Topic:
Country: United Kingdom
Delegate Name: Farrah Sayler
UK military spending rose significantly during the 2000s due to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It then dropped from 2009-2015 due to the austerity cuts; then increased again after the Ukraine crisis. Current threat perceptions seem to relate more to China and Russia than to Islamist terrorism. Since Russia has launched an invasion on the Ukraine, The United Kingdom and other NATO countries have agreed to spend 2% of their yearly GDP on defense. The UK is helping the Ukrainian military effort by providing military aid such as financial and with weapons such as the Challenger 2 battle tank, armored fighting vehicles and missiles. All of these factors have increased the military budget and spending in the UK. Furthermore, the Uk increased their military budget due to the inflation that started at the beginning of the invasion.
The United Kingdom military budget has increased to 5 billion pounds. This is reserved for spending on weapons stockpiles, AUKUS and submarines and nuclear deterrence modernization. Additionally, the military budget has been increased due to losses from procurement cancellations and equipment being written off. The Capability Sustainment Programme, involving an infantry fighting vehicle upgrade, stands out as the most expensive loss. The effort involved the installation of a new turret on the vehicle but was canceled under Defence Command Paper plans in 2021 in favor of keeping the platform in service as-is until the new Boxer wheeled, armored personnel carriers enter service. In total MoD suffered losses of 716 million pounds across its equipment portfolio.
The United Kingdom outlines how it has increased its pace into acquisition and incentivised innovation due to a range of improvement initiatives and fundamental reforms of the regulations that govern defense and security procurement and single source contracts.It is especially important to mention the huge investment the UK government is making in the nuclear weapons system to replace Trident: estimated at £205bn over its lifetime. New hi-tech technologies such as AI, drones, and cyber warfare. The increase is entirely in capital expenditure, with small cuts to recurrent (personnel and operations) spending. All of these factors increase the funding of the military.
