MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
UK government under pressure to increase defense budget to 3% of GDP
The defense committee repeated its call for the Government to raise defense spending from the NATO minimum of 2% of GDP to 3% – around £60 billion a year 
In July at NATO's summit in Brussels US President Donald Trump is expected to reiterate demands for European allies to take on a greater share of the burden of collective defense. The British government must increase spending on the armed forces if Britain is to maintain its defense relationship with the United States, MPs have warned. The Commons Defense Committee said without further investment, UK forces would struggle to maintain “interoperability” with the US military, diminishing their usefulness as allies.
The warning comes ahead of next month’s Nato summit in Brussels where US President Donald Trump is expected to reiterate demands for European allies to take on a greater share of the burden of collective defense.
The committee repeated its call for the Government to raise defense spending from the NATO minimum of 2% of GDP to 3% – around £60 billion a year – saying without additional funding the UK would be unable to maintain its military capacity and capability.
“Diminished capacity reduces the UK’s usefulness to the US and our influence within NATO. The Government must not allow this to happen,” it said.
It said that US defense secretary James Mattis had estimated that the UK benefited to the tune of £3 billion-a-year from its defense relationship with the US.
“This implies that both the UK armed forces and HM Treasury benefit from our close relationship with the US,” it said. “However, that will continue to be true only while the UK military retains both the capacity and capability to maintain interoperability with the US military and to relieve US burdens.
“For this to be the case the UK armed forces must be funded appropriately.”
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense said: “The UK maintains the biggest defense budget in Europe we have been clear we will continue to exceed NATO’s 2% spending target.
“The Defense Secretary launched the Modernizing Defense Program to strengthen our Armed Forces in the face of intensifying threats.”
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Read all comments“or; we are all really convinced no one will be crazy enough to use some of those nuclear warheads that are out there”
Jun 27th, 2018 - 11:21 pm +2There has only ever been one nation crazy enough to do that...
...and what do you mean 75 years...that crazy nation has has a few wars since then...didn't actually win any ...of course...
I'm not quite sure why....perhaps they were...
Pussies.
Deadbeats.
Weak as water.
Who knows....
Chronic
Jun 27th, 2018 - 10:45 pm +1I would have thought you orcs in the Russian troll farms would be watching the world cup instead of posting idiotic comments.
Personally I agree that Defence spending should be increased, mainly because there have been too many cuts already.
Jun 26th, 2018 - 07:57 pm 0The world has become a far more dangerous place in the past few years and we need to show that we are committed to defending ourselves and our allies (especially our Commonwealth brothers and sisters).
We have moved far too much to cyber warfare (which is becoming increasingly important) but have begun to neglect the more conventional defensive measures that we require. A balance between the 2 needs to be maintained. We need to get both aircraft carriers fully loaded with aircraft and fully operational, and we need to be investing in the future of the military. We no longer have enough people to do the job, many people in the forces are double and triple hatted, a 'jack of all trades' but 'master of none'. This needs to stop. We need more people, more money as an incentive to those people, better pensions whilst at the same time improving our weaponry and armour.
This can't be done if you are continuously cutting the defence budget, it needs to be increased, and we need to invest in the defence of the Realm not just pay lip service to it.
There are many in favour of paying an extra penny on the pound in tax if that money goes exclusively to the NHS. Well I'm in favour of paying an extra tuppence on the pound in tax if the revenue is equally split between the NHS and the MOD.
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