its satellites and listening services.
.
The voracious appetite for shells and air aircraft missiles cannot be met from Ukrainian resources.
The HImars and ATACMS missiles required a lot of research.
Russia hd been developing their hypersonic missiles for some time. the Forbes website tells us
“Russia’s use of hypersonic weapons against Ukrainian targets has not met expectations. The limited number of available missiles, combined with Ukraine’s ability to intercept some of them, has hindered these weapons from delivering an impactful advantage for Russia.”
RUSI – the Royal United Services Institute ( a military think tank) remarked on the Russian Air Force’s lack of impact. That is partly due to the employment of American Surface to Air missiles which need updating as counter measures improve.
North Korean economy is subordinated to military expenditure and has suffered famine in recent years.
Russian defence expenditure is SIPRI estimated at 35% of state spending. They are also importing shells from North Korea or China.
If we are thinking about defending Europe, we will need a spectrum of weapons. Some are complex and expensive while others are expensive due to the number needed. But the cost of not doing it might be higher.
Some very good questions. But one is missing: singular or collective “defence”? If collective – with who? Logically those with whom the Uk shares (maritime) borders. There is also the issue of mainland Europe. Collective defense could/should mean much lower costs. It carries with it the implication of some sort of merged forces under unfied command.
Arguably, NATO delivered that but in reality was a sales mechanism: US equipment into Europe.
The most obvious current threat with respect to Europe (& the UK) is Russia. The most obvious response would be a European collective defense/collective equipment buying – all within Europe. Russia’s war against Ukraine has, unfortunately, been a forcing ground for innovation (I’m not putting a positive spin on this – just expressing a reality). Europe needs to use this &, if possible, make sure that the Americans get little or no access (The US is no friend of Europe – it never has been – recent events simply highlight this reality). The UK could be part of a substantive martime defense force, other countries could deliver on substantive ground forces. If each country “does its own thing” then indeed, £80bn or more of extra spending will be needed (pro rata for other countries). Collectively, it is quite possible that little extra spending will be needed. As for “how do all these forces with diff languages communicate” – using translators – commonly available – and easily developed for military jargon. There is no reason why “Europe” could not put into the field 400,000 very well armed soldiers.
Oh & one other thing.
ALL Russian assets confiscated. That includes the assets of ALL Russian citizens in the UK. Also confiscation of ALL Russian assets controlled in London. That should go some considerable way towards £80bn. Close the Russian embassy, expell all diplomats. All Russians interned. EU should follow suit.
Hmmmm? Really? All? Is that justice?
You do realise the Trump mandate and the emergence of Musk is entirely a response to the shithouse wokery which the public worldwide have had enough of. You are a part of that (albeit a minuscule part) but you have no idea you are the cause of the problem not the solution. A healthy dose of self awareness is badly needed.
You mean I am guilty of caring and you’re just a total arsehole, despite which you still don’t give a shit? Have I got that right?
Every time I see somebody use a phrase like, “wokery”, my first thought is, “half-wittery”.
Nothing I’ve seen makes me think I’ve been wrong by taking this view.
You are right
Musk went to the republicans because the democratic party became anti-tech and pro regulation with regards to public health and business. None of that has got anything to do with ‘wokeary’. Musk very much behaves as a pig from animal farm. And that is not the fault of the sheep.
Surely a 5% spend is never going to happen in the UK because as we are repeatedly told by any UK government we can’t afford it?
Can we afford not to?
If we had a Trump like person as Prime Minister, they might well be persuaded to act the Mad Dog and essentially threaten to use nukes for ANY perceived slight. If they were convincingly irrational, then everyone else would have to assume the threat is plausible.
In that case, the only defence needed would be our nuclear deterrence.
As you rightly point out, the Armed Forces require young people, and as we know, there are fewer children being born, and we need immigration to fill our current job requirements. Can we really ask a new immigrant to sign up to the Army? How would we know they would never go rogue?
You also suggest that we need a national conversation around what we are living in fear of, and how best to address such issues. Even during the Cold War, it was I think, always implausible that the USSR could transit the bulk of Europe and occupy and control the UK, but it suited a political narrative to big up the threat. I have seen suggestions that this is still the muscle memory of the Foreign Office, dating back to when we last fought in Crimea against the Russians and got beat.
Ukraine has, I suggest, shown that even though Russia is winning, it is a pyrrhic victory and illustrates that even if they had dreams of rolling across the rest of Europe, they do not now and never had the capability.
As Richard pointed out this week, the Baltic states -with fewer people than London-are at risk if Ukraine falls.
I have argued here that Russia doesn’t have the capability to invade the whole of Europe, even without the US intervening. But it doesn’t have to.
Wars are fought for strategic objectives ( which the US often IMHO failed to grasp ). Putin’s proposed treaties on Dec. 2021 wanted the neutralisation of Eastern Europe for a number of reasons. They have a fifth column with some of the Far Right in e.g. Hungary with Trump’s pal, Victor Orban. In Finland in the Cold War ‘neutrality’ meant significant interference.
