I posted this comment on Twitter / X yesterday afternoon:
I then added:
Do I need to add a great deal more?
It seems to me that giving in to Trump's demands on defence right now, and the demands of former Labour ministers who have bought into the demands of that military-industrial complex, would be utterly irresponsible and a massive strategic and political mistake.
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Starmer pledges to spend more, perhaps to look big in world politics. But what are the economics?
Apparently under good economic conditions “ample fiscal headroom and low import dependence” [1] an economic multiplier of 1.4 to 1.7 might be achieved in military spending. In less ideal circumstances the multipler could be <1 or even negative. These are the words of a banker’s research group.
[1] https://www.suerf.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/SUERF-Policy-Brief-1209_Sarasa-Flores_Serrador_Ulloa-Ariza.pdf
Yes, it’s become clear that the world has become a more dangerous place – with the threat coming from rather than against the USA.
However, what’s been even more clear is that a much more powerful aggressor (whether it’s Russia or the USA) may struggle to have significant impact invading another country, because the willingness to defence your homeland, the robustness of that over time, the likelihood of getting support as the defender vs as the aggressor, the knowledge of the landscape, and the risk of having to pay reparations (whether you want to call it an investment fund or not) if you lose as the aggressor, the risks have been shown to be high for potential future invasions.
The lesson, then, is not just that war is very expensive and disruptive, but starting a war unnecessarily is likely to be a catastrophic mistake.
Instead of planning to spend vast amounts on huge battleships, or missile defence systems, we can recognise that smaller, much cheaper vehicles may be more appropriate to modern warfare, particularly drone-based technologies, and that missile defence systems can invariably be overwhelmed by sufficient volumes at once. We need to plan for resilient production, spare capacity, domestic manufacturing and self-reliance, along with closer ties with neighbours, to reduce the cost and risks of war. We should perhaps invest in drone technologies generally and autonomous systems, but not specifically military – that way we can build capacity to repurpose for a threat while creating economic benefit now over spending huge amounts on hardware that (from the looks of it) may be obsolete by the time it’s actually called on.
Thanks.
Surely this pledge to increase ‘defence’ spending to 5% (more than education!) has been done with and on the orders if the Zionist/US puppet masters?
Starmer and his cabinet do not make decisions based on membership and party policy.
Everything that has been done recently has been in support of Israel and it’s genocide in Gaza (and now Lebanon).
Why do we expect anything else?
It will be the same with Burnham.