Прогноз изменения военных расходов Великобритании

Abstract

The new era of great power competition against the backdrop of challenging situation in the global economy raises the importance of military expenditures analysis and forecast. The United Kingdom is one of the leading military powers, one of the key NATO members and a country actively involved in the competition and confrontation with Russia and China. Therefore, the UK’s defense spending is worth studying to develop and assess new methods, approaches and factors of military expenditures analysis and forecast as well as an insight for further research of the country’s national security strategy, defense and foreign policy. Among key factors affecting the evaluation of defense spending are: an uncertainty of future technological developments given rapid progress of advanced technologies; a possibility of a technological gap among great powers; the convergence between economy and national security, civil and military technologies, between different warfare domains. Another issue is the broader introduction of the Wholeof-Government Approach to the national security and interstate confrontation. Analysis of past military expenditures and military burden allows to better understand patterns, trends, most probable limits and dynamics of future changes. The article contains a forecast of Great Britain’s future long-term defense spending in four scenarios. It is based on the evaluation of past expenditures, current discussions in the British government and parliament, budgetary plans, and on the analysis of the UK’s attitude to NATO’s Defense Investment Pledge. All scenarios assume that the United Kingdom’s future military expenditures will increase but vary in the degree of the average annual real growth. The article also provides a list and brief description of factors which might significantly affect the UK’s defense spending in the future.