King Charles’s forces

Sir Starmer faces tough choices

Tucked into news yesterday about Prime Minister Keir Starmer meeting at the White House with President Biden was a statement about the United Kingdom’s military that I suspect eluded many people. I heard it as I was crossing my living room en route to something else so I confess I cannot find the source or even the context but it’s worth taking note. The British military leader acknowledged his force insufficient to defend his country successfully in the next conflict.

The United Kingdom formally began with the Act of Union between England and Scotland in 1707, as my international law professor tartily informed me in 1979 when I mistakenly referred to England for the whole of the country. King Charles III’s realm is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The country consists of the main island of England, Scotland and Wales, along with the enclave of Northern Ireland on Eire, and a series of nearby island chains such as the Inner Hebrides, Outer Hebrides, the Isles of Scilly, Channel Islands (actually nearer France than Britain), the Orkneys, and the Shetlands, the Isle of Man, and the Isle of Arran constitute this country of a mere 94,000 square miles (two thirds the size of Germany on the continent, by comparison). It ranks as the 80th country according to land mass.

The U.K. today is overwhelmingly an urban population, though a first time visitor often expresses surprise at the open, verdant agricultural areas in between the densely populated cities of London, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Swansea, Cardiff, and Belfast. The 68.35 million Britons inhabit these concentrated urban areas along with more middling-sized cities or large towns ranging from Canterbury to Chester to Bradford to Leeds to Carlisle to Dunfermline to Inverness, and countless smaller communities in between. Countless hamlets and towns charm visitors but four of every fifth Briton lives in a dense, urban location even though 71% of the country is actually considered agricultural for land use purposes.

The land they occupy and the population numbers pique one’s interest that this country would have ruled the world under an empire upon which the sun never set for decades. The country ruled from London has a four hundred year plus history—back to Elizabeth I in the fading years of the sixteenth century—as a global power. Its geography and size might not indicate anything relative to greatness in traditional measures but the industriousness, the creativity, the ingenuity, the unbroken parliamentary monarchy with its rule of law, and the laissez-faire (“let it be” or government relatively hands off) economic approach allowed a culture to blossom that ultimately included a Crown Colony in Hong Kong, islands in the southwest Pacific near colonies in Australia and New Zealand, the Jewel in the Crown of governing South Asia, overt imperialism in the Middle East and huge swaths of Africa, while also maintaining the Dominion link with Canada. It was a remarkable spread of at least legal obeisance to Westminster, making thousands of Britons wealthy around that empire.

I am in no way justifying British imperialism, treatment of non-British populations across the world, or overt economic exploitation. My comments are descriptive rather than prescriptive. My point is that this is a country with a long history of playing a dominant role in world history in the past four hundred years.

As a reminder, as recently as 1945, the United Kingdom took one of the five Permanent Seats on the United Nations Security Council. London was the primary partner with Washington in the alliance that defeated the Axis in World War II before establishing the oft-cited post-World War II international order.

Perhaps Franklin Roosevelt was overly generous to Winston Churchill during the Second World War, offering the Prime Minister a voice. The Prime Minister recognized Washington’s overwhelming contributions to the efforts but Roosevelt offered partnership to the Prime Minister out of politeness, affection, and respect. Perhaps the problems that confronted Westminster almost immediately upon the end of that long conflict were already beginning to consume the British political establishment’s attention but the British did not want to surrender their empire to the realities of the post-war world. A range of reasons, not least incredible pent-up nationalism in various corners, explain why Britain’s dominance faded relatively quickly as domestic concerns overwhelmed everything else precisely as the Empire became too expensive and challenging. Those colonies demanded and achieved independence within three years of the war’s end.

The U.K. retains its Security Council seat and remains a vital U.S. ally with a role in NATO and AUKUS but the United Kingdom is also a surprisingly small military power. That declining size is worrisome for the future, particularly the outdated equipment. The Army’s top officer stated unequivocally this week that his military could not assure success in a protracted military conflict.

General Roland Walker said “If we fight using the old ideas, the chances are, we lose.” He means number of forces, equipment, and ideas.

That may strike Yanks as dramatic, if not shocking, but not all that relevant. Few things could be further from the truth, however, as the U.K. may be the canary in the coal mind for the United States in important ways.

The much heralded AUKUS accord is a multi-decade cooperation between London, Canberra, and Washington to expand substantially nuclear-powered submarines to address a rising People’s Liberation Army Navy. I have posed the question repeatedly whether all of the capitals can assure the sustainability of financial commitments they have made under AUKUS; General Walker’s admission reinforces my doubts as the U.K. is not on a trajectory to spend sufficiency to modernize existing systems so how likely is the sustained funding for a massive new multi-national enterprise? The achievement of a successful program to expand substantially submarines for the Asia Pacific seems quite unlikely. Will the United States and Australia pick up Britain’s share?

