Keir Starmer needs to have a frank conversation with voters about the price of security | Andrew Rawnsley

If defence spending has to rise, hard choices will have to be made

I’m not certain who minted the phrase, but it is an excellent one to describe the decade or so that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent implosion of the Soviet Union. The affluent liberal democracies were treated to “a holiday from history”.

The west started turning its Cold War swords into ploughshares once its principal ideological and military adversary had departed the scene. The collapse of the Soviet Union was followed by a dramatic decline in military spending. The UK, which was consuming 4-5% of its GDP on defence in the final stretch of the confrontation with the USSR, now devotes a smidgeon over 2% to securing the realm, sustaining its alliances and deterring its enemies. The bulk of this so-called “peace dividend” has been used to improve pensions and make health care better than it would have otherwise been. I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted.

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