Since the historic Nato summit in The Hague one year ago this month, European leaders have pledged massive increases in defence spending in the face of increasingly acute threats of Russian aggression. Yet the reality is that key west European governments – especially the UK, France and Italy – are not putting their money where their mouth is for fear of undermining lenders’ confidence in their national debt.

Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Giorgia Meloni are behaving as if they were more scared of the bond markets than they are of the Russians. The dramatic resignation of the UK defence secretary John Healey in protest over Starmer’s reluctance to ramp up investment highlights how politically treacherous it has become to find these much-needed resources.

In a damning resignation letter, the previously ultra-loyal Healey wrote to Starmer: “You have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats.” He also pointed to the growing gap between the UK’s ambition as co-leader of the coalition of the willing – to provide security guarantees for Ukraine and restore freedom of navigation in the strait of Hormuz – and the funding the government is willing to provide.

The UK prime minister himself set out in stark terms the risk of more wars in Europe, saying on a visit to a drone manufacturer this month: “It is our intelligence assessment and the assessment of other countries in Nato that there could be an attack by Russia on Nato as soon as 2030.” Moscow is........

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