Starmer says he wants to increase UK defence spending to 3% - and announces foreign aid cut
Sir Keir Starmer has said he wants to increase UK defence spending to 3% in the next parliament - ahead of his White House meeting with Donald Trump.
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The prime minister, in an unexpected statement in parliament, announced spending would be increased to 2.5% of the UK's GDP by 2027.
He also announced the government would cut back on foreign aid, reducing current spending from 0.5% of GDP to 0.3%.
Bit depressing that they can find the cash for weapons.
Jeremy Hunt wants to cut benefits to pay for this increased defence spending. They'll do anything before taxing rich people more.
Bit depressing that they can find the cash for weapo
Defence increase (by 2027) is entirly funded by aid reduction.
So seems that was the only way to fund it.
to be fair, having a better funded and equipped military gives us the ability for more 'foreign action' which could be used in place of 'aid' in certain circumstances.
Def a better manned military dose. Well-trained disaplined manpower can be the most helpful aid to many a crisis.
Unfortunately, equipped depends very much on the type of equipment. With the modern military, less spending goes on such equipment. As more effort is made to move personnel from the field. IE remote combat.
wars are won with technological edges.
wars are have been with technological edges.
But mass population of economic differences can also overwhelm that edge.
Unfortunately the world has changed over the last 20–30 years. Technological edges have less(but still some) effect sue to ionformation technology changes and the ability to extract it.
IE, unless that edge is such a huge change that we are basically talking a new scientific disapline/form of technology. The ability and history of global communication means nations can copy the principals and develop similar design. So the war returns back to speed and ability of implementation. IE finance and population.
The only way a technology can now outweigh that is if the tech is so different top that being used. The opponents cannot formulate a basic theory of its methodology of function. IE the new discipline idea I pointed out above. This is due to war being so much more viewable due to the availability and distribution of video and communication. Deployment of weapons in a manner that cannot be seen and understood by your opponents, impractical.
Of course, this is only a hypothesis. But a logically well backed one. That military professionals are now having to consider with long term planning.
"we haven't had free health care ever" ~ americans
"Your government spends more per capita on healthcare through Medicare, Medicaid and government employee insurance than any country with universal healthcare" ~ the rest of the world