If Europe unwilling to back Poland , Russia could be strong enough to defeat them. That would be enough to intimidate the others. Putin already controls Belarus and has placed tactical nuclear weapons there and we are pretty certain they have them in Kaliningrad enclave between Poland and Lithuania.
European states need to think and act collectively.
I agree with everything you say here, but I see a further issue. You could replace ‘defence’ with ‘healthcare’ or ‘education’ and have a very similar article – the difficulty in recruiting and retraining staff, the infrastructure costs and so on. My view of defence is similar to yours – I don’t like the ides but I see the necessity. But I would still rather see that investment in healthcare and education first.
Much to agree with
I thought AI was going to be the solution to all our problems – education / healthcare/ robots who shoot to kill …………..?
More seriously, I would have thought hacking computers that control infrastructure / essentials such as water would be a more “sensible” approach to modern warfare + drones. Does it really need all this very destructive weaponry?
This is where I might raise a few eyebrows…………
I would like to see Britain leave NATO to be honest and become more concerned about its own homeland security. The U.S. has dominated and poisoned NATO for far too long – beyond I think redemption. I would of course like to be part of Europe as we were pre-BREXIT (but no Euro please) but would need to see what a European based defence grouping would look like and cost and be part of something that was sharing the burden evenly across the membership.
I am just not interested in the UK projecting itself abroad imperialistically. Under my leadership, we would withdraw from places like the Falklands, Gibraltar etc., and concentrate our resources on maintaining the quality of life for our citizens at home and fellow UK union members.
I would be a lot more careful about the company we keep and I’d be thinking of the southern hemisphere a lot more, but also try to make stronger links with Sweden, Denmark Finland etc.
One thing would be for sure. Rather than exporting our military kit to be used to kill innocent people in Yemen, I would make military research and self sufficiency a priority, ensuring that at all times we had a well paid, modern well trained military with the best kit that money could buy. I would also prevent the export of that kit because the companies producing it would be nationalised ones who would not need to make a profit. Our military spending would be for OUR benefit only. And we would not share secrets willingly.
In all other areas, I would ensure that Britain could trade well and fairly with who we liked and if the U.S or any country threatened us on that, I would tell our citizens so that they knew who our enemies really were, and make friends wisely, deal with immigration the way it should be dealt with, favour peace over war (because war just creates emigration). I would lower the intensity of our relationship with the U.S to the point where I would be asking them to remove their bases and removing or downgrading our embassy in the U.S. I would seek some sort of understanding with Russia which would start with the simplest of things: an apology in recognition that Western ideas had fucked up Putin’s country and a reaffirmation of their sacrifice against the Nazis. There would be no ‘love-in’ no appeasement’. There would be respectful disapproval of what they were up to. The same approach would apply to China whom I do not think want any war at all – but I would also acknowledge that we treat our Muslims badly as well.
But the message would be clear. Here we are. Come and take us if you dare. Because if you do, it will cost you dearly. And we have long reach too. Treat us fairly and squarely, take us seriously or on your head be it. You’ll be kicking a hornets nest.
This may sound to some as if I’m pulling up the drawbridge, but I think that its more tactical about that, its about which draw bridge in an increasingly topsy-turvy world. Fanciful? Yes of course it is, but it is only a point of view.
In a more direct answer to Richard’s post to me at least, the birth of the ‘welfare state’ in the post war period(s) (I prefer the term ‘social security’ and gag at the word ‘welfare’) was simply predicated on the logic of war spending anyway. We just at the time chose to go to war domestically on want, bad health, poor housing and education. As a sovereign currency producing nation, we could do both to be honest, with an effective home defence set up that could at our discretion be used abroad and solve our domestic quality of life issues and destroy the far right. Domestic military spending would produce jobs. Investment is a good way to make war on the discontent that leads to the far right.
The only reason this does not exist is because the whole Neo-liberal set up has at its heart is based on opening up state expenditure to the increasingly internationalist and expansionist American private sector to turn the world’s state’ obligations to its citizens into financial returns for Yankee corporations. That’s all I see, and their next target is China.
If the U.S wants a Pacific War, it would be none of our business, although the Chinese turning up on our shores might increase which might not be a problem if we were spending the money that we should be spending on our public services (although the chances of more of that going into the pockets of Yank corporations seems to be increasing due to Mr Starmer).
Thank you, PSR. I’d vote for this manifesto.
One important question to that has not yet been asked is: how long will Trump allow the UK to continue to draw serviced Trident Missiles for it’s “Independent” nuclear deterrent?
Don’t forget the last 2 launch tests were called successful, but the main missile engine did not fire.
What cost of a replacement deterrent?
Expanding on my earlier point and at the expense of sounding a bit geeky there is a lot that would be worth doing anyway that could be charged to ‘defence’
For example in the days of ‘Post Office Telephones’ the landline network was ‘hardened’ so it could withstand attack, by comparison the ‘mobile’ network isnt. Clearly it would be worth ‘hardening’ the Mobile Phone network so it would be less likley to collapse in the event of floods etc.
