WGPlus (Archive)
| Should the cost of National Cyber Defence be classified as part of the Armed Services? |
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The UK government will be able to keep to its commitment to spend 2% of national income on defence through to 2020 as a result of both an annual real term increase of 0.5% a year, and significant changes in the UK’s calculation of its defence budget for NATO reporting purposes, according to a new RUSI Briefing Paper. This has been achieved by adding several new items to the UK’s NATO return: war pensions (some £820m); contributions to UN peacekeeping (some £400m); pensions for retired civilian personnel (perhaps around £200m); part of the MoD’s income (in total, about £1.4bn). The paper suggests that maintaining the 2% commitment through to 2020 ‘is likely to require yet further adjustments in the UK’s counting methodology’. |
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Defence Expenditure is no longer just about ‘hardware’ Will ‘beefing up support for NATO’ necessitate ‘re-beefing’ the armed forces in general? Do we still have a big enough stick to defend the UK’s interests? |
