Defence: empty rhetoric

By Richard North - February 17, 2025

There is a deep irony in Keir Starmer exhibiting such enthusiasm to secure the borders of Ukraine as part of any peace settlement with Russia, yet he is so indifferent to the integrity of our own borders.

It is ironic also that he concedes that “putting Britons in harm’s way is a huge responsibility”, but what he doesn’t say is that, in so doing, he will be relying largely on young, white men who still form by far the greater bulk of the teeth arms.

That is the very same demographic that he and his fellow travellers have consistently denigrated and disadvantaged, preferring migrants and domesticated aliens in employment, social housing and many other areas.

When it suits him, Starmer can wax lyrical about a “once-in-a-generation moment for the collective security of our continent”, arguing that this is not only a question about the future of Ukraine but it is also “existential for Europe as a whole”.

At the same time, though, Europe faces its own existential crisis of a low indigenous birthrate and an uncontrolled inflow of migrants who, with those already here, are set to outbreed their hosts and change the entire character of European civilisation.

As J D Vance observed, when it comes to the security of the continent, it was not clear to him, and certainly not to many citizens of Europe, what exactly it was that they were defending themselves for.

Starmer glibly talks of a lasting peace in Ukraine that safeguards its sovereignty for the long term, and how it is essential if we are to deter Putin from further aggression in the future, yet he is so careless of the sovereignty of the indigenous British peoples that he will stand idly by as they are replaced by alien hordes.

In a stance typical of the demagogue, though, he is happy to focus on foreign adventures, and trysts with foreign powers, telling us that Europe and the United States must continue to work closely together, then offering our slender resources which, he says, “can play a unique role in helping to make this happen”.

He then prattles about increasing our defence spending and taking on a greater role in Nato, playing fast and loose with statistics, arguing that non-US Nato nations have already increased defence spending by 20 percent in the past year, “but we must go further”.

This is the man who has been reluctant to allow our defence spending to drift up to 2.3 percent and, rather than move towards the 5.0 percent that Donald Trump is suggesting as the minimum, to a heady 2.65 percent, amounting to an increased spend of £10 billion, spread over an indeterminate period.

But even that higher figure may be a chimera. In an extraordinary example of hubris, Starmer is said to be set on rejecting pleas to spend more that 2.5 percent on defence, resisting pressure from military chiefs.

With that, what is so staggering about the casual way that Starmer is so keen to commit our forces is that he has already been told that the Army is “too run down” to lead a peacekeeping force. And, although this warning come from Lord Dannat, even he can do simple arithmetic.

He anticipates deploying 10,000 troops in any one roulement, which is hardly extravagent given that the line of contact which will become the demilitarised zone that will require policing is roughly 850 miles. Each national contingent will have to be substantial if it is effectively to deter Russian forces.

Dannatt anticipates that, with a six-month turn-round (the practice adopted in Iraq and Afghanistan), the deployment would effectively tie up 30-40,000 troops. With the entire strength of the British Army hovering around 72,000 – only a fraction of which is deployable – that is simply beyond our current capability.

Assuming that the Army could even recruit the additional numbers needed – bearing in mind that it is struggling to meet even the current establishment – there is then the matter of the cost.

With an infantry battalion of around 650 men costing upwards of £100 million to equip and maintain in the field, each roulement involves a commitment of about £1.5 billion which, overall, would account for about half of any increased spending. And that would not take into account any RAF contingent, where the costs of acquiring and maintaining high-performance aircraft could easily run to billions.

This, though, would only be the start of the problems. Over the years, UK defence industrial capacity has been allowed to decline and, in many important sectors, we no longer have the ability to manufacture key weapons systems.

Bizarrely, we no longer have the capability to produce infantry rifles, upgrading our Challenger tanks – pitifully few in number – is being carried out by the German firm Rheinmetall, which is also manufacturing the Boxer APC, the 155mm artillery derivant and even our MAN trucks which form the backbone of army mobility.

We are capable of manufacturing our own ammunition, but are reliant on imports from the United States for the explosives and propellants and while we have recently required the capability to produce a limited number of barrels for our howitzers, we no longer have the capability to produce the steel to make them. Nor, indeed, is there any domestic capacity to produce the steel needed to make armoured plate.

The hulls of Ares/Ajax armoured vehicles are fabricated in Spain and the key weapons system relies on French components.

Where this is going to get doubly interesting is that, if the rest of Europe heeds Trump’s call to increase defence spending and expand their forces, every army in Europe is going to be ordering new equipment. The UK could find itself at the end of a very long queue, reduced to drilling with broomsticks.

Even then, Starmer’s troubles won’t be over. The fighting in Ukraine has triggered a surge in technical and tactical developments, which the British Army is ill-equipped to deal with.

A significant amount of structuring, retraining and re-equipping will be needed to make our forces theatre-ready, all of which will take time and add to the costs of deployment.

As Rusi commentators observe, the character of the threat continues to evolve, so it is “important that Nato militaries ensure that they are adapting to meet the challenges of tomorrow, rather than perfecting the execution of past doctrine”.

Despite the chance of significant extra funds evaporating as we speak. the Army is still salivating at the prospect of presenting the MoD with a shopping list of new “high-tech” toys, with a “senior Army source” saying that, while traditional weapons would still be needed to work alongside the future methods, No 10 needed to invest in technology companies building “first person view” drones, cheap loitering munitions, and uncrewed ground vehicles and surface vessels.

This source says that: “A national arsenal, in the form of contracts for goods and services, is needed to realise ambitions about doubling fighting power”. In simple terms, he adds, “where today the majority of our lethality comes from crewed and high sophistication platforms, like a tank or an attack helicopter, in the future we want to shift more of our lethality coming from low sophistication and uncrewed systems”.

Given the MoD’s lamentable performance on system definitions and procurement, one can only imagine the number of projects that will be spawned, to absorb any cash that might become available, only to have the new kit coming in late and over-budget, with much of it under-performing or obsolete by the time it is delivered.

All these realities, though, are for the future. For the moment, Starmer can bask in the glory of commitments he may never be able to deliver- and seems to have no intention of trying. But the promise will get him a hearing as he grandstands at the summit of leaders in Paris today, comprising France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, the European Commission, the European Council and Nato.

In full flow already, Starmer writes of “these crucial days ahead”, which “will determine the future security of our continent”. He tells us that he will say in Paris that “peace comes through strength. But the reverse is also true. Weakness leads to war”.

This is the moment, he says, “for us all to step up, and the UK will do so because it is the right thing to do for the values and freedoms we hold dear, and because it is fundamental to our own national security”.

In Paris, he may or may not convince the “colleagues”, but I rather suspect that his words will sound as hollow to them as it does to us. National security begins at home, and if Starmer can’t even be bothered to secure that, his vainglorious ambitions of leading a Ukrainian peacekeeping force will be as empty as his rhetoric.