UK Defense Secretary warns of threat of wider global conflict by end of decade

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Defense Secretary Ben Wallace has warned of the threat of wider global conflict by the end of the decade, calling for a clear timetable for increasing UK military spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product.

“By the end of the decade, the world will be a more dangerous and volatile place and defense will be more critical to our lives,” he said, underlining the risk of a wider conflict with Russia following its wide-ranging invasion. scale of Ukraine. , the threat posed by a “China on the rise” and the rise of extremism in Africa.

The world is seeing “the end of the abnormal period [of peace] post-Cold War,” he told the Financial Times. “I think there’s a conflict coming, whether it’s hot or cold is to be seen. . . I think a conflict is coming with a number of opponents around the world. . . We must all be prepared for this.”

The warning of Defense of the United Kingdom The secretary-general, who has been central to garnering wider European support for Ukraine, was accompanied by an appeal to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to set a timeline for a commitment to increase the defense budget from 2.1% to 2.1%. .5% of GDP.

In the March budget, Hunt promised the defense ministry an extra £11bn over the next five years. Even the chancellor reiterated the government’s “aspiration” to increase defense spending to 2.5 percent of GDP in the long term, but did not specify a timeline.

Wallace he said he welcomed the extra funding but added, “There’s still a plank to go, which is a date.”

UK defense spending has declined fairly steadily from an all-time high of around 7% of GDP in the mid-1950s. Wallace has secured a number of one-off cash injections since taking over as Secretary of Defense in 2019, but a significant portion of that has gone towards big projects like new submarines to carry the country’s nuclear deterrent, leaving to the ministry the daily task of squeezed daily budget.

Increasing the basic defense budget to 2.5% of GDP by the end of this decade would require an additional £14bn of spending in 2029-30 and another £42bn over the next five years of parliament, according to the analysis by the Royal Institute of United Services.

Wallace stressed that, of all services, the Army was most in need of urgent investment, declaring that it was “15 years behind schedule and needs to be modernized.”

He’s preparing to unveil an update to the Defense Command’s 2021 document, which sets out plans to modernize the military, and is preparing for another battle with Hunt over funding.

“The government must indicate its priorities. . . Unless you tell the Treasury that next round of spending, defense will get a bigger share [of money]the Treasury will not prepare for this.

He said he was trying to change a culture in Whitehall in which the defense budget was seen as the “go-to money bucket for other things”, or a “quarry” to be mined for money for other government priorities.

But he appeared to be rejecting calls from critics to reverse his decision cut 9,500 soldiers from the armyreducing it to 72,500 – its smallest size since the Napoleonic era – arguing that the new technology will allow fewer staff to greater effect.

Speaking to the FT earlier this week in Berlin, following a meeting with his counterpart Boris Pistorius, Wallace applauded Germany’s plans to set up a 100 billion euro fund modernize their armed forces. It was “an important message for [people] across Britain that we are going back to the days where we need to invest in defence,” he said.

When asked about his apparent interest in the post of NATO secretary general when incumbent Jens Stoltenberg resigned in October, he was more cryptical: “I think NATO members are all trying to see who’s going to dance. . . Let’s see who dances. Earlier this year, he called it a “great job” in an interview with Times Radio.

On Ukraine, Wallace said Kiev’s forces are well prepared, equipped and highly motivated ahead of the counteroffensive against Russian forces which should start soon. However, he warned that the Western allies should not view the attempt to drive the Russians out of the occupied territory as “one more push” that would necessarily lead to the end of the conflict.

Wallace said Britain and other allies were “on guard” for Russian forces resorting to deploying unconventional weapons in Ukraine if the counteroffensive went well. He said any use of chemical weapons would be “unacceptable and there would be an answer”.