Britannia no longer rules the waves, but it can still be a credible power

When he came to power last year, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised a “defense dividend.” Defense spending would increase to 3.5 percent over the coming years. That additional money would not only rebuild what had become a desiccated military, but also to create 430,000 additional jobs.

That commitment was made in response to the latest Strategic Defense Review, headed by the highly and deservedly respected Lord George Robertson, a former defense minister and NATO secretary general. On Sept. 12, 2001, he invoked for the first and only time ever NATO ’s Article Five, sending the alliance to war.

This war was not in the German plain against an invading Soviet Army, but in distant Afghanistan, to support the U.S. after the horrendous 9/11 terrorist attacks.

A quarter of a century later, the once formidable British military is hardly a shadow of its former self and the subject of media ridicule. The Royal Navy is down to 15 destroyers and frigates and two aircraft carriers of questionable reliability. It has so few advanced fighter jets that the U.S. Marines were tasked to fill in the numbers. And of seven Astute Class nuclear attack submarines, only one is fully operational.  

Retired Army General Sir Richard Barrons, a member of the Strategic Defense Review committee, observed that the Army was only capable of seizing a small English village.

Britain maintains a strategic nuclear deterrent of four nuclear........

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