Is the British Military Ready for a Major War?

On paper, the United Kingdom is one of the world’s great military powers. It is a country that possesses not just nuclear weapons, but a navy capable of deploying globally and special forces that can stand shoulder to shoulder with any of their peers. Where military funding is concerned, Britain likewise shines: it is the second-highest spender in NATO after the United States, and the sixth-highest military spender in the world.

Nor does it shy away from using that power. It was the UK that led the initial charge to help arm Ukraine, and the UK that today works alongside America to protect Red Sea shipping from Houthi attacks. By any conventional measure, this is a serious military establishment with global reach and a willingness to act.

Yet, despite all these positives, there are growing worries about the state of Britain’s armed forces — worries that the UK may no longer be capable of fighting, let alone winning, a major war. Since 2023, a number of generals, both British and American, have been raising the alarm about the country’s military preparedness, warning that kit is outdated, branches are understaffed, and money is being wasted on botched projects.

The deeper warning is starker still: that without major change, Britain risks sleepwalking into a military catastrophe. This is an analysis of how a once-revered military power fell to such a low ebb — and whether it can recover before the danger on the European continent forces the question for it.

Cracks in the Armour

Two months. That is how long the defence committee in Britain’s House of Commons recently estimated the nation’s military could last in a peer-to-peer conflict. Two months before stockpiles ran dry, the military exhausted its capabilities, and the country simply became incapable of fighting any longer.

For many, the finding came as a nasty shock. After all, the UK is a nation that spends over £50 billion annually on defence — above the NATO two percent guideline — and the British RAF, Royal Navy, and SAS are famous around the world for being good at what they do. But for those who had been following the hollowing out of Britain’s armed forces, the report was no surprise. Rather, it confirmed what they had been saying for years.

In some cases, those trying to alert the British government came from across the pond. In 2022, a senior US general told the then-Secretary of State for Defence, Ben Wallace, that Britain was barely a tier-two power. In the jargon, a “tier one” military is one that has not only a nuclear deterrent, but also the ability to deploy its navy, army, and air force globally at short notice.

The Tier-Two Verdict

While London is under no illusions that it can match a high-level tier-one power like the United States, it is key to Britain’s self-image that it at least belongs in this hallowed club. So to receive such a brutal reality check from an ally certainly stung. The worst part? The American general was almost certainly right.

In a detailed piece on the comments, The Economist noted how Britain’s military today lacks “long-range missiles and electronic-warfare assets,” and that “there are concerns within the army that it lacks adequate intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, and that it does not have enough artillery.” To this, The Telegraph adds that Britain is also “majorly lacking in layered air defense — the ability to fight off attacks at both short, mid and long range.”

Such holes in credibility are not unique among European militaries. Although it is now trying to rearm, Germany currently lacks key capabilities, and other peer nations have run their artillery supplies down giving shells to Ukraine. But Britain represents an unusual case among larger, wealthier nations in that its problems are compounded by an acute lack of manpower.

A Force at Its Smallest in Centuries

According to the UK Ministry of Defence, the entire British military — including reservists and volunteers — currently numbers 184,865 personnel. That sounds like a big number, but in reality it is the lowest staffing level since the Napoleonic Wars. Where the army is concerned, things are even worse. With just 72,500 people, The Guardian reports that the British Army is currently smaller than it has been for 300 years.

It is not only people the UK is lacking. In services like the Royal Air Force, the number of fast jet squadrons has dropped from 31 at the end of the Cold War to barely seven today. The navy, meanwhile, struggles to put together enough support ships to accompany its two new aircraft carriers.

This is a huge problem, and not just for those living in the land of tea and drizzle. Right now, Britain is meant to be one of two serious military powers in Europe — the other being France. If Britain is really a paper tiger, then it bodes extremely ill for the continent.

Why Europe Is Watching

Intelligence services are warning that Vladimir Putin may follow on from his invasion of Ukraine by attacking one of the Baltic states within three to five years. If the United States by then is sinking into isolationism and refuses to help, it will be up to London and Paris to do the heavy lifting. As it stands, though, the UK simply will not be up to the job.

The good news is that there is a fairly clear understanding of how things got here — how a once-revered military power fell to such a low ebb. The roots of the problem lie in three intertwined failures: money, manpower, and equipment. Each compounds the others, and each is the product of choices made over more than a decade. The only question now is whether Britain can turn things around.