Additionally, the U.K. seems likely to have a hard time meeting its obligations for NATO should a “hot war” begin. One supposes President Biden and Prime Minister’s Starmer’s discussions yesterday spent the bulk of their time on this point as the world watches Ukraine operate within Russia, risking a response by Vlad the Impaler against NATO states along with Kyiv. How would Britain respond? In an era of a relatively small, all volunteer force of 138,000 across His Majesty’s Navy, Marines, Army, and Air Force.

These are well-trained but poorly equiped men and women but there are few of them. The 4,000 Gurkas add to the number but this still puts London’s active duty personnel at fewer than 150,000 along with 34,000 reservists. Britain spends 2.3% of its gross national product on His Majesty’s forces, equating to foughly $74 billion, less than 9% of what the United States spends.

FPOTUS is already demanding that NATO allies pay substantially more as he believes the Alliance is a transactional organization so this could be problematic were he to return to the White House.

It’s not that I am advocating London spend what Washington spends on the military but what London spends is hard enough to achieve. The Labour Party is not traditionally an externally-focused electorate but one built on working class voters inside the U.K. It’s the why that makes this relevant for the United States. Britain has an ever increasing preference, on the part of its voters, to spend on domestic priorities.

General Walker and other senior U.K. military officers advocate defense reforms favoring exquisite technologies like specialized lasers or greater investment in drones rather than expensive state-of-the-art technology like the next generation fighter jointly under development with Japan, the Tempest. The Tempest and the lasers, however, are still years from deployment, offering a tempting target for budgeteers seeks to address a $30 billion deficit that Labour found upon taking office two months ago. Put another way, Westminister and the Ministry of Defense confront trade offs on arms programs as they worry about equipping women and men currently under arms. The relatively small armed force does make a difference for London’s and NATO’s options since military personnel can only be in one place at any time.

More fundamentally, these cruel facts about Britain’s military raise serious questions about Washington’s embrace of strategies relying on “allies and partners” rather than exploding the already huge $850 billion Defense Department budget. No matter how confident CJCS Chairmen Admiral Mike Mullen, General Marty Dempsey, General Joe Dunford, General Mark Milley or currently General C.Q. Brown may be, a frank assessment of probable long-term support must be less encouraging than it proclaimed. Then the issue becomes how Washington addresses the holes that allies’s diminished contributions create in the strategy. This painful question returns us, however, to a topic discussed last week: recruitment shortfalls among the services as younger men and women are unavailable—for whatever reason—to defend our nation and our strategies for the rest of the globe.

Don’t get me wrong: Britain’s lesser participation (sorry, Adrienne, dear British reader) will not require a wholesale change for the future but it’s indicative of the tensions resulting from other governments addressing their own priorities when they conflict with our preferences. Since all politics are local, who would side against the priorities of those who vote (or not) you into office? Governments are responsible to their electors in the western system; to do otherwise, would be the Soviet system we worked with the British to defeat over decades.

Sir Keir Starmer may have a rabbit in his hat on defense but I doubt it. The honest concerns General Walker is acknowledging are actually refreshing, particularly if Westminster actually addresses them through some set of actions. Our response, too often, is simply to spend more as if that will solve everything when it’s creating its own set of problems for future generations saddled with unfathomable debt.

Allies and partners are important but each and every nation has its priorities and challenges. Britain’s perhaps surprise the world because of the dominance it exerted for so long. But, things evolve, often without people recognizing how fundamental the changes. By the time they do see the need for reevaluation, too often the required shift can seem overwhelming. Actions create consequences which General Roland Walker clearly understands.

Thank you for reading Actions today. I thoroughly welcome your thoughts on this column. Please feel free to circulate it to others, if you find it of value. Thanks to subscribers who help me with their financial support.

It’s a stunning Saturday afternoon in the Chesapeake region. The late August colors are gorgeous.

Be well and be safe. FIN

Malcolm Brabant, “UK Army Chief Warns the Nation Could Lose its Next Conflict without Military Reforms”, PBSNewshour.org, 13 September 2024, retrieved at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/uk-army-chief-warns-nation-could-lose-next-conflict-without-military-reforms

“United Kingdom”, WorldData.info, 14 September 2024, retrieved at https://www.worlddata.info/europe/united-kingdom/index.php