General Lord Richard Dannatt emphasizes the urgent necessity for Britain to boost its defense spending beyond the proposed 2.5% to ensure military readiness amidst global threats, particularly influenced by Russia's actions in Ukraine. He commends Sir Keir Starmer's commitment to raise the defense budget and highlights the historical tendency to cut spending post-Cold War, which has compromised military capability. He argues for balanced priorities that include maintaining the UK’s international influence alongside defense investments, marking the budget increase as a critical step in rectifying past neglect.
I'm not going to give you a shopping list of what needs to be done, but there is a historic legacy of repeated peace dividends being taken from our defence budget, going right back to the early 1990s, at the end of the Cold War.
If you look at Vladimir Putin, a proven aggressor continuing his war in Ukraine, it doesn't take a genius to realise that we've got to spend more on our own defence.
In the wider world, it's disappointing that we're probably going to plunder the international development budget, because the UK's influence in the world often comes through a combination of our hard power, our soft power, our diplomacy, and our development funds.
Going from 2.3% to 2.5% is a significant step in the right direction. So congratulations to the Prime Minister for listening to the argument, doing the right thing.
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