The Money Issue

Given it is the world’s sixth-largest economy, you might assume that Britain does not suffer from money worries. This is, after all, a country that spends 2.3 percent of its GDP on defence each year — in raw dollars, the second-highest amount in NATO. And yet, problems persist. What gives?

One thing to note is that even 2.3 percent of GDP is far, far less than Britain was spending during the Cold War. In the 1970s and 1980s, the figure was over four percent. That is a huge shortfall — one that, admittedly, the government recognises. Recently, it was announced that defence spending would be hiked to 2.5 percent “as circumstances allow.”

The trouble is, that is an extremely vague phrase, one that seems more likely to be used as an excuse for missing targets than as an aspirational figure to aim for. As the Financial Times writes, “With the tax burden at a postwar high and public services under huge strain, there is no easy answer to where to find the resources.”

A Procurement System “Well and Truly Broken”

While an increase in defence spending would be welcome, there is no guarantee that it would fix things. The bigger problem may not be the funds themselves, but the way the Ministry of Defence spends them. The UK’s military procurement process is inefficient, swamped in bureaucracy, and infested with optimism bias. A House of Commons report last year declared it “well and truly broken.”

Aside from drowning the military in red tape, the procurement process is plagued by oddities like an inability to buy off-the-shelf kit. The problem is best typified by the Ajax scandal. Intended to be the next generation of British armoured fighting vehicle, the Ajax project began in 2010 with a simple idea: by basing the new vehicle on a pre-existing platform developed jointly by Spain and Austria, the UK would cut down on the cost and hassle of commissioning a brand-new system.

For many militaries, buying off-the-shelf kit is standard. Poland, for example, is currently transforming itself into a regional power by buying hundreds of American HIMARS launchers and scores of South Korean tanks. In the case of Ajax, though, the MoD kept adding new requirements, until more than 1,200 modifications were required for each vehicle. As The Economist notes, at this point “it was essentially bespoke.”

When Spending Goes Wrong

It was also unbelievably expensive. Due to come into operation in 2018, Ajax has since ballooned to a cost of £5.5 billion and has yet to be delivered. One major issue has been the development of noise problems so bad they injure crew — all thanks to the endless modifications the MoD insisted on.

Nor is Ajax alone in going hugely over schedule and budget. The Morpheus battlefield communication system was supposed to be entering operation in 2025. Instead, the UK cancelled the contract in December, having already spent nearly £700 million over seven years. These are just two examples, but they are representative of deeper issues with the system — one that encourages officials to sign off on expensive kit that cannot possibly be brought in on time and on budget. It is a system that clearly needs an overhaul.

The Cost of the Deterrent

Waste is not the only reason Britain is getting less for its money than you might expect. There is also the issue of the UK’s nuclear weapons. One of only two nuclear powers in Europe, Britain is committed to maintaining its deterrent, a move that may turn out to be extremely wise if the US ever pulls out of NATO.

Unfortunately, nuclear capabilities are not cheap. So much of British defence spending goes on the deterrent that it has been estimated the military budget minus these costs is actually closer to 1.75 percent of GDP. That means the army, navy, and RAF are being forced to get by on restricted budgets to keep the Defence Nuclear Organisation solvent. The result is that conventional forces are much weaker than they might otherwise be.

All this is not to say that ditching the nuclear deterrent would necessarily be a better idea. But it is a conversation the UK should at least be having. Hard as that conversation might be, though, there are others that will likely be harder still — not least those surrounding the country’s ability to recruit the soldiers it needs.

Manpower Shortages

Recently, The Times looked into staffing levels in the British Army. What it found was that, since 2010, the number of personnel has entered terminal decline. While currently hovering around 72,500, it could drop to a mere 67,741 people by 2026 — a far cry from the 100,000 soldiers the UK boasted in 2009.

As Professor Michael Clarke told War on the Rocks, there exists a “threshold of strategic significance,” below which the army is “too small to make a difference.” Britain might already be on that threshold. Obviously, 72,500 is still a lot of people. But, as has been seen in Ukraine, it is a small number in the context of a major land war. The Russian army, for example, lost about as many men in the first six months of fighting alone.

Now compare one of Britain’s closest peer nations: France. The French Army currently numbers 118,600 personnel, and while Paris is also struggling with recruitment, it is nowhere near the same scale. Back in 2021, the British Army reported a deficit of nearly 5,000 personnel. The French, by contrast, were around 700 short.