Electricity grid and other things ditto.
Similarly there is only one way to move a tank division and thats by train – you cant do it in the UK but in Europe there are not enough wagons to move a single tank division. Apart from the fact that building them is a civilian contractors job not a military one clearly the wagons could have other uses in peacetime in particular shifting freight from road to rail.
So there is I suggest a lot we could do that would have ‘defence’ benefits but would be worth doing anyway
As a Young person (19), I and many like me have grown up in an era which we have seen what the British Army does all around the world and we want no part in it. We don’t want to kill a million people in Iraq for the profits of oil companies. We don’t want to take part in the destruction of Libya, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and destroy the lives of millions.
I know a lot of young people who share that opinion.
Indeed, and I would add to Richard’s list of reasons why young people might not want to join the armed forces the fact that many have moral and ethical objections to what the Peace Pledge Union calls “everyday militarism”. https://www.ppu.org.uk/everyday-militarism
Thank you for using the matter of national self-defence to draw attention to structural stupidities/design flaws in Neo-liberalism.
Unless a democracy is inclusive/equitable it ceases to be a valid democracy as any set up with decent validity is assessed according to its outputs/outcomes and processes as well as its inputs.
Although our democracy/dumbocracy has the much vaunted trappings of a valid democracy, they are, to say the least questionable. The processes, such as the H o C, are shoddy and, with child hunger afflicting some 30% of our children etc., the outcomes are not inclusive/equitable in the least.
As you point out in deep detail, this lack of practicing democracy results in young people being, understandably and wisely, unwilling to fight for a country which treats them badly to the point of selfish, short sighted exploitation.
Without an transparent, equitable and suitably staffed taxation system about which all are educated and informed, including the creation of money and its distribution, might we be deluding ourselves about our basic governmental set up and our ability to keep ourselves relatively safe?
Might the American loss of the Vietnam war indicate that conscription is a vulnerable approach to obtaining , necessarily, young armed forces?
A very good article and everyone should be asking the question of ‘where’s the money going to come from’.
I do object to everyone’s rush to pursue peace through military means ie lets get more young people into the army, that should fix it – so you are all quite happy to send your children off to die in a war then? How about you volunteer yourselves?
We need a global peace initiative where everyone pays a bond instead of buying weapons and instruments of death. If you go against all the members, quite simply you lose the bond. The bond itself needs to be high enough that it’s loss would do irreversible damage to the country that had paid it.
The trouble with defence spending is that much of it goes straight into the pockets of a few billionaires and its outputs get used to support genocides and oppression in the Middle East, Africa and the global south.
Spending massively on the NHS and social care (not via privatisation) would achieve much more with the advantage that the outputs would save lives instead of taking them and the money spent would be distributed over an orders of magnitude greater proportion of the populace and generate far more national benefit.
We have a very limited need for a massive defence force – all of the major nations could take us out without blinking an eye and I have significant reservations about us spending huge amounts of the national budget on defending Europe, when we have an almost 20% poverty rate across our populace, a plundered health and social care system, a broken public transport system, a huge housing deficit, etc., and we are well less than a decade from starting to feel some very severe impacts from climate change and global migration. We are going to need a massive infrastructural and services uplift to absorb the impacts of climate change and its attendant migration.
A little geographical and trade realism might suggest that, despite our illusions of imperial significance, we might be low down the target list for any hostile action:
We have virtually no important natural resources worth plundering.
By the time any invasive force were to engage with us from the likely directions, Europe and NATO would be gone anyway, so NATO wouldn’t be able to come rushing to our aid.
Seen from that viewpoint, whilst our investment in supporting NATO and its successor might have some political value and make us feel good about our imperial status, it doesn’t actually promise to make us any safer, whilst spending on national infrastructure and services would bring far more benefits and offer us a chance of dealing with the next 15 environmental and social years.
Also, on the question of our defence force, one of our weakest areas is manpower – we have eroded the military for a long time. It takes a lot of years for changes in recruitment capacity to flow through into increased defensive capability and it has to be sustained across governments. But the proportion of defence spending that goes to manpower and its support services, e.g. MoD housing, steadily reduces and most of the budget goes to a select few contractors and, of that, a lot goes to huge equipment and comms projects that have overrun, not delivered or, in some cases, simply been cancelled after enormous expense – those contracts enrich the usual suspects and do nothing either to distribute wealth or improve public life or safety – they simply drain away into the offshore sumps of billionaires.
And one also has to consider what happens if/when Trump withdraws from NATO, which I think he will probably do. I am not sure that we will actually see a comparable European replacement arise. I suspect that we will see a fragmentation into individual national capabilities as each of the European nations increasingly finds that its needs for budget to sustain a functional society in the face of climate change and migration far outweigh any considerations of military cooperation. At the same time, the potential aggressors will also be dealing with climate change, too, perhaps on a more severe scale because of their geographical placement, so I suspect that invading Europe may be low down on their budgetary priorities, too.