Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made a bold declaration: Britain is “ready to contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine by putting our own troops on the ground if necessary.” But behind this strong rhetoric lies an uncomfortable truth, Britain simply isn’t prepared for such a commitment.
The Myth of Peacekeeping
While reports suggest that British forces would act as “peacekeepers,” the reality is more complex. True peacekeepers must be impartial, and Britain’s backing of Ukraine would make its troops anything but. Any deployment of British forces could be perceived as a direct NATO provocation, playing into the Russian narrative that the alliance is the aggressor.
Complicating matters further, Ukraine is not a NATO member, though its constitution enshrines the goal of joining. This means that even if British forces became involved in combat, NATO’s Article 5, the collective defence clause, would not be triggered. In fact, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth recently confirmed that European troops deployed in Ukraine would not be protected under Article 5.
Britain’s Military Shortfall
The harsh reality is that Britain lacks the manpower and resources to send a significant force. The UK’s armed forces are a shadow of what they once were. In 2000, Britain had 100,000 full-time trained personnel. Today, that number has dwindled to approximately 70,000. Years of defence cuts have left Britain ill-equipped for sustained combat against a peer adversary.
This isn’t the first time Britain has found itself militarily unprepared. In 1914, Lord Kitchener, then Secretary of State for War, famously roared: “Did they remember, when they went headlong into a war like this, that they were without an army, and without any preparation to equip one?” The British Expeditionary Force’s small numbers in both World War I and World War II meant it functioned as a symbolic “speed bump” rather than a decisive force. History appears to be repeating itself.
Britain also faces a serious industrial challenge. Its capacity to manufacture arms and ammunition at scale has diminished over the decades. To sustain a modern war effort, the country would need urgent investment—not just in weapons production, but also in infrastructure such as airfields and storage facilities, many of which were abandoned after the Cold War.
The Cost of Inaction, and Action
The only way to address this shortfall is through increased defence spending. Yet Britain, like many of its NATO allies, has been reluctant to make such an investment. Former US President Donald Trump has urged NATO countries to raise defence spending to 5% of GDP, more than double the alliance’s current target of 2%. For Britain, which already faces economic challenges, such an increase would require painful cuts elsewhere.
Defence chiefs have pushed for a more modest rise to 2.65% of GDP, but Starmer appears hesitant to go beyond 2.5%. In comparison, Britain spent over 5% of GDP on defence at the height of the Cold War, when the world was starkly divided into two opposing blocs. Today’s geopolitical landscape is arguably even more unstable, with Russian aggression in Georgia and Ukraine proving that Europe is not as secure as it once believed.
The Price of Neglect
The reality is simple: maintaining a strong military is always cheaper than rebuilding one from scratch. Successive governments have cut Britain’s military capabilities for decades, assuming that no conventional threat was serious enough to warrant reversal. Now, those cuts have left Britain on the brink, not only unable to project power abroad but also struggling to defend itself.
Despite this, Starmer insists, “We have got to show we are truly serious about our own defence and bearing our own burden.” Yet his reluctance to significantly increase defence spending undermines that very assertion.
A Warning Ignored
Britain and NATO have had clear warnings since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Yet instead of strengthening their defences, Western nations have largely chosen to ignore the looming threat. The result? NATO is now scrambling to play catch-up.
As Lord Tedder, Chief of the Air Staff after World War II, wrote: “It is at the outset of war that time is the supreme factor.” Three years into the war in Ukraine, NATO has already squandered precious time. The alliance now faces a painful reality: the price of decades of defence cuts is coming due, and it will cost far more than it would have to maintain readiness in the first place.