How the Numbers Hide the Crisis

Interestingly, official statistics today do not record any shortages. That is not because thousands of young Brits have joined up in patriotic fervour. Rather, it is because recruitment targets were slashed in 2021 when it became clear there was no earthly way to meet them.

Speaking of missed recruitment targets, other branches of the military are likewise suffering. The Guardian reports that the navy is five percent below target staffing levels, while the RAF is nine percent below. These might sound like small numbers, but they have a huge impact. To quote The Economist: “The air force lacks the pilots and engineers needed to operate a bigger fleet of aircraft. The navy has been forced to retire older ships from service because it lacks crew.”

All of this is a world removed from official defence planning that assumes the UK can put a division into the field at short notice. In 2023, the House of Commons Defence Committee estimated that — due to understaffing — it could instead take weeks.

Austerity by Design

At this stage, it is important to be clear that these poor figures are not some accident of history. In many cases, they are exactly what London claimed to want. Back in 2010, the Conservative-led coalition government embarked on an age of austerity. Among cuts to public services, then-Defence Secretary Liam Fox brought in a target to reduce the size of the Army from 100,000 to 82,000 by 2020, with plans to shrink it further still by 2025.

As recently as 2021, the cuts were again confirmed. Despite the situation in Ukraine, the plans have yet to be reversed.

Another side effect of austerity was the outsourcing of military recruitment to the private sector. Prior to 2010, signing up new soldiers was the task of the defence establishment. As The Telegraph explains it: “Walk into a recruiting office anywhere across the country and you could have had a face-to-face conversation with a soldier, sailor or airman, and be starting basic training within weeks. But with the ax of redundancy swinging, the MoD needed soldiers back in their day jobs.”

The Capita Problem

Recruitment was instead handed off to the outsourcing firm Capita — at a cost of £1.1 billion to the British taxpayer. Since then, the military has missed its recruitment targets every single year. The reasons why are obvious. Rather than do face-to-face meetings, Capita saves money by doing recruitment via call centres.

This creates a situation where prospective recruits do not meet a serving officer for months, and may not begin basic training for almost a year. A 2017–18 audit found that 47 percent of all applicants dropped out during this process.

Despite this, Capita continues to work as the British military’s recruiter. In 2022, the Conservative government extended their contract, despite endless missed targets. Although the British press has singled them out in recent months, Capita alone are not the only outsourcing company failing to deliver. Other companies manage military accommodation, which is often in such a poor state that it is believed to be a big factor in the retention crisis.

A Broken Bargain

Defense Post reports that 46 percent of soldiers are dissatisfied with their homes, with widespread reports of damp and mould. About a third of homes are in desperate need of repair. Add to this pay that has stagnated compared with inflation, and you can start to see why the army is suffering manpower shortages.

The unspoken contract is supposed to be that soldiers take dangerous jobs that could result in death and, in return, the state looks after them and their families. At the moment, too many feel this contract has been broken. That sense of a bargain betrayed runs underneath the raw recruitment numbers, and it explains why simply offering more places — without fixing the conditions of service — has failed to reverse the decline year after year.

The Tools to Do the Job

For a military that prides itself on being among the best, the British Army seems content to field a lot of outdated kit. Its 240 Challenger main battle tanks are powerful, but all date to the 1980s and 1990s. And while an upgraded Challenger 3 is in the pipeline, the first batch of 18 will not be delivered until late 2027.

In this, the Challenger is not unusual. The International Institute for Strategic Studies notes that the AS90 howitzer also dates from the 1990s and needs modernisation, while the Army overall fields about “800 obsolete armoured vehicles” built in the 1970s. This compares badly to most peer nations. To quote the IISS: “The US Army and many European armies have more modern and capable armor, including the US M2 Bradley, French VBCI and Swedish CV90 infantry fighting vehicles, as well as up-to-date versions of the Leopard tank and more modern artillery.”

Where warfighting is concerned, modern kit is not just a “nice to have.” It is key to increasing your speed and manoeuvrability, while reducing your casualties. Were war to break out between Russia and NATO tomorrow, the British armoured units fighting alongside American ones would be far slower and prone to damage, reducing both nations’ effectiveness.

