The rest pays for personnel, infrastructure and equipment support. About half that money is spent on developing and fielding new capabilities. We spend £40 billion a year on defence or approximately 2% of GDP. A core issue is, given our nuclear capabilities, what level of conventional forces do we need to maintain? If conventional mass and capabilities fall beyond a certain level, we could find ourselves in a position where our only response to a non-nuclear attack would be to use nuclear weapons.
But they have kept the peace since 1945 and mean we need to spend less on conventional forces. Possessing nuclear weapons, which we hope never to use and that cost so much, makes them controversial. The money we spend on defence is an insurance policy with our security ultimately backed-up by the nuclear deterrent.
The armed services employ 145,000 personnel, while the defence industry supports around 130,000 jobs. It considers potential gaps and sets an agenda for those responsible for managing and funding Britain’s most important defence capabilities.īritain has the world’s six largest economy and the fifth highest defence expenditure. Eight months after the Integrated Review and Defence Command Paper were published, this article looks at UK defence as a whole to consider where we are and where we are going.
0 kommentar(er)
