The United Kingdom will gradually boost its defence spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2030, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced during a visit to Poland on Tuesday. “Today I’m announcing the biggest strengthening of national defence for a generation,” Sunak said, announcing $619 million in additional funding for Ukraine’s war effort against Russia’s invasion.
In a speech in Warsaw, Sunak said Europe was at a turning point as he urged allies to step up to match the commitment of the UK. “In a world that is the most dangerous it has been since the end of the Cold War, we cannot be complacent. As our adversaries align, we must do more to defend our country, our interests, and our values,” he said.
“Today is a turning point for European security and a landmark moment in the defence of the United Kingdom. It is a generational investment in British security and British prosperity, which makes us safer at home and stronger abroad.” The military commitment means the UK would spend a cumulative extra £75b on core defence funding over the next six years, The Guardian newspaper reported.
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This comes a day after the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported that total global military expenditure reached $2443 billion in 2023. This was the steepest year-on-year increase since 2009. World military expenditure rose for the ninth consecutive year to an all-time high of $2443 billion. For the first time since 2009, military expenditure went up in all five of the geographical regions defined by SIPRI, with particularly large increases recorded in Europe, Asia and Oceania and the Middle East.
Rise in military spending
“The unprecedented rise in military spending is a direct response to the global deterioration in peace and security,” said Nan Tian, Senior Researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. “States are prioritising military strength but they risk an action-reaction spiral in the increasingly volatile geopolitical and security landscape.” In 2023 the 31 NATO members accounted for $1341 billion, equal to 55 percent of the world’s military expenditure.
According to SIPRI, military spending by the US rose by 2.3 percent to reach $916 billion in 2023, representing 68 percent of total NATO military spending. In 2023 most European NATO members increased their military expenditure. Their combined share of the NATO total was 28 percent, the highest in a decade. The remaining 4 percent came from Canada and Türkiye.
“For European NATO states, the past two years of war in Ukraine have fundamentally changed the security outlook,” said Lorenzo Scarazzato, Researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. ‘This shift in threat perceptions is reflected in growing shares of GDP being directed towards military spending, with the NATO target of 2 percent increasingly being seen as a baseline rather than a threshold to reach.”
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