Retiring Ships Before Replacements Arrive

Still, at least having outdated kit is better than having no kit at all. In other branches of Britain’s armed forces, decisions have been made to withdraw old platforms before their replacements even arrive. Right now, the Royal Navy is waiting on deliveries of new frigates like the Type 31, which will enter service in 2027, and the Type 26, which will be operational from 2028.

But with staffing at crisis levels, two older warships — HMS Westminster and HMS Argyll — are going to be decommissioned this year to free up crew for the new arrivals. You do not have to be particularly good at maths to realise that will leave a gap of three to four years between the old ships being retired and the new ones arriving.

A similar problem is afflicting the RAF. Tranche 1 Typhoons from the 1990s were withdrawn early from service to use them for spare parts, as were the country’s C-130s. The issue is that C-130s are pretty vital to have around in case of a major war, providing — as they do — heavy lift and transport capabilities that are not replicated elsewhere.

Orders Too Small for the Moment

Even when new kit is coming down the pipeline, the orders are often too small for Europe’s current security environment. Only 148 Challenger 3s will be delivered to the UK, at a time when Poland is ordering over 1,000 modern main battle tanks. The order for five E-7 Wedgetail airborne-warning-and-control aircraft, meanwhile, was recently reduced to three.

As with the lack of manpower, these sorts of statistics are often the result of deliberate decisions — ones fuelled by penny pinching, misreading the country’s security needs, or both. The E-7 Wedgetail order was reduced, for example, because dumping two planes saved the government 12 percent of the cost, even as it severely limited the number of spares the RAF would have during wartime.

Tank and artillery numbers were reduced after a 2021 review said British forces should focus instead on new tech linked to robotics, data exploitation, and AI. As then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson summed up the review’s findings: “The old concepts of fighting big tank battles on the European landmass are over.”

The Cost of Misjudging the Future

Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and from a later vantage point it is easy to see that big tank battles and artillery duels are very much a feature of modern European warfare. But while people in 2021 cannot be blamed for not being able to see the future, the British Ministry of Defence can be blamed for not reacting to the way Putin’s invasion of Ukraine changed everything.

Since February 2022, Poland has embarked on one of the biggest rearmament sprees in modern European history. Germany is slowly getting serious about military expenditure. The Nordic states of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark are forging coordinated defence plans. The UK, meanwhile — for all the aid it has donated to Kyiv’s war effort — is still chugging along like usual.

All of which brings us to the last question: can things be turned around? Can Britain reinvent itself as a military power capable of winning a major war? And, perhaps more interestingly, does it even want to?

What the Future Holds

At this stage, you might wonder whether this account is being a little harsh on Britain. After all, this is a country that still boasts some of the best special forces on Earth, enough naval capacity to back up America in the Red Sea, and enough leadership to help build the coalition of states aiding Ukraine. With all this negativity, you might wonder whether the criticism is just nitpicking.

To which the only honest answer is: guilty as charged. But the point of this analysis is not just to rubbish the UK’s defence capabilities. It is to act as a wake-up call — to tell the uncomfortable side of the story that anyone who even vaguely cares about European security needs to hear. Because while Britain may still be a significant regional power, it risks falling into obsolescence just as the danger level on the continent is rising in ways not seen since 1939.

Hopefully, analysis such as this can help shake the MoD out of its malaise — a malaise that, thankfully, is not yet terminal. In fact, turning the military’s fortunes around might be easier than you would at first imagine.

Fixing the Offer to the Rank and File

The Telegraph suggests that the first thing that needs to be done is to improve the offer made to the rank-and-file. That means no more squalid accommodation. No more pay packets that fail to keep up with inflation. It means treating those who choose to serve with the sort of basic respect they deserve — introducing retention bonuses, and making personnel feel valued.

At the recruitment end, it also likely means returning the process in-house, with an emphasis on face-to-face meetings and a quick pipeline to basic training. Equally important is creating a sense of urgency among politicians and in society. Poland’s rearmament is so rapid because all major parties and most of the public are in agreement about the need to quickly pull together a vast army that might deter Russian aggression. In Britain, the Ukraine War still feels very far away — despite the UK being treaty-bound to help if Putin turns his attention to NATO’s eastern members.

Cash, Procurement, and Hard Choices

An extra influx of cash, too, probably would not go amiss. That could come from making some tough choices about Britain’s nuclear deterrent, or from a general spending increase. Although either way, it would have to be linked to an overhaul of military procurement — likely an overhaul that forced the MoD to consider buying more off-the-shelf kit from reliable allies like South Korea or the US, rather than fancy custom versions.

