The United States has called on Britain to urgently get over its defence budget crisis and rediscover its military strength in the wake of the implosion of its spending plan and resignation of two defence ministers in 24 hours.
U.S. Undersecretary of War Elbridge Colby has said “there is again a great need for more British military strength in this critical time” as British defence credibility took another hit this week
The British Minister of Defence, John Healey, spectacularly resigned his post on Thursday and was followed hours later by his junior minister the Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces, Retired Royal Marines Colonel Al Carns, a decorated former special forces officer, hours later.
The resignations were over the government’s Defence Investment Plan — or rather, lack of one — the long delayed spending package that was meant to match Westminster’s belligerent rhetoric and appraisal of global security threats. Healey said in his resignation letter that he had been shown the ‘plan’ on Monday and was dismayed to discover it was a tiny fraction of what was needed to maintain Britain’s national security.
Carns, meanwhile, wrote: “We are asking our Armed Forces to operate in a more dangerous world on a budget written for a calmer one… I have run out of room to argue this case honourably from inside government”.
The government belatedly appointed a new Minister of Defence on Thursday night and insisted everything will be fine, and that the Defence Investment Plan that just precipitated the resignation of two well respected ministers would actually perform well.
This hasn’t reassured the United States, Britain’s most consequential and closely integrated all, at all, however. Responding directly to the resignations, President Donald Trump’s Undersecretary of War Elbridge Colby clearly implied it was time for Britain to pick itself up, dust itself down, and get back to being a credible military power.
Colby reminded the British that they have traditionally been a deeply martial and capable people, and said: “The United Kingdom has an extraordinarily proud military history. It commands our respect. There is again a great need for more British military strength in this critical time. We urge the UK to meet that need with urgency, scale, and determination.”
The defence minister resignations are just the latest signals to a watching world that Britain, while it talks a big game on defence, bet big on the post-Cold War peace dividend and is now struggling to meet its commitments. Once world-beating forces like the Royal Navy for instance — which even until very recently was unquestionably really second only to the United States in reach and potency — are now in a position where it gives the impression of barely functioning.
None of the UK’s force of hunter-killer submarines are at sea, a posture very dramatically at odds with the government’s frequently expressed concern about the threat of Russian ships and submarines at large in the North Sea and in Britain’s home waters. The government, caught flat-footed by the Iran war was unable to put a single ship to sea to contribute to the security of British forces and allies in the Eastern Mediterranean and wider Middle East as Tehran wildly lashed out at far-flung targets, a failure that has very obviously damaged Britain’s prestige and diplomatic standing in the region.
Even when the country was able to deploy a single destroyer it was a matter of robbing Peter to pay Paul: it seems the only ship eventually made available was meant to be assigned to a forthcoming British-led NATO exercise, meaning London had to borrow a German frigate.