Of course, all this is assuming that the UK wants to try and regain its tier-one status. But that is far from the only option. There are other directions that London could go in. Perhaps the most interesting? Ditching its global reach to instead focus on specialisation.

The Specialisation Option

War on the Rocks recently ran a whole essay on this idea. The basic premise is that, if Britain is unwilling to invest more heavily in building up its military power, then a cheaper way to remain relevant might be to downsize some branches while beefing up others to a level beyond that of peer nations.

One example the essay gave was how Britain could invest heavily in its already well-regarded special forces — effectively creating a vast network of elite troops that could be used to support allied armies in time of war. Other potentials might be to specialise in counterterrorism or remote warfare operations. In each case, the idea is that Britain would sacrifice its ability to fight a major war alone, in return for developing a cheaper, leaner military that would only ever fight in concert with allies.

The essay imagined the UK adapting itself to work alongside America, but it could just as easily be France or Poland that provide the infantry and sheer manpower. The downside is that it means the UK would have to give up military autonomy, becoming just a part in a greater whole. But given that this is basically what NATO is all about, doing so may not be as great a leap as you would imagine.

A Decision That Cannot Be Avoided

As one interviewee told Bloomberg: “We are getting to the point where the British Army really needs to decide what it’s going to do. Is it going to be a heavy conventional war fighting force or a lighter out of area one?” The first will require new investments and a serious overhaul of the current system. The latter will require a serious internal discussion about the UK’s status in the world. Either way, it is clear that something needs to change.

Right now, it feels like the British military is at a turning point — a historical moment where it can either complete its austerity-era drive towards downsizing and reliance on new technologies, or reverse course and start bulking back up, bringing in new recruits and spending lavishly on new kit in an attempt to regain tier-one status. Neither approach is risk-free; both involve trade-offs, and both come with advantages and disadvantages.

What is undeniable, though, is that something needs to change. Because, for all its undoubted skill — for all the bravery of those who serve within its ranks — the British military today is in danger of becoming a shell of its former self. If politicians do not act soon, then they risk sleepwalking into a world where the UK really could lose a major war. And such a world does not bear thinking about.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long did the House of Commons defence committee estimate Britain could fight in a peer-to-peer conflict?

The committee recently estimated the nation’s military could last just two months before stockpiles ran dry, its capabilities were exhausted, and the country became incapable of fighting any longer. This finding came as a shock to many given that the UK spends over £50 billion annually on defence, but insiders who had been tracking the hollowing-out of the armed forces said it confirmed what they had been warning for years.

How large is the British Army today, and how does it compare historically?

The British Army currently numbers around 72,500 personnel — the smallest it has been in 300 years. The entire military, including reservists and volunteers, stands at 184,865, the lowest level since the Napoleonic Wars. By comparison, the UK boasted 100,000 soldiers in 2009. Staffing could fall further still, to around 67,741, by 2026 if current trends continue.

Why does Britain’s defence spending deliver less than it appears?

Although the UK spends 2.3 percent of GDP on defence — the second-highest raw amount in NATO — much of it funds the nuclear deterrent, leaving conventional forces operating on a budget closer to 1.75 percent of GDP. A broken procurement system and costly failures such as the £5.5 billion Ajax programme and the £700 million Morpheus communications system that was cancelled before delivery further erode value for money.

What went wrong with the Ajax armoured vehicle programme?

Begun in 2010 to adapt an existing Spanish-Austrian platform, the MoD kept adding requirements until more than 1,200 modifications per vehicle were needed, making it essentially bespoke. Costs ballooned to £5.5 billion and delivery has yet to happen. Noise problems caused by the endless modifications became so severe that they injured crew members.

What are the two main paths Britain could take to fix its military?

The first option is to rebuild toward tier-one status: improve recruits’ pay and housing, return recruitment in-house with face-to-face processes, overhaul procurement to favour off-the-shelf kit, and raise defence spending. The second is specialisation — shrinking some branches while building others, such as special forces, beyond peer-nation levels, accepting that Britain would only ever fight alongside allies like the United States, France, or Poland. Analysts warn that continuing on the current path without choosing either direction is the most dangerous option.

Sources

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2. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/02/01/how-to-fix-british-defence
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